“A golden horn?” Sigga asks, sitting down on the dirt floor beside the hearth. “Is that what you said, Guthric? A golden horn?”
“Show it to her, Father,” says Guthric impatiently, then to Sigga, “Surely you have heard of the golden drinking horn that Hrothgar gave to King Beowulf, the one Hrothgar always claimed to have taken from a slain dragon’s hoard?”
“I know the story,” Sigga replies. “The golden horn is said to have been lost when Beowulf the Geat fought with the merewife after Grendel’s death. But…I do not set much store in the boasting of men. I say if Hrothgar ever saw a dragon, he’d have run the other way.”
“Insolent crone,” mutters Unferth. “Hrothgar was a great man, a great warrior.”
Sigga stares at him a moment, then asks, “So, have you come to argue politics and the worth of kings?”
Unferth glares back at her and his son, sitting there together like confidants or coconspirators, his one and only son keeping company with the likes of her. He grips his staff more tightly and says a silent prayer.
“What is it you have brought me?” Sigga asks Unferth. “I trust in my eyes. Now, show me this golden horn, and I will tell you what I see.”
“I once saw a drawing of Hrothgar’s horn, years ago,” says Guthric. “It was identical to the one found by our slave.”
“Shut up,” barks Unferth, producing the golden horn from a fold of his robes. It glistens in the firelight, and Sigga’s eyes grow very wide and she quickly turns away, staring into the hearth flames. “So now you see,” sneers Unferth. “The prize that Beowulf won thirty years ago, lost all these years in the black depths of Weormgræf when he battled the demon hag.”
“Is that true?” Unferth asks Sigga, his voice trembling now with excitement. “Is that what this is, Hrothgar’s royal drinking horn?”
“Please,” says Sigga. “Put it away.” She licks her lips and swallows, and though there are beads of sweat standing out on her forehead and cheeks, she tosses another block of peat onto the fire and stirs at the embers with an iron poker.
Guthric looks confused, but motions for his father to hide the horn once more beneath his robes. Unferth ignores him and takes a step nearer the place where Sigga sits.
“Is something wrong, witch?” he asks. “Does it so upset you to be wrong about the boasts of men?”
“Sigga, is this Hrothgar’s horn?” Guthric asks again, and she glances at him uneasily.
“She does not know,” snickers Unferth. “This bitch does not know what she sees. Let us take our leave, my son, and never again darken this vile doorstep.”
And now Sigga turns slowly toward Unferth, but she keeps her green eyes downcast, staring at the dirty straw covering the floor so she won’t see the glimmering object clasped in the old man’s hands.
“You listen to me, Unferth Ecglaf’s son, and heed my words. I cannot say for certain what that thing is, for there is a glamour upon it. The most powerful glamour I have ever glimpsed. There is dökkálfar magic at work here, I believe. I have seen their handiwork before. I have felt them near, when I was yet only a child.”
“Dökkálfar?” asks Guthric, his tongue fumbling at the unfamiliar word.
“Aye, the Nidafjöll dark elves,” Sigga replies, and wipes sweat from her face. “People of Svartálfheim, hillfolk, the dwellers in the Dark Fells.”
“Heathen nonsense,” scoffs Unferth. “Faerie tales. I thought you had no use for faerie stories, Guthric, but you bring me to hear them uttered by a lunatic.”
“Hear me,” whispers Sigga, her voice gone dry and hoarse. “I do not say these things lightly. Whatever it is, this horn you hold, it was not meant to be found. Or, it was meant to be found by something that harbors an ancient hatred and would see the world of men suffer.”
“She’s insane,” Unferth chuckles. “Come now, my son, let’s leave this wicked place. It should be razed and the earth here salted. And this witch should be stoned to death or burned at the stake.”
Sigga clenches her fists and smiles, and now the sweat from her face has begun to drip to the straw and dirt at her feet.
“Do not trouble yourself, Ecglaf’s son, for you hold this kingdom’s doom there in your hands. The one from whom that horn was stolen, she will soon come to reclaim it, her or one very like her, for it has been brought to Heorot in violation of some blood pact. A binding has been broken, and I would have you know that I will try to be far away from this village and our King Beowulf ere its owner misses it and comes calling.”
“A pact?” asks Guthric, his curiosity piqued. “What manner of pact?” And Sigga turns and stares at him a moment, then looks back to the fire.
“I do not know, Guthric, why you come here. You do not believe—”
“I believe all is not what it seems with our king,” Guthric tells her. “I believe there are secrets, secrets that have robbed my father of the throne and myself of princedom. And I would know these secrets.”
Sigga takes a deep breath and exhales with a shudder. “Child, you come always asking questions, but ever you seek only the answers that would make you happy, the answers which you believe you know already. And I ask you, please take this accursed thing from my home.”
“I will, Sigga. My father and I will take our leave and never come here again, but first, you will tell me of this pact.”
“She knows nothing,” grumbles Unferth, tucking the golden horn away. “Leave her be. I have business with the king.”
“She knows something, Father. She would not be so frightened if she knew nothing.”
Sigga stirs at the fire and shakes her head. “I listen to the trees,” she says. “The trees tell me things. The rocks speak to me. I speak with bogs and birds and squirrels. They tell me what men have forgotten or have never known.”
“Guthric, do not be a fool. She talks to rocks,” says Unferth, tapping at the floor with his staff. “She talks to squirrels.”
But Guthric ignores his father and leans closer to Sigga. “And what do they tell you?” he asks. “What have they told you of King Beowulf?”
“It is your death, that horn,” she says, almost too quietly for Guthric to hear. “And still, you care only for your question. Fine. Then I will tell you this,” and she sets the poker aside, leaning it against the hearth.
“She is a madwoman,” says Unferth. “Leave her be.”
“There is a tale,” says Sigga, “a story that the spruces growing at the edge of the bog whisper among themselves at the new moon. That Lord Beowulf made a pact with the merewife that he would become King of the Ring Danes and Lord of Heorot, and that this same pact was made with King Hrothgar before him.
“What is this merewife?” asks Guthric, and Sigga makes a whistling sound between her teeth.
“That I do not know. She has many names. She may have been worshipped as a goddess, once. Some have called her Njördr, wife of Njord, and others have named her Nerthus, earth mother. I do not believe that. She is something crawled up from the sea, I think, a terrible haunt from Ægir’s halls. Long has she dwelled in the tarn your father calls Weormgraef, and in unseen caverns leading back to the sea. By her, Hrothgar sired his only son.”