“Please,” Cain begs, “please don’t kill me, my king.”
Beowulf kneels beside Cain and shows him the horn. “Where did you find this treasure?” he asks.
Cain shakes his head and looks away, staring instead at the floor. “I…I’m sorry I ran away, my lord. Please…don’t hurt me anymore.”
At that, Unferth kicks Cain as hard as he can, and the slave cries out in pain and terror. “Answer your king!” snarls Unferth.
“Stop!” orders Beowulf, glaring up at Unferth. “He will tell us nothing if you beat him senseless.”
Cain gasps, and now his lips are flecked with blood. “I didn’t steal it,” he says. “I swear, I didn’t steal it.”
“Where?” asks Beowulf, lowering his voice and speaking as calmly as he can manage. “Where did you find it?”
“The bogs,” answers Cain, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “Through the forest and down to the bogs.”
“The bogs,” says Beowulf, getting to his feet again.
“I was lost,” Cain continues, rubbing his hands together, then wiping at his bloody lips. “Lost in the bog, and I thought I would never find my way out again. But I found a cave…”
“A cave?” asks Beowulf. “That’s where you found the horn, inside a cave?”
“Aye,” mutters Cain, nodding and looking at the bloodstain and snot smeared across the back of his left hand. He sniffles loudly. “I found it in the cave. There was so much treasure in the cave, my lord. So many pretty rings and bracelets, so much gold and silver and so many pretty stones. Such riches. Oh, and there were statues—”
“And you took this from the cave?”
“I did, my lord. But there was so much treasure. And I only took this one small thing.”
“And that’s all you saw there?” asks Beowulf, glancing toward Wealthow, who’s watching the slave and so doesn’t notice. “Only treasure? No demon? No witch?”
Cain looks up and shakes his head. “I was going to take it back,” he says. “I swear. I only meant to keep it for a time, then return it.”
“There was no woman there?” asks Queen Wealthow.
“No woman, my lady,” Cain tells her. “Only treasure.”
And now Wealthow does look toward Beowulf, and her violet eyes seem to flash in the dim room.
“No woman was there,” Cain repeats, and sniffles again.
“Listen to me, Beowulf,” Unferth says, and takes a step nearer Beowulf and Wealthow. “While there is yet time, hear me. I know what this means.”
“You know nothing,” Beowulf replies. “It is only some trinket, some bauble misplaced a thousand years ago.”
“My lord, I have seen this horn before. I have held it, as have you and my lady Wealthow. This is no lost bauble. This is the very horn that Hrothgar gave to you.”
“My king,” Unferth continues, looking anxiously from Beowulf to Wealthow, then back to Beowulf, “you have no heir. But I have a son. I have a strong son. Now, while there is time, name Guthric heir to your throne.”
“Truly, it saddens me…how age has robbed you of your wits, friend Unferth,” says Beowulf. “But I will hear no more of this madness tonight or ever. Your slave found a trinket and nothing more.”
“A trinket from a dragon’s lair,” hisses Unferth. “Goddamn you, Beowulf, I know—” But before he can finish, Beowulf turns around and leaves the anteroom, disappearing through the doorway, swallowed alive by the noise and smoke of the celebration and Heorot Hall.
“I did not think you a man who spoke in blasphemies,” Wealthow says. Then she takes two gold coins from a pocket of her dress and holds them out to Unferth. “And please, take these in exchange for this man’s freedom.” She looks down at Cain, cowering on the floor. “I will not stand by and watch again while he is beaten like a cur for your amusement, old man.”
Unferth blinks at the coins and laughs, a sick and cheated sort of laugh, a laugh tinged through and through with bitterness and regret. He taps his staff smartly against the flagstones and jabs a crooked finger at the queen.
“I would take no gold from out this cursed house,” he sneers. “But if you wish a dog, my queen, then he is yours. Bid my lord to keep the golden horn for his own. I feel quite certain it has been trying to find its way back to him these last thirty years. Pray that none come seeking it, Queen Wealthow.”
“Show him out, Wiglaf,” says Wealthow, returning the coins to her pocket. “Then please care for this poor man. Find him some decent clothes.” Then she sets her back to Unferth and follows her husband, shutting the door to the dais behind her.
“I know the way,” Unferth tells Wiglaf, and as he hobbles slowly down the long hallway leading back out to the snowy night and his sleigh, the son of Ecglaf tries not to think about what he might or might not have seen dancing on a witch’s palm.
17
Fire in the Night
Sleeping safe beside King Beowulf, Ursula is dreaming of the very first time she laid eyes on Heorot. She was still only a child when her family gave up their farm on the hinterlands. Her brother had been taken by wolves one summer, and thereafter her mother’s mind became unhinged. She would wander alone at night across the moorlands, risking her own life, and nothing her husband could do or say would persuade her that the dead boy would never be found. So they came to Heorot, where Ursula’s father found work in the stables and, in time, her mother accepted the loss of her son. In the shadow of the keep towers, behind walls no wolf could breach, Ursula grew to be a woman.
In the dream, she is standing in the back of her father’s rickety wagon as it bumps and shudders along the rocky road leading to the village gates. She beholds the world with a child’s eyes, and though she has heard tales of Heorot and the mead hall of mighty King Beowulf, she did not imagine anything half so grand as this. Surely even the gods and goddesses in Ásgard must envy such a magnificent edifice, and, as the keep looms nearer, it seems as though she is slipping out of the world she has always known and into the sagas and bedtime stories her mother has told her.
“Papa, are there trolls here?” she asked.
“No trolls,” he replied. “There was one, long time ago, when I was still a young man. But it met its end in the coming of King Beowulf from Geatland.”
“Are there witches?”
“No witches, either,” said her father. “There was one, an evil hag from the bogs, but she, too, was slain by good King Beowulf.”
“What about dragons, Papa? Are there dragons here?”
And upon hearing this third question, her father shrugs and glances up at the leaden sky. “I am only a farmer,” he tells her. “What would I know of dragons? But I wouldn’t worry, child. Hrothgar, who was king before Beowulf, he slew the last dragon in these lands before I was born, or so my own father always said.”
And then she turns to her mother. In the dream, her mother’s eyes are bleeding, and there are black tufts of feathers sprouting from her arms.
“What about the wolves, Mama?” she asks.
“No wolves,” replies her mother. “Not here, for the walls are too high, and the warriors kill any wolves that come too near.”
“What if the wolves grew wings?” Ursula asks her mother, who scowls and grinds her teeth.
“Wolves cannot grow wings,” her mother answers. “Don’t be such a silly child.”
“They might dig tunnels deep below the ground,” Ursula suggests. “The dwarves might help them dig tunnels under the walls of Heorot.”
“The dwarves are no friends to the wolves,” her mother says. “Do not forget how they forged the chain Gleipnir, thin as a blade of grass, yet stronger than any iron. And the wolves could never do such a thing all on their own.” And then her mother coughs out a mouthful of black feathers and blood.