“How many this time?” asks Hrothgar, his breath fogging like smoke.
Unferth takes a deep breath and swallows before he replies. “In truth, I could not say. The bodies were not whole. Five. Ten, perhaps. It was Nykvest’s daughter’s wedding feast.”
“Grendel’s coming more frequently,” Hrothgar sighs and tugs at his beard. “Why does not this demon simply make my hall his home and save himself the trouble of stalking back and forth each night across the moorlands?”
Hrothgar looks down and sees the red-pink stain leaking from beneath the door.
“The new door hasn’t even been touched,” he says, and angrily smacks the wood hard with one open palm.
“Nay,” Unferth replies. “The Grendel devil obviously came and went through the skorsten.” And he points up at the chimney vent in the roof of Heorot Hall. Hrothgar sees the blood right away, spattered across the thatched roof, then on the snow below the eaves, dappling the monster’s splayed footprints. The trail leads away across the compound grounds and vanishes in the mist.
Hrothgar takes a deep breath and puffs out more steam, then rubs at his bleary eyes. “When I was young I killed a dragon, in the Northern Moors,” he says, and Unferth hears a hint of sadness or regret in the king’s voice. “But now I am an old man, Unferth. Too old for demon slaying. We need a hero, a cunning young hero, to rid us of this curse upon our hall.”
“I wish you had a son, my lord,” Wulfgar says, and takes a step back from the door and the spreading bloodstain on the threshold. His boots crunch loudly on the frozen ground.
Hrothgar grunts and glares at him. “You can wish in one hand, Wulfgar, and shit into the other—see which fills up first.”
Hrothgar turns his back on the door, on Heorot and this latest butchery, and faces the small group of people that has gathered outside the hall.
“Men,” he says, “build another pyre. There’s dry wood behind the stables. Burn the dead. And then close this hall. Seal the doors and windows. And by the king’s order, there shall be no further music, singing, or merrymaking of any kind.” He takes another gulp of the frigid air and turns away. “This place reeks of death,” he murmurs, then shuffles off through the snow, heading back toward his bed and sleeping Wealthow. After a moment, Unferth and Wulfgar follow him and have soon caught up.
“The scops are singing the shame of Heorot,” Hrothgar says, speaking softly and keeping his eyes on the snow at his feet. “As far south as the middle sea, as far north as the ice-lands. Our cows no longer calf, our fields lie fallow, and the very fish flee from our nets, knowing that we are cursed. I have let it be known that I will give half the gold in my kingdom to any man who can rid us of Grendel.”
Unferth glances at Wulfgar, then back to Hrothgar.
“My king,” he says. “For deliverance our people sacrifice goats and sheep to Odin and Heimdall. With your permission, might we also pray to the new Roman god, Christ Jesus? Maybe…maybe he can lift this affliction.”
“You may pray as it best pleases you, son of Ecglaf. But know you this. The gods will not do for us that we will not do for ourselves. No, Unferth. We need a man to do this thing, a hero.”
“But surely,” persists Unferth, “praying cannot hurt.”
“Yes, well, that which cannot hurt also cannot help us. Where was Odin Hel-binder—or this Christ Jesus of the Romans—when the demon took poor Nykvest’s daughter? Answer that question or bother me no more with this pointless talk of prayers and sacrifices and new gods.”
“Yes, my liege,” Unferth replies, then follows Hrothgar and his herald across the snow.
4
The Coming of Beowulf
The storm-lashed Jótlandshaf heaves and rages around the tiny, dragon-prowed ship as though all the nine daughters of the sea giant Ægir have been given the task this day of building a new range of mountains from mere salt water. Towering waves lift the vessel until its mast might almost scrape the low-slung belly of the sky, only to let go and send it plunging down, down, down into troughs so deep the coils of the World Serpent cannot possibly lie very far below the hull. Overhead are banks of clouds as black as pitch, spilling blinding sheets of rain and lightning, and deafening thunder to rend a man’s soul wide. There are fourteen thanes at the oars, their backs aching as they strain and struggle against the storm, their hands cold and bloodied and pierced with splinters.
A fifteenth man stands braced against the oaken mast, and the wild wind tugs at his cape of heavy black wool and animal skins, and the icy rain stings his face. The ship lurches forward, then back, teetering on the crest of a wave, and he almost loses his footing. He squints into the sheeting rain, unable to turn loose of the mast to shield his eyes, searching the gray blur where the horizon ought to be. But the storm has stolen it away, has sewn sea to sky and sky to sea. The ship lurches violently forward once more and begins racing down the face of the wave. When it’s finally level again, one of the thanes leaves his place at the oars and makes his way slowly along the slippery deck to stand with the man leaning against the mast.
“Can you see the coast?” he asks, shouting to be heard above the din of the storm. “Do you see the Danes’ guide-fire?”
The ship rolls suddenly to port, but rights itself before the sea can rush in and swamp the craft.
“I see nothing, Wiglaf! Unless you count the wind and rain!”
“No fire? No sun or stars by which to navigate? We’re lost, Beowulf! Given to the sea, gifts to the Urdines!”
Beowulf laughs, getting a mouthful of rain and sea spray in the bargain. He spits and wipes his lips, grinning back at Wiglaf. He takes his right hand from the mast beam and thumps his chest hard, pounding at the iron-studded leather armor he wears.
“The sea is my mother! She spat me up years ago and will never take me back into her murky womb!”
Wiglaf scowls and blinks against the rain. “Well,” he says, “that’s fine for you. But my mother’s a fishwife in Uppland, and I was rather hoping to die in battle, as a warrior should—”
The boat rolls again, this time listing sharply to port, and Wiglaf curses and clutches at Beowulf’s cape to keep from falling.
“Beowulf, the men are worried this storm has no end!”
Beowulf nods and wraps his right arm tightly about Wiglaf’s shoulders, helping him to steady himself as the ship begins to climb the next great wave.
“This is no earthly storm! That much we can be sure. But this demon’s tempest won’t hold us out! No, Wiglaf, not if we really want in! There is no power under Midgard that will turn me back!”
“But the gods—” Wiglaf begins.
“The gods be damned and drowned!” Beowulf howls into the storm, sneering up at the low black clouds. “If they have yet to learn I cannot be frightened away with a little wind and water, then they are foolish beings, indeed!”
Wiglaf wants to ask Beowulf if he’s finally lost his mind, a question he’s almost asked a hundred times before. But he knows that the answer hardly matters. He will follow wherever Beowulf leads, even through this storm, and whether he is mad or not. He shrugs free of his captain and kinsman and turns to face his nervous, exhausted companions, still seated wrestling with the oars.
“Who wants to live?” he shouts, and not one among them replies that he does not. “A good thing, then! For we do not die this day!”