These cheerless thoughts are interrupted by footsteps and the sound of Wulfgar’s voice, and the king turns away from the window.
“My lord,” Wulfgar says. “There are warriors outside. Geats. For certain, they are no beggars—and their leader, Beowulf, is a—”
“Beowulf?” Hrothgar asks, interrupting his herald. “Ecgtheow’s little boy?”
At the sound of Beowulf’s name, Unferth stops counting the gold coins and glances up at Wulfgar.
“Well, surely not a boy any longer,” Hrothgar continues, hardly believing what he’s heard. “But I knew him when he was a boy. Already strong as a grown man he was, back then. Yes! Beowulf is here! Send him to me! Bring him in, Wulfgar!”
Beowulf and his men wait together, only a little distance inside the gates of Hrothgar’s stockade. None of them have yet dismounted, as Beowulf has not yet bidden them to do so, and their ponies restlessly stamp their hooves in a gummy mire of mud and hay, manure and human filth. The thanes are at least as restless as their mounts, and they watch uneasily as villagers begin to gather around and whisper to one another and gawk at these strange men from the east, these warriors come among them from Geatland far across the sea.
“It may be, Beowulf,” says Wiglaf, “that they really don’t want us to kill their monster.”
The thane to Wiglaf’s left is named Hondshew, an ugly brute of a man almost as imposing as Beowulf himself. Hondshew wears an enormous broadsword sheathed and slung across his wide back—a weapon he’s claimed, in less sober moments, to have stolen from a giant whom he found sleeping in the Tivenden woods. Only, sometimes he says it was a giant, and other times it was merely a troll, and still other times, it was only a drunken Swede.
“Or,” says Hondshew, “perhaps this is what serves as hospitality among these Danes.” Then he notices a beautiful young woman standing close by, eating a piece of ripe red fruit. She’s watching him, too, and when next she bites through the skin of the fruit, purplish nectar runs down her chin and disappears between her ample breasts. The woman, whose name is Yrsa, smiles up at Hondshew.
“Then again,” he says, returning Yrsa’s smile and showing off his wide, uneven teeth, “possibly we should find our own hospitality among these poor, beleaguered people.” Hondshew licks his lips, and Yrsa takes another bite of the fruit, spilling still more juice.
And then the king’s herald arrives, riding up on a large gray mare, accompanied by two of Hrothgar’s guard who have followed behind on foot. The herald silently eyes Beowulf and the thanes for a moment, then clears his throat, and says “Hrothgar, Master of Battles, Lord of the North Danes, bids me say that he knows you, Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow. He knows your ancestry and bids you welcome. You, and your men, will follow me. You may keep your helmets and your armor, but your shields and weapons will remain here until further notice.”
Wiglaf glances apprehensively at Beowulf.
“I assure you, they won’t be disturbed,” says Wulfgar.
Beowulf turns and surveys his fourteen men, catching the wariness in their tired faces, their many hands hovering uncertainly above the hilts of their swords. Then he tosses his own spear to one of the guards standing alongside Wulfgar’s gray mare.
“We are here as guests of King Hrothgar,” he says, staring now directly into the herald’s eyes. “He is our host, even as we seek to serve him, and we will not be disagreeable guests.” And then Beowulf pulls a dagger from his belt and hands it over to Wulfgar, and then his sword, as well. “Let it not be said by the Danes that there is no trust to be found among the warriors of Lord Hygelac.”
Reluctantly, Beowulf’s thanes follow suit, turning their many weapons over to the two royal guards who have accompanied Wulfgar to the gate. Last of all, Hondshew draws his enormous broadsword and drops it to the ground, where the blade buries itself deeply in the muck.
“My, that’s a big one you’ve got there, outlander,” Yrsa smiles and takes another bite of fruit.
“That little thing?” replies Hondshew. “That’s only my spare. Maybe later, when we’ve sorted out our business with this fiend of yours—”
“Hondshew,” Beowulf says firmly, still watching Wulfgar. “Have you already forgotten why we’re here?”
“Didn’t I say after the fiend is slain?”
Yrsa watches and says not another word to Beowulf’s thane. But with a pinkie finger, she wipes a smear of nectar from her left breast and slowly licks it from her finger.
“Woman!” Wiglaf snaps at Yrsa. “Have you naught else to be doing this day but teasing men who’ve not seen womanflesh for many trying days and nights?”
“Come, Wiglaf,” says Beowulf, and together they follow Wulfgar through the narrow, smoky streets and up to Hrothgar’s mead hall.
By the time they reach the steps of Heorot Hall, most of King Hrothgar’s court has gathered there. Overhead, there are a few ragged gaps in the clouds and cold sunlight leaks down and falls upon the queen and her maids, on the assembly of guards and courtiers. The stone steps are dark and damp from the rain, and there are small puddles here and there, twinkling weakly in the day. Beowulf and his thanes have left their ponies behind and stand at the foot of the steps, staring up at the barred and shuttered mead hall that has brought them here.
“Beowulf!” bellows King Hrothgar, as he staggers and weaves his way down the steps to embrace the Geat. “How is your father? How is Ecgtheow?”
“He died in battle with sea-raiders,” Beowulf replies. “Two winters back.”
“Ahhhh, but he was a brave man. He sits now at Odin’s table. Need I ask why you’ve come to us?”
Beowulf nods toward the shuttered hall above them. “I’ve come to kill your monster,” he replies.
A murmur passes through the crowd on the steps, equal parts surprise and incredulity, and even Hrothgar seems uncomfortable at hearing Beowulf’s boast.
“They all think you’re daft,” whispers Wiglaf, and, indeed, Beowulf sees the many shades of chagrin and doubt clouding the faces of the king’s court. He takes a deep breath and smiles, flashing the warmest smile he can muster standing so near the scene of such bloody horrors as he’s heard told of Heorot Hall.
“And, of course,” he says to Hrothgar, “to taste that famous mead of yours, my lord.”
Hrothgar grins, visibly relieved, then laughs a laugh that is almost a roar, laughing the way a bear might laugh. “And indeed you shall taste it, my boy, and soon!” And the crowd on the steps stops murmuring amongst themselves, reassured now by the hearty thunder of Hrothgar’s laughter, and already Beowulf can feel their tension draining away.
But then Queen Wealthow steps forward, descending the stairs, the weak sunlight catching in her honey hair.
“There have been many brave men who have come here,” she says, “and they have all drunk deeply of my lord’s mead, and sworn to rid his hall of our nightmare.”
Hrothgar frowns and glances from his wife to Beowulf, but doesn’t speak.
“And the next morning,” Queen Wealthow continues, “there was nothing left of any of them but blood and gore to be mopped from the floor…and from the benches…and walls.”
For a long, lingering moment, Beowulf and Wealthow gaze into one another’s eyes. He sees a storm there in her, a storm no less dangerous, perhaps, than the one he has so recently navigated. And he sees fear and grief, as well, and bitterness.
“My lady, I have drunk nothing,” Beowulf tells her, at last. “Not yet. But I will kill your monster.”
And again Hrothgar laughs, but this time it seems hollow, forced, somehow insincere. “Hear that? He will kill the monster!” Hrothgar roars. “The demon Grendel will die and at this brave young man’s hands!”