The storm ended sometime before dawn, and morning finds a glittering mantle of fresh snow laid thick over the rooftops and streets and courtyards of the keep. The giant eagle Hræsvelg, squatting high atop his perch in the uppermost limbs of Yggdrasil, beats mighty wings, and a vicious north wind howls across the world, whistling between the towers and moaning beneath the eaves. And Wiglaf, remembering the days when winter did not make his bones ache and his muscles stiffen, trudges through the deep snow to the granite platform where he delivers the king’s decrees and news of battle and other such important proclamations. He stands there in the shadow of the two great turrets, and his breath comes out like mouthfuls of smoke. Already, a large number of people have gathered about the plinth, awaiting his announcement. He acknowledges them with a nod, their pink cheeks and red noses, then slowly climbs the four steps leading up onto the platform. They are slick with ice and snow, and Wiglaf does not wish to spend the rest of his days crippled by broken bones his body has grown too old to heal properly or completely. He stands with his back to the towers and clears his throat, spits, then clears his throat again, wishing he were back inside, sitting comfortably before a roaring fire and awaiting his breakfast.
“On this day,” says Wiglaf, speaking loudly enough that all may hear him, “in honor of our glorious Lord of Heorot, let us tell the saga of King Beowulf.” He pauses to get his breath and spit again, then continues. “How he so fearlessly slew the murderous demon Grendel and the demon’s hag mother.”
And the wind from under Hræsvelg’s wings lifts Wiglaf’s words and carries them out beyond the inner fortifications and the confines of the keep, to echo through the village and off the walls of the horned hall. Those who hear stop to listen—men busy with ponies, women busy with their stewpots and baking, children making a game of the snow.
“Let his deeds of valor inspire us all. On this day, let fires be lit and the sagas told, tales of the gods and of giants, of warriors who have fallen in battle and who now ride the fields of Idavoll.”
And near the outermost wall of Beowulf’s stronghold, at the edges of the village, stands the house of Unferth, son of Ecglaf, who once served Hrothgar, son of Healfdene, in the days when the horned hall was new and monsters stalked the land. The house a sturdy and imposing manor, fashioned of stone and from timber hauled here from the forest beyond the moors. The steeple at the front of its pitched roof has lately been decorated with an enormous cross, the symbol of Christ Jesus, for lately has Lord Unferth forsaken the old ways for the new religion. And even this far out, Wiglaf’s words are still audible.
“I declare this day to be Beowulf’s Day!” he shouts, delivering the last two words with all the force and enthusiasm he can muster, before a coughing fit takes him.
Unferth stands shivering in the shade cast by the cross on his roof, and a little farther along, his son, Guthric and his son’s wife and Unferth’s six grandchildren wait impatiently in the sleigh, which has not yet been hitched to the ponies that will pull it through the village to the keep. The long years have not been even half so kind to Unferth as to Wiglaf and Beowulf, and he is stoop-shouldered and crooked, bracing himself on a staff of carved oak. He glares toward the towers and the sound of Wiglaf’s voice, then back at the sleigh and his family.
“Where the hell is that fool with the horses?” he calls out to Guthric. Then he turns and shouts in the direction of his stables, “Cain? Hurry it up!”
It has begun to snow again.
In the sleigh, Guthric—who might easily pass in both appearance and demeanor for his father in Unferth’s younger days—fiddles restlessly with the large cross hung about his neck. He looks at his wife and frowns.
“Beowulf Day,” he mutters. “Bloody, stupid old fool’s day, more like. He’s as senile as Father.”
Lady Guthric hugs herself and glances at the ominous sky. “He is the king,” she reminds her husband.
“Then he is the senile king.”
“The snow’s starting again,” frets Lady Guthric, wishing her husband would not speak so about Lord Beowulf, whether or not she might agree. She fears what might happen if the king were to learn of Guthric’s opinions of him, and she also fears that the storm is not yet over.
“Wife,” says Guthric, “do you know how bloody sick I am of hearing about bloody Grendel and bloody Grendel’s bloody mother?”
“I should,” she says, “for you have told me now a thousand times, at least.”
“What the hell was Grendel, anyway? Some kind of giant dog or something?”
“I’m sure I could not tell you, dear,” she replies, then tells the oldest of the children to settle down and stop picking on the others.
“And what the bloody hell was Grendel’s mother supposed to be? She doesn’t even have a bloody name!”
“I believe she was a demon of some sort,” his wife says, and looks worriedly at the sky again.
“A demon? You’d have me believe that broken-down old Geat bastard slew a goddamned bloody demon?”
“Guthric, you must learn not to blaspheme…at least not in front of the children.”
“A demon, my ass,” grumbles Guthric, watching his father now. “A toothless old bear, maybe. Or—”
“Can we just go?” his wife asks wearily, and dusts snow from her furs.
And now Unferth approaches the sleigh, shouting as loudly as he still may. “Cain! Cain, where are you!”
Guthric stands up, and, cupping his hands about his mouth, takes up his father’s cry. “Cain!” he yells, with much more vigor than the old man. “Where the bloody Christ are you?”
And Unferth strikes him with his walking stick, catching him hard on the rump, and Unferth immediately sits down again beside Guthric’s wife.
“Don’t you dare blaspheme in my presence!” growls Unferth, brandishing the stick as if he means to land a second blow, this time across his son’s skull. “I will not have you speak of the One True God, father of Our Lord Jesus, in such a manner!”
Guthric flinches and looks to his wife for support or defense against the old man’s wrath, but she ignores him, an expression of self-righteous vindication on her round pink face.
“You will learn,” Unferth tells the cowering Guthric, and his six grandchildren watch wide-eyed and eager, wondering just how bad a thrashing their father’s going to get this time.
There’s a sudden commotion, then, from the direction of the village gates, and Unferth turns away from the sleigh and his insolent, impious son to find two of his house guards approaching, dragging Cain roughly through the snow and frozen mud. One of the guards raises his free hand and jabs a finger at the slave—filthy and bedraggled, clothed only in a tattered hemp tunic and a wool blanket, rags wrapped tightly about his hands and feet to stave off frostbite.
“He ran off again, my lord,” says the guard. “We found him hiding in a hollow log at the edge of the moors. A wonder the fool didn’t freeze to death.”
The guards shove Cain roughly forward, and he stumbles and lands in a sprawling heap at Unferth’s feet. His woolen blanket has slipped off his skinny shoulders, revealing the glint of gold among the slave’s castoff garments.
“What have you got there?” Unferth asks, and bends down for a closer look, but Cain clutches something to his chest and curls up like a frightened hedgehog. Unferth raises his stick again. “Show it to me, damn you!” he snarls. “You know well enough I do not waste my breath on idle threats.”
Cain hesitates only a moment longer, something desperate in his cloudy, sickly eyes, and then he produces his golden treasure. It shines dimly in the overcast daylight, and Unferth gasps and drops his walking stick. He has begun to tremble uncontrollably and he leans against the sleigh for support.
“Father,” asks Guthric. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you not see it?” Unferth whispers, taking the golden drinking horn from Cain’s rag-swaddled hands. “My Lord Hrothgar’s most precious…” and he trails off, dumbstruck by the sight of the horn, lost so long ago.
“Is it gold?” asks Guthric as he turns about for a better view, his interest piqued.
“Yes, yes,” hisses Unferth. “Of course it is gold. This…this is the drinking horn King Beowulf was given by King Hrothgar in return for slaying Grendel…”
“But that was lost, wasn’t it?” asks Guthric.
His eyes wide with disbelief, Unferth looks from the golden horn to Cain, shivering on the ground, then back to the horn.
“Yes,” he tells his son. “It was lost. Beowulf cast it into the tarn, into the burning waters of Weormgræf, for the merewife greatly desired it. When she was slain…he said that he searched for it, but could not discover where it had come to rest in the mud and peat.”
“It must be worth a fortune,” says Guthric, climbing down from the sleigh and reaching for the drinking horn. But Unferth slaps his hand away.
“How came you by this?” he asks Cain, and when the slave doesn’t answer, Unferth kicks him in the belly.
“Shall I have a go at him?” one of the guards asks. “A few lashes, and the rat will start talking, sure enough.”
“No,” Unferth replies, shaking his head. “This is the king’s horn, and now it will go to the king. And so will Cain. Perhaps he will tell Lord Beowulf how he came upon it. Perhaps the questions of our king mean more to him than the questions of his master.” And Unferth kicks Cain again, harder than before. The slave gags and coughs a crimson spatter onto the snow.
“Bring out my ponies,” he tells the two guards. “And Guthric, you help them.”
“But Father—”
“Do not argue with me,” Unferth says without looking at his son. “Consider it fair penance due for your earlier transgression.”
And when the guards and his son have gone, Unferth kneels in the snow beside Cain and wipes blood from the slave’s lips and nostrils.
“You will tell where you came upon it,” Unferth tells him. “Or I shall have the pleasure of killing you myself.”
And far across the village, beyond the walls of the keep, Wiglaf descends the four steps leading down from the granite platform. The crowd is breaking up, going on about their business, and he has much left to do before the celebration begins. He glares up at the leaden sky and curses the falling snow, then adds another curse for his aching joints. Then he spies a lone figure watching from the causeway connecting the two towers and thinks it must be Beowulf. Wiglaf waves to him, but the figure does not wave back.
“What’s on your mind now, old man?” Wiglaf asks, uncertain if the question was meant for himself or for the figure standing on the causeway. And then he begins picking his way carefully back through the snow and ice, and his only thoughts are of hot food and a crackling hearth fire.
Unferth’s sleigh has almost reached the gates of the keep when Guthric tugs at the reins and brings the ponies to a halt. Despite the day’s foul weather, the streets are crowded with travelers who have journeyed to Heorot from other, outlying villages and farmsteads to celebrate Beowulf’s Day and the Yuletide. Too many unfamiliar faces for Unferth’s liking, too many wagons and horses and beggars slowing them down, and now that Guthric has stopped the sleigh, the unfamiliar faces stare back at Unferth as though it is he who should not be here. Cain sits behind his master, on the bench that Guthric’s wife and children occupied until he ordered them to remain at home. And Cain gazes disconsolately at all the men and women and children on the streets. The slave’s feet have been manacled so he cannot run again.
“What are you doing?” Unferth asks his son, and tries unsuccessfully to take the reins from Guthric. “We have to see our king. We must see him at once. We may have taken too long already!”
Guthric winds the reins tightly about his fists and stares up at the two towers of Beowulf’s castle, the one built straight and the other spiraling upwards like the shell of some gargantuan snail. His entire life has been lived in the shadow of those towers and in the knowledge that his father would have been king had not some adventurer from the east shown up to defeat monsters Guthric has come to doubt ever even existed. Some dark plot, more likely, some intrigue by which a foreign interloper might dupe doddering old Hrothgar and steal the throne for himself. Years ago it first occurred to him that “the demon Grendel” and the demon’s nameless mother might only have been fictions concocted by Beowulf in a campaign to wrest control of Denmark from the Danes. Perhaps the Geat and his thanes merely set some wild beast loose upon the unsuspecting countryside, some bloodthirsty animal that would not be recognized and so would be believed by the gullible and superstitious to constitute a sort of monster or otherworldly demon, a troll or even the spawn of giants. In the end, by whatever means the deception was carried out, his father was robbed of his kingship and Guthric of his own birthright. And now there is this horn, this relic from that faerie tale, supposedly lost forever.
“Father,” he says, “I would have you tell me why this horn is so very important. Clearly, it must be valuable, but there’s something else, isn’t there?”
“This is none of your concern,” snaps Unferth. “But we must hurry. We must—”
“Why, Father? Why must we hurry? What is so damned important about a bloody drinking horn that it has you so excited?”
Unferth wrings his hands anxiously and stares at the flanks of the two snow-dappled ponies, as though he might spur them to move by dint of will alone.
“Some things are not for you to know,” he tells Guthric. “Some things—”
“If the tale is to be believed, Hrothgar’s horn was lost at the bottom of a deep tarn. Tell me, how then might an idiot like Cain have come upon it. I do not even think he knows how to swim.”
“There is not time for this impertinence,” growls Unferth, going for his walking stick, but Guthric kicks it from the sleigh before his father can reach it. Then he turns and looks at Cain.
“Can you swim?” he asks the slave.
Cain looks confused for a moment, then he shakes his head.
“You see, Father? He cannot even swim, so how could he have possibly found a drinking horn lost at the bottom of a bottomless lake. Unless, of course, it was never lost there at all. Perchance, it was only hidden.”
Unferth glares furiously back at his son, then down at his staff, lying in the snow beside the sleigh. “Why,” he asks, “would King Beowulf hide his own drinking horn? You’re being a dolt, Guthric, which comes as no surprise whatsoever. You have as little sense as that bitch who gave birth to you.”
Guthric ignores the slight and continues, giving voice to thoughts he has so long kept to himself. “He would have needed it to appear as though he had bested this demon hag at great personal loss. So, he loses the prize he won for killing Grendel. And your ancestral sword, I might add. He gives up a horn and gains a kingdom. It seems a fair enough trade to me.”
“The horn was his already,” insists Unferth, clutching tight to the golden horn, now that he has lost his stick. “I keep telling you that. Are you deaf as well as a fool?”
“Father, listen to me. We will do as you wish. We will take this thing to King Beowulf, but first I would like to show it to someone else.”
“Who?” asks Unferth, raising one bushy gray eyebrow suspiciously.
Guthric takes a deep breath of the freezing air and glances about at the crowd moving slowly toward the mead hall and the night’s coming celebration. There is a troupe of actors, mostly dwarves, and they’re carrying a grotesque contraption made of furs and bones and leather, and Guthric realizes it’s meant to be the monster Grendel. A puppet or costume the actors will use to reenact that glorious battle between Beowulf and the fiend.
“A seer,” says Guthric. “A wisewoman I have spoken with before.”
Unferth looks horrified, then begins to scrabble out of the wagon to retrieve his walking stick.
“A seer? A witch is what you mean!” he says. “Have you learned nothing from the teachings of our Christ Jesus, that you would traffic with witches and have me do likewise!”
“I wear your cross,” replies Guthric.
“It is not my cross, and it means nothing, if you do not believe in what it represents. You profane God, wearing the cross and meeting with witches.”
Guthric scowls and lets go of the reins. He grabs his father’s cloak, hauling him back into the sleigh. “She is not a witch,” he tells Unferth. “She is only an old woman—older even than you, Father—who knows many things.”
“Because she consorts with spirits and demons,” sneers Unferth, still without his staff. “Because she keeps counsel with evil beings who wish to deceive us all.”
“I only want to show her the horn,” says Unferth. “Then we will go to the king, as you wish.”
“This is madness,” hisses Unferth. “We are wasting time, and now you would have me seek out the company of a witch and let her look upon this treasure which should be seen by Beowulf and none other.” Unferth has begun excitedly waving the horn about, and several passersby have stopped to gawk at the old man.
“You seem to think everyone in Heorot deserves a good look,” says Guthric, and Unferth immediately hides the horn beneath his robes once more.
“There is not time for this madness,” Unferth says again, though he seems to have exhausted himself, and much of his anger and panic seem to have drained away.
“Father, the damned thing has been lost for thirty years. I suspect another few hours will make no difference, one way or the other.”
“You do not know,” sighs Unferth.
Guthric glances back at Cain again. “Retrieve your master’s staff,” he says. “It has fallen from the sleigh.” When Cain nods forlornly at the iron shackles about his ankles, Guthric merely snorts. “You cannot run, but you can walk well enough to do as I have asked. Now, Cain, do as I have said and get Father’s staff, or I swear that I shall beat you myself.”
“Yes, my lord,” mumbles Cain, managing to clamber down from the sleigh.
“I knew you were never a true convert,” says Unferth. “But I did not know that you consorted with sorcerers and witches.”
“I consort with those who can tell me what I need to know,” replies Guthric, and again he looks toward the troupe of dwarf actors and their hideous Grendel suit. Something to frighten children and old men, an offense to thinking men and nothing more. One of the dwarves has set the immense head down upon the snow and is busy with the straps that seem to work its fierce jaws, which appear to Guthric to be nothing more than an absurd composite of bear teeth and boar tusks. A child points at the head and runs back to its mother, sobbing. The dwarves laugh and roar at the child. One of them works the phony jaws up and down, up and down, chewing at the air.
Better be a good boy, Guthric. Better be good and say your prayers, or Grendel will come in the night and gobble you up! How many nights had he lain awake, fearing the sound of Grendel’s footsteps or a misshapen face leering in at the window of his bedchamber?
And all at once Guthric is seized with a desire to put an end to this pathetic charade, to draw his sword and hack away at the dwarves’ puppet until nothing remains but dust and string and tatters. Nothing that can frighten children or keep alive the falsehoods that put a foreigner upon the Danish throne.
“Cain!” he shouts. “What the bloody hell is taking you so long?” but when he turns back toward his father, he sees that Unferth is holding on to his oaken staff and that Cain has already climbed back into the sleigh.
“How can I persuade you not to do this?” asks Unferth, staring down at the stick in his wrinkled hands.
“You cannot, Father. Do not waste your breath trying. You shall see, it’s for the best. And then, when my questions have been answered, we will go to see King Beowulf in his horned hall.” Unferth gives the reins a hard tug and shake, and he guides the sleigh away from the main thoroughfare and down a narrow side street.
And so it is that the old man and his son find themselves standing outside a very small and cluttered hovel wedged in between the village wall and the muddy sprawl of a piggery. At first, Unferth refused to enter the rickety shack, fearing for both his immortal soul and the welfare of his mortal flesh. The whole structure seems hardly more than a deadfall in which someone has unwisely chosen to take up residence, a precarious jumble of timber and thatch that might well shift or simply collapse in upon itself at the slightest gust of wind. But Guthric was persistent, and the snow was coming down much too hard for Unferth to remain behind in the sleigh with Cain (covered now with a blanket and tied fast to his seat).
The crooked front door is carved with all manner of runes and symbols, some of which Unferth recognizes and some of which he doesn’t, and a wolf’s skull—also decorated with runes—has been nailed to the cornice. When Unferth knocks, the entire hovel shudders very slightly, and he takes a cautious step back toward the sleigh. But then the door swings open wide and they are greeted by a slender woman of indeterminate age, neither particularly old nor particularly young, dressed in a nappy patchwork of fur and a long leather skirt that appears to have been stained and smeared with every sort of filth imaginable. Her black hair, speckled with gray, is pulled in braids, and her eyes are a bright and startling shade of green that makes Unferth think of mossy rocks at the edge of the sea.
“Father,” says Guthric, “this is Sigga, the seer of whom I spoke. She was born in Iceland.”
“Iceland?” mutters Unferth, and he takes another step back toward the sleigh. “Then what the hell is she doing here?”
“I often ask myself the same thing,” says Sigga, fixing Unferth with her too-green eyes.
“Well, then tell me this, outlander,” growls Unferth. “Are you some heathen witch, or are you a Christian? Do you offer your body up to evil spirits in exchange for the secrets you sell?”
Hearing this, Sigga grunts, some unintelligible curse, and shakes her head.
“I’m sorry,” Guthric says, frowning at his father. “My father takes his conversion very seriously.”
“I keep to the old ways,” Sigga tells Unferth, standing straighter and her eyes seeming to flash more brightly still. “And what I do with my body is no concern of yours, old man. I know you, Unferth, Ecglaf’s son, though you do not now seem to remember me. I midwifed at the birth of your son, and I did my best to save his mother’s life.”
“Then you are a witch!” snarls Unferth, and spits into the snow. “You admit it!”
Sigga clicks her tongue loudly against the roof of her mouth and glances at Guthric, then back to Unferth. She points a long finger at the old man, and says, “State your business with me, Ecglaf’s son, for I have better things to do this day than stand here in the cold and be insulted by Hrothgar’s forgotten lapdog.”
Unferth makes an angry blustering noise and shakes his staff at the woman. “Witch, I have no business here,” he sputters. “Ask my infidel son why we’ve come, for this was all his doing, I assure you.”
“Sigga, there is something I wish you to see,” says Guthric. “Our slave found it out on the moorlands, and—”
“Then come inside,” Sigga says to Guthric, interrupting him. “I will not catch my own death standing in the snow. As for you, Ecglaf’s son, you may come in where there is a fire or you may stand there shivering, if that’s what pleases you.”
“Father, show it to her,” says Guthric. “Let her see the golden horn.”
“Inside,” Sigga says again, and vanishes into the hovel. Unferth is still mumbling about demons and sorcery, whores and succubae, but when Guthric takes him by the arm and leads him over the threshold of Sigga’s house, he doesn’t resist. Inside, the air stinks much less of the piggery, redolent instead with the scent of dried herbs and beeswax candles, cooking and the smoky peat fire burning in the small hearth. In places, weak daylight shows through chinks in the walls. There are several benches and tables crowded with all manner of jars and bowls, a large mortar and pestle, dried fish and the bones of many sorts of animals. Bundles of dried plants hang from the low ceiling and rustle softly one against the other. Guthric takes a seat before the fire, warming his hands, but Unferth hangs back, taking great care to touch nothing in the place, for, he thinks, anything here—anything at all—might be tainted with some perilous malfeasance.
“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.”
“How much more of this nonsense must we listen to? Have you not heard enough?” asks Unferth, stalking back and forth near the door, but Guthric shushes him.
“Hrothgar sired no sons,” says Guthric. “This is why the kingdom could be passed to the Geat so readily.”
“He sired one,” Sigga replies. “The monster Grendel, whom Beowulf slew. That was Hrothgar’s gift to the merewife, in exchange for his crown.”
“You cannot believe this,” says Guthric, looking toward his father, who has opened the cottage door and is staring out at the snow and the sleigh, Cain and the darkening sky.
“I tell you what the trees tell me,” she answers. “Grendel was Hrothgar’s child. But the pact was broken when Hrothgar allowed Beowulf to slay the merewife’s son. So, she took her revenge on both men—”
“I’ve heard enough,” says Guthric, standing and stepping away from the hearth. “I’m sure there is some speck of truth in this, somewhere. I have always known that Beowulf could not have come by the throne honestly. But I cannot believe in sea demons, nor that Hrothgar sired a monster.”
“You hear that which you wish to hear,” Sigga sighs. “Your ears are closed to all else. But I will show you something, Unferth’s son, before you take your leave.” And at that she reaches one hand into the red-hot coals and pulls out a glowing lump of peat. It lies in her palm, and her flesh does not blister or burn. “I brought you into Midgard, and I would have you know the danger that is now upon us all.”
The ember in her hand sparks, then seems to unfold like the petals of a heather flower. “Watch,” she says, and the flames become golden wings and glittering scales, angry red eyes and razor talons. “He is coming,” she says. “Even as we speak, he is on his way.” And then Sigga tilts her hand, and the coal tumbles back into the fire. “If you care for your wife and children, Guthric, you will take them and run. You will leave Heorot and not look back.”
Then the head of Unferth’s staff comes down hard against the back of Sigga’s skull, and there’s a sickening crunch before she slumps from the stool and lies dead before the hearth.
“Will you leave her now?” Unferth asks his son. “Or do you wish to remain here and keep her corpse from getting lonely?”
“Father…” gasps Guthric, the image of the dragon still dancing before his eyes. “What she said. I saw it.”
“Fine,” growls Unferth, wiping the blood from his staff. “Then go home to your wife and children. Run away, if cowardice suits you so well. Hide somewhere and cower from the lies this witch whore has told you. But I have business at the keep, and I will wait no longer. Already, the day is fading, and you have cost me hours I did not have to spare.”
“You saw it, too,” Guthric says.
“I saw a sorcerer’s trickery,” replies Unferth, and he turns and walks back to the sleigh as quickly as his bent and aching bones will allow. Later, he thinks, he will send men to feed the woman’s carcass to the pigs and burn the hovel. Cain sits shivering pitifully beneath his blanket and does not say a word as Unferth climbs aboard the sleigh and takes up the reins in both his hands. When he looks up, Guthric is watching him from the doorway of the witch’s foul abode.
“Are you coming with me?” Unferth asks.
“You saw it,” Guthric says again. “Maybe it was something you knew all along. Either way, I must go to my wife and to my children now. We must leave Heorot while there is still time.”
“I thought you did not believe in stories of monsters and demons,” laughs Unferth as he turns the ponies around in the narrow alleyway outside the hovel. “I thought you even doubted the God and savior whose cross you wear there round about your neck. But now, now you will flee from a dragon? Fine. Do as you will, son.” And then Unferth whips at the ponies’ backs with the reins, and they neigh and champ at their bits and carry him and Cain and the golden horn away into the white storm.
This near to midwinter, the days are almost as short as Danish days may be, hardly six hours from dawn until dusk, and by the time Unferth has secured an audience in the antechamber behind the king’s dais, the sun has set, and night has fallen. Already, the celebration in the horned hall has begun in earnest, and from the other side of the door come drunken shouts and music, the songs of scops and the rowdy laughter of thanes and their women. There is but a single table in the room and a single empty chair. Unferth pushes back the hood of his cloak and stomps his feet against the stone floor, dislodging muddy clumps of melting snow. Behind him, Cain stands shivering and staring out at the balcony and the dark sea beyond. There is a small fire burning in the fireplace, but the room is still so cold that their breath fogs.
Then the door leading out to the dais and the mead hall opens, and the noise of the celebration grows suddenly louder, but it is not King Beowulf come to speak with him, only Wiglaf, and Unferth curses silently.
“Unferth, you’re not celebrating your king’s glory tonight?” Wiglaf asks, and Unferth glares at the open door until Wiglaf shuts it again. “You and your family are missed in the hall,” adds Wiglaf.
“I have brought something for the king,” Wiglaf says, and he holds up the golden horn, wrapped in a fold of his robes.
Wiglaf extends his hand. “Then you’ll show it to me first.”
“Bollocks, Wiglaf. I’ll show it first to Beowulf. Believe what I say. The king needs to see it!”
The door opens again, and now Beowulf stands in the entryway, glaring at Unferth. “The king needs to see what?” he asks, and narrows his eyes.
Unferth steadies himself against that steely gaze and takes a deep breath. His frown melts into a smirk. “A gift fit for a king,” he says. “Lost and now found.”
Unferth unwraps the golden horn, and once again its curves and the ruby set into the dragon’s throat glitter in the firelight. At the sight of it, Beowulf’s eyes widen with an expression of astonishment and also what Unferth hopes is fear.
“Do you recognize it, my lord?” asks Unferth, already certain of the answer.
Beowulf stares at the horn, and for a time there is only the muffled noise from Heorot Hall, the wind howling around the corners of the balcony, the sea slamming itself against the cliffs far, far below.
“Where did you find…this?” Beowulf asks at last.
Unferth moves to stand nearer the king, holding the horn up so that Beowulf might have a better view of it.
“Somewhere in the wilderness beyond the village walls. My slave, Cain…he found it, if the truth be told. He will not say exactly where. I have beaten him, my lord, and still he will not say where it was he came upon it. My lord, isn’t this—”
“It is nothing!” roars Beowulf, and with a sweep of his arms, he knocks the horn from Unferth’s hands and sends it skidding, end over end, across the floor of the anteroom. The golden horn comes to rest at the feet of Queen Wealthow, who stands in the doorway, behind her husband. She reaches down and lifts the horn, once the finest prize in all King Hrothgar’s treasury.
“So,” she says. “I see it has come back to you…after all these years.” And she passes the horn to her husband; he takes it from her, but holds it the way a man might hold a venomous serpent.
“Where is he?” asks Beowulf, and there is a tremor in his voice. “The slave. The slave who found it. Is that him?” And he points toward Cain.
“Indeed, I have brought him here to you,” replies Unferth, and he turns and seizes Cain by the shoulders, forcing him roughly down upon the floor at Beowulf’s feet.
“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.