In the last hour before sunrise the snow changed to rain, a steady, drenching rain to turn the thoroughfares and commons of Hrothgar’s stockade from thick and frozen muck to gray lakes and gray rivers divided one from another by stretches of even grayer mud. The water pours from off rooftops and gurgles through rainspouts, as though the sky has found some reason of its own to mourn this day. But Wiglaf and Beowulf and the other Geats built the funeral pyre before the rain began, stacking cords of cured pine soaked in pitch and drenched in whale oil, and the fire burns high and bright and hot despite the downpour. A white column of smoke rises up to meet the falling rain, and the wood crackles loudly, and the puddles hiss and steam where they meet the edges of the pyre. Beowulf and his ten remaining thanes, the survivors of their battle with Grendel, stand in the shadow of the blaze, the rain dripping from their woolen capes. A handful of curious villagers loiter farther out, watching as the flames consume the corpses of Hondshew and the others.
“They were great warriors,” says Beowulf, and Wiglaf nods.
“And they suffered a most foul death,” Wiglaf replies. His eyes have begun to tear, and he squints and pretends it’s only from the smoke or only rain that’s gotten into his eyes.
Beowulf doesn’t look away from the pyre. “They have found the deaths that all brave men seek, and now they are einherjar. Together they have passed as heroes through Valgrind, welcomed by Bragi and the Valkyries. Today, they will ride the wide green plains of Ásgard, readying themselves for that time when they will join the gods and do battle against the giants in Ragnarök. And this night, while we are yet cold and weary and wet, they will feast at Odin’s table in Valhalla, and on the morrow wake gladly to the call of the rooster Gullinkambi, then once more will they ride the fields of Idavoll. They will not die old men, sick and bedridden.”
“Is that what you believe?” asks Wiglaf, glancing at his lord.
“It is what I know, Wiglaf,” replies Beowulf. “I have heard no better story. Have you?”
Wiglaf watches the fire. The funeral scaffold collapses in a flurry of red-hot embers, and whatever remains of the dead men tumbles into the heart of the pyre. “I have not,” he says.
“Then mourn the living,” sighs Beowulf. “Mourn old men who cannot fight their own battles, not the glorious dead who have fallen victorious against so terrible a foe.” And Beowulf glances toward the open door of the horned hall, still stained with Grendel’s dark blood.
“I’ve got their knives,” says Wiglaf, and he takes four daggers from his cloak. “We’ll carry them home…for their widows.”
Beowulf clenches his teeth together, looking for words that aren’t there, remembering again the sound of the creature’s voice, that it asked him to spare it.
“They will not be forgotten,” he tells Wiglaf, and takes him by the shoulder. “The scops will sing their glory forever. Come, before we catch our death. Let us drink to their memory. I want you to raise the first cup.”
Wiglaf tucks the daggers back into his cape and shakes his head. “Nay, I’m not in the mood for merrymaking. I’ll ride down to the mooring, to prepare the boat,” and then Wiglaf looks out from beneath his rain-soaked hood at Beowulf. “We still leave tomorrow, on the tide? Do we not?”
Above them, thunder rumbles off toward the beach.
Beowulf nods. “Aye,” he says. “We do.”
A rainy morning gives way to a drear and windy afternoon and a sky gone almost the same the color as the muddy earth. But in Heorot Hall, reclaimed from Grendel and once again amenable to celebration and rejoicing, a great number of King Hrothgar’s people have gathered together to see the proof of Beowulf’s heroic deed. Already, news of the monster’s defeat has spread for many leagues up and down the coast of the kingdom and far inland, as well. Already, the scops are composing ballads, based on such hasty and incomplete accounts of the night’s adventures as they have been told by the king’s herald and have scrounged on their own. An evil shadow has at last been lifted from off the realm of the Danes, they sing, that creeping shade that for long months bedeviled the winter nights is finished.
But it is one thing to merely hear good tidings, and it is quite another thing to see with one’s own eyes some undeniable evidence. And so King Hrothgar—son of Healfdene, grandson of Beow, great grandson of Shield Sheafson himself—stands before the arm of the beast, which the Geat has taken care to nail up that all men might look upon it and be assured of their deliverance and, also, of his glory. For what is a man but the sum of his glorious deeds and brave accomplishments? How also might he find his way to Ásgard or even to the scant rewards of this world?
The king stands at the edge of a wide pool of cooled and clotting blood that has over the hours oozed and dripped down to the floor of the hall, accumulating there beneath the graven image of Odin hanging upon the World Ash for the good of all men. Hrothgar has been standing there some time, drinking in the sight of the severed arm, a wound even the demon Grendel could not have long survived, and now he turns to face his subjects and his thanes, his advisors and his queen, the Geat warriors and Beowulf, who is standing close beside the king. Hrothgar stands as straight as his age and health will allow, and though even now his heart is not untroubled, his smile and the relief in his eyes are true and honest.
“Long did I suffer the harrowing of Grendel,” he says. “Only a few days ago, I still believed that I would not ever again be granted release from torment or again find consolation. And, of course,”—and here Hrothgar pauses and motions to all those assembled before him—“of course, this burden was never mine alone. Few were the houses of my kingdom not stained with the blood spilled by Grendel. This has been a curse that has touched us all.”
And there’s a low murmur of agreement from the men and women. Hrothgar nods and waits a moment or two before continuing.
“But this is a new day. And before you, with your own eyes, you see the proof that there has come at last an end to our sorrow and our troubles with the demon Grendel. Today, the monster’s reign has ended, thanks be to a man who has come among us from far across the sea, one man who has done what even the greatest among us could not manage. If the mother of this hero still draws breath, may she be evermore blessed for the fruit of her birth labor. Beowulf—” And now Hrothgar turns to Beowulf and puts an arm about him, pulling him close and speaking directly to him.
“I want everyone here, and everyone who might in time hear of this assembly, to know that in my heart I will love you like a son. With Grendel dead, you are a son to me.”
Until now, Beowulf has kept his eyes trained on the floor of Heorot, listening to the words of the King of the Danes. They have worked some magic upon him, he thinks, for the grief that has dogged him since the funeral pyre has vanished. He looks up into the faces watching him, and he feels pride, for has he not earned this praise and whatever reward may yet await him?
I might never have come here, he thinks. I might have left the lot of you to fend for yourselves against the fiend. It was not my trouble, but I made it mine. And he remembers the things he said to Wiglaf during the funeral, and asks himself what other prize a man might ever seek, but the glory of his accomplishments. But for the capricious skein of life, the weave of the Fates, he, too, would rightly ride the fields of Idavoll this day.