She is legend now, half-glimpsed by unfortunate travelers on stormy nights. Sailors and fisherman up and down the Danish coast trade fearful whispers of mermaids and sea trolls and sahagin. Those passing by the bog on midsummer nights may have glimpsed for themselves the aglaec-wif, aeglaeca, the merewif or demon wife. But she and all her vanished forebears would have surely long passed completely and permanently beyond the recollection of mankind, if not for Grendel.
In the cave below the cave, crouching there before the cold altar stone, she sings a song she might have first heard from her own mother, for she does not recall where and when she learned it. A dirge, a mourning song to give some dim voice to the inconsolable ache welling up inside her.
But the song buckles and breaks apart in her throat, becoming suddenly a far more genuine expression of her grief, a wild and bestial wail to transcend any mournful poetry. It spills like fire from out her throat, and the walls of the cavern shudder with the force of it.
And then for a time she lies weeping at the foot of the altar stone, her long, webbed fingers gouging muddy furrows into the soft earth, scraping at the stone beneath, snapping dry bones.
“I will avenge you, my poor son,” she sobs. “He will come to me. I will see to it. He will come, and I will turn his own strength against him. He will pay, and dearly will he pay…” but then the capacity for speech deserts her again.
The merewife rises, coiling and uncoiling, her scales shining in the ghostly light of these moldering, phosphorescent walls, and she leans down over the altar and cradles her dead son in her arms again. Her long and spiny tail whips furiously about, madly lashing at thin air and stone and the treasures that have lain here undisturbed for a thousand years, and it crushes everything it strikes to dust and splinters. She holds the name of her son’s murderer in her mind, the bold riddler of Hrothgar’s hall, the champion of men and the wolf of the bees. And her sobs become a wail, and then her wail becomes a shriek that rises up and up, leaking out through every minute crevice and fissure, slithering finally from the gaping mouth of the cavern—the cave above her cave—and cracking apart the gaunt ribs of the night.
Something awakens Beowulf, who lies where he fell asleep hours before, wrapped in furs, on the floor not far from the fire pit. He opens his eyes and lies listening to the soft noises of the sleeping mead hall—a woman sighing in her dreams, the ragged snores of drunken men, the warm crackle of embers, someone rolling over in slumber. The faint creaking sound of settling timbers. All the lamps are out, and the hall is dark save a faint red glow from the dying fire. Nothing is out of place, no sound that should not be here. Outside the walls of Heorot, there is the chilling whistle of wind about the eaves, and far away, the faint thunder of waves falling against the shore. He thinks of Wiglaf, alone on the beach with the ship, and wonders if he’s sleeping.
Beowulf peers into the gloom and spies Olaf lying nearby, snuggling with Yrsa beneath heavy sheepskins, a satisfied smile on his sleeping face.
“Are you awake, Beowulf?” and he looks up, startled, to find Wealthow smiling down at him. She stoops, then sits on the floor beside him.
“My queen…” he begins, but she places an index finger firmly across his lips.
“Shhhhhh,” she whispers. “You’ll wake the others,” and then she moves her finger.
“I was dreaming of you,” he says quietly, only just now remembering that he was. In the dream, Wealthow was traveling with him back across the sea to Geatland, and they were watching the gray-black backs of great whales breaking the surface of the sea, their misty spouts rising high into the winter sky.
“How sweet,” she whispers, and Beowulf thinks there’s something different about her voice, the barest hint of an unfamiliar accent he’d not noticed earlier. “I hope it was a pleasant dream.”
“Of course it was,” he smiles. “What other sort could you ever inspire?”
“I love you,” Wealthow whispers, leaning closer to Beowulf, close enough that he can feel her breath warm against his face. “I want you, Beowulf Demon-feller, son of Ecgtheow. Only you, my king, my hero, and my love.”
Wealthow puts her arms about his neck, drawing him close to her breasts, and she kisses him lightly on the cheek.
“Do you not think your husband might have something to say in the matter?” he asks, looking nervously past her at the others, still asleep.
“My husband,” sighs Wealthow. “Do not trouble yourself over Hrothgar. He is dead. This very night, I have done it myself, as I should have done long ago.”
Beowulf says nothing for a moment, confused and baffled at what he’s hearing. Wealthow smiles wider and kisses him on the forehead.
“Surely you have heard of his infidelities,” she says. “They certainly were no secret. Hrothgar never tried to hide his whores…or I should say he never tried very hard.
“Why would you say these things to me?”
She has slipped her hands beneath his tunic, and they are cold against his chest and belly. He feels her nails rasping almost painfully at his skin.
“My poor sleepy Beowulf,” she smiles. “Too much mead, too little rest. You are exhausted and confused.” And now she presses herself against him, straddling him, her strength taking him by surprise as she bears him flat against the floor.
“First greed,” she says. “Then lust. Is this not what you would have, my lord? Is this not everything you yet desire?” And she kisses him again, and this time she tastes like the sea, like salt water rushing into the throat of a drowning man, like beached and rotting fish stranded under a summer sun. He gags and tries to push her away.
“Give me a child, Beowulf. Enter me, and give me a beautiful, beautiful son.”
And the air around Wealthow seems to shimmer and bend back upon itself somehow. Beowulf blinks, trying hard to will himself awake from this nightmare, terrified he may not be sleeping. She smiles again, and now her lips pull back to reveal the razor teeth of hungry ocean things, and her eyes flash gold and green in the darkness of the hall. Her gown has become a tattered mat of kelp and sea moss entangling a sinuous, scaly body, and Beowulf opens his mouth to scream…
…and he gasps—one breath he cannot quite seem to draw, the space of a heartbeat that seems to go on forever, his pulse loud in his ears, the sea and all its horrors dragging him down—then he opens his eyes. And Beowulf knows that this time he is truly awake. His chest aches, and he squints into the brilliant morning sunlight pouring in through the open door of Heorot Hall, then shields his eyes with his right hand. He blinks, trying to clear his vision.
The frigid air around him smells like slaughter, like a battlefield when the fighting is done or a place where many animals have been butchered and bled. The drone of buzzing flies is very loud, and there’s a steady dripping from all directions, as though the storm returned in the night and the roof has sprung many leaks.
And now there’s a scream, the shrill and piercing scream of a frightened woman. Beowulf peers out from behind the shelter of his fingers, and Yrsa is sitting nearby, pointing one trembling hand up toward the ceiling. Dark blood streaks her upturned face. Beowulf’s eyes follow her fingertips, and he sees that there are many dark shapes hanging from the rafters, indistinct silhouettes weeping a thick red rain.