And then he realizes what those dreadful, dangling forms are.
The bodies of Beowulf’s men hang head down from the roof beams of Heorot—gutted, defiled in unspeakable ways, each and every one torn almost beyond recognition. Their blood drips steadily down upon the tabletops and floor and the upturned faces of horrified women. Beowulf gets slowly to his feet, drawing his sword as he stands, fighting nausea and the dizzying sense that he is yet dreaming.
If only I am, he thinks. If this might be naught but some new and appalling apparition, only a phantasm of my weary mind…
He moves slowly through the hall, and now there are other screams and gasps as other women come awake around him and look upon what hangs there bleeding out above them. Soon the entire hall is filled with the sobs and curses of terrified women. And soon, too, Beowulf can see that every man who slept there has been slain, that among the men, he alone has been spared the massacre.
There are footsteps at the doorway, and Beowulf swings about, raising his sword and bracing himself for the attack. But it’s only Wiglaf, returned from the beach. He stands framed in winter sunlight, gazing up at the ragged bodies. He has also drawn his sword.
“In the name of Odin…” he gasps.
“Wiglaf, what dismal misdeed is this?” Beowulf asks, and a fat drop of blood splashes at his feet.
Yrsa has gotten to her feet, and she’s pointing toward Beowulf instead of the murdered men.
“Liar,” she hisses. “You told us it was dead. You told us you had killed it.”
“What? Is Grendel not dead?” asks Wiglaf, taking a hesitant step into the mead hall. “Has the fiend grown his arm anew?”
Beowulf does not answer them, but turns about to look at the place where he nailed up Grendel’s severed arm. Nothing hangs there now, and his eyes find only the naked iron spike and the monster’s black blood dried to a crust upon the wooden column and the floor below.
“He took it back, didn’t he?” asks Yrsa, her voice becoming brittle and hysterical. “He came here in the night and took it back! He walked among us while we slept. The demon is not dead. You lied—”
“Shut up, woman!” growls Beowulf, watching a fat drop of blood that has landed on the blade of his sword as it runs slowly down toward the hilt.
“Are you not thinking the same damn thing?” asks Wiglaf from the doorway. “The men are dead, and the arm is gone, and we did not see the creature die.”
“We did not ever say we saw it die,” replies Beowulf, and he shuts his eyes, trying to think, trying to blot out all these atrocities, all the sights and sounds and smells. But she is still there in his head, waiting behind his eyelids, the grinning phantom from his dream, the thing that came disguised as Wealthow…
Give me a child, Beowulf. Enter me now and give me a beautiful, beautiful son.
A cold spatter of blood strikes Beowulf’s forehead, and he opens his eyes again, then wipes it away and stands staring at the crimson smear on his palm.
“Find Hrothgar,” he says. “If he still breathes.”
“It was not Grendel,” Hrothgar sighs heavily. He sits alone on the edge of his bed, wrapped in deer skins and frowning down at his bare feet, his crooked yellow toenails. His sword is gripped uselessly in both hands, the tip of the blade resting against the stone floor. There are four guards standing at the entrance to the bedchamber, and Queen Wealthow, wrapped in her bearskins, stands alone at the window, looking out on the stockade.
“How do you know that?” Wiglaf asks the king, and Hrothgar sighs again and looks up at him.
“I know it, young man, because I have lived in this land all my life and know its ways. I know it because it is something that I know.”
“Fine,” says Wiglaf, glancing toward Beowulf. “But if it is not Grendel, then who is it? What is it, if not Grendel?”
Hrothgar taps the end of his sword lightly against the stone and grimaces.
“We would have an answer, old man,” Beowulf says. “They are carrying the bodies of my men from your mead hall, and I would know why.”
“Grendel’s mother,” replies Hrothgar. “It was the son you killed. I had…I had hoped that she had left this land long ago.”
Wiglaf laughs a hollow, bitter sort of laugh and turns away. Beowulf frowns and kicks at the floor.
“How many monsters am I to slay?” he asks Hrothgar. “Grendel’s mother? Father? Grendel’s fucking uncle? Will I have to hack down an entire family tree of these demons before I am done?”
“No,” says Hrothgar unconvincingly, and taps his sword against the floor a second time. “She is the last. I swear it. With her gone, that demonkind will finally slip into faerie lore forever.”
“And you neglected to mention her before now because…?”
“I have already said, I believed that she had deserted these hills and gone back down to trouble the sea from whence she came. I did not know, Beowulf. I did not know.”
“Listen,” says Wiglaf to Beowulf. “Let us take our dead and take our leave and have no more part in these evil doings. If he is not lying,” and Wiglaf pauses to glare at Hrothgar, “then Grendel’s dam has claimed her wergild and has no further grievance or claim upon this hall. We can sail on the next tide.”
“And what of her mate?” Beowulf asks Hrothgar, ignoring Wiglaf. “Where is Grendel’s father?”
And now Wealthow turns away from the window, her hands clasped so tightly together that her knuckles have gone white. “Yes, my dear husband,” she says. “Pray tell, where is Grendel’s sire?” But as she speaks, her eyes go to Beowulf, not King Hrothgar.
“Gone,” says the king, then wipes at his mouth and glances up at Beowulf. “Grendel’s father is gone, faded like twilight, not even a ghost. He can do no harm to man.”
“Beowulf, he has already lied to us once.”
“I never lied to you,” snaps Hrothgar, his face gone red, his cloudy eyes suddenly livid, and he raises his sword. But Wiglaf easily bats the blade aside, and it clatters to the floor.
“Nay, I suppose you did not,” he says. “You merely neglected to mention that once we’d slain her son—”
“Stop,” Beowulf says, and he lays a firm hand on Wiglaf’s shoulder. “You will not speak this way to the King of the Danes.”
Exasperated, Wiglaf motions toward the window, toward the sea beyond. “Beowulf, please. Think about this. It is time we took our leave of these cursed shores. We have done what we came here to do.”
Before Beowulf can reply, there are loud footsteps in the hallway outside the bedchamber, and Unferth enters the room. “Beowulf,” he says.
“What now?” Wiglaf asks Hrothgar’s advisor. “Have you come here to gloat, Ferret Kinslayer?”
Unferth takes a deep breath, disregarding Wiglaf’s taunt. “I was wrong,” he says. “I was wrong to doubt you before, Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow. And I shall not do so again. For truly yours is the blood of courage. I beg your forgiveness.”
“Clearly, there is to be no end to this farce,” sneers Wiglaf, and he turns his back on Unferth.
“Then I accept your apology,” Beowulf says quietly, and Wiglaf laughs to himself. “And you must forgive my man Wiglaf, as we have seen many terrible things this morning, and it has sickened our hearts.”
“If you will take it,” Unferth says, “then I have a gift,” and he turns to his slave, Cain, who has been standing just behind him. The boy is holding a great sword, which Unferth takes from him.