Beowulf (5 page)

The killing of the Fire Dragon was an exploit that called for the best of their cunning. The Dragon was guardian of a treasure hoard so vast and valuable that they knew it would bring prosperity to their land for generations to come. For this reason they determined to slay it and take the treasure if they could.

Now, the Fire Dragon lived on an island of silver rock. It had four heads. The first head, as white as snow, breathed out air. The second head, which was black as pitch, coughed up earth. The third head, sea-green, was more terrible than either of these: it spat out great quantities of water. The fourth head was the most horrible head of all. It was flame-colored, with bulging blood-red eyes. This
head could spit out long forks of searing fire, burning everything to cinders within a range of about half a mile. Nothing grew on Silver Rock island because the Dragon hated trees and flowers and as soon as the least green shoot appeared anywhere, he would turn his fourth head to glare at it and—
whoosh! cccrrraaak!
—fry it to bits in one of his tremendous fire-spits.

Sigemund and Fitela had to work out a plan to get near the Dragon in the first place. They did it all night, swimming under water, approaching Silver Rock island from different directions. Sigemund swam slowly, stopping every now and again to surface and lie on his back, sending tall spirtles of water up out of the waves. The Fire Dragon—which slept only three heads at a time, so that one pair of eyes was always on the lookout—thought it was just a whale playing in the moonlight, and took no notice. Meanwhile, Fitela had reached the rock from the north. Being so small, he was able to crawl up behind the Dragon without being seen. Sigemund dived down to the sea-bed again and swam quickly toward the island.

Little Fitela was crouched right by the Dragon’s tail. As soon as he saw big telltale bubbles indicating that his uncle was about
to emerge from the sea, he grabbed the tail boldly in both hands—and twisted it as hard as he could!

The Dragon roared with anger.

It turned its terrible fourth head to see and destroy whatever the impudent thing was that dared to tweak its tail. It was astonished by Fitela’s smallness.

Sigemund took good advantage of that moment of astonishment. He heaved himself up on the silver rock and hurled himself at the Dragon. The head that breathed out air lunged at him. Sigemund seized it by the throat and twisted it round. Air came hissing from the head just as fire began to fork from the other one. Fitela would have been burned alive if the flames had reached him. But they did not reach him. Sigemund had locked the two heads together, so that the fire was beaten back down the Dragon’s windpipe by the blast of air from its other mouth. It writhed and coughed. Fitela pulled again at its tail. Again, the Dragon tried to get its fire-throwing head in position to deal with him. But Sigemund grabbed another head, the black one, already coughing up cartloads of earth, and bent the tough neck in his powerful hands, ramming it into the jaws
where fire struggled to get the better of air. Dark heavy soil poured down the Dragon’s throat. His red eyes popped out of his head as he choked on it.

Fitela twisted the Dragon’s tail once more. Sigemund added the water-squirting head to the complicated knot he had already made out of the Dragon’s three other heads. The forks of flame, met by air, earth, and a great flood of water, had no chance to get out. The fire traveled down into the Dragon’s belly. He gave a fearful belch, and died.

In this way, Sigemund and Fitela won the Fire Dragon’s treasure hoard for the good of their people. When they looked in the cave that had been his den, they found it was crammed to the roof with gold and silver and diamonds and rubies and pearls. They loaded ten ships with their plunder, and sailed happily home.

After this cunning adventure, the storyteller concluded, Sigemund and Fitela were famous the whole world over. “But their deeds were as fleabites compared to Beowulf’s,” he added, putting down his harp.

Beowulf laughed. He was amused and pleased by this tale, and stored it in his memory.

Queen Wealhtheow poured the last of the wine into another golden cup for him to drink from.

Hrothgar had fallen asleep on his throne, his white-haired head against his polished shield.

Soon all the lords and warriors followed suit. They were worn out with happiness. Danes and Geats sprawled side by side on the long straight benches of the banqueting hall, content that Heorot was a safe place now, well satisfied with the celebrations they had had in the hero’s honor. The poets snored, sore-throated from so much storytelling. The servants dreamt of being masters.

Beowulf slept too, his head on his hands, the golden collar glittering round his neck.

Only Unferth remained awake. He stared at the arm, which hung from the hook. His eyes were dry and bloodshot, full of black thoughts.

In the heart of the night, in the darkest dark of the darkness, something stirred from the fen. It was shaped like a snake, a snake as black as jet, long and fat and hissing, but it moved across the marshy ground faster than any snake that ever was, because it had tentacles that pulled it through the mud as quick and slick as a knife going through butter. Its flesh was greasy. It had red lips and hanging breasts. It dribbled green bile and gobbets of blood.

The wind in the grasses, which had whispered at Grendel’s coming, held its breath icily as this new horror slithered on toward hall Heorot. The rats ran away, tails lashing, eyes blind with panic. The owls forgot to ask their
Who? Who? Who?

The creatures of the fen knew who—and they were frightened.

A long, long time ago She had come from Her bottomless pool to join with the murderer Cain. The fen shook then with unnatural storms as it witnessed their loathsome em-bracings. The moon dripped blood, and the strict stars collided in their courses. A bolt of lightning struck Cain dead for the horror of what he had done. But She lived on. She was too much a part of death to ever die. She was neither older nor younger than She had been in the beginning. What She was could never be destroyed.

A werewolf howled on a crag.

A cloud of white vampire moths hovered above Her grisly head.

She had no name.

She was She, She, She …

Grendel’s Mother!

Unferth knew.

Unferth knew that Something was coming.

Not even his boil or his silver trinket or his long black cloak could comfort his hands this time. They twitched with a life of their own. His thumbs pricked. His fingers itched. The veins in his sweaty palms were hard and swollen and painful.

Half-moaning, half-humming, he sat and watched the sleepers in the hall. He despised
them all. Stupid Hrothgar, he thought. Stupid Hrothgar, ugly Wealhtheow, murderous Beowulf. They were only people, silly creatures of flesh and blood, mortal trash. He hated them.

Unferth longed for he knew not what. Something vast and dark and terrible. Something that would recognize him as a cut above the merely human. Something that would press him to Its hideous heart and make him welcome as Its own.

He was terribly alone. He did not belong here, in the torchlit hall littered with cups and harps, the debris of celebrations he had taken no part in. He belonged out there in the night, the fatal darkness, the imperishable black. For day, he thought, did not really kill the dark. It was always there, out there in the fen, living on in the veins of the children of Cain. Beowulf believed he could put a stop to it simply by slaying one monster. What a fool! He, Unferth, knew better, knew that good and evil were locked in such an endless contest that the death of just one of the powers of darkness was of no significance whatsoever. As well believe you could destroy a tree by tearing off a single leaf!

And the tree of evil looked taller and more familiar to Unferth than the slender green tree of good. Its twisted roots went down into
his own being. He could feel its festering sap in every fiber of him. Even his boil, he reasoned, was an outward mark of his difference from such as Beowulf. If only Grendel had understood …

But Grendel had not understood. Grendel had tried to kill him. Why?

Unferth slapped his side as a sudden illumination came into the dark chamber of his thought.

It was not Grendel who had misunderstood. It was himself. Grendel had wanted to take him for his own, to bear him off to where he belonged, to join the baleful company of the fen; but he, Unferth, had held back through fear. All at once he hated his fear—the sweat on his cheeks that proved him weak and human, the trembling of his hands that measured the distance between him and Grendel, all the frailties of his humble mortal state.

Unferth stared at his own flesh with a bad taste in his mouth. It seemed an unwarrantable interference, something that held his lovely capacity for evil behind bars. If only he could strip it off, be free of it, live solely and forever as a sort of cruel essential ghost or demon of himself … If only, if only…

Unferth gnawed at his knuckles like an animal
trying to rid itself of a wounded and unwanted limb.

He was very near to madness in that night.

She came into hall Heorot.

She made no noise.

She looked at Unferth and She smiled.

Her lips were red.

She had eyes in Her breasts.

Unferth stood up and stretched out his arms.

“Welcome,” he said.

Wealhtheow woke first. On the edge of sleep, she had dreamt of a sow eating her farrow. She opened her eyes and saw that Grendel’s arm was gone from the hook in the rafters.

She woke the king, and Beowulf too. Both shook their heads, as if to clear them of bad dreams.

Beowulf said: “It seems we slept deep.”

“Too deep for safekeeping,” said Wealhtheow. “Grendel’s arm has been stolen by some thief in the night.”

Hrothgar started up with a shout. “That’s not the worst of it!” he cried. “Look, there, by the golden tapestry! Oh, Aeschere! Aeschere!”

A man’s body lay, face to the wall, on the
ivory floor. He had a dagger in his back. He was dead.

Beowulf bent over him.

“It is Aeschere,” said Hrothgar broken-heartedly. Tears glistened on his cheeks and in the winter whiteness of his beard. His jutting jaw went slack with sorrow. “Aeschere! My best friend, dearer to me than my own hand. We were boys together. We went to war together. A splendid man—his mind as sharp as his sword. I loved him. He is dead. Only Grendel could have done this.”

Beowulf was peering at the dagger between Aeschere’s shoulder blades. “I have seen this hilt before,” he said. “This is the dagger Unferth drew on me.”

“Unferth! Unferth killed Aeschere while he slept! Why? Why?”

“There is no why where Unferth is concerned,” said Beowulf. “He acts as a beast would, blindly. He’s at the mercy of his own evil, and hardly knows what he does.”

“He shall die for this!” vowed Hrothgar. “Guards! Guards! Find the vile, treacherous coward Unferth in whatever dark corner he is hiding, and bring him straight to me!”

But Unferth was not to be found. Danes and Geats searched everywhere, to no avail. All they discovered was a strange, sweet-smelling
spoor that led twistingly into the fen.

Beowulf said: “This much is clear—Aeschere is dead; Unferth is gone; Grendel’s arm has been stolen. Now, Unferth probably murdered Aeschere. It is his dagger, and the deed looks like him. But it’s unlikely we’ll ever know for certain because—”

“What do you mean?” cried Hrothgar, eyes bright for vengeance. “We will find Unferth and torture the wretch until he confesses! He’s out there in the fen somewhere, drooling over the monster’s arm, mad and bad and—”

“I was coming to that,” Beowulf explained patiently. “I don’t think Unferth took Grendel’s arm. His wrists weren’t strong enough to lift it down without dropping it and wakening us all. He was a weakling, in more ways than one.”

Wealhtheow said, “You speak of him as though he were dead.”

“I shall be surprised if he is not,” said Beowulf. “There is the matter of the spoor, you see. Something came out of the fen for Grendel’s arm, and whatever it was that came took Unferth too.”

“And killed him?” asked Hrothgar eagerly. “He deserved it.”

“Perhaps,” said Beowulf.

Wealhtheow sighed, distressed by so much horror. “What do you think it was, the creature? Grendel?”

Beowulf shook his head. “Grendel had no might left. I broke more than his arm. He is surely dead.”

“Then who?” demanded the king. He was desperate to set out in search of someone or something in order to avenge poor Aeschere.

“I do not know this country,” said Beowulf. “Perhaps you can tell me of other monsters who are known to haunt the fen? Something that moves in a twisty way, like a snake, and leaves a spoor that smells as sweet as mother’s milk?”

Hrothgar frowned, and confessed himself at his wit’s end.

“Something sly and noiseless,” prompted Beowulf. “Something more terrible than Grendel.”

Wealhtheow caught her breath. She had remembered the stories of her childhood, the most loathly and ancient bugaboo her nurse had ever frightened her with. And at the same time she remembered Unferth’s fascinated talking on this subject, here, in the very hall where they now stood.

Beowulf looked at her keenly. “Yes?” he said.

“There is only one thing it can be,” said Wealhtheow. “She has no name.”

“Perhaps she is too horrible for people to want to name her?”

“Just so,” said Wealhtheow. “She is Grendel’s Mother!”

The fen was wild and waste. It stretched as far as the eye could see. The sky over it was gray. The sun was bleak and sere. It was a dead land.

Beowulf rode on one of the horses Hrothgar had given him. It was white, with a black mane. He picked his way slowly, following the spoor. His men followed him.

He had never before been in so desolate a place. The wind was thin and moaning in the reeds. Birds did not sing. Even the light had a brief look about it, as though it were a trespasser.