Caitlin Kiernan - Beowulf

“Here now. Take care you do not break him entirely,” Beowulf shouts at Hondshew. “It would be a shame to rob the poor beast of that simple pleasure.”

“It’s not going to hold,” Wiglaf says, watching and shaking his head as the other thanes labor to secure the great main door of Heorot. “Right off, I can tell you that for nothing.” He turns and finds Beowulf standing directly behind him, naked save his breechclout.

“You’re mad, you know that?”

“Yes, Wiglaf,” Beowulf replies. “You’ve brought it to my attention on more than one occasion.”

“And this door here, then you know I’m right about that as well?”

Beowulf bites thoughtfully at his lower lip and watches as four of his men set the immense crossbar into its black iron brackets, barricading the door. Then he nods and spares a smile for Wiglaf.

“Of course you’re right about the door,” he says. “If this door, or any other, would keep our fiend at bay, do you think the Danes would have any need of us?”

“Then why bother with the blasted thing at all,” Wiglaf sighs, squinting up into the gloom near the ceiling at the clumsy system of pulleys and chains that has been rigged to raise and lower the heavy crossbar. “Why not just leave it standing wide open as an invitation to the bastard and get this over with?”

“If we’re lucky, it’ll buy us a little time,” Beowulf replies. “Think of it as an alarm.”

“An alarm.”

“Sure. Hrothgar’s door here might not keep this Grendel beast out, Wiglaf, but it’s bound to make an awful racket coming through, don’t you think?”

“An alarm,” Wiglaf says again and scratches at his beard, the worried expression not leaving his face.

“Something vexes you, Wiglaf.”

“Aye, it does. I don’t like the smell of this one, my lord. Look at them,” and Wiglaf motions toward the thanes, Hondshew and Olaf and the rest.

“I admit,” Beowulf says, “they’ve smelled better. Then again, on occasion they’ve smelled worse.”

“Fine. Jest if it pleases you,” Wiglaf frowns, and he kicks halfheartedly at the door with the toe of his right boot. “But the men are not prepared . They’re still tired from the sea. They’re distracted. Too many untended women about this place, and I do not have to tell you that abstinence prior to battle is essential. A warrior’s mind must be unblurred…focused.”

“Olaf!” Beowulf shouts, startling Wiglaf. “Tell me, Olaf, are you ready for this battle?”

The fat thane stops tugging at a thick length of rope reinforcing the mead-hall door and turns toward Beowulf. Olaf’s left eye is already swelling shut from his brawl with Hondshew. He blinks and looks confused.

“Good choice,” Wiglaf mutters.

Beowulf ignores him and points at Olaf. “I asked you a question, man. Are you ready, right now, to face the murderous demon that haunts this hall?”

Olaf tugs at an earlobe and glances toward Hondshew. “Huh-huh-huh,” he starts, then stops and starts over again. “Hondshew, huh-huh-he started it.”

Hondshew stops what he’s doing and points a grubby finger at Olaf. “Wot? You implied that I have intimate relations with sheep and other livestock, so how do you figure I started it? Maybe you need another poke in the—”

“I’m not asking about the fight,” Beowulf interrupts. “I’m asking Olaf here if he’s ready for the night’s battle. Wiglaf here, he’s worried you’re not focused , Olaf.”

Olaf continues to tug at his earlobe, but looks considerably more confused than he did a moment earlier. He blinks both his eyes, one right after the other.

“I can see juh-juh-just fuh-fuh-fine, if that’s what you muh-muh-mean,” he tells Beowulf. “It’s just a shuh-shuh-shiner, that’s all. I can see just fuh-fuh-fine.”

“And what about you, Hondshew?” Beowulf asks.

“Beowulf, that fat idjit there, he said I been off swifan sheeps and pigs and what not. You’d have hit him, too. Don’t tell me you would have done different, ’cause I know better.”

“I duh-duh-didn’t say nuh-nuh- nothing about Beowulf swifan with puh-pigs,” Olaf grumbles defensively, and tugs his ear.

“I think you just proved my point,” Wiglaf says to Beowulf, and turns his back on the door, gazing out across the wide, deserted expanse of Heorot Hall. One of the big cooking fires is still burning brightly, and it throws strange, restless shadows across the high walls.

“You worry too much, Wiglaf,” says Beowulf.

“Of course I do. That’s my job, isn’t it?” and then he looks over his shoulder to see Hondshew glaring menacingly at Olaf and the other thanes still milling about the door. “That’s good,” he tells them. “Now, tie it off with more chain. Hondshew, Olaf, you two ladies stop frican about and help them!”

“More chain?” asks Beowulf. “But you just said it’s not going to hold.”

“Aye, and you just agreed, but more chain means more noise. If it’s an alarm you want, then we’ll have a proper one.”

“Where would I be without you, Wiglaf.”

“Lost, my lord. Lost and wandering across the ice somewhere.”

“Undoubtedly,” Beowulf laughs and then strips away his breechclout.

“I already said you’re mad, didn’t I?”

“That you did,” and now Beowulf retrieves his woolen cape from a nearby tabletop and wraps it into a tight bundle, then sits down on the floor, not too far distant from the door. He lies down, positioning the rolled-up cape beneath his head for a pillow. “Good night, dear Wiglaf,” he says, and shuts his eyes.

“And while you’re lying there sleeping, what are we meant to do?”

Beowulf opens his eyes again. Above him, the firelight dances ominously across the rafters of Heorot Hall. It’s not hard to imagine the twisted form of something demonic in that interplay of flame and darkness. He glances at Wiglaf, still waiting for an answer. “While I sleep, you sing,” says Beowulf.

“Sing?” asks Wiglaf, and he makes a show of digging about in his ears, as if they might be filled with dirt or fluff and he hasn’t heard correctly.

“Sing loudly,” adds Beowulf. “Sing as though you mean to shame the noise of Thor’s hammer.”

“Yuh-yuh-you want us to suh-sing ?” stutters Olaf, who’s standing just behind Wiglaf. “You mean a suh-song?”

“Yes, Olaf,” replies Beowulf. “I think a song will probably do just fine.”

Wiglaf looks from Beowulf to the barred entryway, then back to Beowulf again. “Okay,” he says. “This is like that other business, with the door being an alarm, isn’t it?”

“Do you not recall,” asks Beowulf, “what that ferret Unferth said this afternoon?” And Beowulf pitches his voice up an octave or so, imitating Unferth. “‘Merrymaking in the hall always brings the devil Grendel down upon us.’ That’s what he said.”

“Ahhhh,” laughs Wiglaf and taps at his left temple with an index finger. “Of course. We sing, and the doom that plagues Hrothgar’s hall will be drawn out of whatever dank hole it calls home.”

Beowulf nods and closes his eyes again. “Wiglaf, I do not yet comprehend the meaning of it, but the sound of merrymaking, it harrows this unhappy fiend. It causes him pain somehow, like salt poured into an open wound.”

“I had a wife like that once,” Hondshew says. He’s finished with the winch that lifts and lowers the crossbar and sits down on the floor near Beowulf. “But then a bear carried her off.”

“I thuh-thought it wuh-was a wuh-wuh-wolf,” says Olaf. “You suh-suh-”

“Yeah, fine. Wolf, bear, whichever. This woman, I tell you, she hated to hear anyone having a good time, singing, what have you. Used to put her in the foulest mood. Still, she was good in the sack. I have to give her that much. I think she was a Vandal.”