“I know,” she says.

“He was only a man…but so strong…so very, very strong. He hurt me, Mama.”

“And he shall pay, my darling. Who was this man?”

“He told me his name in a riddle. He said, ‘I am ripper and tearer and slasher and gouger. I’m the teeth of the darkness and talons of the night. I am Beowulf,’ he said.”

“Beowulf,” she says, repeating the kenning. “Wolf of the bees.”

“He was so strong,” Grendel says again, and he wonders if it will be this cold in the serpent’s belly at the bottom of the ocean. “I’m so cold,” he says again.

“I know,” his mother replies. “You are tired, my sweet son. You are so awfully tired. Sleep now,” and she covers his eyes as the last shimmer of life escapes them. “I am here. I will not leave you.”

And now his eyes are as empty as the eyes of any dead thing, and grieving, she bears him down along the roots of mountains and into the depths of her pool. The eels taste his blood, but wisely keep their distance. She drags his body along the spiraling course of that flooded granite throat, that sea tunnel scabbed with barnacles and fleshy anemones, blue starfish and mussels and clusters of blind, wriggling worms. Following some tidal pull ever, ever down into lightless halls where her son was born, chambers that have never known the sun’s chariot nor the moon’s white eye. And she carries the name of his killer on her pale lips, Beowulf, etched there like a scar.

From the safety of their bedchamber, the king and queen have listened to the battle between the Geats and the monster Grendel. Wealthow standing alone at a window and Hrothgar lying alone in his bed, they have heard such sounds as may pass through wood and stone and thatch. Cries of anger and of pain, the shattering of enormous timbers and the sundering of iron, sudden silences, the shouts of men and the howls of a demon. They have not spoken nor thought of sleep, but have only listened, waiting for that final quiet or some decisive noise, and now they hear the glad voices of weary men—the victory cheer rising from Heorot. King Hrothgar sits up, only half-believing, wondering if perhaps he’s fallen asleep and so is only dreaming these muffled cries from joyous, undefeated warriors.

“Is that a cheer?” he asks his wife. “Could that be a cry of victory?”

She doesn’t make reply, but only stands there at the window, looking out on cold and darkness, anxiously clutching a scarf, nervously wringing the cloth in her hands. It was a gift from the king, a precious scrap of silk from some land far away to the south, some fabled, sun-drenched place where it is always summer and dark-skinned men ride strange animals.

And now the door bursts open, banging loudly against the wall, and the king’s herald, Wulfgar, rushes into the room. Delight and relief glow in his eyes like a fever.

“My lord!” he gasps, winded and panting. “My lord Hrothgar! My lady! It is over! Beowulf has killed the demon! Grendel is dead!”

“Praise Odin.” Hrothgar sighs and clutches at his chest, at his racing heart. “Call the scops, Wulfgar. Spread the word! Tomorrow will be a glorious day of rejoicing, the likes of which this house has never seen!”

“I will, my lord,” answers Wulfgar, and he disappears again, leaving the door standing open.

Hrothgar stares at the empty doorway a moment, still waiting to awaken to the news of Beowulf’s death, to the sight of Grendel crouching there above him. He climbs out of bed and slowly crosses the room to stand with Wealthow. She’s stopped twisting the scarf, and there are tears in her eyes, but she’s still gazing out the window at the night. He places a hand gently on her shoulder, and she flinches.

“Our nightmare is over,” he says, and his hand moves from her shoulder and down toward her breast. “Come to bed, my sweet. Be with me in this hour of triumph.”

“Do not touch me,” she says and roughly pushes his hand aside. “Nothing is changed. Nothing.”

Hrothgar chews impatiently at his lower lip and glances back to their bed. “My kingdom must have an heir. I need a son, Wealthow.” He turns back to her, and Wealthow takes a small step nearer the window. “The terror that haunted us is passed, and it is time to do your duty.”

“My duty?” she scoffs, turning on him and letting the scarf slip through her fingers and fall to the floor between them. “Do not speak to me of duty, my lord. I will not hear it.”

“You are my wife,” Hrothgar begins, but she silences him with the wet glint of her eyes, with a cold smile and an expression of such utter contempt that he looks away again, down at the brightly colored swatch of silk where it has settled on the stone floor.

“You are a wicked old man,” she hisses. “And now that fortune and the deeds of greater men have delivered you from this ordeal, this calamity, you would bed me and have me bear your child?”

Hrothgar walks back to their bed and sits down again, staring at the palms of his hands. “Wealthow, may I not even enjoy this moment, these good tidings after so much sorrow and darkness?”

She turns to the window, setting her back to him.

“You may take whatever joy you can find, my lord, so long as you find it without me.”

“I should never have told you,” he mutters, clenching his fat and wrinkled hands into feeble fists. “It should have ever stayed my secret alone to bear.”

“My Lord Hrothgar is so awfully wise a man,” laughs Wealthow, a sour and derisive laugh. And then there is another, different sort of sound from the direction of Heorot Hall—the heavy pounding of a hammer.

“What are you doing?” asks Wiglaf.

“I would think that’s plain enough for anyone to see, dear Wiglaf,” replies Beowulf, and he goes back to his grisly work. He’s standing atop one of the long mead tables, using a blacksmith’s hammer to nail the monster’s severed arm up high on one of Heorot’s ornately carved columns. An iron spike has been driven through the bones of its wrist, and every time the hammer strikes the spike, it throws orange sparks.

“Fine. Then let me ask you this,” continues Wiglaf. “To what end are you doing it?”

Beowulf pauses and wipes sweat from his face. “They will want proof,” he replies. “And I am giving them proof.”

“Would it not have been proof enough it you’d left it lying on the floor where it fell?”

Beowulf laughs and pounds the nail in deeper. “Are you turning squeamish on me, Wiglaf? You are starting to sound like an old woman.”

“I am only wondering, my lord, if King Hrothgar and Queen Wealthow will be pleased to find you have adorned the walls of their hall with the dismembered claw of that foul creature.”

Beowulf stops hammering and steps back, admiring his handiwork hanging there upon the wooden beam. “I do not find it so unpleasant to look upon. How is it any different from the head of a boar, or the pelt of a bear, or, for that matter, the ivory tusks of a walrus?”

“My lord,” says Wiglaf, exhausted and exasperated. “It is hideous to look upon, so like the arm of a man—”

Beowulf turns and glares down at him from the tabletop. “Wiglaf, you stood against the fiend yourself. It was no man.”

“I did not say it was a man, only that in form it is not unlike the arm of a man.”

Beowulf laughs, then wipes his face again and looks at the hammer in his hand, then back to the arm hanging limply from the beam. “I will have them see what I have done this night. I will have it known to them all, so there can be no mistake. Tonight, heroes fought beneath the eaves of this place…this Heorot…and a great evil was laid low. Four men died—”

“Yes, Beowulf. Four men died,” says Wiglaf, hearing the knife’s edge of indignation in his voice and wishing it were not there. “And still they lie where they fell, because you are too busy with your…your trophy.”