He broke from my hold and made a dash for the door. And yet, I will have you know, what a dear price did cruel Grendel pay for his flight…

Wiglaf scratches the pony’s shaggy, matted mane, and it shifts uneasily from foot to foot.

“Will their wives and children be comforted with thoughts of valiant deaths and glorious Ásgard?” asks Wiglaf, turning away from the fire and looking toward the open doors of the horned hall. The pony snorts loudly. “I wasn’t asking you,” says Wiglaf, and he goes back to watching the fire. Hrothgar has promised that the ashes will be buried out along the King’s Road and marked by a tall menhir, with runes to tell how they fell in battle against the fiend Grendel.

“Perhaps that will comfort the grieving widows?” he sighs. “To know their husbands lie in fine graves so far across the sea.”

…but I would prefer that you might all have been here, you who have suffered his vile depredations, to see for yourselves the brute in the moment of his defeat.

“He’s right, you know,” Wiglaf tells the pony, leaning forward and whispering in one of its twitching ears. “I am beginning to sound like an old woman.” But then he sits up and glances once more toward Heorot and Beowulf’s booming voice. “Be merciful, good Beowulf, and do not talk us straightaway into yet more glory. I would have mine in some other season.”

The fire crackles and pops as the charred logs shift and crumble, sending another swirl of glowing brands skyward. And Wiglaf digs his heels into the pony’s flanks, tightens his grip on the reins, and gallops away toward the stockade gates and the bridge beyond.

Long hours pass, and the chariot of Sól rolls once again into the west. The gray day dims, and after nightfall the clouds break apart at last to let the moon and stars shine coldly down upon the land. Inside the mead hall of King Hrothgar, his people and the Geats celebrate Beowulf’s victory. After so many months of terror, Heorot is awash in the joyful noise and revelry of those who believe they have no just cause to fear the dark. Though damaged by the battle, the hall is fit enough for merrymaking; there will be time later to repair shattered timbers and smashed tables. This is why the hall was built, Hrothgar’s gift to his kingdom, that men might drink and feast and fuck and forget the hardships of their lives, the cold breath of winter, the nearness of the grave.

Beowulf sits alone on the king’s throne dais, drinking cup after cup of the king’s potent mead and admiring the beautiful golden horn taken long ago from the hoard of the dragon Fafnir. It is his now, his hard-earned reward for a job no other man could do, and it gleams brightly by the flickering light of the fire pit. From time to time, he looks up, gazing contentedly about the hall for familiar faces. His men are all enjoying rewards of their own, as well they should. But he does not see Lord Hrothgar anywhere and thinks that the old man has probably been carried away to bed by now, either to sleep off his drunkenness or to busy himself with some maiden who is not his wife. Nor does he see the king’s herald, Wulfgar, nor Unferth Kinslayer, nor Queen Wealthow. It would be easy enough to imagine himself crowned lord of this hall, a fit king to rule the Danes instead of a fat old man, too sick and more concerned with farm girls and mead than the welfare of his homeland.

The air in the hall has grown smoky and thick with too many odors, and so Beowulf takes the golden horn and leaves the dais, moving as quickly as he may through the crowd. He is waylaid many times by men who want to grasp the hand of the warrior who killed the monster, or by women who want to thank him for the salvation of their homes. But he comes, eventually, to a short passageway leading out onto a balcony overlooking the sea.

“You are not celebrating?” asks Wealthow, standing there with the moonlight spilling down upon her pale skin and golden hair. She is swaddled against the freezing wind in a heavy coat sewn from seal and bear pelts, and he is surprised to find her unescorted.

Beowulf glances down at the golden horn, and he might almost believe that the moonlight has worked some sorcery upon it, for it seems even more radiant than before. He stares at it a moment, then looks back up at Wealthow.

“I’ll never let it go,” he says, and raises the horn to her. “I’ll die with this cup of yours at my side.”

“It is nothing of mine,” she replies. “It never was. That was only ever some gaudy bauble of my husband’s pride. He murdered a dragon for it, they say.”

Beowulf lowers the horn, feeling suddenly uncomfortable and oddly foolish. His fingers slide lovingly about its cold, glimmering curves. “My lady does not hold with the murder of dragons?” he asks the queen.

“I didn’t say that,” she replies. “Though one might wonder if perhaps a live dragon is worth something more than the self-importance of the son of Healfdene.”

“Men must seek their glory,” Beowulf says, trying to recall the authority and assurance with which he addressed the hall only a few hours before. “They must ever strive to find their way to Ásgard…and protect the lives and honor of those they cherish.”

“I admit, it has always seemed an unjust arrangement to me,” the queen says, and moves nearer the edge of the balcony. Below them the sea pounds itself against sand and shingle, the whitecaps tumbling in the moonlight.

“My lady?” asks Beowulf, uncertain what she means.

“That a man—like my husband—may in his youth slay a fearsome dragon, which most would count a glorious deed. Even the gods, I should think. And yet, if he is unlucky and survives that encounter, he may yet grow old and feeble and die in his bed. So—dragon or no—the bravest man may find himself before the gates of Hel. Or, in your own case, Lord Beowulf…” And here she trails off, shivering and hugging herself against the chill, staring down at the sea far below.

Beowulf waits a moment, then asks, “In my own case?”

She turns and looks at him, and at first her eyes seem distant and lost, like the eyes of a sleeper awakened from some frightful dream.

“Well,” she says. “You are alive, though by your bravery Grendel is slain. You are not in Valhalla with your fallen warriors. You have, instead, what? A golden horn?”

“Perhaps I will find my luck, as you name it, on some other battlefield,” Beowulf tells her, then glances back down at the horn. “And it is a fine and wondrous thing, this gaudy bauble of your husband’s pride.”

Wealthow takes a deep breath. “Nothing that is gold ever stays long. Is that all you wanted, Beowulf? A drinking horn that once belong to a worm? Would you have none of my husbands other treasures?”

And now he looks her directly in the eyes, those violet eyes that might seem almost as icy as the whale’s-road on a long winter’s night, as icy and as beautiful.

“My lord Hrothgar,” he says, “has declared I shall not now want for anything.” And he moves across the balcony to stand nearer to Wealthow. “I recall nothing he held exempt from that decree. Steal away from your husband. Come to me.”

Wealthow smiles and laughs softly, a gentle sound almost lost beneath the noise of the wind and the breakers.

“I wonder,” she says, “if my husband even begins to guess what thing he has let into his house? First driven by greed…now by lust,” and she turns away from the sea to face Beowulf. “You may indeed be most beautiful, Lord Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, and you may be brave, but I fear you have the heart of a monster.” And then she smiles and kisses him lightly on the cheek. Their eyes meet again, briefly, and her bright gaze seems to rob him of words, and Beowulf’s still searching for some reply after she’s departed the balcony and returned once more to the noisy mead hall, and he’s standing alone in the moonlight.