And as time changes men and whittles away at the mountains themselves, so must men, trapped within time, change themselves and the world around them. So, too, have the fortifications begun in the distant days when the great-grandfather of Hrothgar ruled the Danes been changed by the will of King Beowulf. Using stone quarried from open pits along the high sea cliffs, fine new towers and stronger walls have been erected, a bulwark against foreign armies and the elements and anything else that might wish to do the people of this kingdom harm. Where once stood little more than a shabby cluster of thatched huts and muddy footpaths, there now rises a castle keep that might be the envy of any Roman or Byzantine general, that Persian or Arab rulers might look upon and know that the Northmen have also learned something of the arts of warfare and defense, of architecture and the mathematics needed to raise a stronghold to impress even the gods in Ásgard. And on this day, after the battle on the shore and the routing of the Frisians, Beowulf stands alone on the great stone causeway connecting the two turrets of Heorot. A hundred feet below him, in a snow-covered courtyard paved with granite and slate flagstones, Wiglaf is preparing to address the villagers who have begun to gather there.

Beowulf turns away, pulling his furs tighter and turning instead to face the sea, that vast gray-green expanse reaching away to the horizon. The frigid wind bites at any bit of exposed skin, but the bite is clean. After the beach and the things he saw there, the things he said and did and those things that were said and done in his name, he greatly desires to feel clean.

Perhaps, he thinks, this is why so many men are turning from Odin and his brethren to the murdered Roman Christ and the nameless god who is held to be his father. That promise, that they will be made somehow pure and clean again and freed from the weight and consequences of the choices they have made.

Beowulf sighs and leans forward on the roughhewn merion, watching as countless snowflakes swirl lazily down to the waves, where they melt and lose themselves in the heaving sea. He tries hard to recall how it was in the days before he left Geatland and the service of Hygelac and came to Hrothgar’s aid, when he welcomed rather than dreaded the sight of the sea and the thought of all the hidden terrors of that deep.

He hears someone behind him and turns to find Ursula, a young girl he has taken for his mistress, or who has perhaps taken him as her lover. She is exquisite, even to eyes wearied by so much bloodshed and destruction, her fair skin and freckles and her hair like wheat spun into some fine silken thread. She stands, wrapped in the pelt of foxes and bears and silhouetted by the winter sky, and her expression is part concern and part relief.

“My lord?” she asks. “Are you hurt?”

“Not a scratch,” Beowulf replies, and kisses her. “You know, Ursula, when I was young, I thought being king would be about battling every morning, counting the golden loot in the afternoon, and bedding beautiful women every night. And now…well, nothing’s as good as it should have been.”

Ursula gives him half a frown. “Not even the ‘bedding a beautiful woman’ part, my lord?”

Beowulf laughs, trying to summon up an honest laugh for her. “Well, some nights, Ursula. Some nights.”

“Perhaps this night?” she asks hopefully, and tugs at the collar of his robes.

“No,” Beowulf tells her, and he laughs again, but this time it’s a rueful sort of laugh. “Tonight I feel my age upon me. But tomorrow, after the celebration. We can’t forget what tomorrow is, can we now?”

And now Ursula grows very serious. “Your day, my lord,” she says. “When the Saga of Beowulf is told, the tale of how you lifted the darkness from the land. And the day after, we celebrate the birth of Christ Jesus.”

Beowulf smiles for her and wipes hair from her face.

“Christmond,” he says, making no attempt to hide his feelings about this new religion, embraced now by fully half his kingdom, even by his own Queen Wealthow. “Is Yule no longer good enough?”

“Yule is the old way,” Ursula replies. “Christmond is the new way.”

“There is much yet to be said for the old ways, my dear,” Beowulf tells her. And now he hears footsteps, and when he looks up, the king finds Wealthow and a priest coming across the causeway toward them. The priest wears long robes of wool dyed red as blood and a large cross of gilded wood dangles from about his neck. When Wealthow speaks, her voice is as icy as her violet eyes.

“I see that you’ve survived, husband,” she says.

“Alas, my queen,” replies Beowulf, the sarcasm thick in his voice. “The Frisian invaders have been pushed back into the sea from whence they came. And you, my good lady, are not a widow…yet.”

Wealthow smiles, a smile that only looks sweet, and exchanges glances with the priest.

“How comforting, my husband.”

And then, feeling confrontational but having no desire to argue with Wealthow, Beowulf shifts his gaze to the priest. He is a gaunt man beneath his robes, a thin man from some Irish longphort or another, his face the color of goat’s cheese except for the broken veins on his hooked nose and the angry boil nestled in the wrinkles of his protruding chin. Beowulf grins at the priest, and the priest acknowledges him with a curt nod.

“You,” says Beowulf. “Father. I have a question that vexes me terribly. Perhaps you can answer it for me.”

“I can try,” the priest replies nervously, and Wealthow glares at her king.

“Good. Fine. Then tell me this, Father, if your god is now the only god, then what has he done with all the rest, the Æsir and the Vanir? Is he so mighty a warrior that he has bested them one and all, even Odin?”

The priest blinks and bows his head, gazing down at the stones at his feet. “There is but one God,” he says patiently, “and there has never been any other.”

Beowulf moves to stand nearer the priest, who is at least a full head shorter than he. “Then he must be an awfully busy fellow, your god, doing the work of so many. How, for example, does he contend with the giants, keep Loki’s children in check, prepare his troops at Ásgard, and yet still find time each day to dispense so much love and grace and forgiveness upon his people?”

“I will not be mocked, my lord,” the priest says very softly.

“Mocked?” chuckles Beowulf, looking first to Ursula, then to Wealthow and feigning innocence. “I am not trying to mock you, good priest. These questions vex me, truly, and I believed that you must surely know the answers, as you say this unnamed god speaks to you.”

“When you mock Him,” the priest says, “you do so at the risk of your own immortal soul.”

“Well, then, I suppose I must strive to be more careful.”

“Beowulf,” says Wealthow, stepping between the priest and her husband. “Stop it this minute.”

“But I haven’t yet asked him about Ragnarök,” Beowulf protests.

At last, the priest lifts his head and dares to meet Beowulf’s gaze from behind the protective barrier of the queen. “It is a heathen faerie story, this Ragnarök,” and then to Wealthow he adds, “Your husband is an infidel, and I will not be ridiculed—”

“I only asked—” begins Beowulf, but the cold fire in Wealthow’s eyes silences him.

“Forgive him, Father,” she says. “He is a difficult old man and too set in his ways.”

“That’s right,” mumbles Beowulf. “I’m hopeless. Please, do not mind me.” And Beowulf puts an arm tight about Ursula and holds her close to him, but she tries to pull away.

“We will speak later, husband,” Wealthow says.

“Of that I am certain,” Beowulf replies, and Queen Wealthow and the priest turn away and head back across the causeway toward the east tower. The snow is falling harder now, becoming a storm, and soon Beowulf loses sight of them in the mist and swirling snowfall.