“She frightens me,” says Ursula. “One day, she will kill me, I think.”

Beowulf laughs and hugs her again. “Nay, my pretty little thing. She will not touch a hair upon your head. Wealthow, she has her new Roman god now, so what need has she of an old warhorse like me? Do not fear her. She is all thunder and no lightning, if you catch my meaning.”

“We should get inside, my lord,” Ursula says, sounding no less worried for Beowulf’s reassurances. “I do not like this wind.” Beowulf does not argue, because the wind is cold and his need to wrangle words has been spent on the priest. He kisses Ursula atop her head.

“Indeed. It shall blow us all away,” he laughs. “It shall grab us up and blow us to the ends of the earth.”

“Yes, my lord,” she says, and then she takes Beowulf’s hand and leads her king along the causeway high above Heorot and into the sanctuary and comparative warmth of the western tower.

The storm ended sometime before dawn, and morning finds a glittering mantle of fresh snow laid thick over the rooftops and streets and courtyards of the keep. The giant eagle Hræsvelg, squatting high atop his perch in the uppermost limbs of Yggdrasil, beats mighty wings, and a vicious north wind howls across the world, whistling between the towers and moaning beneath the eaves. And Wiglaf, remembering the days when winter did not make his bones ache and his muscles stiffen, trudges through the deep snow to the granite platform where he delivers the king’s decrees and news of battle and other such important proclamations. He stands there in the shadow of the two great turrets, and his breath comes out like mouthfuls of smoke. Already, a large number of people have gathered about the plinth, awaiting his announcement. He acknowledges them with a nod, their pink cheeks and red noses, then slowly climbs the four steps leading up onto the platform. They are slick with ice and snow, and Wiglaf does not wish to spend the rest of his days crippled by broken bones his body has grown too old to heal properly or completely. He stands with his back to the towers and clears his throat, spits, then clears his throat again, wishing he were back inside, sitting comfortably before a roaring fire and awaiting his breakfast.

“On this day,” says Wiglaf, speaking loudly enough that all may hear him, “in honor of our glorious Lord of Heorot, let us tell the saga of King Beowulf.” He pauses to get his breath and spit again, then continues. “How he so fearlessly slew the murderous demon Grendel and the demon’s hag mother.”

And the wind from under Hræsvelg’s wings lifts Wiglaf’s words and carries them out beyond the inner fortifications and the confines of the keep, to echo through the village and off the walls of the horned hall. Those who hear stop to listen—men busy with ponies, women busy with their stewpots and baking, children making a game of the snow.

“Let his deeds of valor inspire us all. On this day, let fires be lit and the sagas told, tales of the gods and of giants, of warriors who have fallen in battle and who now ride the fields of Idavoll.”

And near the outermost wall of Beowulf’s stronghold, at the edges of the village, stands the house of Unferth, son of Ecglaf, who once served Hrothgar, son of Healfdene, in the days when the horned hall was new and monsters stalked the land. The house a sturdy and imposing manor, fashioned of stone and from timber hauled here from the forest beyond the moors. The steeple at the front of its pitched roof has lately been decorated with an enormous cross, the symbol of Christ Jesus, for lately has Lord Unferth forsaken the old ways for the new religion. And even this far out, Wiglaf’s words are still audible.

“I declare this day to be Beowulf’s Day!” he shouts, delivering the last two words with all the force and enthusiasm he can muster, before a coughing fit takes him.

Unferth stands shivering in the shade cast by the cross on his roof, and a little farther along, his son, Guthric and his son’s wife and Unferth’s six grandchildren wait impatiently in the sleigh, which has not yet been hitched to the ponies that will pull it through the village to the keep. The long years have not been even half so kind to Unferth as to Wiglaf and Beowulf, and he is stoop-shouldered and crooked, bracing himself on a staff of carved oak. He glares toward the towers and the sound of Wiglaf’s voice, then back at the sleigh and his family.

“Where the hell is that fool with the horses?” he calls out to Guthric. Then he turns and shouts in the direction of his stables, “Cain? Hurry it up!”

It has begun to snow again.

In the sleigh, Guthric—who might easily pass in both appearance and demeanor for his father in Unferth’s younger days—fiddles restlessly with the large cross hung about his neck. He looks at his wife and frowns.

“Beowulf Day,” he mutters. “Bloody, stupid old fool’s day, more like. He’s as senile as Father.”

Lady Guthric hugs herself and glances at the ominous sky. “He is the king,” she reminds her husband.

“Then he is the senile king.”

“The snow’s starting again,” frets Lady Guthric, wishing her husband would not speak so about Lord Beowulf, whether or not she might agree. She fears what might happen if the king were to learn of Guthric’s opinions of him, and she also fears that the storm is not yet over.

“Wife,” says Guthric, “do you know how bloody sick I am of hearing about bloody Grendel and bloody Grendel’s bloody mother?”

“I should,” she says, “for you have told me now a thousand times, at least.”

“What the hell was Grendel, anyway? Some kind of giant dog or something?”

“I’m sure I could not tell you, dear,” she replies, then tells the oldest of the children to settle down and stop picking on the others.

“And what the bloody hell was Grendel’s mother supposed to be? She doesn’t even have a bloody name!”

“I believe she was a demon of some sort,” his wife says, and looks worriedly at the sky again.

“A demon? You’d have me believe that broken-down old Geat bastard slew a goddamned bloody demon?”

“Guthric, you must learn not to blaspheme…at least not in front of the children.”

“A demon, my ass,” grumbles Guthric, watching his father now. “A toothless old bear, maybe. Or—”

“Can we just go?” his wife asks wearily, and dusts snow from her furs.

And now Unferth approaches the sleigh, shouting as loudly as he still may. “Cain! Cain, where are you!”

Guthric stands up, and, cupping his hands about his mouth, takes up his father’s cry. “Cain!” he yells, with much more vigor than the old man. “Where the bloody Christ are you?”

And Unferth strikes him with his walking stick, catching him hard on the rump, and Unferth immediately sits down again beside Guthric’s wife.

“Don’t you dare blaspheme in my presence!” growls Unferth, brandishing the stick as if he means to land a second blow, this time across his son’s skull. “I will not have you speak of the One True God, father of Our Lord Jesus, in such a manner!”

Guthric flinches and looks to his wife for support or defense against the old man’s wrath, but she ignores him, an expression of self-righteous vindication on her round pink face.

“You will learn,” Unferth tells the cowering Guthric, and his six grandchildren watch wide-eyed and eager, wondering just how bad a thrashing their father’s going to get this time.

There’s a sudden commotion, then, from the direction of the village gates, and Unferth turns away from the sleigh and his insolent, impious son to find two of his house guards approaching, dragging Cain roughly through the snow and frozen mud. One of the guards raises his free hand and jabs a finger at the slave—filthy and bedraggled, clothed only in a tattered hemp tunic and a wool blanket, rags wrapped tightly about his hands and feet to stave off frostbite.