“This is as far as I go,” he says. “I must return to the cliffs. The sea cannot be left unguarded. This stone path is the king’s road.” He smiles then, and adds, “It was built in better times. Follow it to Heorot, where my lord awaits.”

Beowulf nods. “I thank you for your aid,” he says.

“Geat, you should know that our monster is fast and strong.”

“I, too, am fast and strong,” Beowulf tells him.

“Yes, well, so were the others who came to fight it. And they’re all dead. All of them. I thought no more heroes remained who were foolhardy enough to come here and die for our gold.”

Beowulf looks over his shoulder at Wiglaf, then back to the watch. “If we die, then it shall be for glory, not for gold.”

With that, the watch gives his horse a kick and gallops quickly past the Geats, heading back the way they’ve just come, toward his dreary camp above the sea. But then he stops, and calls out to Beowulf, “The creature took my brother. Kill the bastard for me.”

“Your brother will be avenged,” Beowulf calls back. “I swear it.”

And then the Scylding watch turns and rides away, his horse’s iron-shod hooves clopping loudly against the cobblestones, and Beowulf leads his men across the bridge.

This day is the color of the grave, King Hrothgar thinks, gazing miserably out at the angry sea and imagining Hel’s gray robes, the flat gray gleam of her eyes that awaits every man who does not die in battle or by some other brave deed, every man who allows himself to grow weak and waste away in stone towers. For even brave men who slay dragons in their youth may yet die old men and so find themselves guests in Éljudnir, Hel’s rain-damp hall. Behind him, Unferth sits at a table, absorbed in the task of counting gold coins and other pieces of treasure. And Hrothgar wonders which shadowy corner of Niflheim has been prepared for both of them. He has begun to see Hel’s gates in his dreams, nightmares in which he hunts down and faces the monster Grendel time again and time again, but always the fiend refuses to fight him, refusing him even the kindness of a hero’s death.

These cheerless thoughts are interrupted by footsteps and the sound of Wulfgar’s voice, and the king turns away from the window.

“My lord,” Wulfgar says. “There are warriors outside. Geats. For certain, they are no beggars—and their leader, Beowulf, is a—”

“Beowulf?” Hrothgar asks, interrupting his herald. “Ecgtheow’s little boy?”

At the sound of Beowulf’s name, Unferth stops counting the gold coins and glances up at Wulfgar.

“Well, surely not a boy any longer,” Hrothgar continues, hardly believing what he’s heard. “But I knew him when he was a boy. Already strong as a grown man he was, back then. Yes! Beowulf is here! Send him to me! Bring him in, Wulfgar!”

Beowulf and his men wait together, only a little distance inside the gates of Hrothgar’s stockade. None of them have yet dismounted, as Beowulf has not yet bidden them to do so, and their ponies restlessly stamp their hooves in a gummy mire of mud and hay, manure and human filth. The thanes are at least as restless as their mounts, and they watch uneasily as villagers begin to gather around and whisper to one another and gawk at these strange men from the east, these warriors come among them from Geatland far across the sea.

“It may be, Beowulf,” says Wiglaf, “that they really don’t want us to kill their monster.”

The thane to Wiglaf’s left is named Hondshew, an ugly brute of a man almost as imposing as Beowulf himself. Hondshew wears an enormous broadsword sheathed and slung across his wide back—a weapon he’s claimed, in less sober moments, to have stolen from a giant whom he found sleeping in the Tivenden woods. Only, sometimes he says it was a giant, and other times it was merely a troll, and still other times, it was only a drunken Swede.

“Or,” says Hondshew, “perhaps this is what serves as hospitality among these Danes.” Then he notices a beautiful young woman standing close by, eating a piece of ripe red fruit. She’s watching him, too, and when next she bites through the skin of the fruit, purplish nectar runs down her chin and disappears between her ample breasts. The woman, whose name is Yrsa, smiles up at Hondshew.

“Then again,” he says, returning Yrsa’s smile and showing off his wide, uneven teeth, “possibly we should find our own hospitality among these poor, beleaguered people.” Hondshew licks his lips, and Yrsa takes another bite of the fruit, spilling still more juice.

And then the king’s herald arrives, riding up on a large gray mare, accompanied by two of Hrothgar’s guard who have followed behind on foot. The herald silently eyes Beowulf and the thanes for a moment, then clears his throat, and says “Hrothgar, Master of Battles, Lord of the North Danes, bids me say that he knows you, Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow. He knows your ancestry and bids you welcome. You, and your men, will follow me. You may keep your helmets and your armor, but your shields and weapons will remain here until further notice.”

Wiglaf glances apprehensively at Beowulf.

“I assure you, they won’t be disturbed,” says Wulfgar.

Beowulf turns and surveys his fourteen men, catching the wariness in their tired faces, their many hands hovering uncertainly above the hilts of their swords. Then he tosses his own spear to one of the guards standing alongside Wulfgar’s gray mare.

“We are here as guests of King Hrothgar,” he says, staring now directly into the herald’s eyes. “He is our host, even as we seek to serve him, and we will not be disagreeable guests.” And then Beowulf pulls a dagger from his belt and hands it over to Wulfgar, and then his sword, as well. “Let it not be said by the Danes that there is no trust to be found among the warriors of Lord Hygelac.”

Reluctantly, Beowulf’s thanes follow suit, turning their many weapons over to the two royal guards who have accompanied Wulfgar to the gate. Last of all, Hondshew draws his enormous broadsword and drops it to the ground, where the blade buries itself deeply in the muck.

“My, that’s a big one you’ve got there, outlander,” Yrsa smiles and takes another bite of fruit.

“That little thing?” replies Hondshew. “That’s only my spare. Maybe later, when we’ve sorted out our business with this fiend of yours—”

“Hondshew,” Beowulf says firmly, still watching Wulfgar. “Have you already forgotten why we’re here?”

“Didn’t I say after the fiend is slain?”

Yrsa watches and says not another word to Beowulf’s thane. But with a pinkie finger, she wipes a smear of nectar from her left breast and slowly licks it from her finger.

“Woman!” Wiglaf snaps at Yrsa. “Have you naught else to be doing this day but teasing men who’ve not seen womanflesh for many trying days and nights?”

“Come, Wiglaf,” says Beowulf, and together they follow Wulfgar through the narrow, smoky streets and up to Hrothgar’s mead hall.

By the time they reach the steps of Heorot Hall, most of King Hrothgar’s court has gathered there. Overhead, there are a few ragged gaps in the clouds and cold sunlight leaks down and falls upon the queen and her maids, on the assembly of guards and courtiers. The stone steps are dark and damp from the rain, and there are small puddles here and there, twinkling weakly in the day. Beowulf and his thanes have left their ponies behind and stand at the foot of the steps, staring up at the barred and shuttered mead hall that has brought them here.

“Beowulf!” bellows King Hrothgar, as he staggers and weaves his way down the steps to embrace the Geat. “How is your father? How is Ecgtheow?”

“He died in battle with sea-raiders,” Beowulf replies. “Two winters back.”

“Ahhhh, but he was a brave man. He sits now at Odin’s table. Need I ask why you’ve come to us?”