Beowulf (8 page)

Beowulf enjoyed the peace he wanted. For forty years the land was happy and undisturbed.
A generation of children grew up who knew no more of violence than picking flowers and tumbling on the sands. Wives were concerned with the snowy produce of the washing tub. Old soldiers—some of them survivors of that brave fourteen who had gone with Beowulf against Grendel—sat with their ale in the evening under golden-budded oaks and fought over battles long-ago. It was a good age to live in, everyone agreed.

Beowulf was now an old man. His beard was white. His back was bent. He was nearly blind. He had done nothing much for forty years but tend his bees. The bees had taught him, he said, to rule wisely. There was order and beauty in the world of bees. He had tried to bring some of that to the world of men.

But there was one person in the land of the Geats who was not happy. He was a slave, and he had been threatened with a beating for doing something wrong. He did not like being beaten, so he ran away. He climbed high into the mountains to hide.

Now, nobody usually ventured into the mountains because long ago one of them had been opened up and used as a burying place for princes. As was the custom, all their treasures had been buried with them—gold and
silver, swords and jeweled cups. People believed that it was best to leave such places alone. The treasure had been given back to the earth, and it would be a sin to steal it.

The slave was desperate. He did not care about any of this. He clambered up over storm-lashed rocks. The place was wild. Huge blocks of stone lay everywhere, piled against the mountainside, threatening to fall, strewn about as though hurled by giants in some dreadful battle. At last he got to the top. This was where the treasure had been buried.

He crept inside a narrow crack in the rock. It was like being inside a demon’s mouth. Teeth tore at him as he wriggled along. They may have been no more than sharp ridges in the walls of the passage, but to the slave, alone and frightened in the dark, they seemed alive and snapping. Something did not welcome his presence here. His scalp prickled. His spine felt like an icicle. But there was no going back.

He came into a natural chamber. The light dazzled his eyes. The chamber was crammed with treasure. On the floor, in the middle of a maze of gold, sat a lizard.

The slave felt panic flooding through his limbs as the lizard’s eyes swiveled to look at him. He grabbed the nearest thing to hand—a
jeweled cup big enough to bathe a baby in—and turned, and squeezed into the flaw in the rock.

There was a fury at his heels. The lizard hissed and swelled. Fire poured from its mouth. It was not a lizard at all. It was the Firedrake, most evil of creatures that haunt the burying places of men!

The slave’s hair caught fire in the blast of flame the Firedrake sent to follow him. He screamed. But he clung on tight to the cup. He had one thought—if he took this prize back to his master, he might escape the whipping. It must be worth a lot.

He struggled out into open air and plunged his head straight into a mountain stream. Then he set off as fast as he could, scrambling down the rocks, the cup clutched to his chest.

The mountain shook with the raging of the Firedrake. Its scaly body swelled and swelled as it got angrier. It had gold eyes and a thrashing tail. Flames came teeming from its mouth, and molten spit, and reeking, scorching smoke. The effect was like a volcano.

Fortunately for the slave, the creature’s swollen state prevented the Firedrake from following him through the fissure in the rock. If this had not been so, the thief would have been roasted alive.

By nightfall the Firedrake managed to cool its temper. It crawled out from its den and stood on top of the mountain. Its gold eyes flared like meteors in the dusk. It was a long time since it had needed to leave the glittering hoard it gloated over. Deep in its tiny brain a coal of evil began to glow. It wanted revenge. It looked down at the lights in the valley, the houses of the peaceful country-folk. They seemed to form the shape of a great jeweled cup. The creature lashed its tail in fury. It spread its wings, and swooped.

Houses, churches, fields of grain, nothing was spared by the Firedrake in its ruinous flight. People woke up to find fire at their windows, and ran from their doors howling warning, only to encounter the same flames everywhere, leaping and lapping, laying the countryside bare. In the morning, when the
Firedrake flapped back to its den, the valley looked like a basin of white ashes. Even the streams had caught fire and burned away.

They brought the slave to Beowulf, and he told his story. When he had finished, and his master had shown the king the stolen cup, some of the lords of the court cried out that the slave should be offered to the Firedrake as a sacrifice.

Beowulf hummed, then said: “No, let him eat honey.”

Most of those present looked curiously at the king, and muttered among themselves, thinking him mad. “He is too old,” said one. “His wits are warped.”

Only Wiglaf, son of Weohstan, had a good word for Beowulf. “By saying the slave should eat honey,” he explained, “he means that we should find a little pity in our hearts for one who was driven by despair to do something he will always regret.”

“All the honey in the world can’t sweeten the bitterness this wretch has brought down upon us,” said one of the old soldiers. “It means the old days are back. War and strife and pestilence, that’s what it means. You’re young, Wiglaf, and you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Wiglaf flushed. “It’s true I’ve had no experience of battle,” he said, “but I’m sure I’d prove as brave as you.”

“Well,” sneered the soldier, “no one ever won a wound by boasting, eh? Young Wiglaf against the Firedrake! That should be a fight worth watching! When are you going to volunteer?”

Wiglaf bit his lip.

Beowulf silenced them all with a wave of his hand. He might be an old man, but he still carried authority. “I will go against the Firedrake,” he said.

Nobody dared to argue.

Beowulf began buckling on his armor. His huge hands shook. Wiglaf had to help him. The young man could not help remarking that Beowulf’s body had shrunken with age. His coat of mail hung lose from his stooping shoulders. But his heart, thought Wiglaf, was as big and brave as it had always been—that would never shrink.

Beowulf said nothing. He hummed to himself. He was thinking of a tale he had heard long ago, in Hrothgar’s court, at the time of the celebrations occasioned by his victory over Grendel: the tale of Sigemund and little Fitela, and how they had outwitted the Fire
Dragon. Patiently he began to form a plan in his mind.

The old warriors murmured together. For all their complaining, they loved Beowulf, and they could not bear the thought of his going alone to what looked like certain death.

A spokesman stepped forward. “Twelve of us,” he said, “want to come with you.”

Beowulf nodded absentmindedly. “Good, good.”

“If swords are any use, then—”

“They aren’t,” said Beowulf.

“Oh.” The soldier was flabbergasted.

“But you can carry the hives,” said Beowulf.

“The—
hives?”

“That’s right.”

Beowulf stood up. “Wiglaf,” he said.

“My lord?”

“You come too.”

They climbed up into the mountains. Beowulf went slowly, leaning on Wiglaf’s shoulder. The other twelve followed behind, each man struggling with one of the enormous hives on his back. Wiglaf, on Beowulf’s instructions, carried a newly cut stake, about six feet long, and a glove that would have fitted a giant.
None of the others knew what these were for, and they all thought privately that Beowulf had gone quite mad in having them venture, thus equipped, against a monster that could breathe fire. Beowulf said nothing by way of explanation. He chuckled as he told Wiglaf the story of Sigemund and Fitela. He said: “They used their wits, you see. If you can’t beat evil by strength alone, then a little cunning is called for.”

Wiglaf told his king how black the burnt-out valley looked below. Beowulf nodded sadly. “No one can bring back the living who were lost,” he said, “yet some good can be plucked from the worst disaster. The Firedrake will pay for what it has done—not only with its life, but with the gold it keeps watch over. What good does gold do, buried in the earth? When we have killed the creature, we will use that treasure to build again each dwelling that is gone.”

An eagle drifted high overhead. Young Wiglaf looked from the eagle to his master, and back again. Beowulf was bent and breathless. The eagle was king of the air. Yet, thought Wiglaf, there was not so much difference between them.

Beowulf halted his men when they came to the crack that led to the Firedrake’s den. He had them set the hives down in the entrance. Then he sat for a while, muttering to the bees in each hive. No one could make out what he said. It sounded like nonsense.

At last, just as the sinking sun came level with the crags behind them, he motioned for Wiglaf to go forward.

The lad, acquainted with his master’s plan, slipped into the crack. He carried the white stake in his left hand. In his right hand, and very carefully, as though it contained something infinitely precious, he carried the giant glove.

The others were too puzzled to protest. They noticed that the bees in each hive buzzed busily as Wiglaf wriggled past them.
Beowulf stooped and murmured soothingly and the noise subsided.

Onee inside the narrow passageway, Wiglaf moved on tiptoe, deftly. He was a small person, slim and agile, which was partly why Beowulf had chosen him for the job. When he came to the bright treasure-chamber he skipped into it like a shadow. As it happened, the Firedrake was asleep—worn out by its night’s havoc—and did not see him hide himself amid the gold.

Beowulf was watching the sun. When he judged that enough time had elapsed for Wiglaf to have performed the first part of the plan successfully, he crept into the crack himself. He set his horn to his lips and blew a loud, rude blast.

“Halloo,” he cried. “Halloo, old fire-belcher! I am Beowulf, come to quench you!”

The Firedrake’s golden eyes snapped open. It could not believe that anyone would be so foolhardy as to shout at it inside the mountain.

Beowulf sounded another mocking note on his horn. “Ho, you, old smoky-guts! Where are you hiding?”

The Firedrake hissed with rage. No one had ever spoken to it like this before. Its tail began
to flog the rock. Its body started to swell in the usual way.

Peeping from his hiding-place, little Wiglaf waited anxiously for the right moment. He could hear the grumbling fire beginning in the creature’s belly. Smoke was whistling from its nostrils. It was getting bigger every moment. Wiglaf crouched, ready to pounce.

“Call yourself a dragon?” shouted Beowulf. “You look more like a glowworm!”

The Firedrake had reached full size. When it heard this final insult, it swallowed hard in its fury.

Wiglaf seized his chance. He leapt.

Quick as lightning he thrust the big stake into the Firedrake’s jaws, jamming them open even as the creature gaped wide to let loose the first foul gust of flame. The golden eyes glared at this new surprise. The barbed tail thrashed and twisted to be at him. But Wiglaf dodged, danced, flitted out of range. And as he went he threw the giant glove into the open mouth.

The Firedrake coughed. A hail of cinders flew out. For a terrible moment Wiglaf thought the glove had come out too—but, no, it was still there, caught on a tooth that looked like a scythe.

As Wiglaf watched, the glove flapped and bulged.

Beowulf made a high-pitched buzzing sound.

The Firedrake took a deep breath …

…and swallowed a big Queen Bee that emerged from the glove as if in answer to Beowulf’s call!

“They follow the Queen Bee
anywhere
!” This, whispered to Wiglaf on the way up the mountain, was the essence of Beowulf’s plan. Now, in response to another noise he made, sawing at his lips with his square-tipped fingers, all the twelve hives came alive. The bees poured out, a singing angry stream, orange, brown, black, yellow. They buzzed into the crack in the mountain.

They whirled past Beowulf. And on into the brightness of the treasure-chamber.

The Firedrake saw them coming. Its gold eyes bulged with fright. It tried to shut its mouth, but the stake between its jaws prevented this.

The bees poured down the monster’s throat like a stream of honey, in pursuit of their queen. But when they reached the Firedrake’s stomach their effect was like no honey in the world.

They began to sting!

Hundreds of bees, stinging it from the inside!

The Firedrake roared with pain and fury.

It tried to spit out bees. But there were too many.

It tried to spew up fire. But its own insides were burning.

Little Wiglaf danced with glee.

But Beowulf had collapsed in the entrance to the treasure-chamber. His armor came undone. It was all too big and heavy for him.

Some men said, long afterward, that Beowulf was killed by the burning breath of the Firedrake. But, in truth, the monster managed only the merest tiny little cough of smoke before turning over on its side and giving up the ghost. Beowulf’s bees had stung it to death.

Wiglaf knelt by his master’s side.

Beowulf chuckled. “A pretty trick,” he said. “Listen, Wiglaf. When I was young I’d never have done a thing like that. I’d have thought it was dishonorable, or something. Well, the dragon lies dead, and the treasure is there for the good of our people. Who was right? Old Beowulf, or young Beowulf?”

Wiglaf said, “Both.”

Beowulf was quiet for a while. His eyes
seemed to overflow with the dazzling light off the treasure, and tears ran down his cheeks.

“A pity about the bees,” he said at last. “I loved them.”

“They died well, master,” Wiglaf said. Then he began to laugh. He could not help or stop himself. “What a trick!” he cried. “Who ever would have thought of it!”