Beowulf by Rosemary Sutcliff Page A

once roused, the Night Stalker does not sleep again, but comes back and back and back; and to this day after the dark comes down Heorot is a place forsaken and accursed.’

    â€˜But can Hrothgar find no champions in all Denmark strong enough to rid him of this horror?’
    The Sea Captain shook his head. ‘At first there were plenty bold enough to spend the night in Hrothgar’s hall—especially when the mead was in them. But in the morning nothing was ever left of them save the blood splashed on the floor. And so the time came long since when no more champions could be found.’
    â€˜And still he comes, this monster, even though the hall is empty?’
    â€˜Perhaps he hopes always for the time when some man sleeps again in Heorot the Hart. Still he comes; and every morning the mirey footprints and the salt-marsh smell are left to tell where Grendel prowled among the mead benches in the last night’s dark. And Hrothgar the King grows old in sorrow, and in the hope—but he can have little hope left him now—that one day Wyrd who weaves the fates of men may send him a champion strong enough to free him and his people from the Death-Shadow that fills their nights with horror.’
    Among the thanes crowding the long benches, one leaned forward, his arms across his knees and his eyes levelled on the Sea Captain’s face, as though the dark tale struck closer home to him than to the rest. A young man, fair-headed and grey-eyed as most of his fellows were, but taller than they by half a head, and with strength that could out-wrestle the great Northern bear showing in the quiet muscles of his neck and shoulders. He sat in a place that was not particularly high, nor yet particularly lowly; indeed he was one who seldom cared about his rightful place unless another man thought to deny it to him. Yet there was something in his face and his whole bearing that would have marked him for what he was, even to the passing glance of a stranger. For this was Beowulf, sister’s-son to the King and foremost among his warriors.
    To the other men in Hygelac’s hall that night the seafarer’s story had been no more than a far-off tale, though one to raise the neck-hair and set one glancing into the shadows; but to Beowulf it was word of a friend in dire trouble, and an old debt waiting to be paid.
    Long since, before Beowulf was born, Ecgtheow his father had killed one of the powerful tribe of the Wylfings; and, like many another man who had become embroiled in a blood feud, he had taken to the wild life of a sea-rover, carrying off his young wife to share it with him. Storm-driven, they had come to the court of Hrothgar, and there, through the years that followed, the young rover had found such a friend in the Danish King as few men find in their need. Ecgtheow was dead now, but his son, born at the Danish court, had not forgotten. Besides, he himself knew well the life of a sea-rover, and the longing for adventure that was in his blood had been stirring in him these past weeks, as it did every year when the thaw came and the birch buds thickened. He thought of his long war-boat, freshly caulked and painted after the storms of last year, waiting for him in the boat shed as a mare waits for her rider; and he took his gaze from the Sea Captain’s face and glanced about him at the faces of his companions, his shoulder-to-shoulder men who had taken the seaways with him in other summers.
    And out of the shadows and the firelight and the flare of the torches, Waegmund his kinsman and young Hondscio and Scaef and the rest looked back at him with brightening eyes, once more a brotherhood and a war-boat’s crew.
    Then Beowulf got to his feet, and strode up the hall to stand before the High Seat where Hygelac sat with his small son against his knee. ‘My lord Hygelac, I ask your leave to go on a sea-faring.’
    Hygelac looked at his young kinsman keenly. ‘Maybe I will give you leave to