Beowulf is Back



  Beowulf is Back

  Will Shand

  Copyright Will Shand 2014

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  Chapter One

  In which Roscow reflects upon the series of misfortunes and setbacks that have driven him, together with Beowulf and Gareth (the former Royal Dog) into hiding in the mountains. He bewails the lot of those who are born to serve and finally reveals absolutely no prophetic genius whatsoever.

  Roscow hunched his shoulders, sighed audibly and waited. Predictably, no response came and so he set off to follow Beowulf and Gareth up the steep, narrow, snow covered path. ‘Path’ was probably not the first word Roscow would have chosen to describe the narrow, treacherous route that rose precipitously up and around the snow covered crags, high above the tree lined valley. ‘Goat track’ seemed more accurate, or perhaps ‘perilously thin ledge overhanging a humongous drop’; but, as he felt his feet sliding in the thick, deep, new fallen snow he decided that ‘death trap’ did the job quite nicely. He steadied himself. Things could be worse.

  In fact, things had been worse, but not by much. It had seemed a very good idea to fall in with Beowulf, when they had first met, seemingly so long ago now, back in the university town of Wittenberg where they were both students. It was clear that this charismatic genius was going to ‘make something of himself’, or as Beowulf himself had immodestly put it, ‘dominate the civilised world.’ Beowulf was obviously a natural leader and Roscow had been only to willing to follow. It had seemed an especially good idea to go with him to King Lars’ Land; where Beowulf had assured him that they would take over The Biggest Beer Hall Ever Built and with it the whole country. Their aspiration had been to live like Kings for ever. That had not worked out so well in practice. It was true that Beowulf had tricked The Troll, The King, The Queen and even Bjorn the Banker; all of whom he had managed to kill or have killed; and he had seized the hall. He had even managed to have himself legally crowned; but, and this was a large ‘but’, The Biggest Beer Hall Ever had been burned to the ground and entirely destroyed immediately after the coronation, (it actually caught fire during the ceremony) by a grief crazed and vengeful Mother Troll. She had continued to pursue Beowulf and Roscow afterwards, hell bent on revenge. They had been forced to flee the kingdom and come south. That was bad, but, that was not the only ‘but’.

  The late Queen had been one of the daughters of the nearly all-powerful Duke of Jutland; and although the Duke was not attached to his children in any kind of a personal or caring sense; being in fact wholly indifferent to all his offspring, apart from those he actively disliked; he was devotedly attached to the concept of property, especially his property – and, to him, his children were his property; they were his chips on the gaming board of his life. They were there to do his bidding and contribute to his plans, adding to his glory. He was therefore greatly and predictably displeased that Beowulf had carelessly discarded one of his pawns; and, although he was possibly also the father of Beowulf (this has never been properly established), he was rumoured to be murderously intent on violent retribution. The several attacks by assassins in the towns of northern Germany, where Beowulf and Roscow had first gone into hiding after the Beer Hall fiasco, had convinced Roscow that this was not merely a rumour. For corroboration; the hand written note (in the Duke’s fine gothic hand) that they had pulled from the pocket of the crossbowman in the Cathedral at Grunewald (after they had dodged his bolt and rendered him unconscious) really put the matter beyond doubt. They were being hunted, not just by a massive, maddened, menopausal, matriarchal monster; but by an unknown quantity of unnamed, well armed, well paid, serious, professional killers. They had immediately and responsibly fled further south, towards their friends at the University of Wittenberg, where Beowulf and Roscow had lived and studied during their younger years.

  It was difficult to imagine that things could have got worse there among the ivy clad towers of academia; but they had. Instead of the hospitable, scholastic welcome they had envisaged, they had been met at the gates by a dour and stern delegation from the University, who abjectly and adamantly, denied them access to the town. They also refused to give them any aid of either food or money. They had then kindly informed the careworn duo that they were doing all that they could to help by not immediately clapping them in irons and sticking them in a dungeon until the Duke’s henchmen turned up to drag them away to some lingering, painful and probably well-deserved death. They were also pleased to explain that, not only were they being sought (in the most unpleasant of unpleasant ways) by the Duke; they were also persona non grata with His Holiness the Pope. His Spiritual Magnificence Pope Ludo the First had declared (‘somewhat arbitrarily’, as Beowulf later commented) that Beowulf was ‘a very devil come to earth’ and had, as a result of this conclusion issued an order to ‘apprehend and immolate that accursed fiend Beowulf, and all those who lend aid or succour to his vile and reprobate purpose.’

  This had come as something of a well-phrased surprise. Roscow and Beowulf could think of a number of things from the past that might have caused such an irate response from the Holy See (such as the faking and sale of Holy Relics, the impersonation of Saints, helping the heretics, rewriting certain parts of Holy Writ and mocking the Archbishop of Verona) but they had been fairly sure that these and other things had not been discovered: or at least if discovered, they had not been prioritised for retributive action (nobody, not even the Pope himself, cared about the Archbishop of Verona; everybody mocked him) . It was anxiety about which of their many possible misdeeds that the papacy had sunk its sacred teeth into that led Beowulf to try and question that Arch Chancellor of the Faculty of Philosophical Thought (of which Beowulf was a former student) further.

  Arch Chancellor Mettelink could never have been described as a man of few words. Men do not become Arch Chancellors of the Faculty of Philosophical Thought at a prestigious and ancient academic institution, such as the University of Wittenberg if they are in any way encumbered by the burden of shyness. They are rarely, if ever, tongue tied and never ‘lost for words.’ They are immoderately and immodestly verbose and they possess circumspection to the same degree that bankers are infused with open handed generosity and black widow spiders possess matrimonial tenderness; so the Arch Chancellor’s answer to Beowulf’s simple enquiry, ‘What does he think I’ve done?’ was unusual both in its simplicity and in its dearth of information, but where it was most exceptional was in its brevity.

  ‘Can’t say,’ said the Arch Chancellor.

  Beowulf looked at him in stunned disbelief.

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence as the Arch Chancellor looked shiftily at the other faculty members who had gathered at the gates. They looked back at him with a pantomime of shared anguish to show solidarity with their beleaguered leader, while feeling a momentary thrill of gratification knowing that he, the man in charge, was now under the gun. They each took a small, yet certain, step away from the brewing conflict. Beowulf glared furiously at the Arch Chancellor, whose substantial figure wobbled. The faculty members shuffled an extra step backwards, just to be sure; and Arch Chancellor Mettelink suddenly felt himself very alone.

  ‘You can’t say?’

  The Arch Chancellor considered his options. He wished he had bought some of the University guards with him. Some of the meaner ones with the heavy plate armour, the pl
umed helmets and most importantly, the pikes.

  ‘That is correct. I mean that you have correctly surmised my response-’

  ‘You can’t say,’ Beowulf continued, in a tome that was unhappily familiar to all the alumni of the Faculty of Philosophical Thought,

  ‘You can’t say, because, perchance, you can’t speak? But you can clearly speak, you are speaking now. We have spoken. Your speaking equipment seems to be anatomically correct and functioning. So it can’t be that you can’t say because you can’t speak. It must be something else.’

  Beowulf paused to allow the Arch Chancellor to contradict him if he dared. He didn’t.

  ‘Could it be that you “can’t say” because you can’t phrase your thoughts? Are you unable to express your ideas in words? That seems unlikely giving due respect to your profession and reputation.’

  Beowulf stopped abruptly.

  ‘Are you suffering from a mental impairment?’ he demanded, jabbing his finger at the Arch Chancellor.

  ‘No!’ replied the flustered academic, ‘of course not!’

  ‘Blow to the head? Amnesia? Headaches? Plague? All these things can have that effect.’

  ‘I am not mentally impaired!’ Arch Chancellor Mettelink furiously denied this slurring of his mental acuity.

  ‘Senility?’ Beowulf queried gently, ‘You are quite advanced in years.’

  Despite the tension, some of the faculty had begun to giggle and this further inflamed the Arch Chancellor.

  ‘I am not senile, nor am I mentally impaired!’

  This escaped him in an undignified roar, which seemed to take Beowulf by surprise. Beowulf appeared to shrink and he mimed mortification. He took a regretful step back and continued the conversation in a conciliatory manner.

  ‘Of course not, of course not! You are the Arch Chancellor of the faculty. No one could doubt your prodigious mental capacity. It is, after all, what you are famous for. I have often heard it said, even within this very faculty that you are a man of the most prodigious mental capacity.’

  ‘Most prodigious, yes,’ agreed Mettelink, mollified to a degree.

  ‘So,’ Beowulf resumed, ‘your ability to speak is unimpaired and your great intellect is unclouded, neither disease nor madness prevent your communication. That is a relief.’

  He smiled,

  ‘That is a great comfort to us all, however, with this information, I must conclude that, having eliminated lack of capacity and impairment as possible causes, the reason that you cannot say why the Pope wants me dead is because you do not know. That is a shock! A man of your position reduced to passing on messages for the clergy, without the knowledge to inform them. I am grieved to hear it. A black cloud of ignorance befogs the once sunny and sublime summit of our Alma Mater! As this is surely and sadly the case, I shall trouble you no more. Come Roscow, we must go! The Chancellor must run his little errands for the Vatican.’

  Beowulf turned to leave.

  ‘But I do know!’ The Arch Chancellor shouted in dismay, ‘Of course I know! I’m the Arch Chancellor!’

  Beowulf turned back. He smiled again, wolfishly.

  ‘You do?’

  At this point the Arch Chancellor saw how he had been trapped and that the only way to reassert his authority was through a show of strength.

  ‘I do know, but I shall not share this information with you. I should have you arrested, but as you are a former member of this faculty (although a somewhat disgraced, discredited and dishevelled one) I have decided to let you continue on your way. I suggest that you do depart now, at once, before I give the matter further consideration and reach a different conclusion.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Beowulf. ‘It wasn’t about the Bibles, then?’

  Mettelink glared.

  ‘Or the affair in Macedonia?’

  Beowulf smiled, as the Chancellor remained furiously tight-lipped.

  ‘Could it have been the destruction of the fortress at Rumensburg?’

  The Arch Chancellor folded his arms in a show of severity to indicate that no information would be tricked from him (after all he was a man of prodigious mental capacity!), so Beowulf thanked him for the warning and set off down the road.

  ‘That was pointless,’ observed Roscow, ‘all those things you mentioned were made up and he didn’t tell us the real reason.’

  Beowulf smiled,

  ‘You have so much to learn and so little capacity to achieve that learning. Were you watching him closely as I suggested those false offences?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I was not. I was watching the other faculty members. Professor Norrick had a very satisfied look. He knows what was in the Papal order. I’m sure that I can get him to tell me.’

  With that, Beowulf separated from Roscow and Gareth and started to scale the university wall. Roscow sat down and waited. It was dark by the time Beowulf returned.

  ‘Is it bad?’ asked Roscow.

  ‘Yes,’ Beowulf replied, ‘the Pope is afraid we are going to interfere with Holy Gambling.’

  ‘Is that bad?’ asked Roscow.

  ‘Yes,’ Beowulf replied, ‘as bad as it gets; and there is worse to come; an old friend needs our help’

  ‘That does sound terrible,’ agreed Roscow, ‘I wouldn’t want us stooping to that.'

  It was then that Beowulf decided that they must cross the mountains.

  After that, things had really gone downhill, or more precisely they had got worse while climbing uphill. They had been forced to sleep in a very damp forest, the night after Wittenberg and Roscow had caught a miserable cold. The night after that they had slept in a barn, but The Troll had caught up with them and they had again been forced to flee into the night. How she kept going was a mystery that Roscow found harder to penetrate each day that he struggled further south. Several times they had been forced to hide, when they had spotted groups of Papal soldiers on the roads. There was also the constant fear of the Duke’s assassins.

  Surprisingly, or perhaps not, considering his natural perverseness, Beowulf did not seem in the least downhearted.

  ‘Adversity is the fire that forges greatness,’ he told Roscow, with obvious enjoyment, ‘Consider how uplifting this is! We are hunted by two of the most powerful men in the whole world and a malevolent, implacable monster who seeks to be our nemesis. If a man can not connect with his innate magnitude in such a unique situation then he truly does not deserve to be the Emperor of the World!’

  Roscow did not feel that he was connecting with his innate magnitude. He was clearly not ‘Emperor of the World’ material; however, he was good at following and this was what he had continued to do. He followed Beowulf and Gareth, the powerfully hyperactive former Royal Dog, higher and higher, up into the mountains. It seemed, to Roscow, that soon they must come to the end of the world. To his disappointment, they did not: they merely continued to climb. Beowulf appeared to effortlessly bounce upon the snow covered mountain tracks, powered by whatever he believed to be his destiny. Gareth bounded off and bounded back, delighted by the endless procession of new sights, sounds and smells. Roscow suffered. His feet hurt, his back hurt. He wondered why he couldn’t get his breath, until Beowulf explained about altitude sickness and then Roscow knew why he couldn’t get his breath. That didn’t help him. Still they went on. It was too much. Roscow came to what he thought of as a final halt, on the narrow ridge above the alpine valley.

  ‘Things can’t get any worse!’ he said.

  Then he heard the sound of the ice cracking.