Beowulf's Ghost Read online

  Beowulf

  Adam stumbled to the prow and grabbed the rail. He went to jump but the water was still too deep, the thought of falling into it turning his stomach.

  ‘Ellie!’ he shouted. ‘I’m coming! Wait there!’ Ellie stood silent, watching, not moving.

  It’s too late, Voice said.

  The swell pushed the boat forward and a few seconds later the hull grated on shingle. With a clenched jaw and a deep breath Adam leapt from the boat to land head-first in the freezing sea. For an instant he was underwater and paralysed, forcing the scream to stay in his throat. The waves pulled back and his feet found the moving sand. He pushed himself above the surface. Panting and shaking water from his eyes, he waded ashore and fell to his knees in front of Ellie.

  ‘Ellie, is it you?’ he whispered, holding her arms and looking into her eyes.

  I’ve told you, it’s too late. It would never be this easy.

  Adam slowly released his grip and stood up. His heart sank. The figure on the beach had looked like Ellie from a distance, but he now saw the person in front of him was a boy, almost identical to Ellie. But that was the way with Down’s Syndrome; at first sight there was an incredible similarity between people, the shared features, but like anything, the more you knew someone, you could see the differences. This was not Ellie.

  I told you so.

  Adam blinked away wetness from his eyes and set his jaw against the numbness writhing and twisting inside him. The wind gusted and waves rolled up the shore, lapping around his feet. He ran his tongue over his lips, tasting bitter salt.

  ‘Friend or foe!’ came a challenge from the sand dunes. Two men walked the short distance to the shore and took up position either side of the boy. It took Adam a few seconds to register who he was looking at.

  The first man, who had issued the challenge, was dressed in chainmail and wore a steel helmet that couldn’t quite cover the shock of unruly hair merging with a thick black beard. His eyes, cold and hard, peered over the rim of a shield. Over his mail coat was a shirt embroidered with a black boar’s head. He gripped a long spear, raised above his head, as if about to jab at something.

  The second man was darker-skinned with a hooked nose and softer eyes. Instead of a helmet a turban of white silk was wrapped around his head and under his chin. His body was covered in a long loose kaftan, once also white but now a dirty grey. A dark cloak covered his shoulders and flapped in the breeze. A leather belt pulled the kaftan tight and held a curved sword and a dagger in an ornate jewel-encrusted scabbard; he looked as if he’d walked out of a desert.

  The first soldier glanced at the longship rocking in the surf then back to Adam. ‘What are you? Dane? Or Frisian? Where are the others?’

  The calmer man, ignoring his companion, spoke with a thick accent that only added to his mystery. ‘This is Erik,’ he said, placing a hand on the shoulder of the boy. ‘You talk as if you know him.’ Erik stood silently, staring at Adam with a blank face.

  ‘No,’ Adam said. ‘Mistaken identity. But who are you and what are you doing here?’

  The first man was getting agitated, shifting from one foot to the other. His knuckles whitened where they gripped the spear. ‘Are you Votadini?’

  ‘Breca, calm down,’ said the second man. ‘If he is Votadini then he’s clearly on his own and no threat to you.’

  ‘Don’t tell me to calm down,’ Breca whispered beneath his shield, gripping his spear tighter and trying to keep his menacing composure.

  This was getting weird. Adam wondered if cameras were filming from a hidden location and he’d just ruined the day’s shoot. Forcing these pieces into the puzzle, it was still the only thing that made sense of how they were dressed.

  ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Adam raised his arm and pointed up the beach. ‘I’m going that way.’ The folds of the bearskin parted to reveal the metal pendant at his chest.

  Breca’s eyes widened. He stared at the disc then bowed his head, dropping to one knee, his spear and shield falling to the sand. ‘Lord, forgive me. I did not recognise you.’

  Adam looked around, back at the boat and along the beach, searching for some sign of a film crew hiding in the dunes.

  The other man nodded thoughtfully. ‘It looks like we have caught a big fish.’ Breca stood up, his face serious as if struggling to find the right words. He was saved by another three men running over the dunes towards them, all dressed the same as Breca; round shields, spears, chainmail and helmets. They looked fearsome with dirty, scarred faces darkened by the sun and wind, almost too mean to be actors, Adam thought. But then that’s probably why they got the part.

  Breca regained his composure and seemed to puff up a little with importance, speaking loud enough for the other men to hear. ‘Jubal, take Erik back and I will escort our guest to Dun Gardi.’

  Jubal put his hand on the hilt of his curved sword and looked quietly at Adam, as if weighing something up. He turned and went to guide the boy back towards the dunes but Erik threw his arms around Adam and gave him a big hug. He spoke with the same lilting lisp that Ellie had. ‘Glad you came for me,’ he said, then walked with Jubal away from the beach.

  You can’t make things better by making friends with any random kid that gives you a hug.

  Breca spoke to the other men. ‘Stay here and secure the boat. I’ll send more men to haul it out of the sea.’ He turned to Adam. ‘Once the wedding is over, I’m sure Hrothgar would be pleased to have your ship repaired so you can return.’ The men made busy wading into the sea grabbing ropes from the prow.

  This was becoming a nightmare. ‘Wedding? What wedding?’ Adam laughed nervously. ‘Actually. Stop. Don’t answer that. I don’t want the boat fixed so I can get back in it. I just want to get home!’ He emphasised the last word and heard the wavering in his voice.

  ‘Your home is far away from here, Lord Beowulf,’ Breca said, nodding to the amulet around Adam’s neck. ‘Far across the sea.’ He looked at the boat. ‘You were caught in the storm last night. Did none of your crew survive?’

  ‘Okay,’ Adam said with growing frustration. ‘Now I know you’re all in on this. Beowulf is the name of the book I chose in the library. That’s all. I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t know how I got here. I have no idea what—’ Adam didn’t finish his sentence. He stumbled and yelped. His thigh burst into pain where the serpent had bitten him.

  ‘My Lord?’ Breca grabbed his arm.

  ‘It’s my leg. Something attacked me.’ He lifted the hem of his tunic to show Breca the wound.

  ‘By the gods.’ Breca eyes widened. ‘Where did this happen?’ His fingers probed the teeth marks on his lower leg and touched the ring of purple skin around the worst bite.

  Adam drew in a sharp breath and screwed his eyes shut. ‘In the sea. Last night. There were lots of them. I struggled a bit until I got into the boat.’

  A thin smile passed Breca’s lips. ‘Only the Beowulf would say he struggled a bit. The bite is infected. It would have killed a lesser man.’

  Adam shuffled the tunic back in place. ‘Well, I’m not sure about that, but do you know what those things were?’

  Breca bowed his head and forced a smile but didn’t answer. ‘You have made a long journey, and all your crew are lost to the storm. Even you will be tired. Come, let’s get to Dun Gardi and Hall Heorot. After you have seen Hrothgar we can get a healer to look at your leg.’ With that he set off with Adam, walking along the beach towards Bamburgh. He winked. ‘We can get you something to eat and drink as well! We have the best mead in Bernicia.’

  He was about to ask about Hrothgar, Bernicia and mead when he heard a horse whinny. Along the crest of the dunes a white horse and rider watched them. Even from this distance he could see that the rider was a girl, about the same age as himself. She wasn’t wearing normal riding gear but wore a long, straw-coloured dress. Her golden hair fell loose around her shoulders. The white horse stamped in the dunes. With one hand on the bridle, the girl steadied the horse with ease before turning away to ride towards Jubal and Erik, walking along the dunes. Jubal lifted Erik up onto the saddle in front of the girl, who wheeled the horse then galloped away.

  Makes you feel bad what you did, doesn’t it?

  Can’t you ever leave me alone? Adam thought. This really isn’t the time or place.

  On the contrary…

  He followed behind Breca along a narrow track that wound inland amongst the dunes. At least they were heading back to Bamburgh and home, now obscured by a bank of sea fog drifting in wisps up the beach.

  Breca didn’t break his stride but glanced at Adam, narrowing his eyes. ‘Forgive me for saying so, but I thought the Beowulf would be a little taller.’

  He thought for a minute, avoiding tall clumps of marram grass; it would probably be better to humour this Breca person, just in case he was a nutter. ‘I guess I’m as tall as I am. Anyway,’ he said, changing the subject, ‘who was that other guy, Jubal?’

  Breca grimaced and ran a hand through his beard. ‘He’s a ghost. Not from these parts, or even the old country. Says he’s from somewhere beyond the inland sea.’ He grumbled into his beard. ‘He doesn’t know our ways, he’s not one of us. We call him the Aeschere, the ghost.’

  Adam was about to ask what he meant when they rounded the top of a dune. He gasped. Before them was Bamburgh – but nothing like the Bamburgh he knew.

  The massive rock at the centre of the town rose out of the ground like a broken tooth with steep sides a hundred feet high. It was rectangular in shape with a flat plateau hundreds of feet long. The top was ringed with a wooden palisade and inside he could just see wooden buildings with smoke curling out of them. A much larger hall stood at the far end of the rock. The sand dunes stretched away to the seaward side of the rock, whilst inland the village, his home, nestled in its lee. Smoke from chimney’s wreathed the lower reaches of the rock.

  He closed his eyes and held his breath, trying to take it all in. The rock was the same, but everything else was different. He hadn’t seen any cars, roads, normal houses, telegraph poles. He opened his eyes again, and it was all there. Even he knew this was too much for a film set. Fear gnawed his stomach and his thigh spasmed with pain.

  Breca raised a hand at the rock. ‘Behold! Dun Gardi!’ He saw Adam’s face and smiled. ‘I know. If this is your first time here it can be a bit overwhelming.’ He spoke with pride in his voice. ‘Twelve years we have worked to make this our own.’

  The blood drained from Adam’s face. ‘Who is we?’ he asked quietly.

  Breca barked a laugh. ‘Why, the Angles of Bernicia, of course!’ He set off down the dune. ‘Come. King Hrothgar will be pleased to see you. He was worried you wouldn’t make it in time for the wedding.’ Breca paused. ‘You should know he has changed; he is no longer the warrior he once was. Queen Ida now does much of his work.’ Crows circled overhead, nesting on small ledges and cracks in the cliff face. They walked around the last bend of the dunes towards the landward side of the citadel rock. Adam stopped in his tracks. He could not believe what he was looking at.

  The whole village he had known was gone.

  Chapter 5

  Old Hrothgar sat in Heorot, with the company of his warriors around him.

  Beowulf

  Adam’s stomach twisted. It was all he could do to stop himself from being sick.

  What he had taken for his village from the sand dunes was in fact a ring of defensive earthworks surrounding the base of the rock. Clusters of sheds and buildings sat within an inner ring of earth, beyond which a great ditch surrounding the landward side had been cut, and then nothing but fields and the huts of small farms. The pub should be here, thought Adam, and there the post office, but there was nothing.

  The place teemed with people. Some were soldiers dressed the same as Breca, either walking slowly in small groups or standing idly by, resting on their spears. Others looked like townsfolk, tending pigs in muddy pens, tilling the fields or pushing wooden carts and generally looking busier than the soldiers. The men wore simple woollen shirts and breeches; the women long dresses of sackcloth. Children with nothing on their feet and wearing dirty rags whispered and pointed at Adam. Everyone looked like they’d never had a bath in their life with dirt streaking their faces and clothes. The children ran behind him, laughing and shouting, ‘Beowulf,’ over and over until it sounded like the wind blowing across the dunes.

  Adam stamped his foot and faced the children, his face flushed. ‘My name is Adam! Go away!’ This just seemed to thrill them even more and they ran through the earthworks and ditches, adding the word ‘A-Dam’ to that of Beowulf.

  ‘Ignore them, Lord.’ Breca picked up a stone and threw it at them. The children giggled and ran to the next place, waiting to see him walk past. ‘This is a big day for them, and one they will tell their own children about.’

  In the distance Adam saw the white horse from the beach carrying the girl and Erik. They were riding up a steep path carved into a deep split in the rock that wound upwards. Guards moved aside and the horse disappeared up the narrow track.

  There was something about Erik that unsettled him. He’d been convinced it was Ellie on the beach.

  What good would that have done? So you could say sorry? Voice said.

  What would be wrong in that?

  Seriously? Because it’s too late. You failed her.

  Adam gritted his teeth against the pain and walked faster.

  Breca trotted a step to keep up. ‘Can’t wait for the wedding. The feast will be amazing. They’re making a special mead as well.’ He chuckled. ‘To be honest, you can keep the feast, I’ll settle for the mead. I’ll have Jubal’s share into the bargain seeing as though he doesn’t drink.’ He kept talking about how you couldn’t trust a man who didn’t drink but Adam wasn’t listening. His mind raced to process what he was seeing against trying to stay sane.

  They approached the same cut in the rock where the horse had gone, wide enough for four people to walk abreast. In his version of the world it was blocked off by an iron gate, but now it was guarded by a dozen men, resting on spears with eyes that burned from under steel helmets. Over their chainmail coats they wore the same shirt as Breca, emblazoned with the head of a boar. The guards moved aside, a couple mumbling ‘Captain’ in recognition.

  The path rose steeply until it opened out onto a small flat area, just in front of a heavy wooden gate, flanked on either side by two tall towers. Breca struck the door three times with the wooden shaft of his spear. ‘Open up, you laggards, or I’ll come up and skewer you with my spear!’ There was a short silence followed by great bolts being drawn back.

  The doors slowly swung open and confirmed for Adam what he had seen from afar. Bamburgh castle, that had been on top of the rock for hundreds of years, was simply gone. In front of him there was a small settlement of huts and houses. The ground inclined gently up the plateau towards a huge hall built of wood. Two massive columns, as thick as trees, stood either side of a great door studded with nails. The eaves reached towards each other and crossed over at the peak, making the heads of two boars facing each other.

  ‘Heorot!’ Breca said with obvious pride. ‘The greatest feast hall this side of the whale’s road. And inside, Mighty Hrothgar, the greatest warrior in all of Bernicia.’

  Adam was tired of thinking that this couldn’t be happening, but even he felt momentarily impressed with the building. The feeling quickly vanished to be replaced with the more familiar sickness sitting deep in his stomach.

  ‘Breca! You have him!’ A man wearing a heavy cloak over a woollen shirt and leggings walked briskly over. His hair was braided and a tattoo covered half his face. He grinned and slapped the captain on the shoulders. ‘So this is the Beowulf!’

  Breca puffed himself up. ‘I found him,’ he said, looking very pleased with himself.

  They both looked at Adam, who sighed. ‘This is getting tiresome. My name is Adam, not this Beowulf you keep going on about.’

  Both men looked blankly at him, then burst out laughing. Breca put his arm around Adam and moved him along as all three of them walked up the slope. He whispered to him as if in some great conspiracy. ‘But of course. This is one of your tricks for old Hrothgar, isn’t it?’ He looked over at the other man, who grinned through his thick beard. ‘We won’t tell anyone, will we, Drega?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Drega shook his head. ‘The Scopa will have much fun turning this into a poem!’ He looked across at Adam and gave him a quick scan from head to toe. ‘I must say, I thought you’d be taller.’

  Adam pushed Breca’s arm from his shoulder. ‘Well, I’m not!’ The frustration sounded in his voice.

  Drega cast a puzzled look at Breca, who shrugged his shoulders. ‘The Beowulf was caught in the storm. Three days and three nights it raged.’ He became serious. ‘There was no-one else on the boat. My men are searching the coast, but we fear they are all lost.’

  Adam stopped walking, his anger rising. ‘What men? What storm? What…’ He gestured around the plateau. ‘What is all this!’ A stabbing pain shot down his leg. He lost balance and grabbed Breca’s arm.

  Breca spoke to Drega. ‘He was attacked by the Nà-r.’ The word dampened the mood.

  ‘I am sorry, Lord Beowulf. You have endured much,’ Drega said, and carried on walking in silence.

  People looked at Adam as if he were a curiosity, a few of them muttering but most of them just staring. They approached Heorot and walked up the wooden steps to stand outside the great doors flanked by two guards. Both held long spears and round shields, swords hung from their belts and they wore burnished mail coats glinting like diamonds. There was no humour in these men.