Free Beowulf by Rosemary Sutcliff Page B

follow the sea-roads again; but first tell me what is in your heart.’
    â€˜When my father needed a friend at his shoulder, he found such a one in this Hrothgar of the Danes,’ Beowulf said. ‘Shelter he gave to my father and my mother, and to me also when the time came that she bore me; and my first memories are of lying on a wolfskin before his fire. He paid the Wergild, the fine, for the man my father slew, and made peace between him and the Wylfings, so that a time came in my sixth summer, when my father might return home to his own kind again. Now it seems that Hrothgar himself stands sorely in need of a friend and it is time for me to repay the debt.’
    Hygelac bent his head, and trouble lay like a shadow on his face. ‘I thought so. I thought so . . . Beowulf, sister’s-son, you are foremost among my warriors, and save for the boy here, you are almost the only kinsman left to me; and I grieve to see you go upon such a perilous sea-faring. Yet a man should pay his debts. Go then, but remember that there will be anxious eyes watching here from the cliff tops for your returning sail at sea.’

2. The Danish Shore

2. The Danish Shore
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    H ROTHGAR’S Coast Warden, sitting his horse on the cliff top northward of Heorot, saw a strange vessel running in from the open sea, between the high headlands at the mouth of the fjord. A war-galley, long and slim and swift; and the light blinked on the painted shields hung along her bulwarks and the grey battle-gear of the men who swung to her oars. Her square striped sail fell slack as the headland took the wind from it, and then came rattling down, and urged by her rowers she headed like some eager many-legged sea creature for the low shelving beach where the cliffs dropped at the head of the fjord.
    Frowning, the Coast Warden wheeled his horse, and touching his heel to its flank, urged it into the cliff path that looped down in the same direction. He came out through the furze and the salt-burned bush-tangle above the shore, just as the strange war-boat came lightly in through the shallows. Her crew unshipped their oars and sprang overboard into the white oar-thresh while it still foamed along her sides, and now they were running her up the shingle to strand on the tide-line.
    Fifteen of them, the Coast Warden counted; and the sunlight sparkled on their weapons as they swung their painted linden shields clear of the bulwarks; and yet they had not the wolf-pack look of a raiding band. Again he touched his heel to his horse’s flank and, spear in hand, rode down into their midst, where they turned at the sound of hooves and stood waiting for his coming, gathered about the upreared dragon prow of their vessel.

    To one who was clearly the leader among them, a very tall man whose eyes were coloured like deep water on a cloudy day, the Coast Warden spoke boldly, yet courteously enough. ‘Who are you, strangers from across the sea, and what purpose brings you to this landfall on the Danish shore? You come in war array, armed as for battle, yet you have not the look of those who come to burn farms and drive off women and cattle.’
    â€˜In truth, though we come in war array, the battle that we seek is not with the Danish folk,’ the tall man said. ‘As to who we are—I am Beowulf, sister’s-son to Hygelac King of the Geats, and these with me are my sword-brothers and hearth-companions. As to our purpose—a few days since, word came to Hygelac’s Court that Hrothgar of the Danes was in need of champions to rid him of the monster that walks his hall at night; and so we are come, following the Whale’s Road southward across the grey Baltic from our own strand.’
    For a long moment, while the surf creamed on the shore, the Coast Warden sat his horse and looked at them, his eyes narrowed under his brows; he was old and a judge of men. Then he nodded. ‘So. It is long and long that Hrothgar and all his