Chapter 4
Two nights later I went back. I was addicted. The Shaper was singing the
glorious deeds of the dead men, praising war. He sang how they'd fought
me. It was all lies. The sly harp rasped like snakes in cattails, glorifying
death. I snatched a guard and smashed him on a tree, but my stomach turned
at the thought of eating him. "Woe to the man," the Shaper sang, "who shall
through wicked hostilities shove his soul down into the fire's hug! Let him
hope for no change: he can never turn away! But lucky the man who, after
his deathday, shall seek the Prince, find peace in his father's embrace!"
I got up and felt my way back through the forest and over to the
cliffwall and back to the mere and to my cave. I lay there listening to the
indistinct memory of the Shaper's songs. My mother picked through the
bone pile, sullen. I'd brought no food. It was a cold-blooded lie that a god
had lovingly made the world and set out the sun and moon as lights to landdwellers, that brothers had fought, that one of the races was saved, the other
cursed. Yet, he, the old Shaper, might make it true, by the sweetness of his
harp, his cunning trickery. It came to me with a fierce jolt that I wanted it. I
wanted it, yes! Even if I must be the outcast, cursed by the rules of his
hideous fable.
He sings to a heavier harpsong now, old heart-string
scratcher, memory scraper. Of the richest of kings made
sick of soul by the scattered bones of thanes. By late
afternoon the fire dies down and the column of smoke is
white, no longer greasy. There will be others this year,
they know; yet, they hang on. The sun backs away from
the world like a crab and the days grow shorter, the nights
grow longer, more dark and dangerous. I smile, angry in
the thickening dusk, and feast my eyes on the greatest of
meadhalls, unsatisified.
The Shaper remains, though now there are nobler courts
where he might sing. The pride of creation. He built this hall
by the power of his songs: created with casual words its grave
mortality.
Inspired by winds (or whatever you please), the old man
sang of a glorious meadhall whose light would shine to the ends
of the ragged world. The thought took see in Hrothgar's
mind. It grew. He called all his people together and told them
his daring scheme. He would build a magnificent meadhall
high on a hill, with a view of the western sea, a victory-seat
near the giants' work, old ruined fortress from the world's first
war, to stand forever as a sign of the glory and justice of
Hrothgar's Danes. There he would sit and give treasures out,
all wealth but the lives of men and the people's land. And so
his sons would do after him, and his sons' sons, to the final
generation.
Two nights later I went back. I was addicted. The Shaper was
singing the glorious deeds of the dead men, praising war. He sang
how they'd fought me. It was all lies. The sly harp rasped like
snakes in cattails, glorifying death. I snatched a guard and
smashed him on a tree, but my stomach turned at the thought of
eating him. "Woe to the man," the Shaper sang, "who shall through
wicked hostilities shove his soul down into the fire's hug! Let him
hope for no change: he can never turn away! But lucky the man
who, after his deathday, shall seek the Prince, find peace in his
father's embrace!"
I got up and felt my way back through the forest and over
to the cliffwall and back to the mere and to my cave. I lay there
listening to the indistinct memory of the Shaper's songs. My
mother picked through the bone pile, sullen. I'd brought no food.
It was a cold-blooded lie that a god had lovingly made the world
and set out the sun and moon as lights to land-dwellers, that
brothers had fought, that one of the races was saved, the other
cursed. Yet, he, the old Shaper, might make it true, by the
sweetness of his harp, his cunning trickery. It came to me with a
fierce jolt that I wanted it. I wanted it, yes! Even if I must be the
outcast, cursed by the rules of his hideous fable.