Grendel’s Mother

Once I saw a court in mourning for their king. I spent a great deal of time staring at the pyre. It was a violent thing, hot enough that it filled the air with billowing curtains and, beneath that, hissing snakes. But still it was a background for the wailing of those courtiers, whose cries echoed and rang relentlessly between my ears.

The night was bright and hot and loud – yet empty, I knew. Despite all their tears, their guttural grief, it was a song sung in a tongue that none could understand.

***

Beneath the water, upon cool stone, Grendel’s mother was silent. And it was a heavy thing, her silence, broken only by the dripping. She sat still. She was like a pondering statue then, hunched in the darkness.

Her child – she had laid him on his side so that it seemed like he was whole.

Grendel’s mother was not kind, I will tell you that much. Around the cave there were bones, the blackdry blood of victims past. And yet, once, she nursed her son after an incident with an eel; she picked flowers and herbs to make a poultice, rubbed it into his wounds and hunted for the two of them. Having made enough of her instinctual medicine, she found herself with a flower to spare, bright blue and vaguely sweet smelling. She kept it till it was wilted and tossed the thing away.

Now, her mind went to the flower again. Why? There was the urge to do something like then, to throw the flower into the pool and watch it on its way down.

She looked at her child again. He was not whole, she knew. The smell of his blood was a loud thing, and the world was red with it. And she was silent, beneath the water, upon the cool stone.

***

Bloodthirst is a strange word. Those who experience it are thirsty, yes, but it is a desperate, panicked thirst with no idea of what will quench it. When I watched that court, I saw a look of frustration in a noblewoman’s eyes. I do not know what for. Was she searching, perhaps, for a real trace of grief for her king? Perhaps she wished that she felt less.

***

Regardless, it was that same look in Grendel’s mother’s eyes as she crept along the path to where it had happened. There was no image in her mind, save that flower. It was like an iridescent eye. She walked slowly at first, half-asleep and then, as emergency wrapped its hands around her heart, she ran. Wordless, soundless, her shadow whipped past trees, through tall grass and over soil still damp from rain. In moonlight, her hair was bright white, but she was black death. There was excitement in her as she ran – the sense that she was approaching something.

            And as her long nails came around the corner of that mead hall, who could have known? These were warriors, all of them, with well wetted blades – but nothing like the moon demon, of course. They thirsted for glory, these men, and blood was but a means and when they sent red spraying, the look in their eyes was so like the other looks of men. But now, as they lay dreaming of great deeds, real thirst walked among them. It leaned down, white hair hanging over one face and then another, wondering what it wanted. Death stared down with a flower on her mind.

They should have burned the arm. It killed Aeschere as much as she did, as much as the ember kills the forest, filling the air with the sound of roasting beasts. But it was quick, at least. Yellow eyes stared down at him, chipped black nails slid down his throat and then she must have seen it, past the white of her hair. She glanced and it was done. His neck made a sound like a beetle crushed in hand.

***

Why is it that my mind goes back to the funeral? These memories have become like brothers. Regardless, I think of a man I saw then. He walked in and there was a great hush. This man was among the strangest because he went around making conversation, making no effort to seem upset. At first, I felt that he must be the only honest person in attendance and even respected him for it – after all, none of these people had anything to feel. After some time, however, I found myself questioning this. Why, I wondered. It later came to light that the man in question had likely been responsible for the king’s death. And though I am not privy to the history of their conflict (despite my best efforts), it seems to have lasted well over a decade and his presence at the funeral was, ostensibly, a sort of celebration. But he was false as all the rest.

***

She was not like the man in any direct way. She walked now in firefly song, bloodied by the corpse in her arms, red in her white hair. Aeschere’s head had miraculously remained atop his neck for much of the journey, shifting from one shoulder to the other with her steps. But when it inevitably fell, she did not notice. Grendel’s mother had experienced such thirst and now found herself without even that much to guide her. Thirstless, soundless, sonless, she walked with nothing to hold her together and was like a mist. I suppose that is what reminds me of the man – the desire he must have felt and then the clear absence. What had possessed him to go there if not some vague desire for purpose?

And that was somehow like the arm to her. Purpose. It held her barely solid, an old, weathered shirt, but was somehow only an aesthetic thing in her mind. Grendel was petal-plucked, incomplete – but soon to be whole, she half-thought with a flicker of excitement. But it was an empty thing, only busy work. It was her sole purpose then, make no mistake, but at its core, it was simply a thing to be done, and her walk was the stumbled walk of a man who has found a hole where meaning should be.

Beneath the water, upon cool stone, Grendel’s mother was silent. And it was an empty thing too, her silence. Grendel, now complete, laid on his back. Her beady eyes stared still at the image pressed hard on her mind. The flower, the flower. She watched it drift beneath the water, far enough that it made her wonder whether there had been a flower at all, or if it had all been water. This became her purpose now, to watch again, all the time searching for something new.

And when she saw the figure swimming past, it was like an answer. Grendel’s mother had long since lost any hint of so-called bloodthirst. Now, she wanted something to want, and at this sudden opportunity, stumbled forward, her eyes darting from one side to the other. What had it been?

Her battle with the warrior is no different than her time spent alone. She grabs at him, and a flower falls gently into the water; she rips at his throat and sees it bob its way down into the darkness below. Again, again. The flower, the flower.

            She does not see him cut off her son’s neck and for that I am grateful. I do not know what she would have felt – whether she would have relegated it all to the realm of the aesthetic, or if it might have, again, turned her world red. And what is better, I wonder. One neck trophied, the other forgotten. Increasingly, I do not understand what I saw at that funeral.

But I do know that she felt herself falling away, the cool stone against her cheek. Now into the water. And before the darkness came, just for an instant, she could feel herself drifting further and further, going where the flower had gone so long ago.