The Marsh Queen’s Bargain

Fiction by Lyri Ahnam

I drifted amid my people, a silent island buoyed by their bright chatter. Torchlight sparkled off jewel-hued stalactites hanging from the cavern’s high ceiling and shimmered from bronze shields and crystal swords embellishing the walls—vestiges of our early wars with the invading Dænir. I tugged on a frilled kelp garland to give it a more pleasing drape. Everything must be perfect for my son’s triumphant return.

“Your ambition will be the death of that boy.”

I wrinkled my nose against the oracle-crone’s stifling sea-rot smell. She wore her usual tangled twine of fishbones and dried bladderwrack around her leathery neck.

“He is a man full grown,” I said, “with his own desires.”

“Yet still his mother’s loyal son.”

I flicked my fingers at her dismissively. Yes, I’d pushed my son, but it’d be worth it when he earned his place and the skalds sang his praises for generations to come. “His final test and triumph, this shall be,” I said. “The king, having no additional champions, recruited a Geataz hero, but he too shall fall and Hrodgar King will finally be forced to—”

A surge of silent terror tore through the cavern. The mer-marsh outside roiled. I rushed to the black pool in the center of the hall, but the murky mirror remained obscure.

I knelt and dipped one hand in the viscous water and sensed my son’s blood bathing the bog. Dreading his fate, I dove in.

On the marsh’s shore, beneath a star-dark sky, I found my son’s still body. A keening frog chorus kept witness.

I fell to my knees, sinking into the soft mud as I dragged my son’s stiff corpse across my lap. I pried open the fanged visor of his enchanted dragon-scale armor—a match for my own—and stroked the damp blond hair off his forehead with trembling fingers. I half-hoped he’d open his eyes and flash his crooked smile. He might’ve slept except for the thick blood smear clotting his beard, the gray cast to his pale waxy skin—and the empty socket where his arm had been wrenched off.

For a moment, I wished I could’ve mitigated my son’s contentious quarrel with the king, but no grown man wants his mother meddling, and he’d prevailed against Hrodgar’s warriors so many nights prior.

Mocking laughter drifted across the fens from the distant hill where Hrodgar’s men celebrated my son’s death in their mead-hall—a jarring contrast from the deathly silence that usually followed my son’s forays.

I cradled his rigid corpse, caressed by the swamp’s slime scent, the ache in my chest tight against my ribcage. All my past fretting did nothing to blunt his jarring absence. I longed to surrender to my sorrow and add my wailing keen to the night chorus—but I was duty-bound to finalize my son’s feud. His restless spirit would find no peace in a body incomplete and unavenged. Yet I lingered, loath to leave him and wary of my errand.

At last, hollow-hearted, I laid down my dead son.

“Blood for blood, my beloved,” I vowed.

He’d not earned his rightful place, but perhaps I might grasp the everlasting fame that eluded him by daring Hrodgar’s depraved domain.

I stalked drab cultivated fields, night-shadow silent under the spangled stars. The farther I traveled from the vibrant wetlands, the heavier my dragon-scaled armor dragged, my strength waning as my marsh-link dimmed. I might’ve drawn on the land’s feral force had my people not ceded our stake long ago.

My legs grew leaden and my lungs burned climbing the hill to Hrodgar’s hold.

The gate guard sagged in sleep when I entered the king’s walled fortress. Within the mead-hall itself, the rancid tang of unwashed bodies and yeasty bite of spilled mead congealed the air. Fireplace embers cast an eerie orange glow onto dreaming men littering the benches and floor. A trophy glittered in the rafters: my son’s severed arm in its silver-scaled armor. What manner of monster wrenched a warrior apart then used his sundered limb as a prize?

I tip-toed through the slumbering men, silent as smoke lest they wake and doom my mission. I leapt lightly onto the table beneath the arm and used a discarded meat knife to slice the leather straps binding it to the rafter.

A frail old man stared up at me, raven-black eyes shining in the fire’s glow. Æschere. Hrodgar’s dearest friend. Would noble Æschere let me escape with my son’s arm—or sound the alarm? The safe choice, the wise choice, was to flee with the severed arm and ensure my son’s body was complete in the afterworld—which meant leaving his murder unavenged.

Another option bloomed, a chance to shatter King Hrodgar’s heart in retaliation for my son’s death and the years of humiliation he’d forced on my defeated people. It meant my death if the warriors woke, but if I succeeded, the skalds would sing my name for lawfully avenging my son’s death with decisive dispatch.  I wished it was anyone other than honorable Æschere waiting for me to choose.

I tucked my son’s arm under my own and descended on the old man in a thrilling rush like a night owl swooping on her prey.

Æschere cried out. I plunged the meat knife into his throat’s wattled flesh, but the other mead-sotted men were already rousing.

I staggered out of the hall on unsteady legs, dodged a snarling camp dog, then lurched through the open gates past the snoreful sentry.

Angry shouts echoed after me as I stumbled across the fields. If they caught me before I gained the marsh, I’d die and my son would remain incomplete.

My snail-paced stagger lasted a lifetime as the excited calls of my pursuers closed in.

Moist swamp-scent ghosted the damp air. I surged forward with renewed strength.

At the bog’s verge, I knelt beside my son’s corpse.

The warrior’s shouts came closer. Their torches circled like flame-flies.

I hesitated, my son’s arm and the bloodied knife in either hand. Marsh-magic can be fickle and oftentimes takes more than it gives. It’s a seductive, visceral sorcery of slivered shells, sea shadows, and rain-racked rime weaving intricate enchantments that always exact a toll.

The shouts grew louder.

“Blood for blood,” I intoned, channeling marsh-enchantment. It filled me in a sluggish flood of furred dulse and salt-swollen sludge. “Blood for blood.” A black water tendril rose to meet Æschere’s lifeblood on the knife and seal the arm to my son’s body.

The torch-bearing voices drew near.

I collected my son’s corpse and waded into the rancid water.

Calls echoed through the early-morning fog as Hrodgar and his men reached the shore.

Ax-sharp rocks circled the solitary summit I sought. At the rugged barrier, I dove deep into the murk, drawing my son’s body behind me.

I entered my cave-castle through the black eye of water in the main chamber’s floor.

The oracle-crone and a contingent of sorrowful servants awaited me. Not the homecoming any of us had hoped for, but at least my son would travel to the afterworld whole.

“Be free of suffering and pain, beloved.” I kissed my son’s marble-hard forehead then surrendered his body. They would bathe his frost-pale face and fill his bier with princely gifts.

Wiping tears from my cheeks, I returned to the dark pool in the cavern’s core.

The blackwater scrying lens reflected men gathered on the shore carrying angry torches: Hrodgar King and his warrior horde.

Years of fusing the fractious Dænir had taken their toll on Hrodgar: gray streaked his red-brown beard and he’d grown sheep-soft, though his handsome brow remained unchanged from the day we’d met.

By law, Æschere’s death should’ve prevented further feuding, but Hrodgar King wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d driven all Jutes away.

The king had hoped we’d flee when he built his magnificent mead-hall—and most of our tribe did leave Juteland for safer shores—but I’d made peace with the marsh’s ghost-treed quags and the dark toothsome creatures swimming its lightless depths, carving out a lean life for my surviving folk with my water-wizardry.

I yearned to summon my swamp sorcery to turn Hrodgar’s will and reassert my authority over the land, to see my people again tilling fertile fields and tending fatsome flocks instead of floundering in the fens. But although the marsh had answered my call to mend my son, it would demand its due should I make another appeal so soon and for such a hefty goal. Every instance of marsh-magic bound me. My soul already muck-marked, I feared being drawn deeper into the gloomy abyss.

Hrodgar spoke to a monstrous, broad-muscled man with a robust nose and wide mouth wearing a bearskin cloak. A Geataz—and gods-blessed judging by the faint golden glow reflected through my marsh-mirror. Hrodgar’s new champion. And my son’s murderer.

“Breach the bog maze and richly shall I reward your success,” Hrodgar told the Geataz.

My sway may have slipped from the rest of the land, but in the mer-marsh I ruled supreme. Hordgar knew this. Perhaps he hoped to send this champion to his death and avoid giving the Geataz his proffered prize, for the king hoarded his gold like an old dragon.

“The marsh-queen’s a fierce foe and she’ll be furious over her son’s slaying,” Hrodgar said. “Wield my father’s sword; go purge the creeping quag-hag and her sinful kin.”

I clutched the water mirror’s stone rim, heated by Hrodgar’s cruel slurs. He’d fallen far: breaking faith with me to take a Wylfing wife and now vilifying my people to give his warriors demons to purge.

The burly champion girded himself with the iron sword and marched into the marsh.

Sharp barbed rocks and bounding breakers protected Juteland’s seaward side, preventing ships from reaching shore, and the boggy wetland made travel on foot treacherous—yet I feared this bear-man would find his way to my lair. Once I would’ve scoffed at any warrior challenging me in my power place, but this gods-blessed Geataz had mangled my strong-armed son, and I, weighty with grief-guilt and unable to rely on witchery, could not match his hostility unaided.

The cave-hall resonated with the Lament to the Dead as my people honored their prince’s soul-passage. He wore no shroud save his dragon-scale armor but treasures from the wetlands covered his bracken-bier: glossy trout teeth, black jackdaw eyes, buzzard beaks, kingfisher feathers, and a desiccated water shrew’s delicate skeleton.

Once the ritual finished, I spoke. “Harken. The Dænir send a death-dealer to our den. He will breach our safe haven and unleash a storm of slaughter. Gird yourselves and join me in Juteland’s defense.”

“There is no Juteland,” the oracle-crone said. “All is Dænmarch now save this sickly sliver of swamp. It’s long past time for leaving. For the love we once shared, come with us. Your sacrifice will not bring back your son.”

The rebuke I swallowed burned bitter as bile. How dare this malicious malcontent suggest I shirk my sacred charge. “I will not desert my duty.”

The scornful crone abandoned me as effortlessly as a sea snake shedding skin and led my folk’s flight. The brute who’d killed their kindly prince menaced them now, and Jutes were survivors above all.

Alone, I returned to my marsh-mirror. The Geataz sliced through thick waterweed, as if slaying imaginary monsters. He inadvertently beheaded a hinge-jawed demonfish. The forlorn fish’s head bobbed in the gloomy brine, gaping mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. The hero dove.

The constant quarreling between Hrodgar and the Jutes would end today—likely with my death. But I’d little to live for with my son’s spirit soared and my folk fled. I was the last Jute queen. Fitting that I die in battle. Let the skalds sing my famed name through the ages. This thought bolstered my resolve to die with valor. I awaited the Geataz champion, sword drawn and bronze shield heavy on my forearm.

The warrior burst through the black water eye in the cavern’s heart, gasping for breath. He smelled like a wet bear.

I stepped into a fighting stance. “This is not your battle, Geataz. I took my righteous revenge; let the feud be finalized, lest Hrodgar’s flattery drive you into another deceitful deed.”

The champion vaulted onto the stone floor and charged with unnatural speed. His lethal blade banged my shield, the bruising blows numbing my arm. He roared and lunged like a rage-furious berserker bear. I scrambled backwards, ducking and twisting to evade his frenzied assault. He knocked my blade aside and scraped my scaled armor with his sword.

I stumbled to one knee, shield sagging. Like a drunkard craving mead, I hungered for my marsh-magic, but resisted that seductive summons, fearing whatever twisted bargain marsh magery would demand for defeating the Geataz.

He grabbed my long gray braid. “I’ll bone-break you, same as your slime-stained son.” He whipped me off my feet and sent me crashing against the wall.

The impact drove the air from my lungs. I moaned and rolled onto my hands and knees.

He strode toward me, sword ready, his face a rictus of epic fury.

More than a blessed champion, this Geataz was a gods-beloved hero for the ages, glorious in his fighting fever. Death-haunted and stretched with distress, I should’ve been numb to life’s lusts, yet found myself longing to harvest this hero’s seed—as once I’d happily humped Hrodgar in the sacred sovereignty rite.

No such seduction today.

The warrior raised his sword to deal the death blow.

Reflexively, I reached for the marsh’s wild heart, drawing strength from the brackish bog’s pulsing depths and the soulful sea creatures swimming the briny black. The wetland whispered hints of a terrible toll for seeking supremacy against such a man. Ignoring the warning, I opened wide and let the fen’s force surge through.

I whipped my legs around the fearsome Geataz, smashing him groundward. His sword went flying, clang-banging across the stone floor.

“You murdered Hordgar’s firstborn when you killed my son,” I said.

“A monstrous lie.” The hero snatched a crystal blade from the wall and plunged the sword hilt-deep into my chest, but I brimmed with swamp sorcery and the blade melted as it met my fiery internal forge, like winter ice giving way to spring’s thaw.

I laughed and pinned him to the cold stone floor.

He bucked his hips but couldn’t overcome my marsh-might.

“Your wicked whelp stole the lives of honorable Hrodgar’s men while they were mead-sogged and slumbering,” he said. “The fennish fiend thieved souls in the night to glut his ghoulish gizzard.”

“Ignorant fool. The invading Dænir promised peace sealed with sacred marriages between our peoples. Hrodgar and his Halfdæn sire were born of such a union, as was my son. He challenged those champions for his proper place at his sire Hrodgar’s hearth. Had the king not spurned his firstborn flesh for being a marsh-born Jute and named him heir instead, you’d sing a different song.” My voice quavered. “And my beloved Grendel would yet live.”

The hero shuddered under me, rage and bewilderment flashing across his face.

I wanted to wage ruthless war on my son’s killer and sever his round head from his shoulders. The easy choice. But—perhaps because of the witchery working me—remorse drew my gaze inward.

Encouraging Grendel’s futile fight, goading him to churn through Hrodgar’s champions, I’d used my son to punish Hrodgar King for rejecting me. An ugly truth I’d feared facing.

My son died at this Geataz warrior’s hand, but my hurt pride ferried Grendel to his fate, and killing the Geataz would not heal my humbled heart’s wound. Better to let him live to impoverish Hrodgar—and carry word of my astounding victory to the skalds.

The marsh-magic coursing through me faltered.

I drew what magery remained and spun a spell to expel the Geataz from my realm. “Tell what tale you will to vindicate your valor,” I said, “but come no more to the mer-marsh. Notify Hrodgar our feud is finished.”

Alone in the vacant cave, I watched him through the water lens as he stumbled ashore, the melted crystal sword hilt in one hand, severed head of the demonfish he’d killed in the other. As he gained the land, his staggering gait became a swagger.

He held the fish head aloft. It bore an uncanny resemblance to my son’s dragon-toothed visor. “I desecrated the demon’s corpse and took his head as my prize,” he said. “His mother-monster will not trouble you, nor her host of sea villains.”

No hesitation in his hero’s boast.

“Beloved Beowulf,” Hrodgar King said, “what’s mine is yours, my son.”

Hrodgar blessed this barbaric brute with the warm words he had refused Grendel: my son.

Beowulf and Hrodgar tramped away, trailed by celebrating warriors. It should have been Grendel at his sire’s side instead of a foreign Geataz. At least my famed name would live on—

I groaned. My name. Gone. Swallowed by the swamp, its price for prolonging my life.

What cruel bargain this, to deny my deepest desire for lasting renown. Instead of fame—forgotten.

Ages ago Hrodgar's gilded hall crumbled into cobwebbed clay, yet the poets still call my son Grendel a monster for trying to seize his rightful heritage, and Beowulf a hero for slaying him. The true tale lies buried within the heroic lies for anyone with ears to hear.

Undone by vengeful vanity, I haunt the lonely marshland still, more mist-fish than mortal now, scale-skinned and faintly finned, a nameless stranger even to myself.