Chapter 9
In which Beowulf is forced to reflect in order to decide what he really does want to do. Roscow and Beowulf discuss issues of motivation, history and civilization. The chapter ends with a bump.
Beowulf had left the Queen’s tent and gone a short distance into the woods, where he had found a place to sit, in a clearing. Gareth, who had accompanied him, had, in a rare sensitive moment, fallen asleep; possibly in respect of Beowulf’s obviously dark frame of mind. There they had sat, unmoving, but watched; until almost an hour later Roscow entered the clearing. He looked at Beowulf and, reading the signs, sat down quietly next to him.
‘Oi wonder if you want to tork aboyt it?’ he asked.
‘If you drop the ridiculous accent,’ Beowulf replied.
Roscow nodded,
‘You have to decide,’ he observed, in his normal voice.
‘Yes,’ agreed Beowulf, ‘Marshall Gney, who is my old friend, wants me to kidnap Louie-Louie and re-replace him with Louis; who might be the rightful King of France. This would empower him to stop the revenues from Holy Gambling going to the Pope and the Duke of Jutland; and would also enable him to build a strong France, that would be able to hold it’s own against either Jutland or the Papacy.’
‘Boo Dikka, Caractacus and the English want us to replace Louie-Louie with Lewis; whom we have to assume is an imposter. I can’t really see him as the triplet of the Louis’, can you?’
Roscow nodded and Beowulf continued,
‘We have to assume that if Lewis gained the Throne that the revenues from Holy Gambling would either stay in France, as they would if Louis were King, or I think that it is much more likely that a portion of that revenue would fund a French Army and a larger portion of that money would be sequestered by the British; who seem to dream of building some kind of Empire. It would be hard to get Lewis accepted as King, bearing in mind that he speaks no French at all, and is probably unlikely to learn. It would mean hiding or disposing of both Louis’.’
‘Adding to this confusion; it appears that the Duke of Jutland (my possible parent) wants to act against his own and the Pope’s interest and have Gney’s Louis returned as King. This is interesting. It seems to me that the only reason he would do that is to start a war between the Papacy and France over the Holy Gambling revenues; this war he would sit out and then he would dominate the survivors. For his strategy to succeed, it must appear that the French are alone in acting against the Papacy and Jutland. If I succeed in returning Louis to the Kingship it will appear that I have acted solely for Marshall Gney.’
‘So what do we want?’ queried Roscow. Beowulf thought.
‘Both the British and the French have already paid us, and the Duke of Jutland has threatened us with death, if we don’t do as he says; but all of that is a bit irrelevant. We have their money whatever we decide to do and we are always being threatened with death. I find it tiring.’
‘It’s like we don’t have anything to gain either way,’ said Roscow.
Beowulf laughed,
‘Yes, we could just keep the money and do nothing. We could leave Louie-Louie on the Throne; the Pope would continue to get his money, there would be no war between France and the Papacy; the Duke of Jutland would not be able to pick on the wreckage, Britain would not develop towards it’s empire and we would make a handsome profit for no risk!’
‘Why don’t we do that, then?’ said Roscow.
Beowulf threw up his hands in frustration,
‘Won’t you ever learn?’ he cried, in something approaching anguish, ‘It is not our role on this planet to just turn up and do the easiest thing; to please our neighbours or turn a profit. That is not what our life is for! We are here to authentically, deeply and meaningfully be our true selves and express that essential god-given (or whatever) nature through the media of our deeds, thoughts, actions and relationships! Here we are at a crossroad point in history, a unique moment; where empires and nations will be born or die, where life on earth may fundamentally change, or be set on the path to stay the same for a thousand years; and what questions does my friend Roscow ask himself at this critical juncture? Roscow asks, “Where is the money?”’
Beowulf angrily banged his fist on the log, where he was sitting.
‘What point is there in that Roscow? What dreams, what desires, what morality reside in his lanky frame? How will History remember Roscow? Is he a villain, or a saviour? Wait! He’s neither; he just wants his money!’
Beowulf fell silent, in what Roscow (quite rightly) considered a sulk. After a time Roscow, who really just wanted to know what he was going to do next from a practical point of view ventured a conciliatory,
‘So, what questions should he ask?’
Beowulf brightened up and even stood up. He took on a declamatory stance. Roscow resigned himself to an hour or so of listening.
‘There is a great deal to consider. Let us take the pros and cons of each case. If we honour our agreement with Marshall Gney and reinstall the rightful King; the Pope who is a base minion and the leader of a fell superstitious creed that has enslaved mankind for several hundred years will be angry; that is a desirable goal. The Marshall, who is our friend and ally, will be pleased; that is a minor benefit. The British, who think that we work for them will be annoyed; I’m sure that I can live with that disappointment. We will have done right, we will have restored the son of the late King Jacques to his throne; we will have freed France for the French.; although none of that is very important it does have a nice ring to it and I am quite taken with the idea. “Beowulf the Just restores the true monarch”, is a phrase I quite like the sound of, however…’
Beowulf broke off at this point and Roscow could see that his fists were clenching and unclenching,
‘However, the Duke of Jutland desires this outcome, and he benefits from it! There will be a war between France and the Pope, which I am not at all adverse to; however, he benefits from this action more than anyone else.’
‘At least he doesn’t have us assassinated,’ countered Roscow, ‘that’s got to be worth something.’
‘If you can trust that viper!’ hissed Beowulf, ‘I suspect his man is lying. I would lie in this instance. He may promise us life and gratitude and then simply have us killed. The major flaw to this otherwise virtuous course of action is the happiness it will bring that miserable vampire. Let us see if there is another option.’
Beowulf began to pace as he spoke,
‘The British, in the person of Caractacus Carruthers, have asked us to remove both legitimate heirs to the French Throne and replace them with an imposter, one who incidentally looks nothing like he should look and cannot speak the language of his new country. That to me is the most interesting point; this is a wild, outlandish, hare-brained, ill-conceived, amateurish plot. To make it succeed, therefore is a challenge for a master of skill and deception; and what am I, if not a master of skill and deception? This is a consummate professional challenge and I am sorely tempted to rise to it!’
‘Yet it is not just a technical challenge, to install the most ill-fitted usurper in history; there also exists a moral dimension. What are the consequences of our actions in this case?’
‘The Pope will kill us, the Duke will kill us and the Marshall will kill us and the British might kill us, just to cover their tracks,’ said Roscow.
‘Minor difficulties, easily overcome!’ snapped Beowulf irritably, ‘I am looking at the long term consequences. As a result of this action, France will not develop as an independent state; it will become something of a British acquisition. This might speed the British in their ambition to found an empire. I can’t, having met the British, think that it would be a good idea for them to rule anybody else; I mean they are obviously woad-wearing, beer bingeing illiterates with no sense or culture. Fun though it might be to appal the civilised nations of the world, I would be reluctant to advance their cause, as I suspect that if they came into any kind of power, they would certainly use it to try and make everyone like them; pr
oud, spiteful and stuck up.’
‘That wouldn’t be because the Queen turned you down last night, would it?’ asked Roscow, innocently.
Beowulf glared,
‘It’s all personal to you, Roscow, isn’t it? No sense of history or civilization! Of course that has nothing to do with it. I was not turned down, anyway, I merely deferred the moment of consummation until another day. I was not trying too hard.’
Roscow stifled a laugh, which provoked Beowulf further,
‘Also, if Lewis ascends to the Throne, the Holy Gambling Revenues will disappear, but at the behest of the British, not the French. This would strengthen the shaky alliance between, Jutland and the Papacy and so could result in an all out war, which our two greatest enemies would surely win.’
‘It is an almost impossible choice,’ concluded Beowulf.
‘Yes, if we bring in Louis, which is a result we like, because it’s right; that makes your Dad happy and we don’t want that. If we bring in Lewis, which we like because it’s impossible, the civilised world has to put up with Britain and it also makes your Dad happy. Despite getting paid three times it looks like a lose-lose situation.’
They both sat on the log in a glum silence.
‘That’s politics,’ said Beowulf.
‘What about doing nothing?’ asked Roscow, ‘Just take the money and walk away. That leaves Louie-Louie as the King; no war with the Pope, no British Empire, only everybody in the world trying to kill us!’
‘That isn’t a bad idea,’ agreed Beowulf, ‘and we might even be able to tell the Pope that we did it for him. He’s vain enough to believe such rubbish. We might even get paid again! But...’
Beowulf fell to thinking again. At length he continued,
‘The best thing about doing nothing is that it annoys the Duke and frustrates both him and the British. The down side is that we leave the French paying the Papacy to lord it over them for the next millennium; now I quite admit to being, what the church calls “ a bad man” but I wouldn’t want a crime of that enormity on my conscience!’
‘Also, we couldn’t just leave with all the Louis’ lying around. If we don’t manipulate the situation someone else will. Roscow, old friend, we are going to have to decide what to do and then we will set history in motion!’
Beowulf stood up.
‘What are we going to do then?’ asked Roscow.
‘I don’t know, but we need to get ready for the party or we will be late!’
‘How are you going to get in?’ asked Roscow, ‘the Monastery is impregnable.’
‘That I do know,’ Beowulf said with satisfaction, ‘I worked that out ages ago! If only moral problems were as easy as logistics!’
They set off back to the fairground.
Gretza the Angel, who had been watching, through the trees, cursed in frustration. She needed to know which way Beowulf would act. If she could not learn his plans then she could not complete her mission. From behind her she heard the worrying sound of a large body coming swiftly towards the through the bushes.
‘Probably the ztupid dog,’ she thought. She turned around to ward it off and was shocked to see Grendel’s mother towering over her. Before Gretza the Angel could move a huge Troll fist hit her with a crunching uppercut. Gretza the Angel sank into the bushes, almost instantaneously losing consciousness. Just before the darkness took her she heard the old Troll’s voice,
‘This time I will have my vengeance!’