Thinking about how 1,500+ years of life doesn't make Arthur a good father, but it does soften him up.
The rediscovery of Beowulf as the long 19th century begins and the first 100+ years of translations use the root word aglæc to describe both Beowulf and Grendel's mother. For Beowulf, the translators used "heroic." For Grendel's mother, "monstrous."
Arthur spoke that natively, his second language after his mother's Bythronic. He can remember the long house, warm with crowded bodies and the fire, smoky but pleasant. He can remember the voice of the bard rising and falling, the shadows in the shape of heroism on the wall flickering in firelight. He can remember the delight and shudder and communal thrum of each reaction. He can remember the loudest laughs and gasps coming from the great lady at the head of the table, who is the reason he is fed, clothed, and alive, who also holds the seax of all free people at her waist and commands the space.
His youngest two children sit in his Victorian library, perhaps with the neighbors' children, listening to their father at his finest and their uncle at his happiest, telling stories no human has heard in a thousand years. One too many glasses of port at dinner and a glug of brandy, and they're on their feet, telling tales. One or two of his mothers more than populate the compilation of the Mabinogion, and, of course, Arthur's Beowulf. And they listen as he once listened. To his mother, his sister, his brothers, and the bards. Watching shapes on the wall, the delight of triumph, and the grip of the tale.
His eldest, if not his firstborn, is content to listen from a spot apart. Leaned in a doorway, always curious about what came before the Normans made English as much of a mix of French and English as he himself. Actually understanding, born of the effort to please rather than just being entertained as Arthur wheels into a rush of English older than anything, tinged with Mercian vowels.
His next boy, social through and through, reacting as much to a sweep of the arm or an exaggerated face as to the expressions of the other children, running a finger over the illustrated copy open in his lap, eyes flicking between everything, excitement itself, holding onto the sounds because they are musical and there's nothing he loves more than melody. He will learn every song a thousand years and more can teach, but for now, he listens, concentrating on holding still.
And his last child. His girl. The very, very best of him. She holds herself high, back straight with interest, listening intently, following better than the other children despite little more inthe way of knowing. She is mouthing words, memorizing them for later, packing them away, He bounces around in the same language, between the oldest words and the newest. Her hands are on her knees, kinetic with the tale. She can be so still, but now she is alight. He finds himself telling her the story. Looking at her, facing her, orienteering like Jack does. She doesn't hide her expression and the monsters are always her favorite part. Grendel's mother takes action, moving the story, and she frowns. Rhys feigns pulling a sword from a sheath and raising it up, but the expression disappears. Zee is patient; she always has been. Time bounces across a sentence as he continues.
He knows the words of the translation; the book in Jack's lap speaks next. Grendel's mother, a woman, a wretched woman. This from aglæcwif, of the same root as speaks to Beowulf's heroism. The men will translate and transform. She becomes a wretch and later hell-bride, monstrous, evil. And later, the women translators will call her a warrior, and a mighty one at that. They are not that far yet, not in this long 19th century, but he can do better. For she as no wretch.
He can hear the bards of a millennium before, deferring to the great lady of the hall who sits in the great chair, circlet low on her forehead. The way his mother sat was commanding and tall. The bard bowed before her as he spoke the next words. His youngest before him, her back straight, He looks at her, her bright eyes are on the page near Jack's finger, and she is frowning.
Again, he hears the Bard's words and the deference there.
Grendles mōdor / ides, aglæcwif. He knows the words. He has spoken to them so often, but for so long. Zee looks up at him. She is not nameless. She is more than his daughter as the great lady was more than wife or mother. She looks at him, and he wonders if she knows. Neither helll bride nor monstrous nor wretched. He drops to her level, one knee down in a homage that is suddenly less ridiculous. She meets his eye, and he will see steel there before long. He knows the word he wants, what Zee is.
Mother of Grendel, the lady most formidable.
