Despite these words, Thomas is visibly worn out by the time the last spoonful has passed his mouth and has soon retreated back to the blanket in his room. Mrs. Grendel too is soon to retire. It leaves Livia alone with Grendel. She is glad for it. She is in need of distraction, of hope. Grendel, she knows, will offer her both.

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They talk without strain, sitting at the kitchen table, tea in the pot. It’s Livia who picks the topic; something safe, simple, far from her fears.

“How about that name?” she asks. “It must have been a burden.”

Grendel answers plainly, directly, the way he told his story; unworried by truth.

“Not at all,” he says. “Growing up, you see, I simply never realised. Not until much later, here in London, when I heard someone sing the song. Have you heard it? Apparently it is very old. There are many versions. But in each of them there is a monster. Grendel. ‘It filled the great hall with its Smoke / And tore the men / Gristle from bone.’” He snarls playfully; smiles. “I doubt my father ever gave it a second thought; nor Granddad. Perhaps though, ten generations back, there was a monster in the family. Or perhaps”—his smile fades, and a frown grows into his forehead, more of wonder than of grief—“the name is like a seed, planted in my bloodline a thousand years ago, waiting to sprout in the one for whom it was intended.”

Livia reaches over and lays her hand in his. How simple, how natural it is to touch him.

“What sort of villain are you? Do you steal away at night to feast on swordsmen in their sleep?”

“What is an angel,” he answers, “if not a monster of some kind?” But he giggles as he says it and seems almost happy. “What about ‘Livia’ though? It’s a beautiful name but I’ve never heard it before.”

“A family name. It was my grandmother’s.”

Grendel nods and smiles and holds Livia’s hand.

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That same evening she tells Grendel how her father went mad. She shouldn’t, of course, it is a family secret, all their servants are sworn to it and only two of them are trusted to tend to his needs. But she wants Grendel to know about him. Perhaps they can visit him some day, stand by his bedside and hold his hands. Grendel is the miracle Father prayed for all his life.

“He wanted to be like you,” she says. “Sinless. Pure. But he wasn’t. When I was a child, I remember, he had a quick temper. I found him once, shouting at a stable boy, Smoke coming out his ears. Two mighty plumes, thick as candy floss.”

She cannot help laughing. It is a happy memory, despite the sin.