Клайв Стейплз Льюис - Till we have Faces

“A feast, Bardia? Of bean–bread? You know we’ve bare larders in Glome.”

“There’s the pig, Queen. And Ungit must let us have a share of the bull; I’ll speak to Arnom of it. You must let the King’s cellar blood to some purpose tonight, and then the bread will be less noticed.” Thus my fancy of a snug supper with Bardia and the Fox was dashed, and my sword not yet wiped from the blood of my first battle before I found myself all woman again and caught up in housewife’s cares. If only I could have ridden away from them all and got to the butler before they reached the palace and learned what wine we really had! My father (and doubtless Batta) had had enough to swim in during his last few days.

In the end there were five–and–twenty of us (counting in myself) who rode back from that field to the palace. The Prince was at my side, saying all manner of fine things about me (as indeed he had some reason) and always begging me to let him see my face. It was only a kind of courteous banter and would have been nothing to any other woman. To me it was so new and (I must confess this also) so sweet that I could not choose but keep the sport up a little. I had been happy, far happier than I could hope to be again, with Psyche and the Fox, long ago, before our troubles. Now, for the first time in all my life (and the last), I was gay. A new world, very bright, seemed to be opening all round me.

It was of course the gods’ old trick; blow the bubble up big before you prick it.

They pricked it a moment after I had crossed the threshold of my house. A little girl whom I’d never seen before, a slave, came out from some corner where she’d been lurking and whispered in Bardia’s ear. He had been very merry up till now; the sunlight went out of his face. Then he came up to me, and said, half shamefacedly, “Queen, the day’s work is over. You’ll not need me now. I’d take it very kindly if you’ll let me go home. My wife’s taken with her pains. We had thought it could not be so soon. I’d be glad to be with her tonight.”

I understood in that moment all my father’s rages. I put terrible constraint on myself and said, “Why, Bardia, it is very fit you should. Commend me to your wife. And offer this ring to Ungit for her safe delivery.” The ring which I took off my finger was the choicest I had.

His thanks were hearty; yet he had hardly time to utter them before he was speeding away. I suppose he never dreamed what he had done to me with those words the day’s work is over . Yes, that was it; the day’s work. I was his work; he earned his bread by being my soldier. When his tale of work for the day was done, he went home, like other hired men, and took up his true life.

That night’s banquet was the first I had ever been at and the last I ever sat through (we do not lie at table like Greeks but sit on chairs or benches). After this, though I gave many feasts, I never did more than to come in three times and pledge the most notable guests and speak to all and then out again; always with two of my women attending me. This has saved me much weariness, besides putting about a great notion either of my pride or my modesty which has been useful enough. That night I sat nearly to the end, the only woman in the whole mob of them. Three parts of me was a shamed and frightened Orual who looked forward to a scolding from the Fox for being there at all, and was bitterly lonely; the fourth part was Queen, proud (though dazed too) amid the heat and clamour, sometimes dreaming she could laugh loud and drink deep like a man and a warrior, next moment, more madly, answering to Trunia’s daffing, as if her veil hid the face of a pretty woman.

When I got away and up into the cold and stillness of the gallery my head reeled and ached. And “Faugh!” I thought. “What vile things men are!” They were all drunk by now (except the Fox, who had gone early), but their drinking had sickened me less than their eating. I had never seen men at their pleasures before: the gobbling, snatching, belching, hiccuping, the greasiness of it all, the bones thrown on the floor, the dogs quarrelling under our feet. Were all men such? Would Bardia——? then back came my loneliness. My double loneliness, for Bardia, for Psyche. Not separable. The picture, the impossible fool’s dream, was that all should have been different from the very beginning and he would have been my husband and Psyche our daughter. Then I would have been in labour … with Psyche … and to me he would have been coming home. But now I discovered the wonderful power of wine. I understand why men become drunkards. For the way it worked on me was not at all that it blotted out these sorrows, but that it made them seem glorious and noble, like sad music, and I somehow great and reverend for feeling them. I was a great, sad queen in a song. I did not check the big tears that rose in my eyes. I enjoyed them. To say all, I was drunk; I played the fool.

And so, to my fool’s bed. What was that? No, no, not a girl crying in the garden. No one, cold, hungry, and banished, was shivering there, longing and not daring to come in. It was the chains swinging at the well. It would be folly to get up and go out and call again; Psyche, Psyche, my only love. I am a great queen. I have killed a man. I am drunk like a man. All warriors drink deep after the battle. Bardia’s lips on my hand were like the touch of lightning. All great princes have mistresses or lovers. There’s the crying again. No, it’s only the buckets at the well. Shut the window, Poobi. To your bed, child. Do you love me, Poobi? Kiss me good night. Good night. The King’s dead. He’ll never pull my hair again. A straight thrust and then a cut in the leg. That would have killed him. I am the Queen; I’ll kill Orual too.

On the next day we burnt the old King; on the day after that we betrothed Redival to Trunia (and the wedding was made a month later); the third day all the strangers rode off and we had the house to ourselves. My real reign began.

I must now pass quickly over many years (though they made up the longest part of my life) during which the Queen of Glome had more and more part in me and Orual had less and less. I locked her up or laid her asleep as best I could somewhere deep down inside me; she lay curled there. It was like being with child, but reversed; the thing I carried in me grew slowly smaller and less alive.

It may happen that someone who reads this book will have heard tales and songs about my reign and my wars and great deeds. Let him be sure that most of it is false, for I know already that the common talk, and especially in neighbouring lands, has doubled and trebled the truth, and my deeds, such as they were, have been mixed up with those of some great fighting queen who lived long ago and (I think) further north, and a fine patchwork of wonders and impossibilities made out of both. But the truth is that after my battle with Argan there were only three wars that I fought, and one of them, the last, against the Wagon Men who live beyond the Grey Mountain, was a very slight thing. And though I rode out with my men in all these wars, I was never such a fool as to think myself a great captain. All that part of it was Bardia’s and Penuan’s. (I met him first the night after I fought Argan, and he became the trustiest of my nobles). I will also say this: I was never yet at any battle but that, when the lines were drawn up and the first enemy arrows came flashing in among us, and the grass and trees about you suddenly became a place, a Field, a thing to be put in chronicles, I wished very heartily that I had stayed at home. Nor did I ever do any notable deed with my own arm but once. That was in the war with Essur, when some of their horse came out of an ambush and Bardia, riding to his position, was surrounded all in a moment. Then I galloped in and hardly knew what I was doing till the matter was over, and they say I had killed seven men with my own strokes. (I was wounded that day). But to hear the common rumour you would think I had planned every war and every battle and killed more enemies than all the rest of our army put together.