Till We Have Faces_ A Myth Retold - C. S. Lewis [34]
"Go?" said I. "I'd go if the river flowed with fire instead of water."
"Of course," said he. "It's not with you as with us. You have gods' blood in you. I'll stay here with the horse. We're out of the wind and there's good grass for him here."
I was already on the edge of the river.
"A little further up, Orual," Psyche was saying. "Here's the best ford. Go straight ahead off that big stone. Gently! make your footing sure. No, not to your left. It's very deep in places. This way. Now, one step more. Reach out for my hand."
I suppose the long bed-ridden and in-doors time of my sickness had softened me. Anyhow, the coldness of that water shocked all the breath out of me; and the current was so strong that, but for Psyche's hand, I think it would have knocked me down and rolled me under. I even thought, momentarily amid a thousand other things, "How strong she grows. She'll be a stronger woman than ever I was. She'll have that as well as her beauty."
The next was all a confusion — trying to talk, to cry, to kiss, to get my breath back, all together. But she led me a few paces beyond the river and made me sit in the warm heather, and sat beside me, our four hands joined in my lap, just as it had been that night in her prison.
"Why, Sister," she said merrily, "you have found my threshold cold and steep! You are breathless. But I'll refresh you."
She jumped up, went a little way off, and came back, carrying something; the little cool, dark berries of the Mountain, in a green leaf. "Eat," she said. "Is it not food fit for the gods?"
"Nothing sweeter," said I. And indeed I was both hungry and thirsty enough by now, for it was noon or later. "But oh, Psyche, tell me how — "
"Wait!" said she. "After the banquet, the wine." Close beside us a little silvery trickle came out from among stones mossed cushion-soft. She held her two hands under it till they were filled and raised them to my lips.
"Have you ever tasted a nobler wine?" she said. "Or in a fairer cup?"
"It is indeed a good drink," said I. "But the cup is better. It is the cup I love best in the world."
"Then it's yours, Sister." She said it with such a pretty air of courtesy, like a queen and hostess giving gifts, that the tears came into my eyes again. It brought back so many of her plays in childhood.
"Thank you, child," said I. "I hope it is mine indeed. But, Psyche, we must be serious; yes, and busy too. How have you lived? How did you escape? And oh — we mustn't let the joy of the moment put it out of our minds — what are we to do now?"
"Do? Why, be merry, what else? Why should our hearts not dance?"
"They do dance. Do you not think — why, I could forgive the gods themselves. I'll shortly be able to forgive Redival; perhaps. But how can — it will be winter in a month or less. You can't — Psyche, how have you kept alive till now? I thought, I thought — " but to think of what I had thought overcame me.
"Hush, Maia, hush," said Psyche (once more it was she who was comforting me). "All those fears are over. All's well. I'll make it well for you too; I'll not rest till you're as happy as I. But you haven't yet even asked me my story. Weren't you surprised to find this fair dwelling place, and me living here; like this? Have you no wonder?"
"Yes, Psyche, I am overwhelmed in it. Of course I want to hear your story. Unless we should make our plans first."
"Solemn Orual," said Psyche mockingly. "You were always one for plans. And rightly too, Maia, with such a foolish child as me to bring up. And well you did it." With one light kiss she put all those days, all of my life that I cared for, behind us and began her story.
"I wasn't in my right mind when we left the palace. Before the two temple girls began painting and dressing me they gave me a sweet, sticky stuff to drink — a drug, as I guess — for soon after I had swallowed it everything went dreamlike, and more and more so for a long time. And I think, Sister, they must always give that to those whose blood is to be poured over Ungit, and that's why we see them die