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"What then?"

"Why, just this. Women and boys talk easily about killing a man. Yet, believe me, it's a hard thing to do; I mean, the first time. There's something in a man that goes against it."

"You think I'd pity him?"

"I don't know if it's pity. But the first time I did it — it was the hardest thing in the world to make my own hand plunge the sword into all that live flesh."

"But you did."

"Yes; my enemy was a bungler. But how if he'd been quick? That's the danger, you see. There's a moment when one pause — the fifth part of the time it takes to wink your eye — may lose a chance. And it might be your only chance, and then you'd have lost the battle."

"I don't think my hand would delay, Bardia," said I. I was trying to test it in my mind. I pictured my father, well again, and coming at me in one of his old rages; I felt sure my hand would not fail me to stab him. It had not failed when I stabbed myself.

"We'll hope not," said Bardia. "But you must go through the exercise. I make all the recruits do it."

"The exercise?"

"Yes. You know they're to kill a pig this morning. You must be the butcher, Queen."

I saw in a flash that if I shrank from this there would at once be less Queen and more Orual in me.

"I am ready," said I. I understood the work pretty well, for of course we had seen the slaughtering of beasts ever since we were children. Redival had always watched and always screamed; I had watched less often and held my tongue. So now I went and killed my pig. (We kill pigs without sacrifice, for these beasts are an abomination to Ungit; there is a sacred story that explains why.) And I swore that if I came back alive from the combat, Bardia and the Fox and Trunia and I should eat the choicest parts of it for our supper. Then, when I had taken off my butcher's apron and washed, I went back to the Pillar Room; for I had thought of something that must be done, now that my life might be only two days. The Fox was already there; I called Bardia and Arnom for witnesses and declared the Fox free.

Next moment I was plunged in despair. I cannot now understand how I had been so blind as not to foresee it. My only thought had been to save him from being mocked and neglected and perhaps sold by Redival if I were dead. But now, as soon as the other two were done wishing him joy and kissing him on the cheeks, it all broke on me. "You'll be a loss to our councils — " "There are many in Glome who'll be sorry to see you go — " "Don't make your journey in winter — " what were they saying?

"Grandfather!" I cried, no Queen now; all Orual, even all child. "Do they mean you'll leave me? Go away?"

The Fox raised towards me a face full of infinite trouble, twitching. "Free?" he muttered. "You mean I could . . . I can . . . it wouldn't matter much even if I died on the way. Not if I could get down to the sea. There'd be tunnies, olives. No, it'd be too early in the year for olives. But the smell of the harbours. And walking about the market talking, real talk. But you don't know, this is all foolishness, none of you know. I should be thanking you, daughter. But if ever you loved me, don't speak to me now. Tomorrow. Let me go." He pulled his cloak over his head and groped his way out of the room.

And now this game of queenship, which had buoyed me up and kept me busy ever since I woke that morning, failed me utterly. We had made all our preparations for the combat. There was the rest of the day, and the whole of the next, to wait; and hanging over it, this new desolation, that if I lived I might have to live without the Fox.

I went out into the gardens. I would not go up to that plot behind the pear trees; that was where he, and Psyche, and I had often been happiest. I wandered miserably out on the other side, on the west of the apple-orchard, till the cold drove me in; it was a bitter, black frost that day, with no sun. I am both ashamed and afraid to revive, by writing of them, the thoughts I had. In my ignorance I could not understand the strength of the desire which must be drawing my old master to his own land. I had lived