Till We Have Faces_ A Myth Retold - C. S. Lewis [8]
Redival was utterly cowed by the King's anger and obeyed him. She was always with us. And that soon cooled any love she had for Psyche or me. She yawned and she quarrelled and she mocked. Psyche, who was a child so merry, so truthful, so obedient that in her (the Fox said) Virtue herself had put on a human form, could do no right in Redival's eyes. One day Redival hit her. Then I hardly knew myself again till I found that I was astride of Redival, she on the ground with her face a lather of blood, and my hands about her throat. It was the Fox who pulled me off and, in the end, some kind of peace was made between us.
Thus all the comfort we three had had was destroyed when Redival joined us. And after that, little by little, one by one, came the first knocks of the hammer that finally destroyed us all.
That year after I fought Redival was the first of the bad harvests. That same year my father tried to marry himself (as the Fox told me) into two royal houses among the neighbouring kings, and they would have none of him. The world was changing, the great alliance with Caphad had proved a snare. The tide was against Glome.
The same year, too, a small thing happened which cost me many a shuddering. The Fox and I, up behind the pear trees, were deep in his philosophy. Psyche had wandered off, singing to herself, among the trees, to the edge of the royal gardens where they overlook the lane. Redival went after her. I had one eye on the pair of them, and one ear for the Fox. Then it seemed they were talking to someone in the lane, and shortly after that they came back.
Redival, sneering, bowed double before Psyche and went through the actions of pouring dust on her head. "Why don't you honour the goddess?" she said to us.
"What do you mean, Redival?" asked I, wearily, for I knew she meant some new spite.
"Did you not know our step-sister had become a goddess?"
"What does she mean, Istra?" said I. (I never called her Psyche now that Redival had joined us.)
"Come on, step-sister goddess, speak up," said Redival. "I'm sure I've been told often enough how truthful you are, so you'll not deny that you have been worshipped."
"It's not true," said Psyche. "All that happened was that a woman with child asked me to kiss her."
"Ah, but why?" said Redival.
"Because — because she said her baby would be beautiful if I did."
"Because you are so beautiful yourself. — Don't forget that. She said that."
"And what did you do, Istra?" asked I.
"I kissed her. She was a nice woman. I liked her."
"And don't forget that she then laid down a branch of myrtle at your feet and bowed and put dust on her head," said Redival.
"Has this happened before, Istra?" said I.
"Yes. Sometimes."
"How often?"
"I don't know."
"Twice before?"
"More than that."
"Well, ten times?"
"No, more. I don't know. I can't remember. What are you looking at me like that for? Is it wrong?"
"Oh, it's dangerous, dangerous," said I. "The gods are jealous. They can't bear — "
"Daughter, it doesn't matter a straw," said the Fox. "The divine nature is without jealousy. Those gods — the sort of gods you are always thinking about — are all folly and lies of poets. We have discussed this a hundred times."
"Heigh-ho," yawns Redival, lying flat on her back in the grass and kicking her legs in the air till you could see all there was of her (which she did purely to put the Fox out of countenance, for the old man was very modest). "Heigh-ho, a step-sister for goddess and a slave for counsellor. Who'd be a princess in Glome? I wonder what Ungit thinks of our new goddess."
"It is not very easy to find out what Ungit thinks," said the Fox.
Redival rolled round and laid her cheek on the