Till We Have Faces_ A Myth Retold - C. S. Lewis [86]
She sat down and resumed her spinning; her face at rest and her lips a little pursed, very housewifely. She would give me no help.
"It was very unlooked for," said I. "Did you at first see any danger in this sickness?"
"Yes."
"Did you so? To me Arnom said it ought to have been a light matter."
"He said that to me, Queen. He said it would be a light matter for a man who had all his strength to fight it."
"Strength? But the Lord Bardia was a strong man."
"Yes — as a tree that is eaten away within."
"Eaten away? And with what? I never knew this."
"I suppose not, Queen. He was tired. He had worked himself out — or been worked. Ten years ago he should have given over and lived as old men do. He was not made of iron or brass, but flesh."
"He never looked nor spoke like an old man."
"Perhaps you never saw him, Queen, at the times when a man shows his weariness. You never saw his haggard face in early morning. Nor heard his groan when you (because you had sworn to do it) must shake him and force him to rise. You never saw him come home late from the palace, hungry, yet too tired to eat. How should you, Queen? I was only his wife. He was too well-mannered, you know, to nod and yawn in a Queen's house."
"You mean that his work — ?"
"Five wars, thirty-one battles, nineteen embassies, taking thought for this and thought for that, speaking a word in one ear, and another, and another, soothing this man and scaring that and flattering a third, devising, consulting, remembering, guessing, forecasting . . . and the Pillar Room and the Pillar Room. The mines are not the only place where a man can be worked to death."
This was worse than the worst I had looked for. A flash of anger passed through me, then a horror of misgiving; could it (but that was fantastical) be true? But the misery of that mere suspicion made my own voice almost humble.
"You speak in your sorrow, Lady. But (forgive me) this is mere fantasy. I never spared myself more than him. Do you tell me a strong man'd break under the burden a woman's bearing still?"
"Who that knows men would doubt it? They're harder, but we're tougher. They do not live longer than we. They do not weather a sickness better. Men are brittle. And you, Queen, were the younger."
My heart shrivelled up cold and abject within me. "If this is true," said I, "I've been deceived. If he had dropped but a word of it, I'd have taken every burden from him, sent him home forever, loaded with every honour I could give."
"You know him little, Queen, if you think he'd ever have spoken that word. Oh, you have been a fortunate queen; no prince ever had more loving servants."
"I know I have had loving servants. Do you grudge me that? Even now, in your grief, will your heart serve you to grudge me that? Do you mock me because that is the only sort of love I ever had or could have? No husband; no child. And you — you who have had all — "
"All you left me, Queen."
"Left you, fool? What mad thought is in your mind?"
"Oh, I know well enough that you were not lovers. You left me that. The divine blood will not mix with subjects', they say. You left me my share. When you had used him, you would let him steal home to me; until you needed him again. After weeks and months at the wars — you and he night and day together, sharing the councils, the dangers, the victories, the soldiers' bread, the very jokes — he could come back to me, each time a little thinner and greyer and with a few more scars, and fall asleep before his supper was down, and cry out in his dream, 'Quick, on the right there. The Queen's in danger.' And next morning — the Queen's a wonderful early riser in Glome — the Pillar Room again. I'll not deny it; I had what you left of him."
Her look and voice now were such as no woman could mistake.
"What?" I cried. "Is it possible you're jealous?"
She said nothing.
I sprang to my feet and pulled aside my veil. "Look, look, you fool!" I cried. "Are you jealous of this?"
She started back from me, gazing, so that for a moment I wondered if my face were