We had stood on the ridge only for a short time. But for hours later while we went up and down winding among great hills, often dismounting and leading the horse, sometimes on dangerous edges, the struggle went on.
Was I not right to struggle against this fool-happy mood? Mere seemliness, if nothing else, called for it. I would not go laughing to Psyche’s burial. If I did, how should I ever again believe that I had loved her? Reason called for it. I knew the world too well to believe this sudden smiling. What woman can have patience with the man who can be yet again deceived by his doxy’s fawning after he has thrice proved her false? I should be just like such a man if a mere burst of fair weather, and fresh grass after a long drought, and health after sickness, could make me friends again with this god-haunted, plague-breeding, decaying, tyrannous world. I had seen. I was not a fool. I did not know then, however, as I do now, the strongest reason for distrust. The gods never send us this invitation to delight so readily or so strongly as when they are preparing some new agony. We are their bubbles; they blow us big before they prick us.
But I held my own without that knowledge. I ruled myself. Did they think I was nothing but a pipe to be played on as their moment’s fancy chose?
The struggle ended when we topped the last rise before the real Mountain. We were so high now that, though the sun was very strong, the wind blew bitterly cold. At our feet, between us and the Mountain, lay a cursed black valley: dark moss, dark peat-bogs, shingle, great boulders, and screes of stone sprawling down into it from the Mountain—as if the Mountain had sores and these were the stony issue from them. The great mass of it rose up (we tilted our heads back to look at it) into huge knobbles of stone against the sky, like an old giant’s back teeth. The face it showed us was really no steeper than a roof, except for certain frightful cliffs on our left, but it looked as if it went up like a wall. It, too, was now black. Here the gods ceased trying to make me glad. There was nothing here that even the merriest heart could dance for.
Bardia pointed ahead to our right. There the Mountain fell away in a smooth sweep to a saddle somewhat lower than the ground we stood on, but still with nothing behind it but the sky. Against the sky, on the saddle, stood a single leafless tree.
We went down into the black valley on our own feet, leading the horse, for the going was bad and stones slipped away from under us until, at the lowest place, we joined the sacred road (it came into the valley through the northern end, away to our left). We were so near now that we did not mount again. A few loops of the road led us up to the saddle and, once more, into the biting wind.
I was afraid, now that we were almost at the Tree. I can hardly say of what, but I know that to find the bones, or even the body, would have set my fear at rest. I believe I had a senseless child’s fear that she might be neither living nor dead.
And now we were there. The iron girdle, and the chain that went from it about the gaunt trunk (there was no bark on the Tree) hung there and made a dull noise from time to time as they moved with the wind. There were no bones, nor rags of clothing, nor marks of blood, nor anything else.
‘How do you read these signs, Bardia?’ said I.
‘The god’s taken her,’ said he, rather pale and speaking low (he was a god-fearing man). ‘No natural beast would have licked his plate so clean. There’d be bones. A beast—any but the holy Shadowbrute itself—couldn’t have got the whole body out of the irons. And it would have left the jewels. A man, now—but a man couldn’t have freed her, unless he had tools with him.’
I had not thought of our journey’s being so vain, nothing to do, nothing to gather. The emptiness of my life was to begin at once.
‘We can search about a bit,’ I said, foolishly, for I had no hope of finding anything.
‘Yes, yes, Lady. We can search about,’ said Bardia. I knew it was only his kindness that spoke.
And so we did, working round in circles, he one way and I the other, with our eyes on the ground; very cold, one’s cloak flapping till leg and cheek smarted with the blows of it.
Bardia was ahead of me now, eastward and further across the saddle, when he called out. I had to thrust back the hair that was whipping about my face before I could see him. I rushed to him; half flying, for the west-wind made a sail of my cloak. He showed me what he had found—a ruby.
‘I never saw her wear such a stone,’ said I.
‘She did though, Lady. On her last journey. They had put their own holy gear on her. The straps of the sandals were red with rubies.’
‘Oh, Bardia! Then somebody—something—carried her thus far.’
‘Or maybe carried only the sandals. A jackdaw’d do it.’
‘We must go on; further on this line.’
‘Carefully, Lady. If we must, I’ll do it. You’d best stay behind.’
‘Why, what’s to fear? And anyway, I’ll not stay behind.’
‘I don’t know that anyone’s been over the saddle. At the Offering, even the priests come no further than the Tree. We are very near the bad part of the Mountain—I mean the holy part. Beyond the Tree, it’s all gods’ country, they say.’
‘Then it is you must stay behind, Bardia. They can’t do worse to me than they’ve done already.’
‘I’ll go where you go, Lady. But let’s talk less of them, or not at all. And first, I must go back and get the horse.’
He went back (and for a moment out of sight—I stood alone on the edge of the perilous land) to where he had tied the horse to a little stunted bush. Then he rejoined me, leading it, very grave, and we went forward.
‘Carefully,’ he said again. ‘We may find we’re on the top of a cliff any moment.’ And indeed it looked, for the next few paces, as if we were walking straight into the empty sky. Then suddenly we found we were on the brow of a steep slope; and at the same moment the sun—which had been overcast ever since we went down into the black valley—leaped out.
It was like looking down into a new world. At our feet, cradled amid a vast confusion of mountains, lay a small valley bright as a gem, but opening southward on our right. Through that opening there was a glimpse of warm, blue lands, hills and forests, far below us. The valley itself was like a cleft in the Mountain’s southern chin. High though it was, the year seemed to have been kinder in it than down in Glome. I never saw greener turf. There was gorse in bloom, and wild vines, and many groves of flourishing trees, and great plenty of bright water—pools, streams, and little cataracts. And when, after casting about a little to find where the slope would be easiest for the horse, we began descending, the air came up to us warmer and sweeter every minute. We were out of the wind now and could hear ourselves speak; soon we could hear the very chattering of the streams and the sound of bees.
‘This may well be the secret valley of the god,’ said Bardia, his voice hushed.
‘It’s secret enough,’ said I.
Now we were at the bottom, and so warm that I had half a mind to dip my hands and face in the swift, amber water of the stream which still divided us from the main of the valley. I had already lifted my hand to put aside my veil when I heard two voices cry out—one, Bardia’s. I looked. A quivering shock of feeling that has no name (but is nearest terror) stabbed through me from head to foot. There, not six feet away, on the far side of the river, stood Psyche.
X
What I babbled, between tears and laughter, in the first wildness of my joy (the water still between us) I don’t know. I was recalled by Bardia’s voice.
‘Careful, Lady. It may be her wraith. It may—ai! ai!—it is the bride of the god. It is a goddess.’ He was deadly white, and bending down to throw earth on his forehead.
You could not blame him. She was so brightface, as we say in Greek. But I felt no holy fear. What?—I to fear the very Psyche whom I had carried in my arms and taught to speak and to walk? She was tanned by sun and wind, and clothed in rags, but laughing—her eyes like two stars, her limbs smooth and rounded, and (but for the rags) no sign of beggary or hardship about
her.
‘Welcome, welcome, welcome,’ she was saying. ‘Oh, Maia, I have longed for this. It was my only longing. I knew you would come. Oh, how happy I am! And good Bardia too. It was he that brought you? Of course; I might have guessed it. Come, Orual, you must cross the stream. I’ll show you where it’s easiest. But, Bardia—I can’t bid you across. Dear Bardia, it’s not—’
‘No, no, Blessed Istra,’ said Bardia (and I thought he was very relieved). ‘I’m only a soldier.’ Then, in a lower voice, to me, ‘Will you go, Lady? This is a very dreadful place. Perhaps—’
‘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 dream-like, 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 so patiently. And the painting on my face helped the dreaminess too. It made my face stiff till it didn’t seem to be my own face. I couldn’t feel it was I who was being sacrificed. And then the music and incense and the torches made it more so. I saw you, Orual, at the top of the stairway, but I couldn’t lift even a hand to wave to you; my arms were as heavy as lead. And I thought it didn’t matter much, because you too would wake up presently and find it was all a dream. And in a sense it was, wasn’t it? And you are nearly awake now. What? Still so grave? I must wake you more.
‘You’d think the cold air would have given me my mind back when we came out of the great gates, but the drug must have been still coming to its full power. I had no fear; nor joy either. Sitting there on that litter, up above the heads of all that crowd, was a strange enough thing anyway . . . and the horns and the rattles were going on all the time. I don’t know whether the journey up the mountain was long or short. Each bit of it was long; I noticed every pebble on the road, I looked long, long at every tree as we passed it. Yet the whole journey seemed to take hardly any time. Yet long enough for me to get some of my wits back. I began to know that something dreadful was being done to me. Then for the first time I wanted to speak. I tried to cry out to them that there was some mistake, that I was only poor Istra and it couldn’t be me they meant to kill. But nothing more than a kind of grunting or babbling came out of my mouth. Then a great bird-headed man, or a bird with a man’s body—’
‘That would be the Priest,’ said I.
‘Yes. If he is still the Priest when he puts on his mask; perhaps he becomes a god while he wears it. Anyway, it said, “Give her some more,” and one of the younger priests got on someone else’s shoulders and put the sweet, sticky cup to my lips again. I didn’t want to take it, but, you know, Maia, it all felt so like the time you had the barber to take that thorn out of my hand long ago—you remember—you holding me tight, and telling me to be good, and that it’d all be over in a moment. Well, it was like that, so I felt sure I’d better do whatever I was told.
‘The next thing I knew—really knew—was that I was off the litter and on the hot earth, and they were fastening me to the Tree with iron round my waist. It was the sound of the iron that cleared the last of the drug out of my mind. And there was the King, shrieking and wailing and tearing his hair. And do you know, Maia, he actually looked at me, really looked, and it seemed to me he was then seeing me for the first time. But all I wished was that he would stop it and then he and all the rest would go away and leave me alone to cry. I wanted to cry now. My mind was getting clearer and clearer and I was terribly afraid. I was trying to be like those girls in the Greek stories that the Fox is always telling us about, and I knew I could keep it up till they were gone, if only they would go quickly.’
‘Oh, Psyche, you say all’s well now. Forget that terrible time. Go on quickly and tell me how you were saved. We have so much to talk about and arrange. There’s no time—’
‘Orual! There’s all the time there is. Don’t you want to hear my story?’
‘Of course I do. I want to hear every bit. When we’re safe and—’
‘Where shall we ever be safe if we’re not safe here? This is my home, Maia. And you won’t understand the wonder and glory of my adventure unless you listen to the bad part. It wasn’t very bad, you know.’
‘It’s so b
ad I can hardly bear to listen to it.’
‘Ah, but wait. Well, at last they were gone, and there I was alone under the glare of the sky with the great baked, parched Mountain all round me, and not one noise to be heard. There wasn’t a breath of wind even by the Tree; you remember what the last day of the drought was like. I was already thirsty—the sticky drink had done that. Then I noticed for the first time that they had so bound me that I couldn’t sit down. That was when my heart really failed me. I did cry then; oh, Maia, how badly I wanted you and the Fox! And all I could do was to pray, pray, pray to the gods that whatever was going to happen to me might happen soon. But nothing happened, except that my tears made me thirstier. Then, a very long time after that, things began gathering round me.’
‘Things?’
‘Oh, nothing dreadful. Only the mountain cattle at first. Poor lean things they were. I was sorry for them, for I thought they were as thirsty as I. And they came nearer and nearer in a great circle, but never very near, and mooed at me. And after that there came a beast that I had never seen before, but I think it was a lynx. It came right up close. My hands were free and I wondered if I would be able to beat it off. But I had no need to. After advancing and drawing back I don’t know how many times (I think it began by fearing me as much as I feared it) it came and sniffed at my feet, and then it stood up with its forepaws on me and sniffed again. Then it went away. I was sorry it had gone; it was a kind of company. And do you know what I was thinking all this time?’