Till We Have Faces: Part 1: Chapter 16 Summary & Analysis

Orual enters the palace through the back and finds that the King is still away. She creeps to her room, realizing that she’s avoiding the Fox. She’s eating when he arrives and asks where she’s been. She tells him she was at the Mountain, but hides her wound from him, knowing he wouldn’t approve of her coercing Psyche the way she did. She accidentally reveals her anger with him for going to sleep rather than helping her plan Psyche’s rescue.

Orual tells the Fox only that a storm flooded the valley and she heard Psyche leaving Glome. Eventually he forces her to admit to her plan with the lamp. He is dismayed, saying that Psyche’s outlaw lover was sure to wake and punish her. Orual can’t see why she didn’t think of this, and wonders whether she actually believed Psyche’s lover was a criminal.

The Fox asks how Orual convinced Psyche to go through with the plan. Orual knows that if she admits that she told Psyche that the Fox and Bardia agreed about her lover, the Fox will see it as a lie. It seemed different when she was talking to Psyche. Orual simply says she spoke with Psyche. The Fox can tell she has a secret, but he decides not to try to get it out of her, since that would only ruin their relationship. The Fox will love her no matter what. Orual thinks he’s much kinder than Psyche. She never tells Bardia what happened to Psyche.

That night, Orual decides to veil her face forever. When she was a child, she didn’t realize she was ugly. For a while after, she thought she could be prettier if she put enough effort into it. Finally, she decides that no one will see her face again.

The King comes home a week later drunk and in a bad mood. A few days later, he sends for Orual and the Fox. He orders Orual to take off her veil, but she doesn’t fear him anymore after seeing the god. She feels powerful because she can see his face, but he can’t see hers. When he asks whether she’s opposing him, she admits that she is. He dismisses her defiance as women’s talk. From then on, Orual never submits to him again. She forces him to release herself and the Fox from the task of watching Redival, and he gives this job to Batta instead. Batta has grown close with the King, for she flatters him. She and Redival are friends one moment and enemies the next.

Orual waits for the gods to kill her, and she’s almost disappointed to find that she continues to live her same old life. She makes Psyche’s room look as it did in their happy days. When she finds a hymn to the god of the Mountain, she burns it to destroy that part of Psyche. She also burns the clothes that Psyche wore in the last year. Finally, she seals the door and decides she must never think about Psyche except the way she was in childhood. She doesn’t want to hear others speak of her.

Orual often asks the Fox about science and politics, wanting concrete knowledge. She also continues her swordsmanship lessons with Bardia, and improves quickly. She wants to build her strength of mind and body in order to drive her feminine parts away. Sometimes at night, she gives in to her despair about Psyche and weeps, wondering where she is, but afterwards she becomes stony again. Bardia teaches her to ride a horse and begins to treat her like a man.

After the Midwinter feast, the King slips on ice and injures his leg. He is carried to his bed in pain. His thigh is broken. When the Second Priest, Arnom, tries to set the leg, the King almost stabs him. Bardia and Orual have guards hold the King down, and he seems to fear Orual, screaming for her to be taken away. He develops a cough, and Batta keeps giving him too much wine. He seems to think Orual is someone else who tortures him.

Three nights later, Arnom tells Orual, Bardia, and the Fox that the King will probably die. Orual thinks she’ll be driven out of Glome in the struggle for power. Arnom admits that the Priest of Ungit is also dying, and he himself will take his place unless the King forbids it. Bardia says that Ungit and the crown need to work together to avoid chaos in Glome, and he calls Orual the Queen, which the Fox quickly echoes. Arnom wishes she were married, since she can’t lead Glome’s army. Bardia, however, insists that she can.

Arnom brings up the long conflict over the “Crumbles,” land claimed by both Ungit and the King. Orual has always thought Ungit should have it so the priests won’t have to take so many sacrifices from the people. Due to the King’s sickness, Orual claims the power to speak for him and gives the Crumbles to Ungit on the condition that Ungit’s guards come under the direction of the King’s guard. She knows that Arnom will accept because he needs the palace on his side. The Fox and Bardia congratulate her.

Standing alone in the great hall, Orual feels very strange. Being Queen won’t lessen her sorrows, but it might help her push them away. She realizes her father will die, and suddenly feels incredibly free and glad. But then she thinks she hears a girl crying—a sound she’s always waiting to hear. She goes outside in pursuit of the noise and calls for Psyche, but soon she realizes that it was only the chains of the well swinging in the breeze. She then sees someone dive into some bushes, and when she investigates, a man’s voice tells her to take him to the King.