Till We Have Faces: Part 1: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Before long, Orual is well enough to be up and about, but she hides this from the King so that he won’t make her do work for him. The King speaks as though he loved Psyche very much, and now he’s left with the two daughters he hates.

Orual plans for her journey to the Mountain. She doesn’t know how to ride a horse, so she’ll have to walk; and since she doesn’t know the way, it’ll take a long time. She’ll have to spend a night on the Mountain. She puts the journey off because she doesn’t know what she’ll do afterwards. It seems that once she has dealt with Psyche’s remains, the part of her life with Psyche in it will be entirely gone. She can anticipate only a dark, empty future.

One day, Orual sits in a doorway near the guards’ quarters. Seeing a fly crawling up the door, she thinks her life is like the fly’s mindless progress. Bardia appears and tells her that he, too, has felt the depression she feels. Only fighting in wars made him better. She proved she had a natural talent for fighting when she attacked him outside Psyche’s door, and he offers to teach her how to use a sword. Orual doesn’t see why she should learn unless he would kill her with the sword, but Bardia insists.

Bardia equips Orual with a shield and tells her to use it as a weapon. He gives her a sword and shows her how to hold it and how to stand. He teaches her for half an hour, and it’s so difficult that she can’t think about anything else. Bardia compliments her work. When the lesson is over, Orual goes across to the dairy to drink some milk. She overhears Bardia tell another guard that it’s too bad Orual is ugly, but if a man were blind she would be a good wife. This is the closest Orual ever comes to having someone declare their love for her.

Orual takes lessons from Bardia every day, and it makes her feel better, although she still grieves. She tells him about her plan to go to the Mountain, and he offers to go in her place. When Orual insists she’ll go, he offers to go with her to give guidance and protection. They’ll ride one horse together. Orual worries that the King will keep him from going, but Bardia tells her that the King understands soldiers much better than he does women, of whom he’s almost afraid.

Six days later, Orual and Bardia set off early in the morning. Only the Fox and Orual’s servants know of their journey. Orual wears a sword at Bardia’s insistence, and they share a horse. The city is quiet. They pass the house of Ungit, which is built with huge stones in an oval shape. No one knows how the stones got there. The roof is domed, so that the building looks like a slug. The shape is supposed to resemble the egg or womb that created the world, and in the spring, the Priest of Ungit ceremonially battles his way out of the temple to birth the new year.

Orual feels better once they pass the house of Ungit. She has never been this way before, and she sees dawn coming. They pass the road by which Psyche was taken, but they take a shorter way, riding up to a ridge. On top of the ridge, there is warm sunlight. The Mountain sits across a huge valley, looking hardly real. Orual can see all the way to the sea, and all is still.

Orual struggles because she feels inclined to be happy and must tell herself all the reasons she shouldn’t be. The view makes her feel that she could wander the world, and the life around her makes the world seem much better than she thought it could be. She almost can’t even believe she’s ugly. As they continue on, she tells herself she can’t feel this way as she’s about to bury Psyche, because it makes it seem that she doesn’t love her. She knows too much of the world’s evil for the scenery to make her think it’s beautiful. The gods always make humans think everything is wonderful before they send more pain.

When they reach the last ridge before the Mountain itself, it’s very cold. A dark, forbidding valley lies below them, and the Mountain rises in towers of black stone. Orual no longer has to battle happiness. Bardia points out the Holy Tree. They descend into the valley on foot and climb towards the Tree. Orual fears that she won’t find Psyche’s remains. When they reach the Tree, they find chains hanging from it, but nothing else.

Bardia says that the god must have taken Psyche, because no animal would have been able to get her whole body out of the chains, and it would have left some remains. Orual feels that her journey was in vain, but suggests that they look around. Eventually Bardia calls her over to show her a ruby he’s found, one that Psyche wore to her sacrifice.

Orual insists that they keep searching in this direction. Bardia wants her to stay behind because no one has ever been to the other side of this ridge, and they’re very close to the dangerous, holy part of the Mountain. Orual wants Bardia to stay behind, since the gods can’t hurt her more than they already have, but they agree to go together. Bardia goes back to get the horse, and they continue on carefully.

They find themselves at the top of a steep slope leading into a gorgeous, green valley. As they descend, it gets warm. Bardia wonders if this is the god’s valley. At the bottom, Orual is about to drink from a stream when she hears two people cry out and looks up to see Psyche standing on the other side.