Till We Have Faces: Part 2: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Not long after finishing writing Part I, Orual begins to write again. She is dying. She can’t rewrite the book, so she has to add to it. She now understands herself much better, partly from the very process of writing. She has had to write down emotions that she had forgotten, and, in the end, she realized that her memories had not been truthful for many years. But this was only the beginning of the change in her.

When the Queen is writing about her happy childhood years, she receives word that an embassy is coming from another king. When they get to Glome, she finds that their leader is a monstrously fat, conceited eunuch. He seems familiar, and eventually she realizes it’s Tarin, who was once Redival’s lover. He reminds her that it was her father who made him a eunuch, luckily for him, since eunuchs are valued at his king’s court. Tarin says he’s glad the Queen’s father’s temper got him out of being a guard in a backwards little kingdom like Glome.

Tarin asks about Redival, and the Queen tells him she’s the Queen of Phars. Tarin remembers Redival as pretty, though he only took pity on her because she was lonely. She used to say that Orual loved her until the Fox and Psyche came, and then Orual stopped loving her. The Queen isn’t sure whether to believe him, and she still doesn’t like Redival. But she’s never considered how Redival felt about her loving Psyche and the Fox—she’s always thought she was the one who should be pitied, since Redival had beauty.

The Queen continues writing, sorting through her own motivations. At night, she dreams of sorting a pile of seeds, knowing she’ll be punished if she stops or makes a mistake. She’s pretty sure she’ll fail, but there’s the slightest chance she’ll succeed, so she must continue. Sometimes she’s an ant, and has to carry the seeds like huge stones.

The Queen is so focused on her work that she hardly thinks of Bardia, except to be angry that he isn’t around to work on affairs of state so that she has more time to write. When she finally finishes her book, she actually listens to Arnom and realizes that Bardia is far sicker than she thought. She wants to go to him immediately, but Arnom tells her that a visit would only make Bardia think of all the work he needs to be doing and thus further tire him out. The Queen accepts this, since she would do anything to help Bardia live.

Five days later, Bardia dies. The worst part is that the Queen never told him she loved him. At the funeral, she can’t beat her breast for him because she isn’t family. Three days later, she goes to visit his widow, Ansit. She feels like Ansit is her enemy, but also the only person she can talk to about Bardia’s death.

Ansit seems very calm, and she is beautiful in a proud way. The Queen offers words of sympathy, but Ansit is deferential and distant. The Queen begs her to be more familiar, since she also feels the loss of Bardia painfully. They sit, and the Queen says that Bardia’s death was very unexpected. Ansit tells her that he wasn’t strong to begin with, which shocks the Queen. He worked himself too hard, Ansit says, and should have retired years before. The Queen says he never seemed old, but Ansit replies that he would never have shown his weariness in front of her. In fact, he has been worked to death in the wars and the affairs of state.

The Queen doesn’t know whether to believe Ansit. She says she’s worked just as much as Bardia did. Ansit replies that women are tougher than men, and the Queen is younger. The Queen blames Bardia for not telling her he needed rest, but Ansit says he would never have done that, and her servants have loved her very much.

The Queen spits that she has never had love except from her servants. She thinks Ansit has had all the love she herself hasn’t. However, Ansit feels she only had the part of Bardia that the Queen left her. The two of them shared so much in the wars, and he always came home older and more tired and went right back to the palace to advise her. The Queen suddenly realizes that Ansit is jealous of her.

This seems so preposterous that the Queen pulls off her veil, asking whether Ansit is jealous of her face. Ansit stares at her, but not in fear of her face. She begins to cry as she sees that the Queen has also loved Bardia and suffered from it. Suddenly they’re holding each other. Now that Bardia is dead, they can’t hate each other for loving him; instead, they’re the only ones who understand each other’s pain.

However, their sympathy doesn’t last long. The Queen puts her veil back on and Ansit’s face hardens again. The Queen says Ansit has had her revenge by calling her Bardia’s murderer. She asks whether Ansit really believes this, and Ansit replies that she knows it. The Queen asks why she didn’t tell her earlier. Ansit says that she couldn’t take Bardia’s life’s work away from him for her own comfort. They didn’t belong to each other; they each had to do what was best for their own lives. She points out that the Queen will also lead her son Ilerdia away from her with his work, but she would never do anything to stop it.

The Queen asks whether Ansit can bear doing nothing to keep her loved ones by her. Ansit exclaims that the Queen must not understand love, or perhaps her love is different than commoners’. The Queen loves like the gods and the Shadowbrute, loving and devouring at the same time. Angry, the Queen points out that she saved Bardia’s life in a battle. Ansit retorts that she only saved Bardia’s life for her own use. She’s consumed the lives of everyone around her.

The Queen imagines torturing Ansit to death. She tells her that the King would have cut her tongue out, but she leaves. As she rides home, she thinks she’ll send Ilerdia home to be a common farmer so that Ansit can’t blame her for consuming his life. But in the end, she doesn’t.

The gods are working on her. The Queen soon realizes that Ansit’s words are true. She has always given Bardia extra work to keep him from leaving her. Furthermore, she often pushed conversation in directions that would lead to others mocking him about his faithfulness to Ansit. She thinks that her love was almost entirely hatred in those moments. At night, she used to imagine Ansit gone and Bardia begging her forgiveness, which she wouldn’t give easily.

Once the Queen works through all of these thoughts, she has stopped longing for Bardia. Perhaps the strongest passions aren’t necessarily the most deep-seated. Mostly, her love for Bardia has become disgusting to her. She realizes that she never gave him anything, and the jealousy of the women in his life undoubtedly made life hard for him. But when she no longer wants Bardia, she feels as though her entire self is gone.