Entry # 13 (Till We Have Faces Assignment)
Katherine Forbes
“Orual, you have lain
your complaint before us, several times, but we have brought against you a
witness to compete with your account” said the judge. I stepped forward out of the shadows and
looked upon the small, wrinkled, pitiful form that was once a lively and loving
young woman. “My Lady,” I addressed her,
“although you have not seen me for some time, you once knew me as Maira. I nursed young princess Istra when she was a
mere babe; I stayed in your chamber for many days and nights, and since that
time I have watched your transformation from a pleasant and loving girl to a
powerful queen.” Orual did not turn her
face to look at me, and instead kept her gaze fixed downwards, her eyelids
lowered so that one might think her eyes were all the way closed. Unsure of whether she was listening, I
cleared my throat, glanced at the judge, and raised my voice to continue the
tale which the gods had brought me to tell.
“When Istra was old enough and my services no longer
needed I returned to my home just outside the castle and I watched Istra grow
older from a distance. Occasional
errands into the castle to sell my herbs to the cooks from the royal kitchen
and the priests from the temple warranted me surprising insight into the
goings-on inside the castle, while my activities in town provided me with an
outside perspective. Your relationship
with Psyche was unusual from its initiation.
On the one hand she was your sister, by the same blood that ran through
your veins. On the other, she was your daughter, for you cared and looked after
her as such. Though you saw her as both
of these, you did not treat her as either.
When Istra was to be sacrificed your tears were shed
as a mother mourns the death of a child.
Yet when you tried to play the role of the mother, fighting your way to
her chamber to be with her one last time, you acted instead as her sister. Though you condemn Redival for the lack of
authenticity in her tears upon the news of Psyche’s sacrifice, you yourself
were not authentic in those moments when the truth was so obvious.
Yet time heals many wounds, and after the ceremony
for Psyche you went seeking her, to confirm those facts which you had convinced
yourself were true: you painted your own picture as a mother, traveling to bury
her only daughter. Yet when you found
she was alive, when a mother’s greatest dream came true for you, you acted once
more as a sister: assuming the superiority of your own perceptions and
bickering as if you were both in love with the same man (It’s amazing what
attentive eavesdropping can extract in terms of knowledge, is it not?).
When you made the second journey to see Psyche, I
asked Gram to agree to go with you to the mountain and to report back to me all
that happened on the journey. He owed me
a favor for an herbal remedy I had given him once to cure a nasty illness,
though he was still not entirely keen to repay me with such a journey. Nonetheless, he crept about and followed you
and what does he observe? You wielded
over Psyche the only force, the only power, you had over her will, her own love
for you. Never has such a cruel betrayal
been played in all of Glome! You acted
then, not as her mother or sister, but as her master, with love as the whip
with which you coerced and demanded. A
sister would have at the very least afforded her the dignity of persuasion. It is true, you exerted this force because
you were fighting for her love, but such a love, Orual, is not the love anyone
should ever desire to receive. Your love
was selfish, and hers self-less. The one
demands, the other sacrifices. The one
desires the happiness of self, the other the happiness of the beloved. Had you loved her as a friend, or truly as a
mother, or truly as a sister, you would have desired her happiness at the
expense of your own: a sacrifice which would have been worthy of the gods.
As my father used to say, there are two parts to a
crime: the act itself and the intention behind it. I confess I can only speculate as to your
intentions, but your actions I can recount clearly. As if manipulating and denying the trust and
love of Psyche were not enough, you, Orual, lied to and manipulated the Fox in
order to incite the reaction you desired to justify your selfish heart. You lied and manipulated Bardia to the same
ends. Yet throughout your reign who were your most loyal and trusted
advisors? Whom did you trust never to
misguide you maliciously? Your crime was to them as well.
When a wandering man came to my doorstep a great
many years later he told me he had seen a goddess in his travels, at once I
knew it must be Psyche and I relayed upon him her tale. He carried my telling of her story with him
as if it were divine prophecy and when to the woods where he had seen her to
build a temple and spend the rest of his days in meditation.
It is true, the tale I told him was not as you would
have told it, but does that make it any less true, Orual? For indeed, it was two different sisters, two
different Oruals, who went to see Psyche on the mountain. The first was Orual the sister and mother,
bemoaning the loss of a loved one. The
second was Orual the sister and master, gone to collect what she owned. As for their jealousy, what is the difference
between one selfish, jealous act and another? Do you deny you acted out of
selfish motive?”
Here the judge silenced me and Orual at last looked
up at me. There was an indiscernible
expression somewhere between wonder and self-contempt in her eyes.
“Maira,” he asked me, “though these are the
accusations against her, how has she come to serve the gods? How did she become
Ungit? And how is it we demand she be made into Psyche?”
I held Orual’s gaze as I began to explain her
redemption. “Orual, when you realized what you had done, you were filled with
such a great self-contempt that you pushed yourself through a powerful
transformation. As Orual, you recognized
that you had failed, as a mother, sister, friend, confidant, and you were
revolted with the notion of being a master.
You were given immediate punishment for unjust use of power, and that
punishment came to define you. To become
Queen of Glome you rejected your old identity and became something even you did
not know or understand. Though you were
tempted to exercise the power you had acquired, and though you came to understand
why your father went into rages, you had acquired self-control. As punishment
for your selfishness, you were taught to fear it, and though your soul was
lonely you carried out the justice of the gods on Glome. You freed the Fox and accepted the notion he
would leave you; you allowed Bardia to always return home to his wife, though
it was your bed to which you wished him to return, you granted your sister’s
wish of marriage and treated her well.
Selfless public service was your punishment Orual and you have carried
it as the gods ordained.
You became Ungit by shedding almost every piece of
self identity you had in order to ordain an identity of a god. With the mystery of a veil, myth was the
power you wielded and ruled with, and alone you found yourself every
night. Your commands were the commands
of justice, and your judgment as true as the judgment you face now. Now you can never return to be Orual, yet
your service as Ungit has well been served.
You must build a new temple in Glome, to replace the old one, which you
will find we have just now destroyed. It
will not be a temple for Ungit, for Ungit will be gone forever, nor will this
temple be for Psyche. You must build a
temple which you think is fitting for justice, and it will be your temple, of
your story; the temple of Dike.
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