Death

Life is cheap in Till We Have Faces' Kingdom of Glome. Animal and occasionally human sacrifice are integral to the cult of the goddess Ungit. Premature natural death claims two queens, the second during childbirth, and the grieving King's response is to stab a wine steward to death and vow to send his slave, the Fox, to the mines, a certain death sentence. Princess Orual advises her beloved tutor to flee, but he prefers honorable suicide in the Greek manner. Thus he will be resolved into the elements - but still he trembles at the prospect. When plague comes to Glome and death claims hundreds a week, the Priest declares Psyche must be offered as expiation, and Psyche is resigned to dying, recalling how Captain Bardia whistles at death six times a day, and the Fox has taught them not to be scared of death, which is an...