Orual Rides Forth to Combat

With all those eyes upon me, my only care was to make a brave show both now and in the fight. I'd have given ten talents to any prophet who would have foretold me that I'd fight well for five minutes and then be killed.

The lords who rode nearest me were very grave. I supposed (and indeed one or two confessed as much to me afterwards when I came to know them) they thought Argan would soon have me disarmed, but that my mad challenge was as good a way as any of getting him and Trunia both out of our country. But if the lords were glum, the common people in the streets were huzzaing and throwing caps into the air. It would have puffed me up if I had not looked in their faces. There I could read their mind easily enough. Neither I nor Glome was in their thoughts. Any fight was a free show for them; and a fight of a woman with a man better still because an oddity--as those who can't tell one tune from another will crowd to hear the harp if a man plays it with his toes.
~C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (1956)
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A personal note: Many thanks from me to Katreyla Angus, the informative and gracious C.S. Lewis scholar who gave an excellent presentation on "J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: A Creative Fellowship" along with Mike Foster at The One Ring convention.