Free The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr. Page B

disclosed the hidden patterns of his effective rule; most particularly, he discoursed on beauty—female beauty—its attraction to the male—the special appeal of the color crimson—especially when crimson is placed, by nature, like a blossom at the throat of a Hen. And he smiled in his sleep these nights, Chauntecleer did, because his dreams were all good. And he worked trills and cadenzas into his crows. And he healed very quickly.
    Ah, beauty! There was a thirty-first Hen in Chauntecleer’s Coop—she of the burning, crimson throat. Her name was Pertelote (though Chauntecleer seldom reduced his naming her, or made it anything less than the full: the Beautiful Pertelote). She healed more slowly than he did because her illness went deeper, because this land was strange to her, and for another reason: The Beautiful Pertelote almost never spoke about herself. Not to Chauntecleer, who so often found cause to sit next to her; not to Beryl, who wanted so badly to help the Lady, but who didn’t know what to do since the Lady wouldn’t tell her of her hurt. To be sure, the Lady talked.
    â€œMy Lady slept poorly last night,” Beryl would say privately to her. “I mark how she whimpered and wept in her sleep. And once she cried out. Dreams can be doused, Lady. Please, ma’am, let me give you a potion before tonight. Or tell me what your dreams are that I can make the proper mix.”
    But the Beautiful Pertelote would speak of things vastly different from what Beryl had in mind: “Beryl, have you always lived in this Coop?”
    â€œAye, ma’am.” A brief pause for the Lady’s wanderings. And then: “Is it your breathing? Does your breathing torture you?”
    â€œThen you have always known the Rooster of this household?”
    â€œThat I have, ma’am.”
    â€œSo golden his feathers, and redder than fine coral his comb. His nails whiter than the lily flower. Has he always borne his head so proudly?”
    Beryl blinked. “That is his manner, ma’am.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œWhat will my Lady eat? Please you, ma’am, you must eat. If you’ll tell me what likes you, I’ll grind a little mustard seed into it, that you may mend. Or will you tell me where the pain lies inside of you?”
    â€œHas he always been a Rooster?”
    â€œMa’am?”
    â€œHas this Chauntecleer always been a Rooster? Was he ever anything else beside a Rooster? Was he ever but the
image
of a Rooster?”
    â€œForgive me, ma’am. Let me get you a drop of water.”
    â€œYou don’t understand what I ask you.”
    â€œMy Lady excites herself. She breathes too fast, and that is her pain. Let me bring you a wee cup. I’ll warm it with an herb or two.”
    â€œBeryl?”
    â€œMa’am?”
    â€œYou are very kind to me.”
    â€œMa’am.”
    Beryl had come to love the Beautiful Pertelote immediately. But, finally, the poor Hen had simply to guess what ailed her Lady, and she had to mix her medicines without a true knowledge of the pain. She used nard mostly, for that seemed most to ease the Lady. But
seeming
is not
certainty
, and that distressed the anxious nurse. Pertelote would speak about herself to no one.
    Not even to Chauntecleer. Chauntecleer had to learn what he could about her past and her arrival in his land from the third victim in this Coop-shaped hospital. And even the information which he gathered from the Wee Widow Mouse was next to nothing.
    The Wee Widow Mouse and her seven children had a dry room all to themselves. They had moved into Ebenezer Rat’s old nest beneath the floorboards. There they found food, furniture, and bedding enough to make them peaceful and to help them heal nearly as fast as Chauntecleer.
    The Widow had had dreadful dreams too, at first. Some of the Hens had supposed these dreams to have come out of the air, from the evil fumosity which still murked through