The Second Book of the Dun Cow: Lamentations Read Free

the past, and a Rooster whose present strove to deny the past. But the Hen of the crimson throat was equal to both her blockheads. And what she did then we might call the last and the best battle of all. Pertelote spoke.
    Chauntecleer had a dread of the Netherworld scar. As long as he slept ground-level with it, the scar hectored his dreams.
    So Pertelote wondered out loud whether there wasn’t some branch above the ground where he and she could roost more peacefully.
    Awake and trembling, Chauntecleer lifted his eye and saw a single standing maple tree. Well, if he had surrendered Lordship in one great thing, he could at least be Lord over the little things. He led his Animals to the maple.
    In the evening Chauntecleer crowed both vespers and compline in manners appropriate to the times. It settled ten Hens on lower branches. They began then to patter the ground below. That is to say, they flipped their tails, dropped damp plops, and ruffled their feathers like like blankets for sleeping. Which is to say, they relieved themselves as Hens had always relieved themselves, but with this difference, that they dropped slops around the burrow of a Weasel and into it, making for a very sour sulk.
    Pertelote heard a series of sneezes (and minor curse words) arising from a Weasel’s hole.
    With some heat she said, “Mundo Cani!”
    Chauntecleer loved sleep. It irritated him to be awoken.
    “Mundo Cani,” Pertelote repeated. “The most glorious Dog!”
    “What?” Chauntecleer snorted. “What?”
    “Mundo Cani,” she said. “Nothing more. Good night.”
    Now Chauntecleer could not go back to sleep. Pertelote’s tone had been curt, forbidding. He tried various positions, shaking the limb heartily, giving the Hen herself something to think about.
    Finally he snapped, “Mundo Cani—and what?”
    “He’s on your mind.”
    “No! He is not on my mind.”
    A Weasel at the root of the maple sneezed and began to rub his nose violently.
    “No,” she said. “Of course he’s not on your mind. Why should he be?”
    “He is too on my mind!”
    “Of course he is.”
    “I haven’t forgotten him, if that’s what you mean.”
    “Right. You memorialize him.”
    “But I don’t dwell on him.”
    “Of course not. The past is the past.”
    “Right!”
    For an instant the Rooster felt he’d won the argument. In the next instant he wasn’t so sure. Memories of Mundo Cani hurt and humbled him.
    “Pertelote?”
    “Chauntecleer?”
    “I miss him.” The Rooster spoke softly. “I miss him—terribly.”
    “Oh, my Lord, I know that.”
    She too had softened her words. For a moment she added nothing more because she wanted to hear her husband speak. She let his thoughts eat away at his soul.
    Wise was the beautiful Hen. She broke her silence. “Perhaps you see the Dog plunging his weapon into the jelly-flesh of Wyrm’s eye.”
    “Oh, Pertelote.” Chauntecleer remembered the last words the Dun Cow spoke to him: Moricae fidei. You of little faith, it has been all for you.
    Wretchedly, the Rooster murmured, “It should have been me. I should have gone down into the pit. I should have died, not Mundo Cani.”
    “Even so,” said Pertelote. “And what else?”
    “I was the Lord of the Coop. It was my duty. I am not right. Today is not right. Tonight and tomorrow….” he said. “I have no right to life.”
    “And this is why you work so hard these days?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “To busy yourself? To pay him back by breaking yourself? What else, Chauntecleer.”
    “What else? A leader lost and a Dog took over. A leader lives to be sick of living. What else do you want?”
    “What else do you owe the hero Mundo Cani?”
    “My life! Dammit, I have already said it!”
    “Penance.”
    “What?”
    “Penance. This is more than your life. Are you able to scrub the past from your soul? Forgiveness, sweet Chauntecleer, can cleanse your soul. This would be your deliverance. Honor the worth of Mundo Cani’s life. Confess