4.3

At that first meeting Jewel and Bethica spoke well into the late afternoon, until her new friend had to beg off because she really needed to continue chewing her day’s grass.

Apparently for cows there was an inordinate amount of chewing, swallowing, spitting up what had been chewed, chewing it again and then adding more grass to the whole endeavor.

Really, Bethica had almost a full day’s labor in life simply occupied with grazing to fill her belly and managing the rest.

It put Jewel’s own workload into a very different perspective.

At least a meal only took most of an hour at worst.

Poor Bethica spent nearly an entire day simply eating.

But she was pleased to talk with Jewel.

And that had carried through to the next day.

And the days after that well into the summer haying season, becoming a routine as surely as all the other discussions and council she needed.

So she started the morning with a wonderful breakfast of porridge for one of her bellies. ‘Gem’ still needed some assistance from Smithson despite Jewel’s best efforts of coordination.

And porridge still did not settle well in her comparatively tiny stomach.

But it also gave her an excuse to break fast with her squire.

After that was her exercise, and if it was the fourth day since her last trip, she returned to Rochford that morning to see her parents.

On the other three days, Jewel did her necessary obligations of work for the manor and demesne’s management. Checked in with her headman, Smithson and Dariusz for those tasks she had for them.

Then in the late afternoon she made her way over to Bethica’s little plot where her friend was mostly done chewing and pulling up fresh fodder and instead had settled in the sun to let her insides work their own sorcery.

In hindsight, Jewel probably should have long ago judged there was something special about the cow who was standing all on her own without a fence or tether in one corner of Valasect. But the presence of beasts in the fields had grown so completely normal she had ignored the oddity like she did the subtle little nuances of the other animals.

As was their custom, Jewel waited to be welcomed before speaking. Her friend did not have a court or a crier, but Jewel insisted they did things properly.

So she always waited until the cow acknowledged her.

Something Jewel could smell brought Bethica unspoken relief and joy. A Courtesy that as far as she was concerned was very well deserved indeed!

Bethica was incredibly learned! She had no knowledge of reading, but when offered to be taught, the cow quietly admitted she “finds letters very frustrating to discern one from the other.” Jewel had confirmed it even with wide sweeping symbols dragged in the dirt of the road. (But not the grass - Bethica had admonished her terribly for ruining good clover).

Yet despite her illiteracy, Bethica held deep knowledge. Going back all the way to the old Sun Land’s Republic before it had been named Cantor!

And all of it having been passed down from mothers to daughters and sons. According to Bethica ‘in the distant past of long generations ago’ it once was also fathers who taught it to their children.

So Jewel gave her friend the respect due for such a sage.

And today, after a few moments had passed her friend bellowed over to the road.

“Alright, your Ladyship! Stop staring! I’m full up and tumbling the fodder in my belly, Oh fussing nurse of a snake! Get over here so I don’t have to yell! I’ve heard a mighty curious things in the yattering among the vir.”

Jewel nodded in acknowledgement and made her way over.

“Welcome to you, Bethica, daughter of Belora, granddaughter of Orthica. What gossip have you heard?”

Jewel had committed the full list of Bethica’s genealogy to memory. But even the proud bovine accepted only the first two generations were needed for respect when nothing too officious was warranted.

“I heard that this Threshing Turn you are to be having a wedding?! Lady Jewel I did not know you were even betrothed!”

Jewel laughed and shook her head.

“Oh Bethica! I am so sorry! I forgot to tell you, but yes I am indeed betrothed, after the wedding my husband will be joining me in the Manor. Honestly, it’s why I’ve been pulled in every direction trying to settle things! Have it prepared before he comes in with all of his own staff and household.”

“Oh! Well that sounds fine. No worry, I suppose. The vir do make such a fuss over it too. Then I shall be meeting what you take as a handsome flying serpent? Tell me about his horns!”

Jewel froze in surprise, Her friend thought that Jewel was to be wed to a dragon?! But then again, the only news that Bethica heard were what her human family told her and what gossip was passed along the road by her fields.

Bethica had not even known they had been at war with the realm.

“Oh! I’m sorry! No, no my betrothed is a man, a vir, like Smithson. The youngest child of Countess Bathory. I’ve never even seen another wyrm, let alone been able to meet one.”

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And as sometimes happened it was Bethica’s turn to be in a bit of a place of shock at something Jewel said.

She even spat up some of her still ‘too fresh’ grass into her mouth and started chewing in her befuddlement.

Jewel was patient with her newest friend and politely waited for the cow to swallow her meal again.

Finally the words came, thoughtful but also softly crooning.

“But... you’ve spoken much and highly of your mother?”

Jewel felt something clench inside and she shook her head at the misunderstanding.

“Mother and Father are likewise a woman and man respectively. As is my brother, a young man, my sister, an infant girl. My family are much like those that care for you here in Valasect. My egg was in their care for centuries. Laid by the Tyrant Wyrm herself.”

Bethica breathed softly with a different tone, in words Jewel had read but never heard spoken.

“The Dracorexter itself? As my mother spoke and hers before her and-”

Jewel gave Bethica a look and the cow huffed and groaned much as those of her kin without the gift of speech did. She found it frustrating whenever Jewel interrupted her ancestral chant.

“And so on, though I suppose Dracorextrix is more correct given the egg. Truly you are more esteemed in your heritage then even I, young Lady of Valasect. But to never have known her words? To grow as a child raised by the vir?”

The cow shuddered and shook her head.

“To have none of her words, deaf to her songs, her great heritage unknown to you?”

There was an anguish to her voice that Jewel was honestly a bit shocked by.

“In the fields of elysium, I am sure she has cried for your loss of her. As my mother’s mother and all of theirs before them weep yet for my future.”

Jewel ruffled her wings, not at all comfortable at the implication that her egg layer could be construed as anything like a mother.

But was that not the point? Technically she was. Then again her elder sibling by that clutch lived as a rat.

Jewel offered her friend soft words.

“I’m not sure, but I think it is different for dragons. A sister by blood of mine hatched before me, yet she did so among rats and yet lives to this day much as one, or so I am told.”

Bethica tossed her head and there was a groan of dismay at that. But Jewel continued with soft but firm words.

“My only mother is the one who raised me from the day I hatched and she sang songs to me as I grew. My only Father is the lord of Rochford that trained me for war and leadership. Whoever laid my egg was long gone before either of them. That is no mother.”

The cow hummed deep and resonant then nodded and fixed Jewel with her ‘family eye” (the right one).

“That is true and it is wise, a Mother is the one who teaches you your story and weaves yours with hers in the telling. Would be I found a calf of one of the muffle minded who could carry my words to his or her offspring I’d gladly call them my child, give them my milk and feed them with my wisdom as any son or daughter I bore myself.”

Satisfied with that Bethica nodded, then gave a deep groan of frustration.

“Not that I will have any to give the old tales too by my own blood or another's, my family is cursed. All of us are now gone to the last fields but I.”

Jewel blinked.

“Cursed? What do you mean Bethica.”

An uncharacteristically sour glare settled on the dragon and an equally bitter tone followed.

“You might notice there are not a great many cows that speak Lady Jewel. I’ve birthed five calves, all have been dull minded as any other here.”

Jewel could only stare, so Bethica continued.

“My Mother even took on my mute but clever brother as a sire as we sometimes have had too in the past. All to try and kindle the words in even one more child. But she died passing her twelfth, also mute calf and left me alone to carry her words.”

Bethica stared down at the grass and the dirt. Stinking of hurt and pain.

“I tried with my brother too, and every other bull that would have me in Valasect each year since I could. But four calves that lived and all of them mute and mind muddled was the fruit of it. I loved and nursed every one of them properly of course but none could carry the words. Nor see or think more than usual.”

The anguish that had risen when Jewel admitted to not being betrothed to a Wyrm had risen up in Bethica’s voice as she spoke.

Creaking into her tone as if to break but instead the cow sighed heavily. Voice going soft and empty where before it had been near bursting with pain.

“I am at the end of my life’s summer, Lady Jewel. At best only two more calves will I bear and cursed with muddled minds mute they will certainly be. All the words given me by my mother and all the other mothers before her will fall silent with me.”

She smelled of old fear and an exhaustion that had nothing to do with the weariness of muscle.

Jewel stared.

Bethica cried, tears running down her cheeks and Jewel could smell how much more she was hurting.

It was the first time she had ever heard Bethica so anguished.

Not knowing what else to do Jewel walked up to her newest friend and gently rested her chin on her shoulder.

For the rest of the afternoon they were silent together.

But Jewel considered.

Surely she could make this right.