Chapter 93 92. Peacock King

A king and a queen had two sons and a daughter, and they loved her very much, and took great care of her, and had a wet nurse for her at home.One day, the king became seriously ill and died.The queen alone led the country, but after only a few years, she too fell ill.On her deathbed, she entrusted her youngest daughter to her two sons, who also died shortly thereafter. During this period, the little princess has gradually grown up, but she has been staying in the palace and never went out.Her only pastimes were to look out at the fields from the window, to sing, to chat with the wet nurse who had become her governess, and to embroider.One day, when she was standing at the window, a peacock appeared in the field, it flew up and landed on the princess' window sill.So the little girl welcomed it, brought grains of wheat to the peacock, and let it into the house. "How beautiful!" she exclaimed, "unless I find the Peacock King, I will not marry!" From then on she always stayed with the peacock, and whenever anyone came, she hid it in a closet.

At this time, the two brothers were discussing: "Our lovely sister is always reluctant to go out. It is not good to go on like this. Let's ask her if she wants to start a family." They went to the little princess and told her The thought, "We won't get married until you're married. Would you pick a husband?" "No, I don't want to." "Why do you have such an idea. Look at these portraits of the king, choose the one you like, and we will ask him if he wants to." "Tell you I don't want to get married..." "please……"

"If you want me to have a family at any cost, then I can satisfy you, but I will choose my own husband." "Ok." So my sister opened the closet and let the peacock out. "Did you see it?" "Yes, a beautiful peacock." "Unless I find the Peacock King, I won't get married." "But where is the Peacock King?" "I don't know about this, but no one can do it except him." "In that case, let's go find him." The two elder brothers asked the wet nurse to take care of the princess, handed over the state affairs to a reliable minister, and then set off separately.

They asked around, but no one had heard of the Peacock King, and people thought they were crazy.However, the two young people were not discouraged. They each chose a direction and continued to search.One night the eldest met an old man who was almost a wizard. "Excuse me, do you know that there is a Peacock King?" "Indeed there is such a thing." The old man replied. "What is he like? Where does he live?" "He is a handsome young man, dressed like a peacock. His kingdom is in Peru, and he cannot be seen until there." The young man thanked the old man, gave him some money, and walked towards Peru.He walked on and on until he came to a meadow surrounded by trees of a kind he had never seen before, and voices came from all directions: "He is coming! He is coming! This young man is going to bring his sister Marry a king! Come in! You're welcome!"

The young man looked around, but he didn't find anyone. He only saw feathers of various colors flying in the air. "Where am I?" he asked. "In Peru," answered the voices, "in the country of the Peacock King." "Can you tell me where the Peacock King is?" "Very willingly: you go straight ahead, and when you see a beautiful palace, you say to the guards: 'King's secret!' and they let you in." "thanks." "You're welcome." "These trees are very polite," thought the young man, "but there must be magic here." As he walked on, he came to a palace, which was covered with peacock feathers in blue, white, and purple, Glittering like gold in the sun.There are guards in peacock costumes guarding the door. I don't know if they are humans or birds. "King's secret!" said the young man, and they let him in.In the center of one hall was a throne of precious stones, behind which was a ring of peacock feathers with golden eyes shining like stars.The king sat on the throne, covered with feathers all over his body, and it was hard to tell whether he was a bird or a man.The young man bowed.The king made a gesture, and all the ministers withdrew. "Speak, I am listening," said the King.

"Your Majesty, I am the King of Portugal," the young man said. "I am here to ask if you would like to marry my sister. Please forgive my abruptness. My sister wants to marry the Peacock King, but he does not want anyone else." "Do you have a picture of her?" "Here, Your Majesty." "It's beautiful! I like it! I agree to this marriage." "Thank you, Your Majesty. My sister will be very pleased, as will all of us." He bowed and was about to leave. "Stop," said the king, "where are you going?" "Go get her, Your Majesty."

"No, no one who enters the Peacock Kingdom can go out. I don't know you: how can you be sure that you are not a spy of the enemy king, or a thief who has come to steal? You write a letter to your home, attach a portrait, and wait echo." "That's all," said the young man, "I'll wait. But tell me, Your Majesty, where I'm staying all this time." The king made a sign, and the guards gathered and seized the young man by the neck. arm. "You shall live in prison," said the King, "until your sister comes." At this time, the second brother returned home without any gain.As soon as he received the letter from Peru, he ran to his sister and showed her the portrait of the Peacock King. "This is my husband," said the princess, "and this is the man I am going to marry. Come on, let's go at once. I want to see him at once." Then they set to work on the dowry, their luggage and horses, and Arranged the most beautiful ship in the fleet.

"We need to cross the sea to go to Peru," said the brother to the nurse. "How can I protect my sister from the wind, rain, and sun?" "It's easy," said the nurse, "to take her to the coast in a cart, let the boat approach, and then build a bridge and push the cart onto the boat from the bridge. Then the princess can sit comfortably in the cart." I performed it comfortably, without being exposed to the wind or damaging the wedding dress." Everything was prepared according to this. You must know that the nurse has a daughter who is not only ugly as a devil, but also jealous and vicious by nature.As soon as she knew that the princess was going to be married, she began to cry with her mother. "She has a husband but I don't, her husband is a king but I have nothing, all eyes are on her but no one looks at me..."

"Yes," said the nurse, "I've thought about that too." And they set about making a whole plan for the handsome king to marry the nurse's daughter instead of a princess, and the nurse thought and thought, and it seemed She came up with an idea: she ordered the same car and wedding dress as the princess for her daughter, and then ordered the captain: "This is two million for you, listen carefully: the last car on board is my daughter. At night, wait Everyone is asleep, you drag the princess out of the car, throw it into the sea, and let my daughter sit in the car instead of her."

The captain didn't dare to agree, but two million is a lot of money. He thought to himself: "When the money is in my pocket, I can escape far away to enjoy it." Therefore, after a little bargaining, he agreed. When the hour of departure came, all the cars were lined up on board, but at the last moment the princess burst into tears, and said she wanted to take her puppy with her. "It has been with me for so long, I don't want to leave it behind." So her brother ran to the shore, picked up the puppy, and sent it to her car.The puppy crouches on the mat as the boat sets sail.

When it was getting dark, the nurse came to the princess's car and said, "The weather is fine and the wind is not too strong. Tomorrow we can reach Peru. Go to sleep and have a good rest." The princess fell asleep and dreamed The Peacock King, and the grand welcome upon her arrival. In the middle of the night, the captain quietly opened the car door, dragged out the cushion together with the princess and the puppy, and threw it into the water. The nurse's daughter was already waiting in the darkness not far away, and the captain led her into the bride's car. After falling into the water, the princess woke up and found herself in the middle of the sea, while the boat sailed away to continue sailing.Because the cushion is very light, it does not sink, but floats on the water.A cool wind blew it, too, toward Peru, and on the cushions sat the girl in her bridal gown, and her little dog. At dawn, a Peruvian fisherman by the sea heard dogs barking in the distance. "Did you hear the dog barking?" he asked his wife. "Yeah, someone must be in trouble." "I thought so too. It's getting light and I want to see it." He dressed and got up and went to the beach with a harpoon in hand.There, by the faint morning light, he saw a light and fluffy thing floating on the water, and there was a dog barking.As the thing approached, the fisherman jumped into the water, stretched his harpoon and pulled it toward him.Imagine his amazement when he saw the sleeping girl in her wedding gown and a puppy!He gently pulled the mat toward the bank so as not to wake her.But she woke up anyway, and asked, "Where am I?" "In a poor fisherman's house," they said to her, "but we have good hearts. Come and live with us." At this moment, that damn ugly girl was sitting in the car, disembarking from a boat in Peru.As soon as the escort team came to the grassland with strange trees, they heard voices from all directions: "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! The Queen of Peru is ugly! " Thousands of peacock feathers are flying in the air.The elder brother who accompanied the bride rode behind, and when he heard these voices coming from nowhere, his heart tightened. "It's a bad omen," he thought, "it might be on us." He ran to the car, opened the little door, and was stunned to see the ugly girl sitting inside. "How did you get so ugly? What happened? The sea, the wind, or the sun? Tell me!" "How do I know?" replied the ugly girl. "Here comes the king. Now we shall all lose our heads!" The Peacock King appears among a group of feathered soldiers.The soldiers raised the golden longhorn and blew it.The trees cried out: "Long live the king! Long live the king! The bride is ugly! " The feathers flying in the air are densely packed like dark clouds, covering the sky and the sun. "Where is the bride?" asked the king. "Here, Your Majesty..." "Is this the beautiful girl whom you highly praised?" "Who knows, Your Majesty... maybe it's the sea breeze or the air..." "What wind? What sea? Come on, liars! You're trying to trick me, but I'll show you that you can't joke with the Peacock King. Put them both in jail and get a Gallows!" Then, the Peacock King walked away sadly.Not only because of the humiliation he felt, but also because of the love he felt for that beautiful girl.He thought that these people had subjected him to these humiliations in order to disappoint him, and that the picture of the beautiful girl was never tired of looking at it. Leaving aside the king and the unfortunate men in prison, let's talk about the beautiful princess who lives in the poor fisherman's house.In the morning she said to the fisherman's wife, "Have you got a little basket?" "Yes, miss." "Bring it to me, and I will prepare the lunch." She called the dog, gave him the basket, and said to him, "Go to the King and get the lunch." The little dog, with its teeth on the handle of the basket, ran into the king's kitchen, grabbed a roast chicken, threw it into the basket, and ran to take it back to its master.On this day, the lunch at the fisherman's house was very rich, and even the puppy gnawed on the bones beautifully. The next day, the puppy came to the king's kitchen with the dog again, took a big fish, and ran home with it.This time, the cook went to the king to complain.The king therefore ordered that the dog be seized at any cost, at least to see where it was going. In fact, the puppy stole another fat lamb rib the following day.The cook followed it and saw it enter the fisherman's house.He went to report to the king. "I will follow it tomorrow," said the king, "or I shall be the laughing stock of all." The next morning, as soon as the puppy left with the basket, the princess put on her bridal dress and sat in her room waiting. "If anyone comes for the dog, let him come to me," she said to the fisherman and his wife. Sure enough, after a while, the dog came back with his lunch in a basket, and the king followed, with two peacock soldiers. "Did you see a dog?" they asked the fisherman. "Yes, Your Majesty." "Why does it keep stealing my lunch?" "It did it willingly, to prepare our meals. We didn't teach it to do it." "Where did you find it?" "It's not ours. It belongs to a bride who lives with us." "I want to meet her." "Your Majesty, go this way, go this way. I'm sorry, but this is the home of the poor." They let him in, and the king saw the girl in the portrait before him in the wedding dress. "I am the daughter of the King of Portugal, and you, Sire, put my two brothers in prison." "How is that possible?" said the Peacock King. "Look, here is the portrait you gave me, and I have always hung it on my chest." "I don't understand at all," said the king, "wait here, and I'll be right back." He went away like lightning.Back at the palace, he ordered the two brothers to be released from prison. "Your sister has been found, I respect you, but please tell me what happened." "How do we know? The more we think about it, the more confused we become." The king then called for the nurse and her daughter, threatened them, and learned of their whole plot.The king ordered them to be shut up in the prison where the two brothers had been held, and then he had all the soldiers dressed up and dressed himself in the most beautiful feathers, and went to the poor fisherman's house with the band and soldiers to meet the bride. "It's right now! It's right now! This is the queen! " The trees shouted, and millions of colorful feathers flew in the sky, covering the sun, as if the whole sky was covered with feathers. Back at the palace, they held a grand wedding banquet.The wet nurse and the ugly, vicious daughter were hanged on the gallows prepared for the two brothers.This time, the captain could not help them anymore, because he had gone far, far away to enjoy the two million. (Siena area)