The bearded man's groans subsided. The bugs marched away
across the floor, towards one of the mildly rippling silken walls.
Roland lost sight of them in the shadows.
Jenna came back to him, her eyes anxious. 'Ye did well. Yet I see
how ye feel; it's on your face.'
'The doctors,' he said.
'Yes. Their power is very great, but. . .'She dropped her voice. 'I
believe that drover is beyond their help. His legs are a little better,
and the wounds on his face are all but healed, but he has injuries
where the doctors cannot reach.' She traced a hand across her
midsection, suggesting the location of these injuries, if not their
nature.
'And me?' Roland asked.
'Ye were ta'en by the green folk,' she said. 'Ye must have angered
them powerfully, for them not to kill ye outright. They roped ye
and dragged ye, instead. Tamra, Michela, and Louise were out
gathering herbs. They saw the green folk at play with ye, and bade
them stop, but -,
'Do the muties always obey you, Sister Jenna
She smiled, perhaps pleased he remembered her name. 'Not
always, but mostly. This time they did, or ye'd have now found the
clearing in the trees.'
'I suppose so.'
'The skin was stripped almost clean off your back - red ye were
from nape to waist. Ye'll always bear the scars, but the doctors
have gone far towards healing ye. And their singing is passing fair,
is it not?'
'Yes,' Roland said, but the thought of those black things all over his
back, roosting in his raw flesh, still revolted him. 'I owe you
thanks, and give it freely. Anything I can do for you -
'Tell me your name, then. Do that.'
'I'm Roland of Gilead. A gunslinger. I had revolvers, Sister Jenna.
Have you seen them?'
'I've seen no shooters,' she said, but cast her eyes aside. The roses
bloomed in her cheeks again. She might be a good nurse, and fair,
but Roland thought her a poor liar. He was glad. Good liars were
common. Honesty, on the other hand, came dear.
Let the untruth pass for now, he told himself. She speaks it out of
fear, I think.
'Jenna!' The cry came from the deeper shadows at the far end of the
infirmary - today it seemed longer than ever to the gunslinger - and
Sister Jenna jumped guiltily. 'Come away! Ye've passed words
enough to entertain twenty men! Let him sleep!'
'Aye!' she called, then turned back to Roland. 'Don't let on that I
showed you the doctors.'
'Mum is the word, Jenna.'
She paused, biting her lip again, then suddenly swept back her
wimple. It fell against the nape of her neck in a soft chiming of
bells. Freed from its confinement, her hair swept against her
