man who made it was unarmed, next to naked, and hung in the air
because his back couldn't yet bear the weight of his body.
'Where's Sister Jenna?' he asked.
'Oooo!' Sister Coquina said, raising her eyebrows. 'We like her, do
we? She makes our heart go . . .' She put her hand against the rose
on her breast and fluttered it rapidly.
'Not at all, not at all,' Roland said, 'but she was kind. I doubt she
would have teased me with a spoon, as some would.'
Sister Coquina's smile faded. She looked both angry and worried.
'Say nothing of that to Mary, if she comes by later. Ye might get
me in trouble.'
'Should I care?'
'I might get back at one who caused me trouble by causing little
Jenna trouble,' Sister Coquina said. 'She's in Big Sister's black
books, just now, anyway. Sister Mary doesn't care for the way
Jenna spoke to her about ye ... nor does she like it that Jenna came
back to us wearing the Dark Bells.'
This was no sooner out of her mouth before Sister Coquina put her
hand over that frequently imprudent organ, as if realizing she had
said too much.
Roland, intrigued by what she'd said but not liking to show it just
now, only replied: 'I'll keep my mouth shut about you, if you keep
your mouth shut to Sister Mary about Jenna.'
Coquina looked relieved. 'Aye, that's a bargain.' She leaned
forward confidingly. 'She's in Thoughtful House. That's the little
cave in the hillside where we have to go and meditate when Big
Sister decides we've been bad. She'll have to stay and consider her
impudence until Mary lets her out.' She paused, then said abruptly:
'Who's this beside ye? Do ye know?'
Roland turned his head and saw that the young man was awake,
and had been listening. His eyes were as dark as Jenna's.
'Know him?' Roland asked, with what he hoped was the right touch
of scorn. 'Should I not know my own brother?'
'Is he, now, and him so young and you so old?' Another of the
sisters materialized out of the darkness: Sister Tamra, who had
called herself one-and-twenty. In the moment before she reached
Roland's bed, her face was that of a hag who will never see eighty
again ... or ninety. Then it shimmered and was once more the
plump, healthy countenance of a thirty-year-old matron. Except for
the eyes. They remained yellowish in the corneas, gummy in the
corners, and watchful.
'He's the youngest, I the eldest,' Roland said. 'Betwixt us are seven
others, and twenty years of our parents' lives.'
'How sweet! And if he's yer brother, then ye'll know his name,
won't ye? Know it very well.'
Before the gunslinger could flounder, the young man said: 'They
think you've forgotten such a simple hook as John Norman. What
culleens they be, eh, Jimmy?'
Coquina and Tamra looked at the pale boy in the bed next to
Roland's, clearly angry ... and clearly trumped. For the time being,
