Now eat, James, or whoever ye are. Take what's in the soup, or
we'll cut ye with knives and rub it in with flannel poultices. Either
way, makes no difference to us. Does it? Louise?'
'Nar,' Louise said. She still held out the bowl. Steam rose from it,
and the good smell of chicken.
'But it might make a difference to you.' Sister Mary grinned
humourlessly, baring her unnaturally large teeth. 'Flowing blood's
risky around here. The doctors don't like it. It stirs them up.'
It wasn't just the bugs that were stirred up at the sight of blood, and
Roland knew it. He also knew he had no choice in the matter of the
soup. He took the bowl from Louise and ate slowly. He would
have given much to wipe but the look of satisfaction he saw on
Sister Mary's face.
'Good,' she said after he had handed the bowl back and she had
peered inside to make sure it was completely empty. His hand
thumped back into the sling which had been rigged for it, already
too heavy to hold up. He could feel the world drawing away again.
Sister Mary leaned forward, the billowing top of her habit touching
the skin of his left shoulder. He could smell her, an aroma both
ripe and dry, and would have gagged if he'd had the strength.
'Have that foul gold thing off ye when yer strength comes back a
little - put it in the pissoir under the bed. Where it belongs. For to
be even this close to where it lies hurts my head and makes my
throat close.'
Speaking with enormous effort, Roland said: 'If you want it, take
it. How can I stop you, you bitch?'
Once more her frown turned her face into something like a
thunderhead. He thought she would have slapped him, if she had
dared touch him so close to where the medallion lay. Her ability to
touch seemed to end above his waist, however.
'I think you had better consider the matter a little more fully,' she
said. 'I can still have Jenna whipped, if I like. She bears the Dark
Bells, but I am the Big Sister. Consider that very well.'
She left. Sister Louise followed, casting one look - a strange
combination Of fright and lust - back over her shoulder.
Roland thought, I must get out of here - I must.
Instead, he drifted back to that dark place which wasn't quite sleep.
Or perhaps he did sleep, at least for a while; perhaps he dreamed.
Fingers once more caressed his fingers, and lips first kissed his ear
and then whispered into it: 'Look beneath your pillow, Roland ...
but let no one know I was here.'
At some point after this, Roland opened his eyes again, half-
expecting to see Sister Jenna's pretty young face hovering above
him, and that comma of dark hair once more poking out from
beneath her wimple. There was no one. The swags of silk overhead
were at their brightest, and although it was impossible to tell the
hours in here with any real accuracy, Roland guessed it to be
around noon. Perhaps three hours since his second bowl of the
Sisters' soup.
