'She's passing fair,' Roland said. 'Unlike some.'
Her lips pulled back from her overlarge teeth. 'Ye'll see her no
more, cully. Ye've stirred her up, so you have, and I won't have
that.'
She turned to go. Still trying to appear weak and hoping he would
not overdo it (acting was never his forte), Roland held out the
empty porridge bowl. 'Do you not want to take this?'
'Put it on your head and wear it as a nightcap, for all of me. Or
stick it ill your ass. You'll talk before I'm done with ye, cully - talk
till I bid you shut up and then beg to talk some more!'
On this note she swept regally away, hands lifting the front of her
skirt off the floor. Roland had heard that such as she couldn't go
about in daylight, and that part of the old tales was surely a lie. Yet
another part was almost true, it seemed: a fuzzy, amorphous shape
kept pace with her, running along the row of empty beds to her
right, but she cast no real shadow at all.
VI. Jenna. Sister Coquina. Tamra, Michela, Louise.
The Cross-Dog. What Happened in the Sage.
That was one of the longest days of Roland's life. He dozed, but
never deeply; the reeds were doing their work, and he had begun to
believe that he might, with Jenna's help, actually get out of here.
And there was the matter of his guns, as well - perhaps she might
be able to help there, too.
He passed the slow hours thinking of old times - of Gilead and his
friends, of the riddling he had almost won at one Wide Earth Fair.
In the end another had taken the goose, but he'd had his chance,
aye. He thought of his mother and father; he thought of Abel
Vannay, who had limped his way through a life of gentle
goodness, and Eldred Jonas, who had limped his way through a life
of evil ... until Roland had blown him loose of his saddle, one fine
desert day.
He thought, as always, of Susan.
If you love me, then love me, she'd said ... and so he had.
So he had.
In this way the time passed. At rough hourly intervals, he took one
of the reeds from beneath his pillow and nibbled it. Now his
muscles didn't tremble so badly as the stuff passed into his system,
nor his heart pound so fiercely. The medicine in the reeds no
longer had to battle the Sisters' medicine so fiercely, Roland
thought; the reeds were winning.
The diffused brightness of the sun moved across the white silk
ceiling of the ward, and at last the dimness which always seemed
to hover at bed-level began to rise. The long room's western wall
bloomed with the rose-melting-to-orange shades of sunset.
It was Sister Tamra who brought him his dinner that night - soup
and another popkin. She also laid a desert lily beside his hand. She
smiled she did it. Her cheeks were bright with colour. All of them
were bright with colour today, like leeches which had gorged until
they were almost to bursting.
'From your admirer, Jimmy,' she said. 'She's so sweet on ye! The I
