bugs had found her.
'Don't look,' Jenna said, helping Roland to his feet. He thought that
never in his life had he been so glad to be upon them. 'Come. We
mu be quick - she'll rouse the others. I've put your boots and
clothes aside the path that leads away from here - I carried as much
as I could. How ye? Are ye strong?'
'Thanks to you.' How long he would stay strong Roland didn't
know... and right now it wasn't a question that mattered. He saw
Jenna snatch up two of the reeds - in his struggle to escape the
slings, they had scattered all over the head of the bed - and then
they were hurrying up the aisle, away from the bugs and from
Sister Coquina, whose cries were now failing.
Roland buckled on his guns and tied them down without breaking
stride.
They passed only three beds on each side before reaching the flap
of the tent . . . and it was a tent, he saw, not a vast pavilion. The
silk walls and ceiling were fraying canvas, thin enough to let in the
light of a threequarters Kissing Moon. And the beds weren't beds
at all, but only a double row of shabby cots.
He turned and saw a black, writhing hump on the floor where
Sister Coquina had been. At the sight of her, Roland was struck by
an unpleasant thought.
'I forgot John Norman's medallion!' A keen sense of regret - almost
of mourning - went through him like wind.
Jenna reached into the pocket of her jeans and brought it out. It
glimmered in the moonlight.
'I picked it up off the floor.'
He didn't know which made him gladder - the sight of the
medallion or the sight of it in her hand. It meant she wasn't like the
others.
Then, as if to dispel that notion before it got too firm a hold on
him, she said: 'Take it, Roland - I can hold it no more.' And, as he
took it, he saw unmistakable marks of charring on her fingers.
He took her hand and kissed each burn.
'Thankee-sai,' she said, and he saw she was crying. 'Thankee, dear.
To be kissed so is lovely, worth every pain. Now . . .'
Roland saw her eyes shift, and followed them. Here were bobbing
lights descending a rocky path. Beyond them he saw the building
where the Little Sisters had been living - not a convent but a ruined
hacienda that looked a thousand years old. There were three
candles; as they drew closer, Roland saw that there were only three
sisters. Mary wasn't among them.
He drew his guns.
'Oooo, it's a gunslinger-man he is!' Louise.
'A scary man!' Michela.
'And he's found his ladylove as well as his shooters!' Tamra.
'His slut-whore!' Louise.
Laughing angrily. Not afraid ... at least, not of his weapons.
'Put them away,' Jenna told him, and when she looked, saw that he
