already had.
The others, meanwhile, had drawn closer.
'Ooo, see, she cries!' Tamra.
'Doffed her habit, she has!' Michela. 'Perhaps it's her broken vows
she cries for.'
'Why such tears, pretty?' Louise.
'Because he kissed my fingers where they were burned,' Jenna said.
'I've never been kissed before. It made me cry.'
'Ooooo!'
'Luv-ly!'
'Next he'll stick his thing in her! Even luv-lier!'
Jenna bore their japes with no sign of anger. When they were done,
she said: 'I'm going with him. Stand aside.'
They gaped at her, counterfeit laughter disappearing in shock.
'No!' Louise whispered. 'Are ye mad? Ye know what'll happen!'
'No, and neither do you,' Jenna said. 'Besides, I care not.' She half-
turned and held her hand out to the mouth of the ancient hospital
tent. It was a faded olive-drab in the moonlight, with an old red
cross drawn on its roof.
Roland wondered how many towns the Sisters had been to With
this tent which was so small and plain on the outside, so huge and
gloriously on the inside. How many towns and over how many
years.
Now, cramming the mouth of it in a black, shiny tongue, were
doctor-bugs. They had stopped their singing. Their silence was
somehow terrible.
'Stand aside or I'll have them on ye,' Jenna said.
'Ye never would!' Sister Michela cried in a low, horrified voice.
'Aye. I've already set them on Sister Coquina. She's a part of the
medicine, now.'
Their gasp was like cold wind passing through dead trees. Nor was
all that dismay directed towards their own precious hides. What
Jenna h done was clearly far outside their reckoning.
'Then you're damned,' Sister Tamra said.
'Such ones to speak of damnation! Stand aside.'
They did. Roland walked past them and they shrank away from
him. but they shrank from her more.
'Damned?' he asked after they had skirted the haci and reached the
path beyond it. The Kissing Moon glimmered above a tumbled
scree of rocks In its light Roland could see a small black opening
low on the scarp. guessed it was the cave the Sisters called
Thoughtful House. 'What did they mean, damned?'
'Never mind. All we have to worry about now is Sister Mary. I like
not that we haven't seen her.'
She tried to walk faster, but he grasped her arm and turned her
about. He could still hear the singing of the bugs, but faintly; they
were leaving the place of the Sisters behind. Eluria, too, if the
compass in his head was still working; he thought the town was in
the other direction. The husk of the town, he amended.
'Tell me what they meant.'
