She had cached not just his boots and clothes beyond the top of the
ridge, but the smaller of his two purses, as well. When she tried
apologize for not bringing his bedroll and the larger purse (she'd
tried she said, but they were simply too heavy), Roland hushed her
with a finger to her lips. He thought it a miracle to have as much as
he did. And besides (this he did not say, but perhaps she knew it,
anyway), the guns were the only things which really mattered. The
guns of his father, and his father before him, all the way back to
the days of Arthur Eld when dreams about dragons had still walked
the earth.
'Will you be all right?' he asked her as they settled down. The
moon had set, but dawn was still at least three hours away. They
were surrounded the sweet smell of the sage. A purple smell, he
thought it then ... and ever after. Already he could feel it forming a
kind of magic carpet under him, which would soon float him away
to sleep. He thought he had never been so tired.
'Roland, I know not.' But even then, he thought she had known.
Her mother had brought her back once; no mother would bring her
back again. And she had eaten with the others, had taken the
communion of the Sisters. Ka was a wheel; it was also a net from
which none ever escaped.
But then he was too tired to think much of such things ... and what
good would thinking have done, in any case? As she had said, the
bridge was burned. Even if they were to return to the valley,
Roland guess they would find nothing but the cave the Sisters had
called Thoughtful House. The surviving Sisters would have packed
their tent of bad dreams and moved on, just a sound of bells and
singing insects moving down the late night breeze.
He looked at her raised a hand (it felt heavy), and touched the curl
which once more lay across her forehead.
Jenna laughed, embarrassed. 'That one always escapes. It's
wayward Like its mistress.'
She raised her hand to poke it back in, but Roland took her fingers
before she could. 'It's beautiful,' he said. 'Black as night and as
beautiful as forever.'
He sat up - it took an effort; weariness dragged at his body like soft
hands. He kissed the curl. She closed her eyes and sighed. He felt
her trembling beneath his lips. The skin of her brow was very cool;
the dark curve of the wayward curl like silk.
'Push back your wimple, as you did before,' he said.
She did it without speaking. For a moment he only looked at her.
Jenna looked back gravely, her eyes never leaving his. He ran his
hands through her hair, feeling its smooth weight (like rain, he
thought, rain with weight), then took her shoulders and kissed each
of her cheeks. He drew back for a moment.
'Would ye kiss me as a man does a woman, Roland? On my
mouth?'
Aye.
And, as he had thought of doing as he lay caught in the silken
infirmary tent, he kissed her lips. She kissed back with the clumsy
