Wizard and Glass

There was a rolltop desk in the center, a notice-board to the right of the door (the same sheets of foolscap had been scribbled on over and over; paper was a rare commodity in Mid-World), and, in the far comer, two rifles in a padlocked case. These were such ancient blunderbusses that Roland wondered if there was ammunition for them. He wondered if they would fire, come to that. To the left of the gun-case, an open door gave on the jail itself—three cells on each side of a short corridor, and a smell of strong lye soap drifting out.

They've cleaned for our coming, Roland thought. He was amused, touched, and uneasy. Cleaned it as though we were a troop of Inner Barony horse—career soldiers who might want to stage a hard inspection instead of three lads serving punishment detail.

But was such nervous care on the part of their hosts really so strange? They were from New Canaan, after all, and folk in this tucked-away corner of the world might well see them as a species of visiting royalty.

Sheriff Avery introduced his deputies. Roland shook hands with all of them, not trying to memorize their names. It was Cuthbert who took care of names, and it was a rare occasion when he dropped one. The third, a bald fellow with a monocle hanging around his neck on a ribbon, actually dropped to one knee before them.

'Don't do that, ye great idiot!' Avery cried, yanking him back up by the scruff of his neck. 'What kind of a bumpkin will they think ye? Besides, you've embarrassed them, so ye have!'

'That's all right,' Roland said (he was, in fact, very embarrassed, although trying not to show it). 'We're really nothing at all special, you know—'

'Nothing special!' Avery said, laughing. His belly, Roland noticed, did not shake as one might have expected it to do; it was harder than it looked. The same might be true of its owner. 'Nothing special, he says! Five hundred mile or more from the In-World they've come, our first official visitors from the Affiliation since a gunslinger passed through on the Great Road four year ago, and yet he says they're nothing special! Would ye sit, my boys? I've got graf, which ye won't want so early in the day— p'raps not at all, given your ages (and if you'll forgive me for statin so bald the obvious fact of yer youth, for youth's not a thing to be ashamed of, so it's not, we were all young once), and I also have white iced tea, which I recommend most hearty, as Dave's wife makes it and she's a dab hand with most any potable.'

Roland looked at Cuthbert and Alain, who nodded and smiled (and tried not to look all at sea), then back at Sheriff Avery. White tea would go down a treat in a dusty throat, he said.

One of the deputies went to fetch it, chairs were produced and set in a row at one side of Sheriff Avery’s rolltop, and the business of the day commenced.

'You know who ye are and where ye hail from, and I know the same,' Sheriff Avery said, sitting down in his own chair (it uttered a feeble groan beneath his bulk but held steady). 'I can hear In-World in yer voices, but more important, I can see it in yer faces.

'Yet we hold to the old ways here in Hambry, sleepy and rural as we may be; aye, we hold to our course and remember the faces of our fathers as well's we can. So, although I'd not keep yer long from yer duties, and if ye'll forgive me for the impertinence, I'd like a look at any papers and documents of passage ye might just happen to've brought into town with ye.'

They just 'happened' to have brought all of their papers into town with them, as Roland was sure Sheriff Avery well knew they would. He went through them quite slowly for a man who'd promised not to hold them from their duties, tracing the well-folded sheets (the linen content so high that the documents were perhaps closer to cloth than paper) with one pudgy finger, his lips moving. Every now and then the finger would reverse as he reread a line. The two other deputies stood behind him, looking sagely down over his large shoulders. Roland wondered if either could actually read.

William Dearborn. Drover's son.

Richard Stockworth. Rancher's son.

Arthur Heath. Stockline breeder's son.

The identification document belonging to each was signed by an attestor—James Reed (of Hemphill) in the case of Dearborn, Piet Raven-head (of Pennilton) in the case of Stockworth, Lucas Rivers (of Gilead) in the case of Heath. All in order, descriptions nicely matched. The papers were handed back with profuse thanks. Roland next handed Avery a letter which he took from his wallet with some care. Avery handled it in the same fashion, his eyes growing wide as he saw the frank at the bottom. ' 'Pon my soul, boys! 'Twas a gunslinger wrote this!'

'Aye, so it was,' Cuthbert agreed in a voice of wonder. Roland kicked his ankle—hard—without taking his respectful eyes from Avery's face.

The letter above the frank was from one Steven Deschain of Gilead, a gunslinger (which was to say a knight, squire, peacemaker, and Baron . . . the last title having almost no meaning in the modem day, despite all John Farson's ranting) of the twenty-ninth generation descended from Arthur of Eld, on the side line of descent (the long-descended gel of one of Arthur's many gillies, in other words). To Mayor Hartwell Thorin, Chancellor Kimba Rimer, and High Sheriff Herkimer Avery, it sent greetings and recommended to their notice the three young men who delivered this document, Masters Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath. These had been sent on special mission from the Affiliation to serve as counters of all materials which might serve the Affiliation in time of need (the word war was omitted from the document, but glowed between every line). Steven Deschain, on behalf of the Affiliation of Baronies, exhorted Misters Thorin, Rimer, and Avery to afford the Affiliation's nominated counters every help in their service, and to be particularly careful in the enumerations of all livestock, all supplies of food, and all forms of transport. Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath would be in Mejis for at least three months, Deschain wrote, possibly as long as a year. The document finished by inviting any or all of the addressed public officials to 'write us word of these young men and their deportment, in all detail as you shall imagine of interest to us.' And, it begged, 'Do not stint in this matter, if you love us.'

Tell us if they behaved themselves, in other words. Tell us if they've learned their lesson.

The deputy with the monocle came back while the High Sheriff was perusing this document. He carried a tray loaded with four glasses of white tea and bent down with it like a butler. Roland murmured thanks and handed the glasses around. He took the last for himself, raised it to his lips, and saw Alain looking at him, his blue eyes bright in his stolid face.

Alain shook his glass slightly—just enough to make the ice tinkle— and Roland responded with the barest sliver of a nod. He had expected cool tea from a jug kept in a nearby springhouse, but there were actual chunks of ice in the glasses. Ice in high summer. It was interesting.

And the tea was, as promised, delicious.

Avery finished the letter and handed it back to Roland with the air of one passing on a holy relic. 'Ye want to keep that safe about yer person, Will Dearborn—aye, very safe indeed!'

'Yes, sir.' He tucked the letter and his identification back into his purse. His friends 'Richard' and 'Arthur' were doing the same.

'This is excellent white tea, sir,' Alain said. 'I've never had better.'

'Aye,' Avery said, sipping from his own glass. ' 'Tis the honey that makes it so fearsome. Eh, Dave?'

The deputy with (he monocle smiled from his place by the notice-hoard. '1 believe so, but Judy don't like to say. She had the recipe from her mother.'

'Aye, we must remember the faces of our mothers, too, so we must.' Sheriff Avery looked sentimental for a moment, but Roland had an idea that the face of his mother was the furthest thing from the big man's mind just then. He turned to Alain, and sentiment was replaced by a surprising shrewdness.

'Ye're wondering about the ice, Master Stockworth.'

Alain started. 'Well, I…'

'Ye expected no such amenity in a backwater like Hambry, I'll warrant,' Avery said, and although there was a joshing quality on top of his voice, Roland thought there was something else entirely underneath.

He doesn't like us. He doesn't like what he thinks of as our 'city ways. ' He hasn't known us long enough to know what kind of ways we have, if any at all, but already he doesn't like them. He thinks we're a trio of snotnoses; that we see him and everyone else here as country bumpkins.

'Not just Hambry,' Alain said quietly. 'Ice is as rare in the Inner Arc these days as anywhere else, Sheriff Avery. When I grew up, I saw it mostly as a special treat at birthday parties and such.'