The Little Sisters of Eluria

'Yes. Their power is very great, but. . .'She dropped her voice. 'I believe that drover is beyond their help. His legs are a little better, and the wounds on his face are all but healed, but he has injuries where the doctors cannot reach.' She traced a hand across her midsection, suggesting the location of these injuries, if not their nature.

'And me?' Roland asked.

'Ye were ta'en by the green folk,' she said. 'Ye must have angered them powerfully, for them not to kill ye outright. They roped ye and dragged ye, instead. Tamra, Michela, and Louise were out gathering herbs. They saw the green folk at play with ye, and bade them stop, but -,

'Do the muties always obey you, Sister Jenna

She smiled, perhaps pleased he remembered her name. 'Not always, but mostly. This time they did, or ye'd have now found the clearing in the trees.'

'I suppose so.'

'The skin was stripped almost clean off your back - red ye were from nape to waist. Ye'll always bear the scars, but the doctors have gone far towards healing ye. And their singing is passing fair, is it not?'

'Yes,' Roland said, but the thought of those black things all over his back, roosting in his raw flesh, still revolted him. 'I owe you thanks, and give it freely. Anything I can do for you -

'Tell me your name, then. Do that.'

'I'm Roland of Gilead. A gunslinger. I had revolvers, Sister Jenna. Have you seen them?'

'I've seen no shooters,' she said, but cast her eyes aside. The roses bloomed in her cheeks again. She might be a good nurse, and fair, but Roland thought her a poor liar. He was glad. Good liars were common. Honesty, on the other hand, came dear.

Let the untruth pass for now,

he told himself.

She speaks it out of fear, I think.

'Jenna!' The cry came from the deeper shadows at the far end of the infirmary - today it seemed longer than ever to the gunslinger - and Sister Jenna jumped guiltily. 'Come away! Ye've passed words enough to entertain twenty men! Let him sleep!'

'Aye!' she called, then turned back to Roland. 'Don't let on that I showed you the doctors.'

'Mum is the word, Jenna.'

She paused, biting her lip again, then suddenly swept back her wimple. It fell against the nape of her neck in a soft chiming of bells. Freed from its confinement, her hair swept against her cheeks like shadows.

'Am I pretty? Am I? Tell me the truth, Roland of Gilead - no flattery. For flattery's kind only a candle's length.'

'Pretty as a summer night.'

What she saw in his face seemed to please her more than his words, because she smiled radiantly. She pulled the wimple up again, tucking her hair back in with quick little finger-pokes. 'Am I decent?'

'Decent as fair,' he said, then cautiously lifted an arm and pointed at her brow. 'One curl's out ... just there.'

'Aye, always that one to devil me.' With a comical little grimace, she tucked it back. Roland thought how much he would like to kiss her rosy cheeks ... and perhaps her rosy mouth, for good measure.

'All's well,' he said.

'Jenna!' The cry

was more impatient than ever. 'Meditations!'

‘I'm coming just now!' she called, and gathered her voluminous skirts to go. Yet she turned back once more, her face now very grave and very serious. 'One more thing,' she said in a voice only a step above a whisper. She snatched a quick look around. 'The gold medallion ye wear - ye wear it because it's yours. Do'ee understand ... James?'

'Yes.' He turned his head a bit to look at the sleeping boy. 'This is my brother.'

‘If they ask, yes. To say different would be to get Jenna in serious trouble.'

How serious he did not ask, and she was gone in any case, seeming to flow along the aisle between all the empty beds, her skirt caught up in one hand. The roses had fled from her face, leaving her cheeks and brow ashy. He remembered the greedy look on the faces of the others, how they had gathered around him in a tightening knot ... and the way their faces had shimmered.

Six women, five old and one young.

Doctors that sang and then crawled away across the floor when dismissed by jingling bells.

And an improbable hospital ward of perhaps a hundred beds, a ward with a silk roof and silk walls ...

... and all the beds empty save three.

Roland didn't understand why Jenna had taken the dead boy's medallion from his pants pocket and put it around his neck, but he had an idea that if they found out she had done so, the Little Sisters of Eluria might kill her.

Roland closed his eyes, and the soft singing of the doctor-insects once again floated him off into sleep.

IV. A Bowl of Soup. The Boy

in the Next Bed. The Night-Nurses.