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it was we nursed Jenna back to health after her mother was nothing
but dirt in the breeze that blows out towards End-World, and how
little she thanks us! Besides, she bears the Dark Bells, the sigil of
our sisterhood. Of our ka-tet. Now eat - yer belly says ye're
hungry!'
Sister Louise offered the bowl, but her eyes kept drifting to the
shape the medallion made under the breast of his bed-dress. Don't
like it, do you? Roland thought, and then remembered Louise by
candlelight, the freighter's blood on her chin, her ancient eyes
eager as she leaned forward to lick his spend from Sister Mary's
hand.
He turned his head aside. 'I want nothing.'
'But ye're hungry!' Louise protested. 'If'ee don't eat, James, how
will'ee get'ee strength back?'
'Send Jenna. I'll eat what she brings.'
Sister Mary's frown was black. 'Ye'll see her no more. She's been
released from Thoughtful House only on her solemn promise to
double her time of meditation ... and to stay out of the infirmary.
Now eat, James, or whoever ye are. Take what's in the soup, or
we'll cut ye with knives and rub it in with flannel poultices. Either
way, makes no difference to us. Does it? Louise?'
'Nar,' Louise said. She still held out the bowl. Steam rose from it,
and the good smell of chicken.
'But it might make a difference to you.' Sister Mary grinned
humourlessly, baring her unnaturally large teeth. 'Flowing blood's
risky around here. The doctors don't like it. It stirs them up.'
It wasn't just the bugs that were stirred up at the sight of blood, and
Roland knew it. He also knew he had no choice in the matter of the
soup. He took the bowl from Louise and ate slowly. He would
have given much to wipe but the look of satisfaction he saw on
Sister Mary's face.
'Good,' she said after he had handed the bowl back and she had
peered inside to make sure it was completely empty. His hand
thumped back into the sling which had been rigged for it, already
too heavy to hold up. He could feel the world drawing away again.
Sister Mary leaned forward, the billowing top of her habit touching
the skin of his left shoulder. He could smell her, an aroma both
ripe and dry, and would have gagged if he'd had the strength.
'Have that foul gold thing off ye when yer strength comes back a
little - put it in the pissoir under the bed. Where it belongs. For to
be even this close to where it lies hurts my head and makes my
throat close.'
Speaking with enormous effort, Roland said: 'If you want it, take
it. How can I stop you, you bitch?'
Once more her frown turned her face into something like a
thunderhead. He thought she would have slapped him, if she had
dared touch him so close to where the medallion lay. Her ability to
touch seemed to end above his waist, however.
'I think you had better consider the matter a little more fully,' she
said. 'I can still have Jenna whipped, if I like. She bears the Dark
Bells, but I am the Big Sister. Consider that very well.'
She left. Sister Louise followed, casting one look - a strange
combination Of fright and lust - back over her shoulder.
Roland thought, I must get out of here - I must.
Instead, he drifted back to that dark place which wasn't quite sleep.
Or perhaps he did sleep, at least for a while; perhaps he dreamed.
Fingers once more caressed his fingers, and lips first kissed his ear
and then whispered into it: 'Look beneath your pillow, Roland ...
but let no one know I was here.'
At some point after this, Roland opened his eyes again, half-
expecting to see Sister Jenna's pretty young face hovering above
him, and that comma of dark hair once more poking out from
beneath her wimple. There was no one. The swags of silk overhead
were at their brightest, and although it was impossible to tell the
hours in here with any real accuracy, Roland guessed it to be
around noon. Perhaps three hours since his second bowl of the
Sisters' soup.
Beside him, John Norman still slept, his breath whistling out in
faint, nasal snores.
Roland tried to raise his hand and slide it under his pillow. The
hand wouldn't move. He could wiggle the tips of his fingers, but
that was all. He waited, calming his mind as well as he could,
gathering his patience.' Patience wasn't easy to come by. He kept
thinking about what Norman had said - that there had been twenty
survivors of the ambush ... at least to start with. One by one they
went, until only me and that one down yonder was left. And now
you.
The girl wasn't here. His mind spoke in the soft, regretful tone of
Alain, one of his old friends, dead these many years now. She
wouldn't dare, not with the others watching. That was only a
dream you had.
But Roland thought perhaps it had been more than a dream.
Some length of time later - the slowly shifting brightness overhead
made him believe it had been about an hour - Roland tried his hand
again. This time he was able to get it beneath his pillow. This was
puffy and soft, tucked snugly into the wide sling which supported
the gunslinger's neck. At first he found nothing, but as his fingers
worked their slow way deeper, they touched what felt like a stiffish
bundle of thin rods.
He paused, gathering a little more strength (every movement was
like swimming in glue), and then burrowed deeper. It felt like a
dead bouquet. Wrapped around it was what felt like a ribbon.
Roland looked around to make sure the ward was still empty and
Norman still asleep, then drew out what was under the pillow. It
was six brittle stems of fading green with brownish reed-heads at
the tops. They gave off a strange, yeasty aroma that made Roland
think of early-morning begging expeditions to the Great House
kitchens as a child - forays he had usually made with Cuthbert. The
reeds were tied with a wide white silk ribbon, and smelled like
burned toast. Beneath the ribbon was a fold of cloth. Like
everything else in this cursed place, it seemed, the cloth was of
silk.
Roland was breathing hard and could feel drops of sweat on his
brow. Still alone, though - good. He took the scrap of cloth and
unfolded it. Printed painstakingly in blurred charcoal letters, was
this message:
NIBBLE HEDS. Once each hour. Too
much, CRAMPS or DETH.
TOMORROW NITE. Can't be sooner.
BE CAREFUL!
No explanation, but Roland supposed none was needed. Nor did he
have any option; if he remained here, he would die. All they had to
do was have the medallion off him, and he felt sure Sister Mary
was smart enough to figure a way to do that.
He nibbled at one of the dry reed-heads. The taste was nothing like
the toast they had begged from the kitchen as boys; it was bitter in
his throat and hot in his stomach. Less than a minute after his
nibble, his heart-rate had doubled. His muscles awakened, but not
in a pleasant way, as after good sleep; they felt first trembly and
then hard, as if they were gathered into knots. This feeling passed
rapidly, and his heartbeat was back to normal before Norman
stirred awake an hour or so later, but he understood why Jenna's
note had warned him not to take more than a nibble at a time - this
was very powerful stuff.
He slipped the bouquet of reeds back under the pillow, being
careful to brush away the few crumbles of vegetable matter which
had dropped to the sheet. Then he used the ball of his thumb to
blur the painstaking charcoaled words on the bit of silk. When he
was finished, there was nothing on the square but meaningless
smudges. The square he also tucked back under his pillow.
When Norman awoke, he and the gunslinger spoke briefly of the
young scout's home - Delain, it was, sometimes known jestingly as
Dragon's Lair, or Liar's Heaven. All tall tales were said to orginate
in Delain. The boy asked Roland to take his medallion and that of
his brother home to their parents, if Roland was able, and explain
as well as he could what had happened to James and John, sons of
Jesse. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]