“No,” said she, “but I have feelings from time to time, like any other woman, especially about when her man is getting ready to move on.”

“Is that what I am to you? Your man?”

Her gaze was both shy and steady. “For the little time ye’ve been here, aye, I like to think so. Do’ee call me wrong, Roland?”

He shook his head at once. It was good to be some woman’s man again, if only for a short time.

She saw he meant it, and her face softened. She stroked his lean cheek. “We were well-met, Roland, were we not? Well-met in the Calla.”

“Aye, lady.”

She touched the remains of his right hand, then his right hip. “And how are your aches?”

To her he wouldn’t lie. “Vile.”

She nodded, then took hold of his left hand, which he’d managed to keep away from the lobstrosities. “And this un?”

“Fine,” he said, but he felt a deep ache. Lurking. Waiting its time to come out. What Rosalita called the dry twist.

“Roland!” said she.

“Aye?"-

Her eyes looked at him calmly. She still had hold of his left hand, touching it, culling out its secrets. “Finish your business as soon as you can.”

“Is that your advice?”

“Aye, dearheart. Before your business finishes you.”

THREE

Eddie sat on the back porch of the rectory as midnight came and what these folk would ever after call The Day of the East Road Battle passed into history (after which it would pass into myth… always assuming the world held together long enough for it to happen). In town the sounds of celebration had grown increasingly loud and feverish, until Eddie seriously began to wonder if they might not set the entire high street afire. And would he mind? Not a whit, say thanks and you’re welcome, too. While Roland, Susannah, Jake, Eddie, and three women-Sisters of Oriza, they called themselves-stood against the Wolves, the rest of the Calla-folken had either been cowering back in town or in the rice by the riverbank. Yet ten years from now-maybe even five!-they would be telling each other about how they’d bagged their limit one day in autumn, standing shoulder to shoulder with the gunslingers.