“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.”