“Then I’ll take you up on it. Thankee-sai.”

She curtsied again, and left them.

“I need a map of the Calla,” Roland said when she was gone. “It doesn’t have to be great art, but it has to be accurate, and true as to distance. Can you draw one for me?”

“Not at all,” Callahan said composedly. “I cartoon a little, but I couldn’t draw you a map that would take you as far as the river, not even if you put a gun to my head. It’s just not a talent I have. But I know two that could help you there.” He raised his voice. “Rosalita! Rosie! Come to me a minute, do ya!”

Three

Twenty minutes later, Rosalita took Roland by the hand, her grip firm and dry. She led him into the pantry and closed the door. “Drop yer britches, I beg,” she said. “Be not shy, for I doubt you’ve anything I haven’t seen before, unless men are built summat different in Gilead and the Inners.”

“I don’t believe they are,” Roland said, and let his pants fall.

The sun was now up but Eddie and Susannah were still down. Roland was in no hurry to wake them. There would be plenty of early days ahead—and late evenings, too, likely—but this morning let them enjoy the peace of a roof over their heads, the comfort of a feather mattress beneath their bodies, and the exquisite privacy afforded by a door between their secret selves and the rest of the world.

Rosalita, a bottle of pale, oily liquid in one hand, drew in a hiss over her full lower lip. She looked at Roland’s right knee, then touched his right hip with her left hand. He flinched away a bit from the touch, although it was gentleness itself.

She raised her eyes to him. They were so dark a brown they were almost black. “This isn’t rheumatiz. It’s arthritis. The kind that spreads fast.”

“Aye, where I come from some call it dry twist,” he said. “Not a word of it to the Pere, or to my friends.”

Those dark eyes regarded him steadily. “You won’t be able to keep this a secret for long.”

“I hear you very well. Yet while I can keep the secret, I will keep the secret. And you’ll help me.”

“Aye,” she said. “No fear. I’ll bide’ee.”

“Say thankya. Now, will that help me?”