“Stubborn old thing,” she said, but she spoke with good-humored affection. “Stubborn as a stick, aye, and we all say thankya.”

“I’m thinking about it,” he said, still not looking up. “Still thinking, which is more than I expected at this late date—usually I make up my mind and there’s the end of it.

“Roland, I understand young Jake showed Overholser and the rest of em some shooting out in the woods. Might be we could show you something right here that’d raise your eyebrows. Maggie, go in and get your Oriza.”

“No need,” she said, at last taking her hand from beneath her apron, “for I brought it out with me, and here ’tis.”

Four

It was a plate both Detta and Mia would have recognized, a blue plate with a delicate webbed pattern. A forspecial plate. After a moment Roland recognized the webbing for what it was: young oriza, the seedling rice plant. When sai Eisenhart tapped her knuckles on the plate, it gave out a peculiar high ringing. It looked like china, but wasn’t. Glass, then? Some sort of glass?

He held his hand out for it with the solemn, respectful mien of one who knows and respects weapons. She hesitated, biting the corner of her lip. Roland reached into his holster, which he’d strapped back on before the noon meal outside the church, and pulled his revolver. He held it out to her, butt first.

“Nay,” she said, letting the word out on a long breath of sigh. “No need to offer me your shooter as a hostage, Roland. I reckon if Vaughn trusts you at the house, I c’n trust you with my Oriza. But mind how you touch, or you’ll lose another finger, and I think you could ill afford that, for I see you’re already two shy on your right hand.”

A single look at the blue plate—the sai’s Oriza—made it clear how wise that warning was. At the same time, Roland felt a bright spark of excitement and appreciation. It had been long years since he’d seen a new weapon of worth, and never one like this.

The plate was metal, not glass—some light, strong alloy. It was the size of an ordinary dinner-plate, a foot (and a bit more) in diameter. Three quarters of the edge had been sharpened to suicidal keenness.

“There’s never a question of where to grip, even if ye’re in a hurry,” Margaret said. “For, do’ee see—”

“Yes,” Roland said in a tone of deepest admiration. Two of the rice-stalks crossed in what could have been the Great Letter , which by itself means both zi (eternity) and now . At the point where these stalks crossed (only a sharp eye would pick them out of the bigger pattern to begin with), the rim of the plate was not only dull but slightly thicker. Good to grip.