Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,103

her eyes. The other night, in the dark, he hadn’t been able to see those fog-colored eyes. I didn’t know how lucky I was, he thought wryly.

“Mayor Thorin?” Rimer asked. “May I present our guests from the Inner Baronies?”

Thorin turned away from the man with the long white hair and the woman standing next to him, his face brightening. He was shorter than his Chancellor but just as thin, and his build was peculiar: a short and narrow-shouldered upper body over impossibly long and skinny legs. He looked, Roland thought, like the sort of bird you should glimpse in a marsh at dawn, bobbing for its breakfast.

“Aye, you may!” he cried in a strong, high voice. “Indeed you may, we’ve been waiting with impatience, great impatience, for this moment! Well met we are, very well met! Welcome, sirs! May your evening in this house of which I am the fleeting proprietor be happy, and may your days be long upon the earth!”

Roland took the bony outstretched hand, heard the knuckles crack beneath his grip, looked for an expression of discomfort on the Mayor’s face, and was relieved to see none. He bowed low over his outstretched leg.

“William Dearborn, Mayor Thorin, at your service. Thank you for your welcome, and may your own days be long upon the earth.”

“Arthur Heath” made his manners next, then “Richard Stockworth.” Thorin’s smile widened at each deep bow. Rimer did his best to beam, but looked unused to it. The man with the long white hair took a glass of punch, passed it to his female companion, and continued to smile thinly. Roland was aware that everyone in the room—the guests numbered perhaps fifty in all—was looking at them, but what he felt most upon his skin, beating like a soft wing, was her regard. He could see the blue silk of her dress from the side of one eye, but did not dare look at her more directly.

“Was your trip difficult?” Thorin was asking. “Did you have adventures and experience perils? We would hear all the details at dinner, so we would, for we have few guests from the Inner Arc these days.” His eager, slightly fatuous smile faded; his tufted brows drew together. “Did ye encounter patrols of Farson?”

“No, Excellency,” Roland said. “We—”

“Nay, lad, nay—no Excellency, I won’t have it, and the fisherfolk and hoss-drovers I serve wouldn’t, even if I would. Just Mayor Thorin, if you please.”

“Thank you. We saw many strange things on our journey, Mayor Thorin, but no Good Men.”

“Good Men!” Rimer jerked out, and his upper lip lifted in a smile which made him look doglike. “Good Men, indeed!”

“We would hear it all, every word,” Thorin said. “But before I forget my manners in my eagerness, young gentlemen, let me introduce you to these close around me. Kimba you’ve met; this formidable fellow to my left is Eldred Jonas, chief of my newly installed security staff.” Thorin’s smile looked momentarily embarrassed. “I’m not convinced that I need extra security, Sheriff Avery’s always been quite enough to keep the peace in our corner of the world, but Kimba insists. And when Kimba insists, the Mayor must bow.”

“Very wise, sir,” Rimer said, and bowed himself. They all laughed, save for Jonas, who simply held onto his narrow smile.

Jonas nodded. “Pleased, gents, I’m sure.” The voice was a reedy quaver. He then wished them long days upon the earth, all three, coming to Roland last in his round of handshaking. His grip was dry and firm, utterly untouched by the tremor in his voice. And now Roland noticed the queer blue shape tattooed on the back of the man’s right hand, in the webbing between thumb and first finger. It looked like a coffin.

“Long days, pleasant nights,” Roland said with hardly a thought. It was a greeting from his childhood, and it was only later that he would realize it was one more apt to be associated with Gilead than with any such rural place as Hemphill. Just a small slip, but he was beginning to believe that their margin for such slips might be a good deal less than his father had thought when he had sent Roland here to get him out of Marten’s way.

“And to you,” Jonas said. His bright eyes measured Roland with a thoroughness that was close to insolence, still holding his hand. Then he released it and stepped back.

“Cordelia Delgado,” Mayor Thorin said, next bowing to the woman who had been speaking to Jonas. As Roland