Wizard and glass - Stephen King [227]
“What’s wrong with my niece?” Cordelia had snapped.
“She tired, sai. And with the dolor de garganta.”
“Sore throat? So close before Fair-Day? Ridiculous! I don’t believe it! Susan’s never sick!”
“Dolor de garganta,” Maria repeated, impassive as only a peasant woman can be in the face of disbelief, and with that Cordelia had to be satisfied. Maria herself had no idea what Susan was up to, and that was just the way Susan liked it.
She’d gone over the balcony, moving nimbly down the fifteen feet of tangled vines growing up the north side of the building, and through the rear servants’ door in the wall. There Roland had been waiting, and after two warm minutes with which we need not concern ourselves, they rode double on Rusher to the graveyard, where Cuthbert and Alain waited, full of expectation and nervous hope.
3
Susan looked first at the placid blond one with the round face, whose name was not Richard Stockworth but Alain Johns. Then at the other one—he from whom she had sensed such doubt of her and perhaps even anger at her. Cuthbert Allgood was his name.
They sat side by side on a fallen gravestone which had been overrun with ivy, their feet in a little brook of mist. Susan slid from Rusher’s back and approached them slowly. They stood up. Alain made an In-World bow, leg out, knee locked, heel stiffly planted. “Lady,” he said. “Long days—”
Now the other was beside him—thin and dark, with a face that would have been handsome had it not seemed so restless. His dark eyes were really quite beautiful.
“—and pleasant nights,” Cuthbert finished, doubling Alain’s bow. The two of them looked so like comic courtiers in a Fair-Day sketch that Susan laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Then she curtseyed to them deeply, spreading her arms to mime the skirts she wasn’t wearing. “And may you have twice the number, gentlemen.”
Then they simply looked at each other, three young people who were uncertain exactly how to proceed. Roland didn’t help; he sat astride Rusher and only watched carefully.
Susan took a tentative step forward, not laughing now. There were still dimples at the corners of her lips, but her eyes were anxious.
“I hope you don’t hate me,” she said. “I’d understand it if you did—I’ve come into your plans . . . and between the three of you, as well—but I couldn’t help it.” Her hands were still out at her sides. Now she raised them to Alain and Cuthbert, palms up. “I love him.”
“We don’t hate you,” Alain said. “Do we, Bert?”
For a terrible moment Cuthbert was silent, looking over Susan’s shoulder, seeming to study the waxing Demon Moon. She felt her heart stop. Then his gaze returned to her and he gave a smile of such sweetness that a confused but brilliant thought (If I’d met this one first—, it began) shot through her mind like a comet.
“Roland’s love is my love,” Cuthbert said. He reached out, took her hands, and drew her forward so she stood between him and Alain like a sister with her two brothers. “For we have been friends since we wore cradle-clothes, and we’ll continue as friends until one of us leaves the path and enters the clearing.” Then he grinned like a kid. “Mayhap we’ll all find the end of the path together, the way things are going.”
“And soon,” Alain added.
“Just so long,” Susan Delgado finished, “as my Aunt Cordelia doesn’t come along as our chaperone.”
4
“We are ka-tet,” Roland said. “We are one from many.”
He looked at each in turn, and saw no disagreement in their eyes. They had repaired to the mausoleum, and their breath smoked from their mouths and noses. Roland squatted on his hunkers, looking at the other three, who sat in a line on a stone meditation bench flanked by skeletal bouquets in stone pots. The floor was scattered with the petals of dead roses. Cuthbert and Alain, on either side of Susan, had their arms around her in quite unself-conscious fashion. Again Roland thought of one sister and two protective brothers.
“We’re greater than we were,” Alain said. “I feel that very strongly.”
“I do, too,” Cuthbert said. He looked around. “And a fine meeting-place, as well. Especially