"Caila-folken , do you seek aid and succor of us?"
Eddie stiffened. This question had been asked of many individuals during their weeks in Calla Bryn Sturgis, but he thought to ask it here was extremely risky. What if they said no?
A moment later Eddie realized he needn't have worried; in sizing up his audience, Roland was as shrewd as ever. Some did in fact say no - a smattering of Haycoxes, a peck of Tooks, and a small cluster of Telfords led the antis - but most of the folken roared out a hearty and immediate AYE, SAY THANKYA ! A few others - Overholser was the most prominent - said nothing either way. Eddie thought that in most cases, this would have been the wisest move. The most politic move, anyway. But this wasn't most cases; it was the most extraordinary moment of choice most of these people would ever face. If the Ka-Tet of Nineteen won against the Wolves, the people of this town would remember those who said no and those who said nothing. He wondered idly if Wayne Dale Overholser would still be the big farmer in these parts a year from now.
But then Roland opened the palaver, and Eddie turned his entire attention toward him. His admiring attention. Growing up where and how he had, Eddie had heard plenty of lies. Had told plenty himself, some of them very good ones. But by the time Roland reached the middle of his spiel, Eddie realized he had never been in the presence of a true genius of mendacity until this early evening in Calla Bryn Sturgis. And -
Eddie looked around, then nodded, satisfied.
And they were swallowing every word.
THREE
"Last time I was on this stage before you," Roland began, "I danced the commala. Tonight - "
George Telford interrupted. He was too oily for Eddie's taste, and too sly by half, but he couldn't fault the man's courage, speaking up as he did when the tide was so clearly running in the other direction.
"Aye, we remember, ye danced it well! How dance ye the mortata, Roland, tell me that, I beg."
Disapproving murmurs from the crowd.
"Doesn't matter how I dance it," Roland said, not in the least discommoded, "for my dancing days in the Calla are done. We have work in this town, I and mine. Ye've made us welcome, and we say thankya. Ye've bid us on, sought our aid and succor, so now I bid ye to listen very well. In less of a week come the Wolves."
There was a sigh of agreement. Time might have grown slippery, but even low folken could still hold onto five days' worth of it.
"On the night before they're due, I'd have every Calla twin-child under the age of seventeen there." Roland pointed off to the left, where the Sisters of Oriza had put up a tent. Tonight there were a good many children in there, although by no means the hundred or so at risk. The older had been given the task of tending the younger for the duration of the meeting, and one or another of the Sisters periodically checked to make sure all was yet fine.
"That tent won't hold em all, Roland," Ben Slightman said.
Roland smiled. "But a bigger one will, Ben, and I reckon the Sisters can find one."
"Aye, and give em a meal they won't ever forget!" Margaret Eisenhart called out bravely. Good-natured laughter greeted this, then sputtered before it caught. Many in the crowd were no doubt reflecting that if the Wolves won after all, half the children who spent Wolf's Eve on the Green wouldn't be able to remember their own names a week or two later, let alone what they'd eaten.
"I'd sleep em here so we can get an early start the next morning," Roland said. "From all I've been told, there's no way to know if the Wolves will come early, late, or in the middle of the day. We'd look the fools of the world if they were to come extra early and catch em right here, in the open."
"What's to keep em from coming a day early?" Eben Took called out truculently. "Or at midnight on what you call Wolf's Eve?"
"They can't," Roland said simply. And, based on Jamie Jaffords's testimony, they were almost positive this was true. The old man's story was his reason for letting Andy and Ben Slightman run free for the next five days and nights. "They come from afar, and not all their traveling is on horseback. Their schedule is fixed far in advance."
"How do'ee know?" Louis Haycox asked.
"Better I not tell," Roland said. "Mayhap the Wolves have long ears."
A considering silence met this.
"On the same night - Wolf's Eve - I'd have a dozen bucka wagons here, the biggest in the Calla, to draw the children out to the north of town. I'll appoint the drivers. There'll also be child-minders to go with em, and stay with em when the time comes. And ye needn't ask me where they'll be going; it's best we not speak of that, either."