"I'm afraid we've no plan to stay, sai," Alain replied politely, shaking his head. "Roland will be looking for his own way home. We ought to find him before then, or this whole journey will have been for naught. And after that, well." He half smiled, rather sadly. "The road awaits. Though if you'd lend us food and water for the journey, we'd be more than grateful. I have coin, though I fear it may not count for much here."

Nor, in all honesty, did he have much of it. He'd packed the bare essentials, and most of them hadn't come through with him; his gunna was still sitting on the assailed walls of Gilead. That brought its own pang, but he shook it off quickly. Bedrolls and flints, blankets and purses... all those were easily replaced. There were bigger concerns.