Cort

“I have forgotten the face of my father, whose guns I hope someday to bear.” “That’s right, brat,” Cort said. “You’ll consider what you did wrong, and sharpen your reflections with hunger. No supper. No breakfast.” “Look!” Roland cried. He pointed up. The hawk had climbed above the soaring dove.

Cort speaks and disciplines the boys during the Gilead training sequence.

He heard the grinding, swelling roar of water and looked from the creature (it had stopped and was holding up the claws with which it had been pulling itself along, looking absurdly like a boxer assuming his opening stance, which, Cort had taught them, was called The Honor Stance) to the incoming breaker with its curdle of foam.

Roland recalls the Honor stance taught by Cort.

Roland had been raised, first by his father and then by Cort, his greatest teacher, to believe this, and so he still believed. Those gods might not punish at once, but sooner or later the penance would have to be paid . . . and the longer the wait, the greater the weight.

Roland recalls Cort’s teaching about conserving ammunition.

“WHAT PRIZE WAS THAT, ROLAND SON OF STEVEN?” “The largest goose in Barony. And year after year my teacher, Cort, carried that goose home.” “I WISH HE WERE HERE,” Blaine said respectfully. “HE MUST HAVE BEEN A GREAT RIDDLER.” “Indeed he was,” Roland said. “Are you ready for my proposal, Blaine?”

Roland tells Blaine of Cort winning a goose at the fair every year.

Vannay had known it as well, and that knowing was surely part of his sorrow. Cort taught them to navigate by the sun and stars; Vannay showed them compass and quadrant and sextant and taught them the mathematics necessary to use them. Cort taught them to fight.

Cort is identified as the boys’ fighting and navigation teacher, distinct from Vannay.

Eddie thought they made an exceedingly ugly combo. The gunslinger dropped to one knee beside him. Tower and Deepneau stood in the living area, side by side, watching with big eyes. “There was a thing Cort told us when we were boys,” Roland said. “Will I tell it to you, Eddie?”

Roland recalls Cort’s lesson about pain before the bullet procedure.

The very Beam means to speak to you, Gabby, Vannay said in his mind—Gabby, the old sarcastic nickname Vannay had adopted because Steven Deschain’s boy was so close-mouthed. His limping, brilliant tutor had stopped using it (probably at Cort’s insistence) the year Roland had turned eleven.

Roland’s remembered Gilead school history includes Cort and Vannay.

But— But you’d better get ready. That was the voice that always seemed to come when he tried to slack off, to scamp a job or take the easy way around an obstacle. It was the voice of Cort, his old teacher. The man whose stick they had all feared, as boys.

Roland recalls his old teacher Cort and his stick.

At last he looked up. “How is Cort, Roland? How goes it with your teacher that was? You must know, because I’ve been given to understand that you spend most of your time in his hut, feeding him and such.” “He has days when he knows me,” I said.

Steven discusses Roland’s old teacher Cort recovering from his injuries.