The bacon was thoroughly burned. He turned it out, scraped the pan a bit, and sliced some fresh pieces. He was aware that he was being watched. When the rashers were beginning to curl, he tossed in a couple of duck eggs that a farmer he'd robbed a day back was still cursing about.
Without lifting his eyes from the pan, he asked, "Got a plate? I usually eat out of the pan myself, so I can't offer you one."
"Why don't you go away, you horrible boy?" came the fierce voice from the trees.
"I'm going, once I've had supper. You can come and eat, or you can sit up a tree."
"Go away. I've got my own food." The words sounded weak against the smell of the frying bacon.
"No, you haven't. I went through your kit while you were sleeping. You can't eat gold bracelets, you know."
"You've stolen my things, and now you're just trying to lure me out with food. You want to rape me." The voice was suspicious, accusing.
Keilin's mind turned back to an alley and Guard-Captain Kemp. His reply was gentler. "If I'd wanted to rob you, I'd have taken what I wanted and left. If I'd wanted to rape you, I'd have put a knife against your throat while you were asleep, not cooked you supper first. Besides, I've got enough money to buy any girls I want," he said with some pride.
Shael's quick mind assimilated all of this. He could have robbed her. He could have killed her. He could have raped her, too. . . . To her now awake and hungry self it made little sense, but he obviously wasn't planning to do her any harm, even if he was appallingly rude and terribly underbred. "I'm coming down. Try anything and I'll kill you."
He laughed. "Yeah! You and what army?" His experience in the field of diplomacy was not legion. He skillfully speared a piece of bacon on the point of his knife, and dropped it into his mouth. He continued to talk with mouth full. "Come and eat. No sense in letting it get cold." He'd gone from thinking her an object for his gallantry to an object for his pity. It showed in his tone. Shael might be hungry enough to accept his charity, but she did not have to like it. She advanced hungrily on the frying pan with an expression on her face that would have made older and wiser men wary. Keilin, however, knew little about people, and even less about girls. He didn't even notice, which did not improve matters. He just shoved the pan towards her while he chewed with his mouth open.
She was smaller than he'd first thought. Under the scowl and the dirt layer it was quite a pretty face. Some sense of gallantry began to return to Keilin, as he watched her gobble, daintiness and the manners of a princess forgotten in a sudden desperate hunger. "Here . . . don't eat so fast. Your stomach's not used to food. You'll cast it all up again."
The books Keilin had devoured in the library had led him to dream of caring and nurturing a delicate damsel, who would fall into his arms with gratitude afterwards. His experiences with his mother after she'd been on a three-day dream-dust binge stood him in better stead with the reality that followed. When Shael had stumbled up and rushed towards the bushes, he'd followed, held her head and rubbed her back. When she'd finished he handed her a leather water skin. She eyed it suspiciously. Keilin could see her hands were shaking on the flask neck. "Just water. Rinse your mouth out."
When she'd done that, he led her back to the fire, and put her blanket over her thin, shivering shoulders. He put more wood on the fire, took a small pot from his kit, and began shaving dried meat into it. He added water and set it in the flames. "How long," he asked conversationally, "since you last ate?"
The damsel in distress was showing scant signs of appreciation. In fact the hostile, shaky voice suggested that she planned to blame the whole of the indignity and discomfort on him. "I don't see what it has got do with you." Then she apparently thought better of it. "I've had a few berries and purslane leaves. Nothing else for . . . quite a long time."
He nodded. "I thought so. Marou an' me had a few thin times too. He taught me that you've got to start eating again slowly. Soup is best." He pulled the pot from the center of the flames with a stick, and let it stand in the embers on the edge, so just a fuzz of little bubbles buzzed up steadily from the hot metal. He went to his pack again, and emerged with a battered mug, and a hunk of bread.
A few balancing tricks with a hot pot filled the mug, which he handed her. "Drink it. Slowly. The bread's a bit old, so dunk it in the soup. And don't be stupid enough to wolf it again. I'm not making you more food to upchuck in the bushes." The knight in shining armor was supremely unaware that every time his kindness raised him a step in the princess's estimation, his tongue took him two steps back.