“I’ll manage.”
His stomach grumbled.
“It sounds like you’ll eat no matter the taste,” she said.
“I’ve eaten slop to survive before; I can do it again,” he said, knowing she understood that it was she herself who had served it to him.
“Then it will be like old times, won’t it?”
“Not quite,” he reminded. “This time you’re my prisoner.”
Ronan finally sat at the table having waited almost an hour for the food to be done. He didn’t care what it tasted like. He was starving, not having eaten since early yesterday morning.
Carissa sat, leaving him to serve himself. He didn’t waste a minute. He spooned a good portion of creamy porridge into his bowl and helped himself to the largest apple bun drizzled with a honey-colored liquid. He poured himself cider that she had heated in the hearth and reminded himself that no matter the taste, he had to eat it. His strength depended on it.
He took a mouthful of porridge, prepared to swallow in one gulp, until he realized how flavorful it tasted. And then he savored it and was anxious to eat more. After several spoonfuls, he tried the apple bun. It tasted so delicious that he devoured it in seconds. He continued to fill himself until the only food left was one last, small apple bun.
“Finish it if you’d like,” Carissa said.
Ronan grabbed it and with two bites it was gone. He sat back in the chair with a contented smile. “That was good.”
“I appreciate the compliment,” Carissa said.
And he could see that she actually did. Her cheeks were rosy, her smile delightful, and her eyes bright.
But he had to ask the obvious. “How does someone who has slaves doing everything for her learn to cook?”
“I thought it best I be prepared in case circumstances should arise where I needed to tend to my own meals, and obviously it was a wise choice.”
“Can you stitch as well?”
“I am adept with a needle,” she admitted.
“I have a shirt that needs mending,” he said with a grin.
“I stitch flesh better than cloth,” she said bluntly.
“Isn’t tending the wounded another chore for one of your slaves?”
“Not when your father trusts no other hands to tend him.”
“Your hands could not be tending him that long that he had no other to help. How many years are you? Eighteen at the most, and you needed time to learn, so that leaves you tending your father for—”
“I am twenty years, and I have mended my father’s wounds since I’ve been seven.”
Ronan leaned forward in the chair. “How is that possible? You could never be proficient with a needle at seven.”
“If a needle was thrust in your hands when you were five years old, and your father commanded you to learn, you could.”
“Your father did that to you?” he asked, as if such a thing were incomprehensible.
“It was my duty.”
“You were five, your fingers tiny. And stitching cloth is different from stitching flesh,” he said.
“I didn’t learn to stitch on cloth.”
Ronan stared at her. “Are you saying that your father had you learning on wounded warriors?”
“No, he wouldn’t be that cruel to his men,” she said. “He had me practice every day on dead warriors.”
“What?” he asked, and shook his head, not believing what he had just heard. “You were only five.”
“As my father constantly told me, I was not too young to learn. And it taught me another valuable lesson besides learning how to stitch.”
“This I must know,” he said, “for I cannot imagine what a child of five can learn from stitching dead warriors.”
Carissa raised her chin. “It taught me not to be afraid of death, for no one can hurt you anymore after you die.”
She was letting him know that her death would only bring her peace. If she thought of death as an end to her suffering, then he certainly wasn’t punishing her, he was freeing her, and that truly disturbed him.
However, it also disturbed him to learn what Mordrac had done to his five-year-old daughter. The image of her—so very young—stitching dead men was horrifying, and he couldn’t help but wonder what else the evil man had made his daughter endure.
Carissa stood and reached for her cloak, hanging on the peg by the door.
Ronan also stood. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out to collect some snow to clean the plates, then get rainwater from the barrel to start a stock for a hearty soup for later.”
“I’ll do it,” he said.
“Don’t trust me?” she asked with the hint of a smile.