My guard shut the door behind me, and I sat down on my bed. I waited to hear the hasp secured in some way, but all I heard was the guard’s departing footfalls. The maid had refilled my water ewer. I noticed with distaste that a chamber pot had been added to my room. The wash water was welcome, though I would have preferred a bath or even a dip in the river shallows. I did not wait long until I heard a different step on the stair. There was a tap on my door, and when I opened it, my father himself entered with a covered tray. He didn’t look at me. I think even he was somewhat embarrassed by what he was doing to me. “This is your food,”

he announced, as if I could have mistaken it for something else. I could smell meat, and instantly my mouth began to water. My hunger, which I could somewhat ignore in the absence of food, became an obsession the moment I could smell or see anything edible. I was glad that he set the tray down without uncovering it. I feared that if he had shown me what he carried, I could not have focused on his words.

He spoke stiffly. “I hope you realize that I’m doing this for your own good, Nevare. Trust me, and I promise you that by the end of the week, those clothes will be hanging on you. I will prove to you that your fat is a result of your greed, not some ‘magic spell.’”

“Sir,” I said, confirming that I’d heard his words but offering no comment on what I thought of them. He decided that was rude, and left my room.

He shut the door smartly and this time I did hear him fasten the hasp shut. Fine. I wasted no time in sitting down to my meal.

In a way, he was fair. I suppose he could have fed me bread and water.

Instead, there was a meager portion of everything that my family was enjoying downstairs, even half a glass of wine. The cloth that had covered the tray became my napkin. I did not allow myself a morsel until I had divided every food on my plate into meticulously carved small bites. Then I began, eating each bite as if it were my last and trying to savor the taste in an attempt to make the small quantity satisfying. I had cut the meat so fine that I had reduced it to tiny bundles of fibers. I ground them between my back teeth and let them linger in my mouth until the flavor faded. I ate the peas individually, squeezing the tender insides out of their tiny jackets and savoring the difference in texture. I chewed the bread endlessly, delighted to discover that each tiny square somehow became sweet when it lingered on my tongue.

My father, perhaps from some sense of fairness, had even provided me with a tiny portion of a sweet pudding with three tart cherries in it. This I ate in bits that scarcely covered the tips of the fork’s tines. Had I ever before been so aware of the sharp contrast between sweet and sour, ever mapped so clearly what portions of my tongue responded to each? My deprivation became an exercise in sensory exploration.