Again, that cushion of calm came down over him. So Mags let himself be steered down that long corridor for the second time, until they came to an enormous white-walled, black-beamed room, the biggest he had ever seen, with nothing in it but Guardsmen eating and talking, with row after row of tables and benches. The smell of food was so intense it came near to making him faint. He couldn’t identify any of the smells, only that they all made his stomach knot with hunger, and his mouth ache to taste what made all those smells. Rich smells, savory and sweet, and spicy, all blending somehow. Jakyr guided him to the nearest empty seat, and one of the young men that had been with them went away and came back without prompting with an enormous bowl and four thick slices of bread, and a spoon. He put it all down in front of Mags. And when Mags looked into the bowl, he could hardly believe his eyes. It was full of the kind of soup he only saw once a year, when the strangers came to look them all over. Vegetables floated so thickly in the broth that they were pushing each other up to the surface, carrots and peas, three kinds of beans, lentils, bits of chopped root, and soft cooked barley, all in a broth so rich it looked like gravy, not like the watery stuff in the cabbage soup.

But even if new memories hadn’t told him that Jakyr was right about getting sick if he ate too much, too fast, his own experience did. Don’t gobble, or you’ll be sorry. So he took the spoon in one hand, a slice of the bread—wheaten bread—in the other. The only time he had seen wheaten bread was when it was burned and thrown in the pig slop. He and the other kiddies got barley or rye bread, coarse stuff that somehow failed to satisfy. He dipped a corner of the bread and sopped up broth. Ate the bite. Took a spoonful of soup that made his mouth sing with flavor and filled his whole head with the intoxicating aroma. Ate that. Dipped the bread again. He repeated this pattern, slowly, carefully. Even though his empty stomach screamed at him to fill it, faster, now, he went slowly. He hadn’t gotten as far as he had without being able to master his gut. Besides, you didn’t gobble food that tasted like this . . . you gobbled food that tasted horrible so you could get it into your stomach before your mouth could protest.