Twice a day the cook brought her and Father Elias hot meals, served on a small table in the large reception hall. Each sat on a bench on opposite sides. Some of the food was familiar: broad beans, flavored with mustard seed; beef ribs, brushed with honey; roast chicken, stuffed with sage. Others surprised her and often were more complex, flavored with honey and vinegar mixed together, or a pale yellow liquid that smelled of fish. “That is garum,” the father told her. “Is it not delicious?” Hrotgund did not think so at first. But she came to like it.

When she wondered where all this was made, Framberta took her to a building parallel to the villa, but much smaller and far in front of it. “To avoid fires,” said the slave. It was very smoky inside, but along one wall to her right she made out a brick counter just higher than a man’s waist, about six feet long, with a grill to the left and various pots and utensils at right. Other pots were set above it on shelves. Beyond this, in a corner, was a small oven. Various black pots – the biconic Frankish pots, swelling up from a narrow bottom and narrowing again towards the top – held spices, liquids, legumes and grains.

A whole room, just for cooking! And with so much in it. She wondered now how her cook had made do at Erfurt with just a fire, banked with stones, hanging pots above it on a tripod or setting them directly on the coals. The peasants still did this at Athies, the fire set in the middle of their hard dirt floor, with a hole in the roof above it. But here again she saw how different life was for one of royal blood.

The cook always made too much and as she saw him scrape what she had left into a bucket and carry it off to the waste heap, she thought of the hollow faces of her playmates. More than once, she had seen them tear fruit off trees, or even just the leaves, and stuff them hungrily into their mouths. One day he dumped a mass of lentils into the bucket, and then prepared to dump leftover gruel on top of it. But she stopped him: “Put in what’s left of the ribs instead.” She had barely tasted hers and even Father Elias had left meat on those he gnawed. When the cook had added these, she grabbed the half-eaten balls of bread and put them in too.

In the courtyard, she found some of the tenants’ hungry children. “Look what I have brought you!” she said, holding up the bucket. The moment the children saw it was food they crowded in on every side, eagerly grabbing the ribs, sticking their fingers into the lentils. In minutes, it was all gone, even as one tiny girl stuck her head inside the bucket, licking it clean.

She was shocked by how quickly they ate it all, and how hungrily. After that, whenever she could, she brought not one, but two buckets, full of scraps, even beans and gruel. The children from outside the gate came in too, hearing there was food. Sometimes there were fights, but when she threatened to bring no more, everyone at once behaved.

Hrotgund herself had never eaten much and she barely touched all the ornate delicacies the cook was so proud to make. But as she watched the children eat, she felt a satisfaction she had never felt in her own meals. She saw for the first time how wonderful it was to feed the hungry and watch them eat.

The sons of Merovech -->