Pell ladled the pottage herself, because a carter who was given his bowl by a stranger would think he had been served by a servant, and a carter who thought he had been served by a servant would expect the bread to be better.
The carter was called Nessel and he had a face like a boiled apple that had been left out in the frost. He sat at the long kitchen table with his cap on the bench beside him and his elbows out, and he ate the first spoonful with his eyes closed, the way men ate food they had not expected to like.
“That’s Coldharbour bread,” he said, when he had finished the spoonful and was ready to be impressed. He tore the heel off the loaf in front of him and held it up. “Smell that. Sea-salt and a proper oven.”
“It’s the Hold’s bread,” said Pell, cheerfully. “Baked in the Hold’s oven, by the Hold’s cook, from the Hold’s own flour, which is ground at the Hold’s own mill out of the Hold’s own marsh-barley. Coldharbour bread is a thing people say when they have never been hungry in a place with a wall.”
Nessel looked at the loaf. He looked at her. “You lie,” he said, with respect.
