When Ileana felt she could eat no more, there was a dish of wild strawberries which had just ripened and with them some strange mountain berries that were more delicious than anything she had ever tasted before.
It made her angry to think that, good though the food was in the Palace, if she was honest, what she had eaten tonight surpassed anything produced by the chefs she had always thought were the most skilful available.
The food the men were eating as they sat around them, many of them cross-legged, was, she was sure, just as good as theirs.
She knew that their strength and fitness was due to their being well fed and obviously led in a manner that saved them from unnecessary privation.
But if the General’s purpose was to show her how efficient he was, she told herself she would not
