Clearly Alrik was a little more wound up than she thought. She wondered if she could remember the first time she had seen it. Death by violence wasn’t like seeing an old woman slip away, or a sick man breathe his last. The siege of Mari Casteen when she had been thirteen or fourteen? Her father had been wounded in the fighting and wasn’t expected to live. Her mother had rushed her to his side, as much to get an ironclad declaration of inheritance from him, a young daughter vs a pair of grown but bastard sons. She remembered the bodies stacked against the wall, pierced by crossbow bolts or spitted with steel. Some of them had been burned alive with oil and pitch. Her mother had been horrified by she had been morbidly fascinated. The stink had been beyond belief though, so many unburied dead ripening in the sun while grim faced soldiers tossed them into pits or piled them on pyres. Her mind snapped back to a seemingly unimportant detail the way it sometimes did. Never tuped ANYONE? It was like a unicorn. By the Black Lady she needed to get this boy laid. 
 
Composing herself, she tucked the knife away and picked a clean one from the cutlery box. Damned Potato Eaters. Still she was hungry and her stomach was a little sour. It had been a considerable time since she last had any wine, but it was probably good for her to try and space that out. If you thought a man who had been roasted in his armor smelt bad, then you had never had the chance to see one who went out from the drunkard’s liver.
 
“Well there is always the simple crazies,” she said dismissing the matter and carving herself off a slice of potato with one of the dull butter knives. She popped it into her mouth and chewed. Like most northern food it had been cooked to the point that it felt personal, but it was tasty enough. Besides, there was never a bad time to take a nap, grab a bite, or visit the latrine. You never knew when you might get another chance.
 
“This one time at… Palona maybe? Bardice? Anyway this man comes up to me, tries to stab me right there in broad daylight, screaming something about how I seduced his wife… or cheated at cards… or maybe that I killed his brother?” she realized the story was beginning to meander somewhat and also wasn’t really making her point.
 
“So… somewhere you don’t remember, someone tried to kill you for a reason you also don’t remember?” Alrik sumiried, cocking an eyebrow.
 
“Yeah well I went for a bard but I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket,” she responded around a mouthful of potato.