“Oh, I got bit by a snake once,” Ned said. “Any snake bites me, it dies.”

He might have meant he killed snakes with his knife or with a boot. By the way he made it sound, though, he thought his blood more poisonous than any venom. And he might have been right. He was the biggest man at the table, and without a doubt the strongest. His face was handsome, in a hard, weathered way. His eyes… His eyes worried even Thraxton, who had seen a great deal. They were hard and black and unyielding as polished jet. A killer’s eyes, Thraxton thought.

A lot of men were killers, of course. The world was a hard, cruel place. But most men pretended otherwise. Ned of the Forest didn’t bother.

The serf who’d led Thraxton in began carving the pork roast that sat in the middle of the table. He also served Geoffrey’s commanders baked tubers. Thraxton, Leonidas, and Dan ate in the approved manner, lingering over their food and chatting lightly of this and that. Ned’s manners proved he’d been born in a barn. He attacked his food as if he were a wolf devouring a deer he’d pulled down. In an astonishingly short time, his plate was empty. He didn’t bother asking the serf for a second helping. Instead, he stood up, leaned forward to grab the knife, and hacked off another big slab of meat. He slapped it down on the plate and demolished it with the same dispatch he’d shown at the first helping.

“A man of appetite,” Dan of Rabbit Hill said, more admiringly than not. He waved to the serf, who gave him a second helping about half the size of Ned’s.

“We are all men of appetite,” Leonidas said with another smile. “Some have a passion for spirituous liquors, some for the ladies, some for our meats, some for arcane knowledge and enlightenment.” He inclined his head to Count Thraxton, who acknowledged the compliment with another of his curt nods.