The Heat of a Warrior's Love

We were in a room, and the room was full of people. I didn't know any of them. I was just there to watch the man, my Lord, smoke his pipe and drink his brandy. And every now and again he would look at me, as if he was thinking about it, then he'd nod his head and light up another pipe.

I thought about getting up and leaving, but it wasn't like I had anywhere else to be. There was always work to be done, but what work could I do? I couldn't herd cattle or farm if my life depended on it. I did odd jobs here and there, keep the place clean, fix things when they broke. The cook gave me some vegetables sometimes, which was nice of him. The rest of the time I ate bread with honey on it. It tasted better than most things anyhow.

When I'd first arrived at the manor two years ago, an old woman had given me a loaf of bread and a small jar of honey and said to give it to the man when the sun went down. So that's what I did. He looked at me like he'd never seen anyone like me before. Which wasn't hard because I'd never seen anyone like him before either. He had eyes as black as coal and skin so white even candlelight couldn't make him shine brighter than the moon. His hair hung around his shoulders in thick waves of blackness that seemed to drip down into his lapel. He had a nose sharp enough to slice bread with and lips full enough to put all women's lips to shame.

He took the jar from my hands and held it up between us as if weighing how much it would take to gauge its worthiness. Then he brought it up to his nose and took a deep breath.

"Honey," he said quietly as if tasting something delicious on his tongue for the first time. "Do you like honey?"

"I don't know," I replied honestly. "I've never had any."

"Never?" He cocked his head sideways as if trying to understand what kind of person lives without having eaten honey in their lives? "What have you eaten then?"

"Bread," I answered quickly without hesitation. He smiled then as if we shared a secret together and leaned forward to tap my hand with one finger before turning back around to face the fire burning brightly in front of us. A moment later he turned back around again, staring at one spot on my body with such intensity I felt uncomfortable beneath his gaze until he finally dropped his eye line back down again at last and focused straight ahead into nothingness once more, buttering a piece of bread spread with honey onto a knife which he then stuck into his mouth before chewing quietly for several moments while looking over at me every now and again with glimmering black eyes until finally swallowing down whatever he was eating with a long drawn out gulp that seemed loud enough for everyone in that room to hear as it traveled through him from beginning to end before disappearing down into his stomach where no doubt it continued on its journey west toward Africa where it would eventually end up buried somewhere deep within the belly-flap of an antari warrior who probably hadn't eaten anything better in weeks if not months or even years! And then he smiled at me again approvingly before finally standing up from his seat beside the fireplace and walking away toward some corner of this world where men could get lost forever without ever dying from starvation because after all that's just how these kinds of men are when left alone for too long without a woman's touch!