The plate looked large until the food was on it.
I carried it from the counter with my left hand under the rim, the provisional card caught between two fingers. There was bread, a ladle of bean stew and a spoonful of greens which slid toward the bread whenever I tilted the plate. I had eaten much the same thing at midday. At the time it had seemed enough.
Halfway to a table, I turned back.
Beside the serving hatch, a board listed additions to the basic meal. The small dish on the shelf below it held barley cooked with meat and an egg cut in half. Someone had written the price clearly, then gone over the last numeral until it was almost black.
I looked at the card in my hand. General meals. No promise that I'd stop being hungry.
"One of those as well."
The young man at the till glanced at my collar, then at the card.
"It's extra, my lord."
"I can see that."
