What did Princess Marie want to know about Henry? She wanted to verify the things she had read or heard elsewhere. She wanted to hear these things from his lips and not the lips of another.
She left her shawl behind and joined Henry by the fire. As she approached him and stood next to him, she reached forward and rested her hands on his muscular waist before looking up at him. She didn't know what she wanted to ask.
When Henry saw she wasn't going to continue until he said something, he decided he would answer the unasked.
"I'm a peasant," he said. "I ate one meal a day for most days of my life. My father passed away when I was seventeen from a simple cut on his leg because we couldn't afford a healer."
He could feel her hands tighten slightly at his sides. This was something she was unaware of.
