The villagers looked upon the house that had been erected in a day with curiosity. It had a bizarre structure. It looked more like a slab of rock than a house. Gevaudan houses made frequent use of wooden fittings and bricks. There were no bricks or wood anywhere.
Suddenly, a muscular woman walked out of the house. Her heroic disposition struck awe into the hearts of the malnourished Gevaudan villagers. The nomads were nothing if not well-fed. She was carrying a tray of baked goods.
Normally, the neighbors would be the ones who would welcome the newcomers with food, but Asena was the one who did the cooking instead. It was a meat dish with thin bread. Thin bread was the type of bread nomads normally used. Instead of cooking bread in the oven, one would flatten the dough until it was a quarter of a centimeter thick and cook it in a metal pan over the fire. She had cut onions into it and added mint and lemon. It flavored the sizzling, lean-muscle meat that way.
