"Oh." He makes a tiny, embarrassing noise, an "urrm" born of surprise and greed: there's a plate of chestnuts, just cracked and steaming. They alone suffice to make him feel like a boy again, cold fingers clenched around a paper bag, him and Miquel pigging out, incognito, at a street-fair-cum-saint's-day in Pisa.
Ere he can check himself, he loads a few on a plate, plus cheese and figs. The wine Xellos puts before him smells seven kinds of wonderful, the ginger doing well enough instead of the soapy root he's asked for.
He makes another "urrm" around a chestnut and washes it down.
"Before a man bit into one of two foods equally removed and tempting, he would die of hunger if his choice were free,"