She grew thin. Her hair, once washed in rosewater, was shorn for lice. Her hands, once trained for the harp, became calloused and cracked, the nails broken and black. She ate what the soldiers ate—gray stew with gristle, bread that had to be dipped in water to be chewed. She slept on a pile of rags behind the cookhouse, waking each morning to the sound of a rooster and the smell of her own sweat.
The conqueror came to see her eventually, not out of cruelty but out of curiosity. He found her in the pig yard, knee-deep in mud, carrying a bucket of slops. She did not curtsy. She did not weep. She simply looked at him with eyes that had seen too much to be afraid. the vulgar life of a vanquished princess
“No,” she said. “I want another bowl of stew.” She grew thin
“You’ve gotten ugly,” he said.