Hm yeah Mariam isn't going to be ravished. Right.

She gets out of the carriage.

Jing Yi leads her in and gets her a table. 

The music in the corner is coming from a woman with a pipa, playing a slow and relaxing tune.

"Now, I could describe what you can get, or I can surprise you."

"I don't know how to make food decisions, the subject has never really come up."

"Oh, you're going to have fun."

He flags down a waiter and orders an amount of dishes that only makes sense if you haven't eaten all day. 

Mariam hasn't eaten all day! She hasn't really eaten in several weeks.

She's squirming with anticipation. This entire restaurant smells so good. Her mouth is watering. 

Soon, a whole bunch of plates arrive, containing tiny cakes and delicate fruit arrangements and every variation on the theme of "What if we put red beans in it?"

Mariam selects the nearest cake.

It's moist and covered in a sweet syrup.

Jing Yi is looking at her encouragingly.

Well, it's not like she can go to Extra Hell.

She takes a bite.

It is incredibly sweet, with a light and airy crumb, and faint after-taste of roses.

Throughout her life, Mariam has lived primarily on coarse bread and unspiced vegetable stew. On feast days, she has a meat stew, also unspiced, which she had previously remembered as the culinary high point of her life. 

She has hever had anything fall apart so delicately in her mouth, like it's almost melting. She has never tasted anything so sweet, that made some primal part of her brain go good good calories good give me calories. And she has never had food that tasted of roses. 

The Virgin Mary is associated with roses. She is called the Rose of Sharon. Where Jesus is frightening and God vengeful, Mariam has always thought of Mary as kind and loving, perhaps even indulgent to the girl who shares her name. When Mariam smells roses, she feels at home.

She looks almost at peace.

He has never seen someone look like they are enjoying food as much as Mariam is right now. It makes him want to keep feeding her and feeding her.

"This place is good, isn't it?" 

"Yes. Does the Emperor eat here?"

"Oh, no, the food at the palace is even fancier than this." 

Unexpected vistas of food deliciousness are expanding before Mariam, and instead of trying to comprehend them she will eat something with red beans in it.

It's sweet and creamy and rich and so, so good.

Jing Yi nibbles in solidarity. 

"There's so many different ways things can taste."

"This is why I try and eat things other than bread."

Mariam decides that she is going to take one bit of everything. 

It is like the cooks were trying to find every possible texture you could pair with sweetness, along with every other flavour you could pair it with: bitter-sweet and acid sweet and hot sweet and floral sweet...

Mariam makes exuberant noises at each new discovery and excitedly points them out to Jing Yi. She is particularly delighted by anything that tastes like flowers.

He is definitely not filling that information away for the future, because this is unlikely to come up unless she faints in the street again.

"I should probably be taking you back to your home."

"...you should?" Mariam says.

"Well, I have to eventually, I have to maintain the reputation of my countrymen." 

"...but you didn't even, um. You know." Furious blushing.