Though each of his words had the lash of a whip, she kept her own calm and pleasant. “I’m sorry, but those items are in short supply right at the moment. I’ll order them up for you as soon as I can.”
“Smart-ass,” he mumbled.
“Indeed. The man whose arrow you intercepted speaks in a foreign tongue. Your brother told me once that you knew many languages.”
He took a long, deep drink, with his eyes deliberately on hers. “It’s not enough that I intercepted the arrow? Now you want me to interrogate your assassin?”
“I would be grateful if you would try, or at least interpret. If indeed, his tongue is one you know. There are likely a few things in the world you don’t know, so you may be of no use to me at all.”
Amusement flickered briefly in his eyes. “Now you’re being nasty.”
“Tit for tat.”
“All right, all right. Glenna, my beauty, stop hovering.”
“You lost considerable blood,” she began, but he only lifted the goblet.
“Replacing, even as we speak.” With a slight grimace, he got to his feet. “I need a goddamn shirt.”
“Blair,” Moira said in even tones, “would you fetch Cian a goddamn shirt?”
“On that.”
“You’ve made a habit of saving my life,” Moira said to Cian.
“Apparently. I’m thinking of giving that up.”
“I could hardly blame you.”
“Here you go, champ.” Blair offered Cian a fresh white shirt. “I think the guy’s Czech, or possibly Bulgarian. Can you handle either of those?”
“As it happens.”
They went into the great hall where the assassin sat, bruised, bleeding and chained, under heavy guard. That guard included both Larkin and Hoyt. When Cian entered, Hoyt stepped away from his post.
“Well enough?” he asked Cian.
“I’ll do. And it cheers me considerably that he looks a hell of a lot worse than I do. Pull your guards back,” he said to Moira. “He won’t be going anywhere.”
“Stand down. Sir Cian will be in charge here.”
“Sir Cian, my ass.” But he only muttered it as he approached the prisoner.
Cian circled him, gauging ground. The man was slight of build and dressed in what would be the rough clothes of a farmer or shepherd. One eye was swollen shut, the other going black and blue. He’d lost a couple of teeth.
Cian snapped out a command in Czech. The man jolted, his single working eye rolling up in surprise.
But he didn’t speak.
“You understood that,” Cian continued in the same language. “I asked if there are others with you. I won’t ask again.”
When he was met with silence, Cian struck out with enough force to have the
prisoner slamming back against the wall, along with the chair he was chained to.
“For every thirty seconds of silence, I’ll give you pain.”
“I’m not afraid of pain.”