Eodwine and Falco
Eodwine raised his eyes impatiently at the halfling. The girl coughed in racking gasps. Ruthven wiped the tears and dirt from the girl's face, then looked closely at the cut on her lip.
"Did someone strike you, child?" Ruthven asked. The girl did not reply, but fresh tears leaked from her eyes and fell into her ears.
And worse, Eodwine thought. Blood had streaked down her legs, poorly veiled by her tattered skirt. Eodwine tasted bile at the back of his throat. He tapped Falco on the shoulder and motioned him to the far corner of the common room. Falco looked up into his serious face expectantly.
"Some dastard has done grievous ill to the girl," Eodwine growled.
"Aye," said Falco, squinting, his mouth working. "What think you?"
"To avenge her."
Falco nodded, as if he had known precisely what was in Eodwine's mind. "First we must know if she can speak-" Eodwine remembered seeing that she had a tongue when she coughed. "-and if she can, will she speak of that?"
"We shall persuade her with kindness," Eodwine said resolutely.
"And if that fails us?"
"We must make sure that it does not." He held Falco's eyes as he walked around him and returned to the table on which the girl lay.
Falco watched Eodwine. He had seen the Rohirric man like this once before, far in the north of the hills of Evendim. A fire was in his eyes. "I could do for a smoke about now," Falco mumbled to himself, and reached into his vest pocket for his pipe and weed as he returned to their new vigil.
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