The fellow in armor only turned his head, but he wasn't looking at Conlan. Vargis threw the second glass back with only a slight turn of his lip. Almost as though he were sneering at its ineffective nature. But his eyes were on nothing save the room at large, and the fellow in armor. This man was staring at the one Conlan had so efficiently ruined. On the floor, bleeding from his face, the man was staring up at expensive armor and moving his lips. It didn't take long for sound to emerge.
"Help me," the man said.
"Didn't I warn you about being careless?" the fellow in armor replied with a smile. "Just stay there, and he might not hurt you again."
"You know this man?" Vargis gestured with his empty cup.
A swivel of the head. "No more than one knows any beggar. His troubles began in his childhood, I would wager."
The cup went onto the barrel's edge without a fuss, hanging there by its lip, staring the abyss between barrel and floor in the face. For his own part Vargis was trying to figure out exactly how this fellow migght know the one Conlan had just roughed up. And whether or not either of them was connected to this case of missing girls, this situation of evil and neglect. What was he going to claim to be? A provincial guard? Some sort of locally appointed lawman seemed the most obvious cover for his armor and his illegal activities. None of which Vargis knew about. Yet. But he was going to get some information, and it was up to the man in armor how much that information was going to hurt on its way out.
"Who here likes girls?" Vargis asked with a grim sort of menace.
Hands shot up around the room; all except that of the man in armor. He wore the same sardonic smile. Vargis returned that smile with one of his own - even with the mask to conceal his face, the corners of his eyes creased, and a smile was announced.
"Not you?" Vargis spoke softly into the quiet.
Someone coughed; the man in armor lost that pretty chiseled smile of his - it faded to a scowl.