It was a good thing Ordhan had not ventured this discussion with Lalin, yet. He planned to speak with her eventually, but that would prove an even greater challenge than this, and better he work up to it than to lose his nerve altogether and remain as silent has he had been. But this was too important to allow himself to revert to cowardice.
Then again, would it have been the more difficult conversation? Lalin may not know him, may think little of him, but that was a shield in itself. Ordhan valued Lillian's opinion of him, far more than even a Warden's. He could not change his word or his mind simply for favor, but losing what rapport they had managed to build despite the past would be a heavy loss indeed.
Things had not reached that point yet, of course, but his shoulders curled instinctively forward as she spoke. Her insight about him led her true on some matters, but wide on others. Ordhan wanted to argue that if he thought her word meaningless, he would not have spoken to her, but he let the suggestion sting in silence as he thought over what she had told him.
All of this seemed to hinge on the man with the letters. Her trust was bound up in him, and it was not a matter of Ordhan believing Lillian, but him. Ordhan laid the polished-clean bowl upon the others; there his hand rested for a moment, eyes still downward and thoughts shielded.
"That is why she knew how to fight," he mused aloud in the same soft voice, the answer as neutral as any he could give. "Could you tell me what the letters said of her?" Another glance, as brief as the first, but this time there was no dish to look down towards: only the water.