As time drew on with no reply, Ordhan could only wonder at Lillian's delay. He would not want to think it of her that she was concocting a deception, but why did she hesitate? It was a simple question, one that he thought would need only the simplest answer. In the silence he thought over the last words of their exchange, searching for some offense he may have inflicted unintentionally, but even his over-critical mind could find nothing. What was it?
He had opened his mouth to ask what was the matter when she finally spoke. The answer was made all the more valuable by the delay, and Ordhan strove to weigh the meaning behind the carefully-chosen words. As much as he wanted to trust Lillian, to strengthen the fledgling friendship between them, he had to admit that he knew very little about her. He was certain that she was caring and generous, but honest...? She had kept a great secret in her time, perhaps many more, without causing the smallest hint of doubt. The thought made him uncomfortable, a thing which in itself saddened him. Ordhan craved someone to trust. Yet trust without certainty was naïve, dangerous, even, not something Ordhan would indulge in without good reason no matter what he wanted.
"I do not understand," he replied carefully. His questions had been purposefully vague thus far, hoping to avoid her defensiveness and find the truth of this matter, but here he dared to halt his progress and risk losing it altogether. "If he is in the service of House Kordura, would he not pass to serve under Arlessa Lelahai, as I have?" Though it was on this thought he tarried, the rest of what she had said was not lost upon him. Lelahai was acting strangely, said this nameless man--strange enough to imagine her almost-sister a murderer, abandoning the duty of finding the true killer? The knight had spoken with his new liege-lady only days before. Her manner, though bereft, was not that of a madwoman. For the accused to be innocent despite Lelahai's certainty, the Arlessa must have been taken in by some clever deception, or the master of it herself. Ordhan felt no guilt at weighing these possibilities. Just as he saw it possible for an adopted daughter to take the life of the mother, it was the same for a true-blooded child. More than one bann of Denever went to the grave by the hand of a disloyal son.