"Madam?" Vilon called out, a bit daunted by the sudden, drastic shift in the air.
He turned his head, his sharp eyes scanning the rest of the table only to find that both the daughter, Marila, and the eldest son, Harl, wore identical expressions of profound unease.
All three of them? Vilon wondered.
The suffocating silence stretched until it was finally broken by the mistress of the house, who forced a rigid, brittle smile back onto her face. "And how exactly did you two meet, Ser?" she asked in a sweet, sweet voice.
Vilon may have been dumb but not enough not to see she was throwing herself onto a completely different topic with the desperation of a drowning sailor catching a rope.
"On the field," Vilon replied carefully before continuing when he saw the attack on the woman's face. "Though not on the one of battle, initially. You have a kind boy, for he was gentle enough to lend me a bucket when I had lost mine."
