To break or not to break

“I’ll tell you nothing,” the prisoner said. “I’ve no idea who could have killed your boss.”

“I know who did it,” the woman replied. “I want to know other things; about your friends mostly.”

“I’ll tell you nothing,” the prisoner repeated.

“Oh, you will. They all do, eventually,” she said with a smile, as her hands wavered over a tray of sharp instruments. “How about you save yourself a great deal of pain, and me a modicum of time, and tell me what I want to know now?”

“No,”

“You have no idea how pleased I am to hear you say that,” she said. With a movement so swift the prisoner didn’t even see it coming, a blade slashed down his chest. He grunted in pain, but other than that remained silent. His torturer approached, a smile on her face as she laid a hand on his head. Pain, the likes of which he had never known flooded his body, had the shackles not chained him to the wall he would have been crumpled in a heap. His mind and he hoped his mouth screamed out the word ‘NO.’

“You are hungry, I hadn’t even thought that, shall we take a break and eat?”

“I’ll tell you nothing,” he said again, in gasps.

“I will ask nothing,” the woman said. She spoke a few words and a table and chairs appeared in the small cell, the table was laden with freshly roasted meat, fresh bread and some cheese. Still he hesitated.

She rolled her eyebrows, and took a mouthful of each thing on offer, “I do not use poison,” she snapped. “Congratulations, you are now a full member of our guild.”

“This was a test?” the prisoner asked, his body still shuddering from the pain.

“The final one, congratulations, brother.”