"Set your mind to ease, dragoon," Gaius says, sitting back in his seat and pinching the bridge of his nose once more. "I do not think that Valdeaulin will risk the mission with more than pettiness. He knows it is too large, means too much. We hunt together, we break bread together, but he will be at my back when I need him in the fight. In the mean time, he needles now and again. He needs must remind me that there are shackles, even if no one sees them."

Tucking the papers aside, he lets his mind turn the thought over in his head, before something occurs to him. His gold eyes peer back up at Estinien. "Doesn't your church condemn the practice, anyway? Just tell him that and make your piece clear. What happens in camp is not what happens when a soldier re-enters civilian society, after all. Anything you do here is a nonissue, regardless of who you do it it. Nothing of this will make it back to Ishgard. Your reputation will remain unsullied. No one would believe him if he shouted it from the top of the Holy See."