Marcus lets him think, in case it yields any words, but picks up the subject when it doesn't.  "Think it'd be some kind of disaster, if I went anyway?"

"Nah, folk're holding to the treaty."

"Yes, but..."  He's not sure how to explain it.  "I may Fall if I get angry and yell at someone, or enable something evil because it would've been hard to stop and I couldn't bring myself to put in the effort, or any of a dozen things like that.  I don't think it's against the treaty to put paladins in difficult situations."

"Huh.  Well, I don't know from paladins, but we've had'em come through before and they weren't Fallen when they left."

"...yell at someone?  Really?"

"Well.  If I willingly commit a single evil act.  There are ways to yell at someone that are certainly evil, and ways that I'm pretty sure aren't, and I am not exactly going to try it and find out where the line is.  But I know it's there somewhere."

Does Ferrer look like this makes any sense to him at all?  It'd be hard to blame him if it didn't.

He seems to be taking a while to digest it, but eventually says, "...always figured that was just rumor.  The single Evil act thing."

"Well.  I'd say maybe it is and it's just that nobody's told me," which would be wrong but admittedly funny, "but it's pretty clear in the Acts."

"Impressive there's paladins at all, really.  ...Artigas has a copy of the Acts, now.  Doesn't do sermons, though."

A rueful nod at the first comment. 

"Huh, why not?"

Shrug.

"Never did before, either, he made Ventura do 'em."

Yeah, that was a stupid question.  Chelish forts do not sound like places where you'd have enough personal conversations with your commander to know why he is or isn't doing something.

"Right, and back then everyone was required to be Asmodean so someone had to do the sermons, but now that's not how it works.  And maybe he wants to be very obvious about that."  Maybe because if he did start giving Iomedaean sermons, everyone would just relate to them the same way they probably did to the Asmodean ones... What an upsetting concept.

"Huh.  Maybe."  He sounds a bit unconvinced.

"They'll have sermons in the fort you're staying at, if you want to listen and see what you think?"

"Might do.  If we've got time, the Ch-Learned is in a hurry."

Ferrer's near-slip gets the beginning of a startled look and then a sheepish smile, and a nod at the rest of the sentence.  "I'd be curious to hear what you think, if you do end up having time."

"And, ah... People make mistakes, and Mendev isn't Lastwall.  Decent chance there'll be something wrong in whatever you hear.  Just so you know."  It's not so bad that he'd usually consider this a necessary warning, but the Chelish men seem very... inclined to assume they're not allowed to say even a word out of line, and never mind who decided what the line is.

(Oh.  Church politics.  Of course everywhere has it.)

Careful nod.  "We're back to Eleven once this is done with.  'M sure the commander'll hear the word from Lastwall."

Well.  He can't exactly stop people from being careful and nervous about something when they're already inclined that way, and shouldn't even if he could, so this is probably as good as he could've done here.  Slightly pensive encouraging smile.  "The Goddess chose him, he'll do fine."

And he'll wait to see if any more conversation materializes on the subject, though he doesn't expect so.  (A safe guess, that, with Cheliax.)

Yeah, Ferrer is definitely inclined to ride in silence rather than venture anything that might or might not be heresy.

Some silence would be fine, but Marcus would rather have it happen after a less fraught topic.  Surely he can find one if he keeps trying.

"What do you think you'd do if you did get pardoned?"

"Docks work, most likely."