The fake priest fled desperately with his hands bound behind his back. He knocked over two rows of pews, then tripped himself and hit the stone floor without breaking his fall. Still oblivious to the pain, he struggled to crawl away from the pendant.
It was as if fear had temporarily robbed him of his reason. If the squires hadn't pinned him against the wall, he might have tried to punch a hole straight through it.
His violent reaction startled quite a few people. They instinctively took half a step back, then looked around the echoing Great Hall, wary of every dark doorway and window where something might appear.
For a moment, Kraft wondered if they had picked up a smoking grenade or some kind of trigger. But the thing merely gave off its usual, steady glow. Like a stone eye set in metal, its contemptuous red pupil watched the people's disgrace without even deigning to sneer.
The pendant swung twice in the air, its cord held by the tongs. After a few pendulum swings, it obediently wound itself around the jaws. Nothing happened.
"What? Is that Angel a little too far away to come whenever you call?" Kraft moved the tongs forward. Joel immediately jerked back as if shocked, but the squires held him firmly in place.
"I remember this thing." After his initial panic, he had calmed down a little. "When the 'Angel' came to take the Priest away, there was something like this glowing on that man's chest."
"That man?"
"I only saw him once, but he was the only one with a ring like that on his robe, so I guessed..."
"You guessed he had some standing among them?" Kraft returned the pendant to the lead bottle's cap. The other man looked a little less tense.