Once the fleet set sail, perhaps through the Goddess of Luck's blessing, the voyage remained calm. Nothing unexpected happened.
According to Lunebo, who was monitoring the monks, Lucius led them in morning and evening prayers on schedule every day after boarding.
The rest of the time, they mostly stayed in their cabins studying scripture, though they occasionally walked on deck.
When they met soldiers, they greeted them politely but never tried to strike up a conversation.
Lucius and the twelve monks he had brought with him followed every shipboard rule throughout the voyage.
They even volunteered to help scrub the decks.
As Lucius put it, "It stretches our limbs, and it counts as part of our practice."
After some thought, John accepted the offer. He wanted to see what they were up to.
As the monks spent more time out and about, and Lucius spoke with the soldiers, the sailors aboard the Iron Anvil soon grew fond of the mild-mannered, knowledgeable cleric.
According to the accounts Lunebo gathered privately, most sailors liked Lucius because he neither looked down on soldiers like Church personnel often did nor preached at them endlessly.
He seemed more like an ordinary elder with a scholarly air.
Taken together, nothing about him appeared suspicious.
But John did not lower his guard.
Instead, he instructed Wendy to assign more people to Lunebo and record everything Lucius did each day:
When he woke, when he prayed, the routes he took on deck, whom he spoke to, even what he ate at every meal.
The level of detail was almost outrageous.
Even Wendy could not help thinking John had gone too far.
But John knew just how fanatical a holy warrior Famiu was. He was certain Lucius had been entrusted with some secret mission, even if John did not