Romanowski and Rosemary

18. Sins of Remun Ra

"Okay then," Dunkin sighed, wrapping his robes up, "I'm gonna return Cors' book to Julian and ask for help."

Aarmen and Lorenzo spit out whatever they'd been drinking. Coincidentally, together.

"I'm sorry, but it's like... returning a lion's cub by going into his den."

"I have my plan, of course. You just leave for Greece asap."

"Remun Ra? Are you there?" One of the priests knocked on his door and he hastily hid Cors' book in his linen bag.

"Yes, who is it- Oh, you?" Dunkin looked at his face, the funniest priest friend he had out there, but now, it looked like someone had sucked his life out of his body.

"It's time for the prayers for the Hiereiai," he said gloomily.

Dunkin's heart teared up. His friend had longed for a wife and got one after practising severe austerities. The beautiful-eyed Miria. He was so in love with her and always thanked Aphrodite for giving him such a good wife.

But what he didn't know was, his wife had lost those beautiful eyes forever.

"Do you really think just praying would fix everything?" Dunkin whispered. As unmarried priests whose to-be-priestess wives had been sent for training, they were asked to pray every evening for their well-being, while the women were away from the temple of Alexandria.

Just to keep the unaware priests' questioning shut.

"Wasn't it you, who'd told me something fishy was going on about the higher priests? Tell me!" Dunkin prompted as he closed the door behind him.

"L- Look, I don't know Remun," he sighed, his body visibly thinner than before. "I just know that Miria would... she would pass the training. She has wonderful potential to be a priestess. Do you know her aunt from Greece was The Pythia for Apollo's temple-"

"I know, I do." Dunkin kept a hand over his shoulder, making him sit on a chair when tears welled up in the eyes of the unmarried priest. Remun Ra didn't know what his friend would do when he saw his eyeless bride.

Or if he ever could see her again.

"Do you think the... the King of R- Romanos can help?" Dunkin's ears stood when his friend suggested a last straw. "He's a close friend of His Honour Pharaoh Alexander so only he can sway his mind," he begged. "Even Miria used to say how generous the Romanowskian King was and that one shouldn't judge him by how emotionless he looks..."

"Can you cover up for me?" Dunkin said in a heartbeat, thanking the Goddess for how his friend coincidentally suggested what he had planned.

"You would?" he asked, startled.

"Yes. For our wives. I would," he answered. More than a friend, Coretta was feeling like his long-lost daughter he had to rescue. At any cost.

Now he knew why Cheryl always called her baby Cors. Coretta might be one of the most intelligent ones after Aarmen, but she was a baby nonetheless. Her cute little antics. Shy, yet confident when it came to her work. Timid, yet brave when the situation demanded. She was someone who must've been protected the most.

But a group of three stupid boys failed to do so. He thought, ashamed.

As the late afternoon prayers ended, Dunkin set out for the border of Romanos, which was situated beyond the forest that trailed behind his temple complex. Packing Coretta's AI book in a linen bundle, he set out for the woods, being sure to cross it before night fell.

"It's really simple, actually. Duh, Dunkin, it's simpler than the shit you pulled to steal the book," he talked to himself as he removed fallen branches out of his way. "You just have to submit the book back, stating you found it in the forest, then tacitly tell about the missing priestess-"