"How could a trial demote you?" Childermass asks, but knowing he did and still ended up there, ended up like this, takes the wind out of him and just leaves his shoulders sagging, looking tired. "This place never made any sense..."

At least with him answering for Lambert, rather than pursuing the question, leaves him free to not explain what had happened, what the trial had been about. Worse, it reminds him that he had his own secrets he never told and it has him turning away and stepping up to the shore of the pool, if only to sink to his knees, exhausted. He doesn't even want to stand anymore. How will he even find the energy to fly away again?

"The archer's message, it told me to stay quiet," he admits, "And so I did. I thought if it got around, too many eyes everywhere, too many ears, that it'd be nothing, but now it seems people were passing her mark around like it was candy to share. I really am nothing but a fool. The bear, the mark, Ignatius, everything keeps backfiring on me."

Even if the mark did, in the end, help him free everyone. It doesn't change that he never said anything about it, not to anyone. Bad enough Gild had stopped speaking to him when he turned up confused. What if she had withdrawn her favor on top of that? What then? Obviously that hadn't happened but it was still foolish. At least, it feels that way.