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There wasn't any room for maneuvering, so why bother with trickery... To help you look at it differently, I'll say that during the interview with Metarma, if she hadn't had an escort + if she had gotten angry, under certain circumstances, Erephir could have intentionally allowed the zealot to wound Raphael, in order to have evidence of the necessity of self-defense (of course, with maximum control and only if there was absolutely no other way, but nevertheless).
I even thought about spoiling this for Nebka, like, the combination of traits hints to a professional socializer that something like this could happen.