"There is. Your cousins did their best to replace everyone who wasn't loyal to them seventy years ago, and the queen and her companions are trying to reverse that as much as possible. A lot of the descendants of nobility who retreated to Molthune are having their family titles restored, and the archmagess Cotonnet is resurrecting people who are willing to come back from before the diabolist victory and have claims on lands that don't have another decent claimant. I think they must not have found enough candidates to replace all the barons and certainly not the manor lords and minor gentry. Or, at least, they haven't replaced any of those in Lladó."

"It's a good idea. I don't know that it won't create problems of its own—it's better than replacing them with foreigners, as many a conquering emperor has done, but it might have some of the same issues. Maybe less if the old nobility were universally hated."

"I keep thinking that they ought to resurrect some commoners, too, even if it's only a handful per county; that there should be at least a few people in the fields, as well as the castles, who remember what living in a normal country is like. I suppose even an archmage's supply of diamonds can't be that unlimited. Perhaps we should be encouraging immigration from places that are—culturally similar—but were never under diabolist rule. Molthune Province, like you mentioned, or even the East*. As I've gathered, we still don't have anything near the population we had before Aroden died."

(*) Taldor.

"Oh, I think she doesn't need diamonds."

"What? I know every archmage can do two impossible things, but not even Arazni—" There's impossible things and impossible things, is where he was going with that, but plenty in the latter category has already happened, actually.

He's not really sure where to take that line of conversation, so he picks a new one. "Have you met the new Queen? What do you think of her? I imagine I'll be asked to swear fealty to her, at some point, and I'd like to trust her well enough to mean it." Or else avoid swearing an oath the keeping of which will damn him, though he's not actually worried about that. She's at least the sort of person who would stand up to the diabolists running her country.

Ah. What to say. He really should have anticipated and prepared for this question - if he tells Blanxart everything that would probably just needlessly imperil him. But he cannot in good conscience encourage him to swear an oath he'll regret.

"I have not myself been asked to swear fealty. I am unsure what would happen if you were to decline, or signal to her that you intended to do so... I am acquainted with the queen, we have fought together in the past. She has done a great deal to oppose Hell's rule of Cheliax, much of it at great personal risk and cost. She has also done a great deal to ensure that she, and no other, ruled Cheliax when the dust settled. Much of that had terrible costs for other people, and the examples I know of which are not public like the cities sacked in the war - I do not know her to have made any effort to reverse those harms or provide restitution. I know her to have detected as evil in the past. I have it on reasonably good authority that she detects as true neutral now, when not mind-blanked, but -" If she's not Evil it's only on a technicality. She's best predicted as evil, even if overthrowing the Thrunes and killing some archdevils changed the way she reads. " - Most people who have done all the good that she has would detect accordingly."

That was really not the answer he was hoping for! It still makes her probably better than the reigning Emperor at the time he was turned to stone. 

"You're a paladin," he says. "No man can serve two masters, and she knows that. It's promising that she wanted you to be a count anyway, but I don't have your excuse not to swear, and frankly, I now have reservations that I wasn't particularly expecting to have! How much do the people of Cheliax, or the other nobles, know of what you just told me?"

"Little of it. Iomedae does not think I should act to attempt to overthrow her, and - telling all her subjects that I distrust her, at this point in time, would be as good as making that attempt.

...Though, to give you more complete information, her companions know as much as I do and more, and they trust her. And are themselves genuinely good, apart from Shawil who is an inquisitor of Abadar. It's only me that doesn't."

What are the Queen's Good companions not telling Cansellarion, then? He probably shouldn't know, but the thing is, he trusts the character assessments of a paladin of Iomedae just fine, even if they're based on information he doesn't have; those of random Good adventurers he doesn't know, not so much, even if they did save Cheliax from Hell (only to hand it over to a probably-Evil queen).

"Is the Queen—actively pretending to be Good? Or just—acting as if her alignment and her past are none of anyone's business?"

"She acts good. Possibly to appease her allies, possibly to better fit the role of benevolent savior that she's made for herself."

"It might be worse that you told me, then, because I think many reasonable and Lawful people would regard an oath of allegiance as void if it later turned out that the vassal had been substantially and deliberately deceived about his liege's character, but now I know, and I can only offer my allegiance to the Queen as she actually is—is there a Lawful way, in your conception of Law, to offer my oath conditional on her continuing to govern in a Good manner, without revealing to her that I know she's actually Evil?—as would seem unwise, especially if I'm one of only a few that know."

He's heard of that attitude but does not hold to it himself; it seems to allow and even encourage carelessness with one's sacred word and honor. "I apologize if I have made your situation more difficult. I don't know the traditional forms of fealty oaths in pre-infernal Cheliax, but I suspect you could insert language like 'to the benefit of the realm' somewhere and that would - not stand out, especially in light of your family history."

(Obviously paladins should be more careful with their honor, but paladins, notably and for precisely this reason, don't typically swear oaths of fealty to the Emperor.)

"Thank you for the advice; I suppose I'll wait and see what's asked of me. I think we've covered everything I wanted to consult you about. Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?"

"Nothing particular, but the Archmagess did ask me for a judgment as to your character and a longer acquaintance will help with that. Perhaps you can tell me about Egorian as it was in your time..."

In three days, she returns. It's late at night again. A lot of stuff has been happening to Naima lately.

"Hello. Thoughts on the ex-statue?"

"He's a good man, and not - selected for being the sort of person who'd spend seventy years in Axis or Heaven obsessing over their lost worldly titles. As an administrator I think he'd be in over his head with an Archduchy but no more than anyone else."

"Well, there's no one who won't be, or at least no one who isn't separately a terrible person. Men can be given advice, and can gain experience, if they're trying. But I don't think they can be expected to grow towards the good, under these conditions."