...hiss. Easy to know how to do right by her, is it - she wants to know what every single person she comes into contact with has sworn - this is possibly even more important to sussing out what's going on than it is at home to know who everybody's mate or imprint is - (she misses her wolf -)

He hugs Findekáno. They actually sort of cling to each other. Then -

"Findekáno is permanently sworn to protect me with his life, to do me no violence and not permit anyone under his command to do me violence, and to obey any just order I give. For the duration of the campaign in Nan Elmoth he is sworn to take my ends as his own, which means he wants everything I want. Most of my people are sworn to obey orders they can obey in good conscience and resign if they cannot, and not to harm me or permit harm to come to me, and not to serve the Enemy."

Hiss.

What's the content of 'just'.

"Intent of the speaker. He said it, so -"

"Unjust orders would be orders to coerce oaths from people, or to ask oaths of people already under mind-altering ones, or to kill civilians, or torture someone..."

It probably wouldn't actually be that hard to kill Maitimo without Findekáno obstructing her very much but she has no idea what that would do to the oath or the politics and she has still never actually killed anybody all the way herself -

"Then we have a lovely civil war that kills a hundred thousand people, and the Enemy probably wins, are you insane?"

No she is poorly informed. She doesn't even know if Maitimo's oath to be truthful with her leaked onto his - his - she can't even dignify this arrangement with vampire terminology whatever the surface similarities -

"Mind-controlled sex slave," he says curtly. "His oath to tell the truth doesn't affect me - for that matter, I'm sworn to the ends he had when we made that agreement, so if he changes his mind about what he wants I cannot similarly change mine - but I'm happy to give you an oath that I'm telling the truth, too. I swear that I am not lying and am not deliberately withholding information you'd want. If you murder the King there will be a civil war and a hundred thousand people dead is a conservative estimate and it's not at all obvious to me that whoever ends up in charge would be better than Maitimo at conducting the war against the Enemy, which really is all that matters."

Fine, she won't murder the King.

"Thank you."

"Do you think you can work with us, or do you want an escort to Tumunzahar?"

Undecided. Also she's not sure what she thinks of that dichotomy as presented.

There's also Doriath, but if you dislike us you'll loathe them. And the other Dwarven kingdoms' locations I'm not at liberty to disclose. Please don't go meet the Enemy to get both sides of the story or anything. Running off into the wilderness is also an option. 

What's so bad about Doriath? Do they have an entire mind-controlled-sex-slave institution going?

They used to hunt Dwarves for sport but I think they've cut that out now. I don't think they've cut it out with the slavery. Their King and Queen have an arrangement reminiscent of ours, though, yes.

She is totally advising her mother to take over the world if this is ever feasible advice to deliver.

Do you actually have any complaints about the priorities or internal affairs of this kingdom or its treatment of any of its citizens other than Findekáno? Because those I'd take quite seriously.

Well, Findekáno did mention a couple of things and who knows what else he hasn't decided to tell her even if now it would have to be because he doesn't have a good enough model of her interests.

I would love to do something about child mortality if you can dig up the memories of some doctors for our healers to start working with. I think I have a sufficiently good model of your interests that I'd know by now if anything else about this nation was likely to be upsetting to you. Hmmm - oh, we don't have as much freedom of movement as you'd like because the Enemy likes kidnapping people so they are not allowed to leave for dangerous places until all of the strategically relevant things they know are out of date. This has only come up a handful of times.

Not come up because people don't try it because they know they're not allowed or because everyone is so thrilled to be here.

Well, people find the possibility of capture and eternal torture by the Enemy very deterring in its own right. But I think most people do not desire to leave and wouldn't even if it were safe. And they aren't under any oaths that'd affect their judgment there. 

Conservative option is probably dumping medical school on some local healers and absorbing more information from a broader base of sources.

Thank you. We appreciate it.

It is vaguely shameful to have his appreciation but okay.