"I don't think it's true that a large number of these become adventurers or bandits. In some places, maybe. But - my anger earlier was not directed at my sister's husband. He was seventeen and fell in love; he was twenty and fell out of it. My sister expected him to stay, but few people thought that he was being more unreasonable than she was. He was perfectly ordinary. If marriages are recorded by the state as conferring any particular responsibility, like real contracts, then maybe people will treat them as such."

(Soler makes a face.)

"If Andoran is any indication, it helps somewhat. Within a generation, at least. Their young men often desert their responsibilities, and not always through divorce, which is in my view rather too easy there from either side. But many of them do stay."

Her expectations are tragically low but this was predictable and it probably wouldn't help to say so.

"It's like trying to build a house on a turtle. Maybe it likes it where it is." Headshake.

"Perhaps we should be teaching people to build on turtles," says the quiet old woman, "Even in my village not every young man is a good boy who does as he ought."

"What do you mean? - uh, by teaching people how to build on turtles, not about some men not doing what they should."

"I don't really know. But I think it might be better to plan for unreliable men, than to try to convince them all to be responsible. ...We'll still need orphanages."

"I think that's what we're doing now. And we try, but - ultimately, it's just telling women to be ready to raise all the children alone. Or to stop having them. Which I'm certainly sympathetic to, but I think a lot of people would object to the family committee coming out with the recommendation that Chelish people stop having children."

"If a lot of people don't have parents and the orphanages are the parents of last resort maybe they should be signing off on marriages, in cities at least."

"Are they all run by the churches, do we know? That's normal in Andoran, mostly Sarenrae with splashes of other gods."

"No, I don't think so. They were all state-run, before, and there aren't enough new churches to pick them up. The one I work at is Iomedan, but only very technically; the church staff only come by occasionally." And are almost always upset when they do. She's honestly unsure whether the orphanage itself is state or religious; Egorian was taken by the Glorious Reclamation troops, and she can't very well tell which things are state or religious, these days. "I don't know the exact financial structure, but my impression is that many are still state-run, and worse-funded and staffed and equipped than they were before."

"Then it does not become the same thing as asking the priests, but that is a mixed blessing. I don't trust all of them to not be Asmodean, by accident if not on purpose."

"I can do something to help this personally, I think. I will write to my friends in the Sarenrite church back east. For orphanages just out of Thrune control, they will find lay priests, at least; at least one per orphanage in the major cities by winter, and many of them first-circle, I expect."

" - what, all of them?" It cannot possibly be that easy. "They're not centralized, there must be a hundred in Egorian alone."

THAT IS SO MANY CHILDREN JUST LYING AROUND. WHY ARE CITYFOLK LIKE THIS

"...Maybe not quite that many. But they'll try." And possibly they'll focus on Egorian and get all of those.

It seems so implausible that this is just on offer, as if nobody knew about it and the moment they did they could all have new staff.

On the other hand that is, uh, precisely why she got herself onto this committee. It's just very confusing to get what she wants without even having to yell at anyone.

" - well, it would certainly make an enormous difference, if you're right. Thank you. The staffing difficulties are such that every bit of help is lifesaving." Probably literally.

"It is an important priority of Sarenrae and Her church in the Inner Sea. If they don't come, it is because orphanages in Andoran and Taldor can't spare them. I think, Delegate Tallandria, that, while I expect we'll find it painful, we ought hear more about conditions in the orphanages, as you know of them."

ERASTIL THERE ARE CHILDREN JUST LYING AROUND. VAST RIDICULOUS NUMBERS OF THEM. DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS.

Yeah. Okay. It's very upsetting, and she's not going to be able to be absolutely perfectly calm while she talks about it, but she can tell them about the state of the orphanages. About the endless struggle to keep them clean and fed when they're constantly shitting themselves and stealing one another's food, and the need to feed newborns goat milk if you don't have orc slaves, and the way that the babies wake each other up at all hours of the night, and the way that key staff stay all through the day and all through the night, and get only very broken sleep for years on end, and then can only respond to children and staff the way that people do when they haven't really slept in a year.

She can go on for a while. As long as they need, really, or until there's no more time to meet.