"Duchess! Thank you for having me for dinner."

(His wife is also here, of course.)

"My pleasure!" That's in fact sincere; she hasn't met them yet and really ought to. "It's so good to finally meet you both properly. How are you finding the convention?"

"Taxing, of course. But so far the committee, at least, has stayed manageable."

"I actually wanted to ask you all about it! I have the notes but I frankly found them confusing. Are we likely to see the radical proposals to ban bastardry on the floor, or was that more, uh, exploratory?"

"Exploratory. Like most of it so far, really. It's a definite problem that needs sensible solutions, but I'm not expecting quick answers from any of the committees. Gods know Almas doesn't get them."

Archduke Xavier will arrive on time, if not first! "Duchess. Duke. I take it the family committee is the topic of conversation?"

"Indeed! Where do you stand on banning bastardry, Archduke?"

"Opposed," he says, "for all the obvious reasons, of which its inability to pass the house ought to be sufficient. Is that what the family committee is discussing?"

"I had not fully understood the degree to which in the cities the church successfully abolished commoner marriage. And no one has the faintest idea how to fix it. I'm just going off the notes, though, Duke, perhaps I am too pessimistic."

"The Erastilian and Calistrian have common ground, the orphanage worker Tallandria is shockingly sensible, and they've been listening to me and the Count-Regent when we point out concerns about the nobility. It could go badly but I don't think it will. But I do tend toward optimism."

"Tallandria is the one who made the speech calling for an end to lay inquisitions* the first day, I believe?"

(*: Trans: Witch hunts.**)

(**: Credit to YumAntimatter.)

Tallandria's the one who made the passionate speech in defense of the Erecuran, yes. It showed good instincts but she's still a little reluctant to give her that much credit for it. 

"I missed that morning's session, I'm afraid, and I don't remember the name from the notes."

Fine. "Yes, she gave the speech defending the Erecuran. I thought at the time that was taking things a bit far - Cheliax used to frown on the priesthoods of any power of Hell - but I will acknowledge that today's events suggest the convention has rather too little of that spirit."

"Oh, the Erecuran should indeed be disqualified on those grounds, though aside from that he seems a decent enough man. But the first to sound the warning will rarely be the soberest, and yet is still useful if you want to know when you're under attack."

And then Joan-Pau will arrive slightly late!

"My apologies, Duchess, Your Grace, Xavier - the expected delays -"

"You had to steal a ship, I'm sure, and then there were all kinds of complications." She's smiling. "Come sit down! We are puzzling over the committee on the family."

"I had to summon an azata," he says, smiling. "Oh? What's it been doing?"

"Where do you stand on banning bastardry?" She found Count-Regent Napaciza's enthusiasm for how to implement it slightly surprising. Not because he's a holdover Asmodean noble and a tiefling. Just because it's an extreme policy position.

"... The same place everyone else does, I suppose. Opposed. I suppose you could fine it without too many problems?" He is fundamentally confused.

Molthune probably didn't quite succeed at Petrifying their culture for seventy years so that it'd reemerge as pre-war Cheliax but they did a pretty good job! Their people make a lot of sense to Carlota! "The committee on the family was grappling with how to encourage marriage and discourage, uh, the current state of affairs, which sounds quite bad. Apparently where the church held sway commoners just don't marry and women raise all the children alone. The problem is that I'm not sure it's the kind of thing you can fix with a law at all - did it improve over time naturally in Andoran?" she asks the Duke.

"Somewhat, but marriage among commoners is still fairly weak in the towns and cities. Mothers raising children alone is still very common."

"I don't think you can fix it with laws at all. What you need is those awful pamphlets, and some priest whose stirring speeches are to the effect - women, no man will ever marry if he doesn't have to, and nearly every one will to get what he wants. If the women of Westcrown refuse to sleep with men until marriage, they'll all give in and settle down inside six months. It doesn't even face the ordinary difficulty of collective action, because being abandoned with a child isn't much of a prize and so it's hardly in one's selfish interests not to participate."

"... That might work," Joan-Pau says... "Duchess, I feel as though this is one of these plans that works in a sane, normal society, and might fail in modern Cheliax, because everyone is far more horribly influenced by Asmodeanism than anyone either of us had ever met, before, and the reason is too horrible to imagine until it happens."