Why, of course they would.

(Joan-Pau has spent a significant part of the day after the riots rehousing people. His own house wasn't burned down - most of the evacuation proved to be unnecessary, aside from a few scattered looters and a rain-countered arson the mobs never made it to that district - but he still endorses the decision in retrospect.)

Xavier has no objection. (He's been apologizing to Skybreaker and being borrowed by the Queen.)

She greets them in the smaller entrance hall of the reconfigured Mansion. "Archduke. Count. I heard many stories of your heroics today. Are your people all well?"

"So far," he says. "No deaths among my men, though one of my vassals took a bad wound. May I hope your night was not too eventful?"

He'll nod with Xavier vis-a-vis the "no deaths" rule.

Carlota was in no position to do anything; she doesn't have the kind of personal power to stop riots without being reasonably likely to become a casualty of them herself. It nonetheless feels like cowardice, staying in. If it were Chelam she'd have taken the chance, but in an unfamiliar city it'd be stupid. "None of my people came to harm, hopefully not because I was wrongly too reluctant to make use of them." And she shows them into the parlor where Cansellarion and Narikopolus are.

"Marshal, how good to see you. Archduke, I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance." He doesn't think he's encountered his northern neighbor before, and will bow to him as an equal. 

Joan-Pau will, of course, bow deeper, since he thinks he's the lowest-ranking person here in every practical sense.

Narikopolus bows back. "Same to you. I only wish the circumstances were better."

"We are also expecting the other Menadorian nobility, who are also staying here. They had a long day but will join us for dinner." Carlota waves an unseen servant over to serve everyone tea. 

"Archduke, Count Ardiaca. I am glad you could join us."

The Duchess will give everyone a minute to settle in and then - "I hope under the circumstances you'll forgive me for being all business. I want to ban the pamphlets when the convention reconvenes, and I'd like us to spend the time before then working out a reasonable well-designed approach."

Ardiaca will attempt to conceal his shock. "All pamphlets?"

Xavier does not do a noticeably better job. Surely this is... extreme.

"Obviously there can be some kind of process for approval, but all random distribution of pamphlets by any person, devil or interfering foreign body inspired to write and circulate them, yes."

"In Lastwall any publications like that would have to be approved by the church. I think - the main issue with a similar here is that the crown is having a great deal of trouble staffing the existing bureaucracy with decent people, without adding any more departments to it."

"Yes. I'd straightforwardly make a rule requiring crown or church approval like Lastwall has, or crown or lord approval like Taldor has, if we had the capacity, but we don't. The policy that requires the least further enforcement by the crown is that publishing one copy of anything is permitted - probably make it three or five - but that making enormous numbers of copies of it is forbidden. So things can spread, but not like wildfire, and everyone can have an opinion, but not all at the same time. But I imagine there's a better solution. I know little of the policies of regimes outside the Inner Sea. Axis has freedom of the pen, and I would yesterday have described myself as a believer in it. But Axis is full of axiomites and I have become persuaded that this flatly doesn't work in Cheliax as it stands today. May our grandchildren surpass us in this as in other matters, but for now this has to end."

He doesn't have anything specific to say about that, but he's nodding.

The thing is, Joan-Pau likes pamphlets. He thinks they're useful. He sent the Duchess a copy of something Silvia had written, with the intention of getting it published so they could win the pamphlet game everyone else is playing badly. Molthune's Office of Wartime Security maintains a list of banned books and libraries of acceptable books and licenses print shops solely to print exact copies of acceptable books, and if they depart the model they're imprisoned for treason. 'People murdering and looting and raping' is a situation best solved by executing the people who do until there's no one left prepared to violate the law. 

"I believe the practice of Andoran," the most liberal polity not to collapse into civil war, "is that each print shop must purchase a license from the township or borough in which it resides and submit to that township's censorship, which might serve as a model except that Andoran has demonstrated the result of this is that a few townships marry their devotion to Milani and Mammon, and license print shops for a fat fee that are founded, publish a swift run of libelous pamphlets, and then disappear. So that will clearly not serve as a model for our legislation." And Taldor is useless...

... This suggestion feels Erastilian, to him, in the worst sense, the way the nastiest of the Lawful Neutral Erastilians get about staying in your place, not making waves, a law for today and not for tomorrow and the Office of Wartime Security hasn't closed... Almost Asmodean or Barbatosian, the way how because a few people violate the laws no one is allowed to write...

"Duchess, Archduke, Archduke, Marshal, I believe I have it." 

"I dislike the idea of outlawing all pamphlets," he says. "Not only is it a break from the practice of Axis, but it means offending an archmage, and though we all know from the survival of the present Galtan regime that he is a deeply forgiving man, it is still unwise to make enemies of archmages. And yet clearly the status quo cannot continue." He's talking rapidly now.

"And yet I think there is a way to get the benefits of Axis, without outlawing all pamphlets."

"First: A law outlawing the deranged radical pamphlets won't work, and we know this because it was passed. The abridged version of Valia Wain's speech was incitement under Her Majesty's law, and I expect the man who published it will be executed within a day or two - possibly even by tonight. His imitators will follow under the same law; strict enforcement will take care of them.

"And we cannot have an office of censorship, because we do not have the men to staff it working for the state - hence the need to outlaw them all." He nods to Carlota. "But we do have men capable of making this judgement. Not everyone in Cheliax is a fool."

"What we need in a new law is a way to clearly distinguish between legal and illegal writing, and to ensure that illegal writing is either never published, obviously illegal, or is at least attached to a name we can fine for damages done. Very, very, very large damages done. That's how they do it in Axis, no?"

Without waiting for much of a response -

"I propose that we accept the following rules for the censorship. Anyone can operate a print shop upon posting a bond. Say, Two thousand Absalom pounds?" He hopes for winces, or, more likely, appreciative expressions. That's the cost of an enchanted sword. "Perhaps make it four, or six." A headband. A headband and an enchanted sword. "Should the shop print illegal works responsible for damages, it can be sued under the law, for up to the value of the bond - or more."

"Those capable of posting the bond will either be serious, sober men, invested in the welfare of society, with a good deal to lose should they be convicted of incitement to murder and no way to run without forfeiting their landed property. Or powerful adventurers, but they have more ways of doing damage than writing pamphlets."

"For those without? They may go to an existing print shop, which will judge whether their pamphlet is likely to be a risk to the print shop's bond. Or, should they be turned down, they may go to the Church of Abadar to post the bond for them, who will observe that they are raging lunatics and decline to do so - or, if it judges them to be sober men, be very, very interested in what they write."

He makes a sweeping bow. 

"And so we will outlaw seditious pamphlets, increase the wealth of the crown by whatever must be confiscated, and continue to have those benefits that the freedom of the press does bring, that we might otherwise lose." Such as Silvia not preaching sermons of fire and blood at them.

"It's elegant, and you are right that it is how such a thing would be approached in Axis, if Axis had need of any such laws, which it doesn't because words do not move the denizens of Axis to madness and murder. I think it would reduce the madness of the present moment. 

I think it's insufficient. And the reason I think so is that my best judgment is that Wain's speech - the unabridged version - was legal. Evil, foolish, but not barred by any of the decrees issued before it. I want a law that would have prevented its publication anyway, and I don't see how this does so. A sober man would soberly assess his own risk of prosecution as low, for evil and dangerous but not technically prohibited words. Maybe if we dispensed with the idea that the shop can be sued only if it prints illegal works responsible for damages, and say it is responsible for those damages that result from its publications even if they technically toed the right side of the law."

"As an interim measure until such time as a new legal code is promulgated, that would seem reasonable? We'd need to work out a more precise definition of damages, of course." He doesn't like this because he's very worried it will end up in the final legal code, but he thinks it is significantly less bad than the alternative.

"I think that half of these restrictions are just good sense given a population given to mad lies and the other half should be explicitly interim. Emergencies make for bad law, and yet we need law in emergencies; so make the law but make it temporary. 

Maybe the Abadarans can help us define damages, as they'd function in contract law. Obviously we do not wish to punish a printer if they publish the Acts and some madwoman decides they mean we need to kill all evildoers and tries to do so personally. ...you know what else we could do, is make it a full or at least very substantial legal defense if the text is permitted in another Good and Lawful state, borrow some of the effort their censorship bureaus are putting in."

"So, Lastwall?"

"Well, and Hermea," she says, in her best imitation of his tone yesterday when he pointed out that the gold dragon tiny island project-city doesn't have slavery. "Do you think Molthune approves anything a good society would prohibit? I take it you think they prohibit things a good society would approve, but this is a - backup, a source of additional flexibility."

"I do not," he says. "When it has problems with rebellion they certainly don't come from anything legal. But I take your point. Molthune, Lastwall, Galt, Hermea -" that last one's mostly a joke "- my chief worry about damages is... we don't have much of a court system yet. This will do to stop people from burning the city down. It won't do if every time a smith prints an advertisement for his shop's wares, his neighbor sues him for damaging his custom."

"I think damages have to be limited to an actual crime, lest we ban everything by accident. Not to the speech itself being criminal until we define that better, but to an unambiguous serious crime having resulted."

"Indeed..."

And they sit for dinner. Carlota had the mansion give them all a nice civilized multi-course dinner tonight, with some dishes from Axis where everything is for taste and none for nutrition. She is less self-conscious about coming from Axis, these days. 

Aniol's diet is certainly interesting today, with druid-created sorbet for breakfast and lunch skipped due to failure of appetite and weird Axis food for dinner. He sits down, nods politely to everyone, stares a bit at a random spot on the wall.

Ramirez is absolutely judging the resurrected nobility for their bizarre taste in food, but he's judging them quietly.

Some of the dishes are the normal kind!! It's a twelve course meal! Plenty of chance for both!

The food is bizarre, but it doesn't really matter. What is vitally important is the hospitality. 

"Before dinner we were discussing how to end the pamphlets," Carlota informs the Menadorans. "Jean Pau proposes that print shops be obliged to post a large bond against crimes that are committed as a result of their publications, and be fully llable for such, so that someone sober and responsible who has something to lose has to make the decision to go ahead with a print run."

"Well, that probably would have prevented the one claiming my servants denounced me. I don't think they even did."

"I want a law that would have prevented the denouncements, Wain's speech, and the coordinated appearance around the city of the Archduke Blanxart's geneology. Which looks the most like coordinated malicious action of the three, and which is I think technically legal even after the latest round of decrees."

"Does your proposal extend to those copying books? I think those are much less of a concern, or at least a different one, and different laws should be made to handle the publication of books as opposed to pamphlets or news-sheets, or the like -"

"How would you define the difference? Allowing anything above a certain number of pages seems that it allows anything at all."

"A hundred-page manuscript will at the very least take a hundred times as long to make each copy of than a one-page rant. And, frankly, require more patience and long-term planning from its readership."

"Only if they have to read the whole thing, instead of putting all the provocative bits on the first page... making it more expensive probably does a lot. It might suffice. But - I think I do not want to bring to the floor a proposal that maybe suffices. The country is too fragile for several more rounds of trial and error.... another takeaway from our earlier conversation was that the emergency measures should be temporary, so that our children are reminded to go ahead and surpass us once the emergency is past.

We could spell out that it is a material defense against a charge of having copied something that caused a riot if the material you copied is lengthy, requires patience, and would not make a good tavern speech."

"It's easy to imagine small books. Or books meant to come apart, no matter what anyone swears was their intent in making then. And it seems unwise to rely on cost, after what the archmage did to cloth."

"While we're imposing these laws I do also want to add some provision for -

- I was nervous yesterday evening, that Wain's speech might be circulating, and I asked a girl to keep a lookout, but she wasn't willing to pick a pamphlet up for me because that'd be illegal. I could've gotten word out to people sooner, if she had. Maybe one should also be able to post a bond to possess, but not distribute, outright prohibited material, or maybe we just want to build it in to the rights of the nobility, but I don't want the law to blind everyone who could do something about the various libels from seeing them in the first place."

Xavier does not know if the bond idea is one of Joan-Pau's crazy ideas that will work, or one of the ones that will fail dramatically. It's usually one or the other, with him.

"I speculate that the bond proposal would be better likely to appeal to the marginal elected and sortition delegates and so easier to pass..."

"- One thing I do want is to arrange a second convention to occur in forty years, or fifty - once Asmodeanism has been in its grave the whole life of the young. I don't want our grandchildren feeling as though they're bound to stick to our judgements." And he's worried that without Aroden...

"Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with that. This is..not a very good environment for laying long term foundations, even yesterday's catastrophe aside. And in forty or fifty years maybe Iomedae'll have more than one Chelish priest worthy of the title."

"As much as I would have preferred ten more experienced priests to be delegates, Valia Wain did not fall for her speech, or any of her actions."

"Well, she died trying to put down what she called up, or at least so the Crown would have people believe. I think that's about as clean a resolution to the matter as we can hope for."

Ah, if only. It really would have been the best way for it to work out.

- he feels disappointed and cheated about that, really, but it's probably a better outcome for the church.

"I suppose Pharasma's justice is something."

"- No, Feliu found her in the streets, stabilizing everyone she could find. She's in the palace cells, now, while Her Majesty works out what she's to be charged with." He's just going to pass over all the intervening stuff now.

"The announcement said multiple priests of Iomedae dead, but there are a few others in the city if only two as delegates, it must've been a couple of those. I know Artigas was lynched by the mob."

"...ah. We had two lay priests of Iomedae staying with us. They were killed defending the manor with us."

"I don't blame the Church of Iomedae for this disaster, not really. They never recommended becoming Galt. Even Wain's speech probably would have done nothing if not for the barrage of followons - the speeches claiming she'd told the people of Westcrown to tear" tieflings "men limb from limb in the streets. The geneology of Archduke Blanxart. The supposed leaked proceedings of the committee on excising diabolism - unless Wain was responsible for that too, but I really would have expected the Goddess to throw out a priest for publishing confidential committee proceedings - 

- at some point it starts to look like organized enemy action, not just idiocy. There were half a dozen people, or a very prolific one, lurking over this city waiting to pounce when someone made the mistake of throwing an excuse out there. And it's all a very predictable consequence of having the Archmage Cotonnet make us reenact his childhood and get it right this time in a city that's hanging on to law by its fingertips." 

Very very strong words, but she doesn't think he'll kill her for them. He's too Galtan. 

"... My guess would be disorganized enemy action, Duchess," he says, moderately. "If it had appeared out of nowhere, I'd agree with you, but it appeared at specifically the first opportunity. That suggests less coordination, less planning, and more in the way of people taking the chance as soon as they saw it. I'd expect Geryon cultists, radical republicans, maybe Norgorberites or demoniacs, all tripping over each other in an eagerness to pounce at the opportunity Valia Wain just gave them."

"Hopefully they'll round up all of the responsible parties swiftly and it'll be clearer both who brought this about and how much we need fear it happening again."

"Indeed," he says grimly. "What will settle this affair is when the men who stole and killed and raped meet the Final Blade, whatever their motives." He doesn't say 'hanged' out of deference to the paladin.

Oh, thank gods. He nods. "The entire city clearly needs an unambiguous message that there are consequences for breaking the law, no matter how many people ones breaks it with. Anarchy serves no one."

"I think you can get by without torturous executions but you can't get by without at least one of torturous executions or consistent ones. 'I might spend the next two weeks dying horribly' does it, and so does 'I will certainly not survive it', but not 'well, they probably won't catch me and if they do it'll be quick."

You have justice or you have anarchy. Pick one. Xavier nods.

"I'm sure it'll be difficult to track down everyone. But worth it, easily, if the alternative is that this keeps happening."

"If I were the archmages I think I'd set up some very fancy zone of truth and march the whole city through, ask them 'did you riot'?. It's an extreme measure, but they're archmages and they have an extreme problem on their hands. They tried just arresting the ringleaders, last time this happened.. ...you don't have to kill them all, either, if you're an archmage, you can sort out the less traitorous three quarters, open a Teleportation Circle to our I-hear-understaffed Worldwound forts, and let them try actually fighting Evil."

"You don't think that creates the same uncertainty?"

"To the people remaining in Westcrown I think they're as good as dead. No one watches archmages march some people off through a Teleportation Circle and thinks 'it wouldn't be so bad if that happens to me'. No one thought like that even in old Cheliax. It wouldn't actually surprise me if it were more effective than the merciful executions."

"Mmm. The forts certainly are shorthanded, but from a military perspective I don't know that staffing them with mobs improves the problem. But I've never had much of a sense of poetry." This excuse has served him long and well for why he usually used, like, seven different kinds of executions, and didn't bother making up unique punishments for every individual case. 

"The Asmodeans have their raw conscripts six months basic training and another year on garrison duty before sending them to the Worldwound, and I don't think you can do much less if you want them to contribute. The galleys might be better, as a punishment." Once they have fleets on seas that use galleys, at least.

"I can't say that poetry moves me much, nor that I have very strong opinions about where specifically to put them, but we're talking about executing thousands of able-bodied men during a manpower shortage, and they're mostly not hardened bandits, they're idiots who followed the laws fine back when the laws were enforced."

"Well, I hear we're abolishing slavery, which leaves the harvests uncertain. But I worry that that doesn't send the same message."

"Enslave all the rioters and send them to the farms? There's precedent in the old legal code, but I do worry that seems too lenient even if practical.  ...Lord Cansellarion, can you speak a bit to Lawful Good's practical reservations about torturous punishment? I understand Lastwall to still whip people, so it's not entirely prohibited, and -

- the way I've come to see this is that what matters the most is whether the response looks, to people, like the crown taking the matter seriously, or the crown giving them a slap on the wrist. And I have no difficulty believing that if there were disorder in Vellumis, and the ringleaders arrested, tried, and executed while everyone else was given a stern talking-to about how they'd just surrendered Heaven and had better spend the rest of their lives trying to get it back, this would be apparent to the people of Vellumis as the government taking the matter seriously; that is how they understand their government to handle serious matters. Probably it would be sufficient; to my knowledge there are in fact never riots in Vellumis, and it's not because they heal you a hundred times in the course of an execution for treason. 

But Chelish people - and this is not just a harm wrought by Asmodeanism, Chelish people of a century ago would feel the same - do not interpret this response as very serious. Executing every involved party - that they'll understand as serious. Making a horrible show of it - that they'll understand as serious. But enslaving the rioters and putting them to work they will probably survive, somewhere where we badly need them, is more merciful than either of those, and the problem is that it's too lenient, and the obvious way to close that gap is to hurt them, and I don't really see how it's more Good not to. Or rather I see the argument that - one tries to turn one's society into Vellumis, and not to arrange encouragement to instead get gradually worse - but Heaven concerns itself also with prioritization, and the priority in Cheliax right now is order."

"When I contemplate harsher enforcement of the law in Westcrown, I find myself thinking about Molthune, and the civil war.  The Lord-Protector had a problem with a few hundred rebellious subjects. Following much the same approach being recommended here, he rounded them up and hanged the lot; When this inspired more to rebellion he hanged them too. I imagine he thought that eventually he would have caught and killed every troublemaker, and there would be peace. I am sure he did not imagine that he was being cruel, or unjust, merely enforcing the law that existed. But the people around Nirmathas certainly disagreed! No one has ever swept a city looking for a thousand traitors and not committed a thousand injustices in the doing. Yes, with enough magic you may find all the guilty parties, but I doubt you will not also catch a hundred innocent men, and a hundred more who are guilty only of minor crimes that would merit a lesser sentence any other day. And each of those is another incident that will teach the people of Westcrown that the government is unreliable and unpredictable, that the crown and the nobility care little for their lives and hate them and want them to suffer and die. And even those rightfully convicted will leave the people with less to lose. A man whose wife is beheaded for throwing a torch is likely to rebel himself; a child orphaned by the final blade will take up a sword himself. The Lord-Protector started with a problem of a few thousand rebels, and now a third of the country is in insurrection, to say nothing of present company.

If I understand correctly, your question is about how a Lawful Good state balances the obvious benefits to public order of a harsh response to crime with the moral obligation to mercy. In fact, we think that question is wrongly-framed. A maximally harsh and merciless response to crime does not, usually, promote order. It's been tried, again and again, and I've never known it to work because people will learn to hate you faster than they learn to fear you. Valia Wain rebelled in Pezzack, when she knew that her whole family would be sentenced to be tortured to death for it, that she'd be maledicted to Hell if caught - does anyone here imagine they could threaten a punishment that would scare her? Our aim is to maintain order in the city. The situation is very dangerous and I'm sure very frightening, and I do not find myself strongly moved to prioritize mercy above order, beyond steps like not sending people to Hell when that can be avoided. You ask me, 'To win peace, would you condone torturing four thousand men to death?' but I think my question for you is, 'To win peace, would you forgive them?'"

He's dimly aware that he shouldn't speak, but he does anyway. "Teaching men that they can burn others alive in their homes with no repercussions does not win peace. It only invites even worse violation next time."

"There is a fundamental difference in kind, Lord Cansellarion, between peasants upset about high taxes and angry druids who strike for their lord and their lord's retainers, and men in a city who kill and rob and rape their neighbors. The former have a case. The latter - I would rather every man who thinks he has a right to rape be dead, I would rather live in a kingdom of ashes, than let him be right."

Wow, that's a little harsh.

Nah, that sounds right. He nods.

" - for my part I'd rather not live in a kingdom of ashes. I am not persuaded that Lord Cansellarion is right, about how best to avoid that, but if the gods could tell us with the benefit of prophecy which course to chart for no homes to burn and no mobs to form ever again, I'd follow it whether it were Maledicting Valia Wain or knighting her. This has to never happen again, that's the important thing."

Okay, yes, that's true. He nods along to that.

"Count Ardiaca, between a man who robs and murders a tax collector for collecting taxes, and one who robs and murders his neighbor due to a mistaken belief that the neighbor is trying to restore infernal rule... I think both have done evil, but have a hair more sympathy for the latter. If you can find every rapist and get sworn testimony under a truthspell that condemns each one, I will not say you'd be cruel to castrate the lot, though I hear that doesn't work as well for prevention as it once did. But most of the crime of last night was not rape, it was murder and pillage that the many of the guilty believed to be justified by the evils of their victims. And the number of men willing to do that will only grow as you hang them, not diminish."

"Oh, I don't know if we can have them but I'd like trials, in which they freely admit that they didn't care which noble was a diabolist or think about whether there might be servants in the house they burned, before they hang. There reaches a level of lethal stupidity where it becomes worse than honest cruelty. Perhaps we could sentence them to exile, set up an illusion with frozen snow through a portal, send them to Lastwall? Call it Worldwound conscription and don't mention they're being given to Lastwall to train first. Lastwall might be able to make use of that sort of person."

"This was not Pezzack. The people of Pezzack rebelled when murdered for following the law. The people of Westcrown cowered like mice, until the moment Valia Wain gave them permission to murder men in their homes, and they saw that nothing happened. We tolerated the call, and they guessed that we would also tolerate any violence they committed, no matter how unjustified. Women and children died last night. Priests, bankers, ordinary men, men who had done nothing to them. Not because we hurt them, but because they felt they could, and that the authorities would be tolerant."

"I must agree with Regent Napaciza. What matters is the restoration of order, and for that I would forgive them, if it would work. But I don't believe it will, not without a swift and efficient display of force. It was not all the toleration of the assembly that stopped the riots in Galt from turning their swords on their own chosen priests and chosen leaders again and again and again, it was Cyprian and sulfur."

"I don't think that arresting Wain on the floor after her speech would have prevented this. If anything I suspect it would have made it worse. Shutting down the Abyssal pamphleteering would have prevented this, or bringing in a thousand paladins last night instead of this morning, or doing the rain preemptively, but - think about it. If a priest of Iomedae says 'there are diabolists still in power', and the Queen's men drag her off - maybe some men are discouraged from rioting because they see the price they'll pay. But a thousand others are persuaded her words are true. The people of Pezzack rebelled when the authorities declared a popular play to have been retroactively illegal and sought to put its well-liked star to death, and your takeaway is that we should've tried that? - to be clear I think we can execute her now, as liable for the deaths, but I don't think we'd be in a better position if we'd done it yesterday.

Similarly if the Archmage hadn't banned dueling. How does that go, speaking purely of how it looks to onlookers? Someone challenges her, she declines on the grounds that her church doesn't permit that. You run her through anyway? Do you think that convinces people she's a liar? I don't know anything that would convince people she's a liar, which is why I have focused on laws that prevent the dissemination of lies. The thing we were owed last night was a show of force in the streets. I don't know why that failed to happen, and I do intend to press Her Majesty on it, when she's less busy.

As for what to do with the criminals now - whatever works, it sounds like we're all in accord, and just in doubt about what that is."

He feels sick and angry again. Not that he's ever really stopped, but it's coming instead of going, now.

"I don't know what should have been done about the speech. I know she identified her targets, and that neither the crown nor the president reacted at all, with words or precautions."

"It was a despicable and evil speech. I think the best thing would have been for Lord Cansellarion to have been allowed his response, to rebut it, and if he were to have Wain arrested by the Church for it I don't think that would have make her a martyr. From a strategic angle here, thinking about public opinion, you want to take her down for betraying Iomedae first."

...nod. 

He hates having to think about public opinion, specifically because he's terrible at it. But this sounds much less like an attack, and he feels less sick and scared about agreeing with it. He should probably stop talking, though he's not sure he can eat.

"The church does not actually have jurisdiction over people who are not a part of it or subjects of Lastwall."

And now they're going to have this argument.

Ramirez nods. This was completely baffling when he first heard it, but it's already been explained once and he doesn't need it explained again.

"Sorry, what? Is she in fact a priest of someone else?" They should really have been saying that more loudly! And sooner!

Sigh. "If I understand correctly, the church of Iomedae holds that selection by the goddess does not actually make a cleric a member of the organized church, or impose any obligations on them."

(He probably should have let Cansellarion have it, but he knows something about Iomedae that someone else doesn't! How can you pass that up.)

"Exactly. I suppose if you're being very technical about it, she's one of Iomedae's Select but not a priest at all. She has not had any of the training that priests of Iomedae get, she has not sworn any oaths to the church, and there is no church organization that's empowered to give her orders or prosecute her. If the government of Cheliax had established a Chelish Iomedan inquisition with the Church's cooperation, that inquisition might have the power to prosecute uninitiated Select within Chelish territory but - Establishing an Iomedan inquisition here does not seem like it'd be a good use of anyone's resources, right now, even if the church weren't under its current resource constraints."

"I think having a very senior Iomedaen inquisitor explain in a very public trial what she got wrong would be a good use of the Church's resources. If you can't do it" I understand that there is no point arguing with paladins about whether their rules make any sense "even with Wain's cooperation or by request of the Queen then you can't do it. I just worry half of people are going to have the wrong takeaway from her Crown trial no matter how carefully it's conducted."

"An inquisitorial trial is not an option, no, not without an arrangement between the crown and church that predates the incident. Having an Iomedan testify at her trial might be possible, if the secular charges hinge on theological accuracy, though we're usually reluctant to endorse states that want to try Iomedan select for unorthodoxy."

"I hardly think the crown is intending to charge her for heresy. If she's still alive, has anyone heard what they're planning for the charges to be?"

"Presumably murder for everyone she called out as a target and wrongful death for everyone else. The problem is that the earlier pamphlet decree was poorly phrased and her speech arguably technically not in violation of it. If I were the Queen's prosecutor I'd also want to charge treason and sedition in case the court feels similarly about the speech. In terms of public opinion in the city I suspect it's much better to convict her of murder than treason, but much better to convict her of treason than of nothing."

"'Treason' sounds right to me. The queen and archmage Cotonnet said 'no more pamphlets calling for people's deaths, no killing delegates, no calling for the expulsion of delegates,' and if what she did was not technically a violation of the specific decrees, it was clearly enough contrary to their intent." From what he's heard of Galt he's not actually sure that 'mobs murdering evil nobles and anyone who stands with them' is actually contrary to Cotonnet's intent, but nobody in this room is going to acknowledge that.

"These people are paranoid about anything resembling subtlety," Joan-Pau finally settles on as a way to not offend Carlota. "I think in terms of public opinion - 'wrongful death' is undeniably true and very easy to prove; 'treason' is harder to make unambiguous."

"Oh, I have no disagreement there. I think it would be much better in terms of public attitudes for a conviction to be for the wrongful deaths that she unambiguously caused. But I am worried that the Queen's decree of the second of Sarenith stated only that charges for wrongful death would be brought if a person publishes a list of named persons in a manner as to imply an incitement to violence, which did not actually happen, and that I'm aware of no other decrees that touch on wrongful deaths as a consequence of published or spoken claims unless they are false. I don't know what to expect from Chelish courts, but an Axis court would not convict, on the law as I reviewed it today. Which is a flaw in our law, and one the more recent decrees from the Queen corrected, but they did not do so retroactively. 

And so if I were Her Majesty's prosecutor I'd be thinking about charges which - do less to quell public divisions, which will be less unambiguous and less satisfying, but which will at least suffice to avoid Wain being acquitted."

"I suspect that there's no decree on which she can be sentenced, and so we'd need to break out the old laws of Aspex never formally abolished in Cheliax. I don't think that's a very high price to pay, given that she in fact did cause wrongful death and everyone in Westcrown knows it."

Did the Thrunes not abolish the old laws or are we just not treating anything the Thrunes do as having really happened, because they were never themselves legitimate? With Joan Pau it can be hard to guess and it doesn't really matter. "Sure, perhaps they'll go that route. I am sure there are also some political constraints invisible to us," like that the Church probably would rather their people not be convicted of treason. "As long as it ends up firmly established that this was lawless, Evil, and her fault, and that no one's going to get away with it this time or any future time."

Oh, the second one. He nods anyway.

Nod nod nod.

"I don't think we want her executed, though. She can legitimately plead stupidity, which is a pretty good legal defense. A last-minute compromise where we send her off to Lastwall for the basic training in the faith of Iomedae she never received - that is, sentence her to be exiled to serve at the Worldwound until it is finally dealt with, allowing of course for a brief stop in training from our allies in Lastwall - and get in exchange a first-circle cleric from Lastwall who has none of Valia Wain's political beliefs but can channel just as often as she could, will be a much better deal for all parties."

For a moment he is actually more confused than angry. He really thought they'd just said they were in favor of punishing her.

" - you would let her go?"

"I'd limit myself to exiling her from her home forever if we get a first-circle cleric of Iomedae who isn't actively counterproductive out of it. It's a waste to kill someone who can be useful on another front instead of redeploying her there. If we need to whip her bloody first so everyone feels like she's punished, I've no objections. But what she's guilty of isn't cruelty, it's sheer overwhelming stupidity, and that is sometimes curable. If it wasn't Iomedae would have dropped her and we'd have a simpler problem."

"Service at the wound is nothing! We ask it of people who stand accused of nothing, constantly! Were she a member of the church, she would be there already! You cannot reassign her and claim you've said anything but that you are embarrassed to find no fault with anything she did!"

He is still confused, actually, but only dimly aware of it. He heard 'until it is finally dealt with', and thought of Valia's training, and 'exiling her from her home forever', and is not sure whether these are the same or different suggestions. He isn't thinking about how to reconcile these. He's thinking about three cold, lonely, miserable years at the worldwound, missing his wife and children for what was ostensibly not a punishment at all, and a murderer getting the same.

"I think that she caused a large number of deaths through extraordinary stupidity caused by being very young and growing up somewhere terrible. I don't think we should execute people for extraordinary stupidity; I do think we should punish them. I think that if we sentence her to exile at the Worldwound for life, and she spends the first two years training in Lastwall and fifteen years guarding the Wound and then Lastwall declares that the demons are dealt with and Her Majesty issues a general pardon to everyone sent to the Worldwound - she will stop causing problems for us forever, and also a significant number of people on the Wound who would have died will live because they have access to more channels. And I think no one who watched her be exiled will say 'well, really, saying what she said is fine,' though I'd be pleased to hear more suggestions for how to make her more obviously punished - I may be underestimating the cruelty Asmodeanism has accustomed the people of Cheliax to expecting from their state; I'd assumed that most people would assume that the exile was a polite face-saving excuse and she was in fact being executed."

"There are - a few different things at play here, yes? Whether Valia Wain has suffered as much as she deserves, which won't be true until her family has all been murdered in front of her. Which, to be fair, did happen, I think, so we can hardly do it again.

 Then there's whether it is apparent to the idiots of Westcrown that if they try what she tried they will with certainty and immediacy regret it, and I don't know if exile's sufficient to achieve that with Westcrown's current population but it's a - question of pageantry, with little to do with either what she deserves or what her victims do. 

And then there is - the matter, Count, you spoke of earlier. When you said that you would rather burn the country to the ground than share it with men who did the things that were done last night and got away with it and did not suffer for it and never will."

"We are not Calistrians here. There is no amount of suffering on the part of Valia Wain which can make right what happened last night. Suffering cannot right wrongs, it can only make new ones. In imposing a sentence for a crime, we should be mindful of preventing further crime, of deterring other potential criminals, of teaching the guilty party that their acts are unacceptable, of restitution to the victims, and of giving the guilty a chance to earn redemption before the Judge. But we ought to give no mind to vengeance, or to whether the guilty party has suffered 'enough' or 'as much as they deserve'.

In a case such as this, where the crime was an act of folly rather than malice, and where the perpetrator has already realized that it was an error - the principle considerations are restitution to the victims and prevention of further error. For the families of the dead, there's little restitution that can be extracted from Valia Wain. Some resurrections are being supplied by the archmages, but if you took everything Valia owns and sold it it would not allow you to buy a single one more. Exile is sufficient to prevent further harm. Anything beyond that is just an indulgence to the same vengeful bloodlust that drove last night's riots."

"Indeed. My response to the duchess is that I don't want them to suffer for it, I want them to learn that they cannot and should not do that. And I believe both that Valia Wain has only tertiary responsibility after the pamphleteer who edited her words and the men who did the killing, and also I think that Valia Wain has learned she cannot and should not do that. That lesson being delivered, pain is superfluous."

"It's not about vengeance, it's - "

- no, he's angrily arguing morality with a paladin who possibly doesn't actually despise him yet, and with a handful of other southern nobles, who feel every bit as incomprehensible and dangerous as the last set, right now. There's absolutely no way this can improve anything. And the half-formed argument itself is ridiculous, and would be ridiculous in any company. The thing it is about is knowing that anyone can ever be safe, anywhere, which is a ridiculous thing to demand via appeal to morality. 

" - I apologize. I am poor company tonight. Thank you for your hospitality, Duchess, it is much appreciated. Please excuse me, I don't wish to ruin your evening."

He'll wait - a second, at least, for her to acknowledge that, but after that he really has to get out of this room.

"I wanted to apologize to you, actually, Count-Regent. You should have been here last night. I should have invited you immediately after the speech. We can speak all night of Valia Wain's culpable stupidity, but - many people with fewer excuses for ignorance were just as stupid, in not seeing where this would lead. You can go, of course, if you want, but the answer I meant to give to Count Ardiaca and to Lord Cansellarion is that I think they are speaking out of theology textbooks, and have not actually had their families murdered, and don't actually understand what the difficult part is."

" - thank you. I believe you will say it better than I, tonight," he says, tightly but sincerely, and then does leave.

"Please excuse me also." Antonio stands and follows Llei.

"I have likewise had a long day. May tomorrow be an improvement." He doesn't look at Joan-Pau at all.

Joan-Pau will murmur agreement with Carlota as Llei leaves, giving him a bow of apology as he does.

And Xavier will also join in agreement with Carlota.

He will nod, in acknowledgement, as politely as he can while maintaining firm intent to get out of the room before he says anything else.

Narikopolus of course is perfectly composed, hasn't left,  and has evinced no opinions at all. She's getting appreciation for how the man survived the Thrunes.

"I do, actually, understand what the difficult part is and how difficult it can be. I have had people I loved tortured, maledicted, and murdered. And after many years, when I finally defeated the woman who did this - I know the temptation. To hurt the person who has hurt you, to make them viscerally understand what they put you through, to - 

Death was the only option, really, death and a hasten judgment and destroying the body to prevent a raise. But I could have chosen a slow death, instead of a swift sword-blow to the neck. I could have, I was tempted to, it would have felt right, but it would have been wrong."

Joan-Pau has never actually felt the desire to torture someone to death and so has nothing to say about this other than a polite nod of acknowledgement.

"I don't think we distressed our guests with the proposal to kill Wain swiftly but with the proposal not to kill her. For my own part - and I make no claim to possess a fraction of the virtue of Lord Cansellarion, nor even to have consistently aspired to it - I have not struggled with the desire to hurt my enemies nearly as much as with the total impossibility of contemplating conceding peace to them. 

But, for those who find it easier to live in a world where our enemies suffer, I've found it a much easier mental adaptation to remind myself that they do, because this world isn't any easier for them, than they they shouldn't, even though both are true. Valia Wain shouldn't suffer, and also she has and will."

Honestly, he's not especially torn up about things. Glad that he sent his sister and her grandchildren to Menador when he took her house over, but not otherwise especially upset.

"Duchess, you spoke earlier about your plan to prevent reckless publications. When the convention reconvenes, I have - pieces of something I might like to say, about what happened, that may be turned to this purpose. About the people who were killed, including Marit and Arn. In particular - Llei has a daughter, who was staying at the house. I understand that she'll be fine. Last night, shortly before the attack, she spoke with Marit and Arn about her enthusiasm for volunteering at Crusader's Fort, if it might free up a soldier from Lastwall to come here and help the people of Cheliax. I understand that an hour later, she gave her life in direct defense of the servants in the cellar, after members of the mob got past us."

"It - is easy, I think, to feel that a man should die, if the only facts one knows about him are that he is a noble who carries the blood of a devil, and is currently judged evil. And these can be true facts, and not lies in themselves. But they paint a different picture than one of a man who raised such a daughter. Their being true does not mean that they cannot be turned to leave men with less understanding of a situation than they started with. Perhaps this can serve to lend some small support the idea that even true things can be so irresponsible to say that one should limit the ways in which they are said. And I would like to say something, when the the man has been called out in public and had nothing said in his defense. But - I am not much of a politician, and my staff is dead. I don't want to make a speech without first getting advice about what will make the current situation better or worse."

By this description the daughter is a sterling specimen of Chelish womanhood in spite of being a tiefling. "I'd expect that to work very well," Xavier says. "Presenting a hero will rouse the spirits of the people and make them respect the mob's victims. Are the servants she protected local from Westcrown, or Menadorians?"

"Westcrown, I hired them when I arrived."

He nods. He doubts Narikopolus needed the relevance of this fact pointed out even that explicitly, but he thought the costs of doing so were low.

"I think it's the foundation of an excellent speech, and am happy to assist if I can."

"Do let me know if I can help in any way," he says.

"Thank you both. I will try to write something tonight, then, to be improved on."

Carlota's pretty sure she ought to give the Count-Regent his space, but she in fact needs him. The problem is which committee to introduce the censorship laws on. Rights is full of radicals, and more importantly chaired by the Archduchess, who will have to oppose them on this lest she infuriate her own radicals back home. Judiciary was previously chaired by Wain. She doesn't want to tip her hand about the fact Forms of the Monarchy is important, though it in fact contains lots of things around sedition and dissemination of censored material. 

So...safe roads and safe villages. It's a stretch, but pamphlets certainly aren't any good for the safety of Cheliax, and the Hellknights are not known to be ardent defenders of the rights of people to spread ridiculous dangerous libels, and she's pretty sure once it's through a committee vote it'll win a floor vote handily. But she shouldn't introduce it herself and chair the committee while they debate it and introduce it on the floor; that's too overt.

So, if the Count-Regent is willing to get tea the following day, she'd really like him to review her draft. As it presently stands:

In recognition of the enormous harm that has been, and is ongoingly, done by the publication of vile slanders, insinuations, radical materials, and advocacy both mistaken and malicious:

It is forbidden to publish or distribute written material in Cheliax unless one of the following is true:

The publication of the material is permitted under the law in those Chelish provinces and allied states where the Rule of Law is strong, that is presently Lastwall, Molthune, and Osirion, and the material is not modified from the version distributed in those countries; 

The material is published by a licit and authorized publishing house, and marked with the Arcane Mark on each page of that publishing house, that it may be attributed to a man who is fully legally liable for any lawless consequences of its distribution;

The material contains no political, social or religious commentary, and would not be identified by any reasoned observer to be attempting to make a political, social or religious argument; for instance it is a book of Accounts, a book of Recipes, a book of Apothecarie, or an announcement of an event (the latter being permitted presuming the event to be itself permitted, and illicit if the event is a lawless gathering).

For a publishing house to obtain authorization to publish in Cheliax, it must have a single, identified proprietor, in whose name the license is issued, and who acknowledges the following:

He is a Subject of Her Majesty and means to abide by Her laws

He has placed a bond of Six Thousand Gold Pieces against the possibility of chaos and destruction brought about by the works he publishes, which will be returned to him thirty days following the closure of his publication house unless damages result, and seized to pay damages should damages result;

He is further liable for damages from the works he publishes if they exceed Six Thousand Gold Pieces, and is liable up to the seizure of all of his properties, and if capital crimes are incited by works he publishes, he is liable for death;

'damages' in this statute refer only to harms monetary and personal that result from the publication being determined slanderous or libelous, or from Lawless acts which the publications advocated, directly or by implication; enabled, by instruction in how to carry out or evade detection for a lawless act, including harms resulting from lawless acts that the publication enabled by making it known that some other individuals had called for violence, or predicted it, or believe the gods to advise it, or believe it would solve Cheliax's ills, or by any other phrasing suggest it to the advantage of another person to commit criminal acts.  Should a publication cause monetary damages by some other mechanism than inspiring, encouraging or enabling criminal acts - for instance by the promotion of a business at the expense of a competitor, the publishing house shall not be liable. 

The distribution or copying of works which are not marked with the Arcane Mark of a licensed publishing house, nor approved by an authorized board of censorship, and which contain political, social, or religious commentary, or would be reasonably understood to be making a political, social or religious point, is henceforth illegal, and punishable with 30 days' imprisonment, a fine of up to 1gp per page of illegal commentary distributed, and liability civil and criminal for all illegal conduct inspired by those works.

The possession of works which are not marked with the Arcane Mark of a licensed publishing house, nor approved by an authorized board of censorship, and which contain political, social, or religious commentary, or would be reasonably understood to be making a political, social or religious point, is legal, if those works were possessed before this decree was promulgated. Possession of such works acquired after the decree was promulgated will be punished as distribution of those works would be. 

He's calmed down. Mostly.

"I am broadly in favor of this. I am concerned about defining publishing and distribution. I don't think we want to outlaw sending personal letters."

"Agreed. I'd really rather people feel free to speak their minds, just not to whole cities overnight with no consequences if this burns the cities down. We could add a clause to the effect that a person can write anything, and make a copy for their records, without being guilty of distribution or of copying or of possession?"

"I think that would be useful to put in explicitly, yes. Is it intended that every noble create a publishing house in order to distribute his own decrees? I'm not sure that's workable, especially this year."

"I had a draft which said all nobles will effectively be treated as a publishing house but I took it out because the radicals are going to be so upset anyway that they have to stop calling for people to quite literally kill and eat each other, and I don't want to give them more ammunition. Probably the less politically fraught way to do it is an exception for all decrees and books containing without commentary the law in Cheliax or elsewhere."

"That seems reasonable. I don't see any other obvious problems, which doesn't mean they aren't there. But I don't think anyone will mistake it for something I wrote, and if they did, I don't think they'd vote for it."

"We're going to pull everyone together and make it clear that we all drafted this, because the country cannot tolerate any more of this. Alexaera will speak to how it's less restrictive than Lastwall. I'm hoping I can get the Inquisitor to speak to how it's Abadaran and less restrictive than Osirion and necessary for public order. Hopefully we can have a statement from a respected merchant in Westcrown about how he's ready to get a publishing house opened that will happily print anything anyone wants, so long as it's not madness and calls for lunacy.

I'd like it if you'd be willing to speak for it in Safe Roads. I think it'd be slightly improper for me to introduce it, chair all the discussion of it, and then take it to the floor, but if you don't think it should be you I'll ask the Hellknights." Hellknights are known to be in favor of censorship and against the city burning down.

"I will try. I am not sure it will do more good than harm, but if you think it will help it pass, I will try."

"Most people don't really have much in the way of principles, but they don't actually like cowering in their homes while mobs thunder by, and also they can track who won and who lost. I do not expect you to encounter much hostility in the committee. But - we can play it by instinct when we get there. I'll talk to the Hellknights also."

Nod. "I assume they will want some of the language changed. But - we have a few days to hammer things out."

"Indeed. Perhaps I overestimate the sensibility of the assembly but I think if we walk in with something with broad support we'll be able to walk out with it as well."

Rouen reads the paper carefully.

"This is a certain improvement over the present state of affairs, Your Grace."

She pauses. "The sentence for the sale and transfer of illegal pamphlets is very low." If they get caught before they kill a lot of people, the money they have on them, which isn't much, gets taken and they need to not starve for a month and then you let them go to do it again.

"I think the majority of arrests will not be of radicals denouncing the crown but of wizarding students being careless, and I don't want a first offense to ruin their lives, if it doesn't in fact ruin any others. I guess we could give a range of potential penalties depending on the seriousness of the violation."

"You have more experience with Her Majesty than I, your grace. May I ask what royal statutes against spreading propaganda for the gods and neargods of the Lower Planes you currently believe she considers to be in effect?"

"I believe as of one of the decrees immediately following the war, evangelization for Asmodeus or the powers under him is liable for death. There have been thousands of executions under that statute and I have no reason to imagine Her Majesty hesitant in employing it. As of decrees of the same time evangelizing for other powers of the lower planes is also illegal and liable for death; the private worship of those powers, without gaining by it or attempting to persuade others to it, generally isn't a capital offense, but - I understand this to be only because Her Majesty expects it will take some time for the people of Cheliax to abandon the habit, and sees little to gain by killing a million of them."

"Yes." Lictor Rouen Stought nods. "And how would failed attempt to evangelize be counted, do you think, Your Grace? I would not wish a demon cultist to escape because he was captured before he could sell his pamphlets."

"Nor would I. I do not imagine that the censorship laws apply in the place of other laws; if content is banned for other reasons this does not make it legal. But we should make that explicit."

Rouen nods and will keep looking and point out a couple more loopholes.

"I imagine that to the sensibilities of the Order this is still too lenient, and not only would I not consider myself betrayed if you were to say so on the floor I suspect I'd find it actively useful. Only if that represents your true best assessment as a servant of Law in Cheliax, of course."

"It is," Rouen says, "being significantly more lenient than the codes of any states that continue existing." She nods. "I will take your words into consideration." She does not play politics but she thinks she sees where Carlota is going and this is legitimately a case where she's right. Ugh.

"I appreciate your time and your counsel, Lictor."

"And I the chance to give them, Your Grace."

"Issa, what do you think of the censorship law?"

        "Your grace?"

"Have you taken a look at it?" She hands her a copy.

       She waits a respectable amount of time before answering. "I think it's very wise, your grace."

"Issa, they dragged random people off the streets to make them attend the convention. They won't have any more context than you, but their votes weigh as highly as mine; such is the Republican convention. If you tell me their concerns, then I can introduce a bill they like, and all Cheliax is served thereby."

        "Yes, your grace."

"So if you have any thoughts, even if they are just that you find it confusing, that would be valuable to me."

       "Your grace, the most important thing is - say someone's selling a pamphlet, am I going to hang for buying it? How many laws have I got to keep track of, to know that? I think the law should say very clear what you've got to do to make sure you're following it."

"And the law as it is written does not seem clear to you about that?"

       "I don't see how I'd tell if I was allowed to buy something without reading it straight through."

"Thank you. That's actually very helpful.. ...do you think we ought to ban the pamphlets, Issa?"

      "Yes, your grace, absolutely. They're awful and led to the mobs and are full of treason and horrible lies and the city's so much worse since they got started up."

"So if all authorized writings had an arcane mark saying under what provision they're authorized, and it's always legal to buy something with the mark, but there weren't any more pamphlets, that'd be fine?'

      "That'd be wonderful, your grace."