There's a very short list. The Archduchess isn't actually on it, but she's an archduchess, so someone can run to ask someone to ask someone if she ought to be allowed in. 

It takes a while but is determined that, yes, she'll probably neither run off with Wain nor smuggle out incendiary correspondence nor otherwise make this disaster even more of one.

Valia tried reading until she gave herself a headache, gave up for now, and is pacing. She used to amuse herself playing with Iomedae's most minor blessings but that was before she understood that the goddess's resources were scarce and it was wrong to make casual use of them.

"Evening, Select," Jilia says quietly as she enters the room, "I assume they're treating you well?"

The guards still haven't entered the room, though Valia made inferences from the lack of her lawyer's assurances she would be allowed to defend herself if they did. "Archduchess," she says, and bows. "I have not been troubled. ...I intended to apologize to you even before the evening's catastrophe. I spoke foolishly, ignorantly, and in anger." She can't bring herself to say 'falsely' but hopefully there's a sufficient apology without it.

Jilia bows back, not deeply but much more than she needs to by custom.

"The only thing you said to me that I consider worthy of an apology was calling me a coward. I have things to say, if you don't turn me away, but first I owe you an apology."

Valia really can't think who she'd turn away. Ibarra, maybe, except for the thing where he wouldn't care if she wanted to talk to him or not. "I don't think you owe me anything, Archduchess," she says.

"I was harsh to you on purpose, yesterday. To the point of outright cruelty. I was attacking your personal confidence on purpose, knowingly, to undermine you. I wish I hadn't, and I am sorry I did. I had my reasons, but they weren't good enough, and I, of all people, should have known that, so that is no excuse."

"There is no criticism you can make of me that would strike me as unjust or excessive, Archduchess. But the people of Pezzack were not wrong to oppose Hell, even if they were wrong to trust me with it."

"I never believed it was wrong to oppose Hell, for you or anyone else, Valia. Tactics, strategy, when to rise in rebellion and when to wait and stockpile supporters and weapons, yes. Philosophy about overriding people's desire to live in peace even if they might be damned doing it, maybe. Goals, no. I had that argument with Jackdaw several times, and she never had enough support I thought the time was right to defy the crown and stop slowing her down. But there would have been a time."

"I don't know if it was the right moment in Ravounel. Obviously you want to - prepare, if you can. ....I know it fixes nothing but I didn't expect the riots last night. If I'd heard a speech like that I'd have...I would admittedly have started planning revolution against the evil nobles. But - if you don't have a plan you probably won't get anything you care about."

"I know you didn't, Select. Neither did I, when I heard the speech. It would have encouraged riots, eventually, but it would have been days more, and not as bad. You're not blameless, you know that perfectly well, but you meant well, and made a mistake, and that matters. 'True Friend of the People', on the other hand, knew exactly what he was doing."

"But what was he doing? This didn't help anything! Even if the Evil nobles were as bad as I first thought, this hasn't removed any of them, and it angered the Queen."

"At a guess? To create a new Chelish Terror to match the Galtan one. To start hunting and killing everyone who collaborated a little bit with the old regime and sending them to the lamp-posts and final blades until nothing was left, no matter how many innocent targets went down with them. To punish everyone who ever engaged in petty tyranny and entirely purge everything Asmodean in any way, no matter how much the people responsible try to reform or how many innocents got denounced with them along the way."

"Or to die trying as a martyr, since I can't imagine it's escaped the man that the archmages disapproved."

"You can't do anything at all if you haven't accepted that powerful people will kill you for it but that's not a reason to do things that don't work instead of things that do...I don't know, maybe this worked great as far as he's concerned and he got exactly what he wanted. I feel very angry with him."

"I imagine he's in another cell by now. They'll want to be very public about executing him, since that case, and trial, is simple and straightforward. He'll probably get his martyrdom and feel much less pain than he caused, and, if we angry are lucky, find that is not as satisfying as he expected."

And probably go to Baphomet's maze. There's no right to the final blade, yet.

"Do you know how they intend to conduct the executions?" asks Valia calmly. "Will there be a crowd?"

"I imagine so. The Queen's too good a woman to permit torture, and she'll want trials - real trials, as much as we can under the circumstances - first. The final blade for anyone who wants it, and probably a quick death in a noose if not. If she decides to convict you for something capital, I expect she'll offer exile to Lastwall, and it will be a genuine offer. I can ask her personally, if you like."

Everyone keeps insisting that actually this will be fine and Valia is sick of it and also knows she should listen to them and not her own untrustworthy instincts and also doesn't want to. "The Queen should do as she wills," she says.

"The Queen should do what is right and Good. And she is far from perfect, I'm not sure any monarch can even get close, but I think she tries. You don't deserve death for this, Valia. People with power make mistakes, and their mistakes are larger. You think I haven't gotten people killed like this?"

Valia thinks that all nobles kill people capriciously all the time for fun and the law doesn't care about that because the law is almost entirely about protecting the nobles from everyone else. She was aware even yesterday that this was an unwise opinion to express to an Archduchess's face and it hardly seems to have gotten wiser. Or if there's a way to say it - "In recognition of the noble blood and great importance and achievements of the titled lords of Cheliax their errors are sometimes forgiven," she says blandly, "but common murderers rarely are. The Crown in this as in all things is just and good."

"That does happen, but we can expect, and I think ought to, much less of it from our Queen than the last one. I certainly don't intend to tolerate it from my new vassals in Ravounel. ...It's sensible of you to be careful, but I don't believe it is illegal to criticize Her Majesty. She's made mistakes, and will make more. I wouldn't trust her to rule Chelish people wisely if she hadn't."

...Valia's being awful to someone who is trying to help her for no reason, isn't she. She did it to the Archmage Cotonnet too but at least he is the one responsible for dragging them all here and then lecturing them about how easy it is (if you're a literate wizard) to figure out how to contribute productively and nondangerously to his passion project and how childish and contemptible it is not to try. 

"Forgive me, Archduchess, but I don't want to talk about the trials. I suppose we will all see."

"Feel free to call me Jilia. Frankly, I still feel strange every time I'm called Archduchess."

"The thing I wanted to give you advice on is... what to do, when you've made mistakes and survived. I'm sure you've spoken to Lastwall, but their philosophy seems to be 'be raised Lawful Good and follow procedure and you will simply not make any', which I don't think helps very much."

"I don't know that that's the sense I got from them. ...I could use the advice, though." Or at least it would be very rude to insist I won't.

"The thing is... getting good people killed, or damned, hurts. And it ought to. It never goes away, in my experience. But you can't go your whole life haunted by your mistakes, unless you want to stop doing things; you have to learn lessons and move on."

Does it seem like Valia is with her that far?

Well, yeah.

"What I've always done, for the big mistakes, when I have a little perspective on both what I did wrong and how bad it was, is to create physical memories. I write down the lists of names on a scroll, and keep them somewhere safe, and it hardly matters that I can read them as long as I know they're there. It helps, more than you might think, to... hand it off. To know I can remember it all, makes it easier to let it go, most of the time."

Why do all important powerful people keep wanting to rub it in that - "I cannot write. I never learned how. I would - carry a list, of the names, if there is a known one."

"I know," she says apologetically, "I don't think writing it yourself is the important part, or I wouldn't have suggested it. Maybe some other way of tracking it would work better for you. Or even for me; it's not like any of us in Infernal Cheliax had experienced allies to ask, about how to strive for Good."

"I am more worried about -" she is still not willing to say the names of anyone who she wants to live - "the people still alive. I'm worried that people - will not be done being angry, that they will decide that whatever happens to me at the trial is not enough."

"It's a problem. I'm working on it, to be able to do something if a new mob starts. Within the convention... I won't promise anything. But I'll do what I can."

It is kind of fascinating how much more time people have for you once you have gotten hundreds of people killed. She wouldn't have expected it. She could make sense of it by saying they aren't Chelish and pity her, but the Archduchess whatever else you want to say of her is Chelish and also they all keep insisting she isn't going to die. "I am grateful. There's been peace, since the night of the 3rd?"

The thing about getting hundreds of people killed is you can't do it if you're irrelevant.

"A handful of executions, some vandalism at the Galtan coffee-shop for encouraging it, and a lot of delegates hiding behind the palace walls. But yes, so far. The archmages have been keeping the rain coming every night, but there's still a lot of the dangerous nervous fear, and it's not far from there to anger again. I won't relax until we have at least a week of peace."

There's something strangely comforting about 'a handful of executions'. She realizes she had certainly been imagining that the crown was rounding up the rebels by the hundreds at least. "I am glad to hear it."

"I'm glad it did, and glad to share it. ...Do you want to hear what I know of who was attacked, and what happened?"

"Very much so, ma'am." 

"All the Menadorians here were lodging in the same home. They had two lay priests from Lastwall, Archduke Blanxart, and their families and servants with them. A mob approached, one of the men from Lastwall tried to talk them down - because you try even knowing you'll fail - and they sent for help, sent the servants and noncombatants to the cellar to shelter, and drew bows. Dozens of those attacking them died, and of the delegates, only the Archduke. Most of the children died; one on his father's back as they ran from the fire. A young tiefling lady, Regent Napaciza's daughter, guarded the noncombatants at the cellar door, and when it started to fill with smoke, she was the last out, and died of it. A dozen or so servants dead, mostly locals, a half-dozen children, the two men from Lastwall, and several dozen of the mob that came."

And none of the actual targets. It's madness to go after them in their home, though this isn't the reason she'd have identified it as madness; she'd have assumed it was madness because they'd have a Fireball-capable wizard and if scaring people off didn't work they'd fry them. She's confused that this wasn't the case but -

"Oh. Thank you. I - didn't want that, obviously. I did know things like it might happen eventually."

"They're almost all powerful warriors, nobles in Menador. Anything less dies keeping the monsters away. The children and Archduke are being raised by the archmages. Not most of the servants, though some the lords may choose to do so themselves."

"...Delegate Ibarra, to everyone's surprise who's heard him speak, made every apparent effort to obey the law and reduce casualties; he warned them off, used webs instead of raining destruction on them, and killed only three or four, adventurers who had joined the mob because he was obviously very dangerous and tried to breach his walls. But someone in the crowd set the webs alight - safe if you do it right, but they didn't. The fire spread across the neighborhood; from create water's range to a block away in every direction, before the rain hit. Dozens dead, as much from the neighbors as the mob. No one harmed in his party or retainers."

He's a fifth circle wizard. You don't go to their house, you ambush them in the street. She really shouldn't say that. "I imagine he is tremendously pleased by everything. In the speech where he confessed to being a Norgorber cultist he expressed particular pleasure that I was - unskilled enough - that anything I tried to do about it would only make it worse. The wisdom of inviting evil Norgorber cultists who want everything to go badly to the convention is no more apparent to me but I am glad that he did not try to hurt the people who attacked him."

"Ordinary Norgorber cultists don't flaunt it. I don't understand the man, and that's fairly unusual for me. What else... The Lord Mayor. The previous Lord Mayor, Aberian Arvanxi, was one of the most vile men in Infernal Cheliax, killed a dozen slaves a week, and remodeled his palace accordingly. A mob went hunting him and burning it. Unfortunately, he teleported away in the first hour of the Four-Day War and the place is currently held by Lord Mayor Pau-Roger Santcliment, a friend of Inquisitor Shawil's who has been supervising reconstruction of both the palace and the city. The mob didn't know the difference. They killed his guards and nearly killed him as well. No wizards or great warriors; a couple dozen ordinary people dying on opposite sides."

"Did you - Feliu told me that he thought the speech would cause riots in Westcrown if it was printed up and circulated. I hadn't been expecting that, but I'm not of Westcrown. Was everyone else expecting this?"

"That there would be riots that night? Not really. But it doesn't take that much to start riots. Especially not when housing is scarce and bread is expensive and no one really knows what the law is or whether they're damned or what they can possibly do to escape damnation."

'For him the Summerlands'; four words more dangerous than any power words.

"Things aren't that bad in Pezzack, but we got rid of our nobles and haven't replaced them and had gotten rid of all the Asmodeans much earlier... I would have said, yesterday, that if things are that bad then the people aren't wrong. But Feliu thinks that it's better if things just - bubble along not quite bad enough to rebel - and I guess you think so too -"

"Mobs are hard to control. If someone with charisma and integrity is leading them, they can be kept on target, hunt only those who earned their anger legitimately. One of those backed down after killing a dozen assorted nobles, when Archduke Requena shamed them, and I have no doubt that when you've lead one personally you'd have talked them down if it had to be done. But anger and mob violence spread like wildfire. Mobs attack people who they can convince themselves wronged them, or who are rich and vulnerable, or who are just in their way and strange. The str- itarii delegate died that way, though she's raised. And... bread riots outnumber revolutions hundreds to one. No anger is senseless, but most of it is not directed. I think that everyone is right to fear mobs, noble and commoner alike, and riots almost always make things worse."

Valia isn't sure she agrees with the last claim but it's not useful, here, to argue once again the argument they had on the floor in which she got upset and acquitted herself badly.

"The Archmage Cotonnet wanted me to have a good answer to - how I should have approached his convention in order for it to go well." Valia doesn't want to think about this question, deeply resents it, and is pretty sure "not going" is the true and correct answer, but it would be very stupid to ignore powerful people giving her hints about the script just because she thinks the script is not a very good one. And the fact she is too frustrated by the question to think about it clearly is precisely why to ask other people.

"Hmmm. That's a difficult question. The obvious answer is to arrive as soon as Pezzack could spare you and spend the days with the foreign Iomedans trying to learn how they think about things, but I'm not sure they'd notice it was important to help you, they're all very busy. If you had any politicians you trusted, in Pezzack or here, consulting with them before any big speech - my door is open, if you decide I count, but that hardly helps as a plan - would have helped. And with others you trust to be Good, but I suspect you did that with some people from the Diabolism committee, and other than the Avenger and the ones you ejected I wouldn't say any of them were bad choices. Be more cautious? Move slower?"

"The awful thing is that I thought the speech was - more cautious - there were all kinds of rumors about the committee, that we wanted to kill all Evil people - we admittedly discussed it. I thought that it would be helpful to clarify that we were only considering going after a small set of people and that our advice to them was to repent, that it would stop everything snowballing like it had with Ibarra.

I have people I trust in Pezzack but they told me that this was dangerous and a bad idea and I should stay home, or if I felt the call to travel go to - Kintargo, actually. ...where I would possibly also have caused problems."

"Well, mistaken judgment, but a noble intent and a good instinct. ...I suppose the advice might have been right. Steering the constitution will affect a lot more than a hundred lives and souls, but it's hard to say how far one Splendid delegate can shift the ship. It's possible you'll be allowed the chance to keep trying, but it doesn't look good. Only the gods can say whether this was all so inevitable that it was wrong to accept the chance to try.

...You would have been fine in Kintargo. The Silver Ravens would take you under their wings the minute you let them, or Shensen and Lord Rexus Victocora, who organized the rebellion-in-waiting for me before the Ravens were raised. I am dearly fond of all of them, but they're all much more like you than me, except maybe Rexus."

Oh. It hurts, somehow, to learn that the next-best plan thrown out by worried people in Pezzack was not an equally doomed one but would have gone well. She nods, bites her lip just slightly. "Well. Maybe I'll visit sometime, if you wouldn't mind, if - other things work out."

"I would be delighted. And I hope I can visit Pezzack and see Abrogail II in the original house, with or without Shensen - she's an opera singer as well."

"We rebuilt it. Without Pezzack being the capital of the archduchy there aren't really enough rich people for it to not be silly having a whole fancy operahouse but we rebuilt it anyway. It's - I hope you like it." Now she misses home. She'd manage to have all these civil conversations about how maybe if the Queen is merciful she'll be exiled without missing home but now she misses home.

Jilia smiles. "I'd do the same. Even if it hadn't been their target. You can't not rebuild the heart of your city, if you love it. I hope we can get you home to it in due time."

"Would you pardon your - Silver Ravens, Archduchess, if they got hundreds of people killed?"

"It depends much on how, to my understanding of codes of just law. Ignorance is never a perfect excuse, but they wouldn't have it at all, they've made their mistakes and learned their lessons before my time." Unless it was starting a rebellion, which would be more uncertain even for them, but goes beyond what she'd be able to have any discretion for. "So for most causes I wouldn't. More accidental causes, I might look for a lesser sentence, even if not a pardon. But, I admit, most of the resurrected nobles are probably less inclined to be lenient than me. I got very, very sick of punishments running a city under Asmodean law."

"I have never met a noble of any stripe who didn't put people to death for wildly smaller inconveniences and have found it puzzling how many people insist that it'll be fine. But I hope you're right."

"Many nobles are petty tyrants everywhere, I think, and under Infernal rule even more. But that's not how law is supposed to work, and the Queen is trying to do it right. There's hope. I might be wrong or she might give up on it, but there is hope."

"Thank you, Archduchess."

"I suppose there were a few more things from the riots. ...Hellknights. There were two locations attacked, the Order of the Chain's local house and Taranik House, where the Pyre and the other Hellknight delegates were fortified. Both went much like Ibarra, but the mobs were not as eager, so they attacked closer to the conjured rains and retreated faster. About two dozen dead between them, I believe, all from the mob. The Chain will have taken some as prisoners."

"I think one thing I didn't expect was that - it was very obvious to me who you'd stand a chance of killing if you tried and who you'd need a plan for, and it was not very obvious to the people of Westcrown."

"Someone who thought he was witty once said that a mob is as Wise as its most foolish member, divided by the number of people in it. When there isn't anyone leading it... That's not entirely wrong. I think joining a mob is like drinking heavily; makes you brave and foolish, because you feel like you can't be beaten."

"I think it is a virtue, to be willing to risk everything because the world is so unjust it should not stand a day longer. ...not the only virtue, though."

"Yes, and one of those virtues tyranny tries to stamp out the hardest. It needs to be tempered with good judgment, but it's important. ...One of the noble delegates, the Countess-Heiress whose grandfather is rumored to be undead, was attacked with her retainers. Few casualties on either side, and the retainers are being raised. A number of tieflings were caught out on the streets and hung, including at least one child. There were other mobs, but the rest were just opportunists, looting or pursuing grudges which had nothing to do with you or the pamphlets."

Valia considers everyone who was trying to do the right thing her responsibility, but has no particular sympathy for the common murderers. They were not mistakenly under the impression being a common murderer was a good idea. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Are there any favors you'd like to ask of me, before I go?"

Please don't let them also hang everyone who trusted me - best obtained by shutting up.

"No, ma'am."

"Then I'll take my leave. You'll be a formidable force for Good with a few years of experience, Select Wain. I look forward to seeing it."

Valia with great effort takes it as the compliment she suspects it is intended as, instead of as more cruelty, and bows as the Archduchess leaves.

She bows back and departs.