"Sirmium is an archduke, with the authority to enforce the laws - according to our Queen - and the far broader authority to 'take actions necessary for the maintenance and welfare of the people' according to Aspex. The Crown has not told me why they have not released her since then, probably because I have not asked, but I speculate that she is presently held with the intention of charging her when several hundred cases of causing wrongful deaths via incitement to murder."

She nods, making a note. "I do not expect Sirmium to Figure Heavily in my Legal Analysis," she admits. "Most likely it is to my Advantage to hold that Select Wain passed immediately into the Hands of the Crown upon arrival at the Palace. With a Paladin present out of his own Sense of Virtuous Duty, not on Orders; is this Broadly Accurate? In what Chain of Command are you ordinarily fixed?"

"I am a knight of the Order of the Silver Lion, for the past twelve years in service to Lastwall on the Worldwound border with the rank of captain. I retired from Lastwall's service after the closure of the Worldwound and the resumption of the Chelish wars to serve under the Count of Gandisa for the duration of the Chelish wars and as long as we both wish afterwards; when the situation in Cheliax has settled somewhat I expect to return to Sarkoris, unless some new crisis preempts that. I was not acting on explicit orders from any superior, though I was taking those actions that I believe Lastwall, Gandisa and my superiors in the Order would wish me to do."

That's an impressive service record.

"Thank you. After her Speech on the Floor, Select Wain spoke to you; would you give your own Impressions and Recollections of that Conversation?"

He calculates rapidly whether he thinks the conversation was confidential. In some respects, it absolutely is, though he suspects in the important ones it is not.

"Will you swear that you are indeed the lawyer retained by her, that you are acting in her interests, and that you are acting in the interests of the Law?" He expects the answer is no, but she'll swear some subset of it. (He has noticed that she detects as Evil.)

"Narrowed; I am the Lawyer Retained by Select of Iomedae Valia Wain in respect to the Matter of her Speech before the Assembly and certain other Legal Matters arising from it; I act in Select Wain's Interests as respects the aforementioned Matters including but not limited to the Pursuing of her Acquittal on any Charges arising from same; and such Representation and my Acts connected with it are done in the Interest of the Law." Which is too many words to swear to but you can't get stuck claiming to act in someone's interests generally; with 20 minutes and paper she'd draft a better one.

"Is this an Acceptable Narrowing?"

He goes over it in his head. "Yes. My chief impression is that she was shocked and confused, at first by the reception her speech has gotten on the floor, later by what I said. We talked briefly about the reaction to her speech, I explained that I thought it was because her speech would provoke riots in Westcrown if it was published as a pamphlet. That surprised her. She hadn't known about the earlier riots, she didn't realize that it would be taken as an attack on the Queen, didn't realize the nobles the queen had left in power she'd done so deliberately for good reasons. I explained that riots were easy to touch off and that they often targeted the vulnerable, and she was surprised by this. I explained that she would be seen as giving the support of the Church of Iomedae to attempts to kill all nobles and this had never really occurred to her, either that the people she gave the speech to might kill nonevil nobles or that she could be seen as speaking what the Church wanted to say. She'd thought that if it lead people to kill nobles, they would be killing specific nobles, their overlords, who they knew from long experience were evil and unrepentant and she thought the Queen had overlooked. I said that if she knew about specific evil and illegal things the nobles had done after the pardon, she could get them deposed by petitioning the Queen, and she decided that she start by doing that, and shouldn't try to cause any riots unless the Queen turned out to be evil. She impressed me as very young and as not having had any particular training, and I recommended that she speak to Lord Marshal Cansellarion for theological advice."

"Is it a Surprise to hear that she treated your Concerns with Grave Seriousness?"

"Oh no, of course not. She's a priest of Iomedae and I'm a paladin of Iomedae. Once she realized there was a problem she took it seriously."

"I wish to take your Affidavit and possibly receive your Testimony regarding those things you have already said, if you are willing. It is of somewhat Greater Difficulty because you were involved in the matter at Two Points. Perhaps a Substantive Statement regarding your conversation with Select Wain and your impressions of her Ignorance of the Potential for Riots &c.; likewise a Short Procedural Statement not Excessive in Detail that you collected the Select with Sirmium and Gandisa, and stood Guard for a time, and so on, chiefly to establish Events."

"All right." He'll write a couple of short statements.

I spoke to Valia Wain shortly after her speech on the floor. She was confused by the hostility of some of the reactions from the floor, to which I explained that I and others were worried that her speech might provoke riots if published as a pamphlet. This was a surprising and novel idea to her, and I explained my concerns to her in greater detail; she was attentive to the concerns I expressed and planned to alter her behavior afterwards. To my knowledge she did not distribute or cause to be distributed her speech outside the convention hall afterwards; when I next encountered her she was healing the injured after the riots.

The Duke of Sirmium, the Count of Gandisa and I found her after the riots stabilizing the injured and watched over her to prevent further violence targeted at her person until her work was done before escorting her personally to the palace to be handed over to the arrest of Her Majesty's guards, where I stayed with her until she dismissed me.

"They are Good Statements," she pronounces. She'll take his oath and notarize.

"I, the Court, or both shall contact you as regards Testimony; can you be found here Regularly?"

"The best way would be to deliver a message to the Count of Gandisa's residence," he says, and gives the address.

"Then I shall. I have Spoken with him; he seems a Reasonable Lord, though I am not the most Discerning Judge of such. I shall not Further Detain you now, then."

"Nor I you. May Iomedae bless your work." 

Exit, under an umbrella. It's convenient that paladins exist.