He knew the Reclamation was technically independent from Lastwall, but this is really ridiculous. 

“I had the chance to speak to a number of his men in the process of replacing the old nobility and asked them if they considered themselves citizens of Cheliax. They were universally quite insistent that they weren’t – that they were instead sworn members of the Glorious Reclamation, which was an incompatible obligation.” 

“What does it mean to you for someone to be a Chelish citizen?”

“That they reside primarily in Cheliax, are subject to Chelish laws – and of course are due the protection of such rights as the new constitution guarantees them.”

"Is this… different in some way from being a Chelish subject?"

“Subjects don’t have rights! Catherine – I mean, the Queen –  and I always intended that the people of Cheliax would be citizens, once we’d conquered it.” 

Subjects of Lastwall's government have rights…

 “This strikes me as possibly a misunderstanding that’s a consequence of different political vocabulary in different regions of Avistan,” says de Luna, sounding a bit happy about this, “though we’d need to conduct interviews with some of the Glorious Reclamation officers to confirm that.” A Galtan would consider 'citizenship' to carry primarily the implications Cotonnet just named! A person of Lastwall or Molthune would likely interpret the question 'are you a citizen of Cheliax' completely differently!

“Political vocabulary? You mean to say, when I thought I was asking them if they intended to live in Cheliax and abide by Chelish laws instead of moving back to Lastwall or Molthune as soon as the immediate reconstruction was over, they heard – I’m actually having trouble reconstructing what they could have heard. As I understood it, their objection was that their oaths to the reclamation preceded any other obligation including loyalty to any specific country. Surely being a subject would have the same problem?” 

“They are bound to obey the laws of Cheliax while they’re here as anyone else would be, and they would believe that subjects of a just government do have rights. I would expect that they thought you were asking if they considered the legitimacy of the Chelish government to derive from the will of the people in line with the Galtan conception of such, and intended by their presence here to imply or otherwise comment on that legitimacy, and were politely saying, ‘I am a member of an organization without a position on that question’. Rather than taking you to have asked anything at all about where they intend to live, which will probably depend on whether the Reclamation’s granting land here. This is just speculation not yet confirmed by an interview.” De Luna enjoys cultural differences between regions of Avistan. He once meant to write a book about them but couldn’t really justify it.

“Whatever Cansellarion thinks personally, if the reclamation as an organization has no opinion on the legitimacy of the present Chelish government we might have some more serious problems in the future.”

…yes he’s an idiot for getting excited about a matter of language during a tense diplomatic conversation with an ally. In tense diplomatic conversations claims will be taken as having serious geopolitical implications, not as being descriptive of common language usage. “I apologize, Archmage,” says de Luna, chastened. “I meant, on whether the legitimacy of the present government derives from the will of the people or from some other source, not on whether Her Majesty is the legitimate ruler of Cheliax, which to my knowledge the Reclamation was among the first organizations to acknowledge.”

It’s weird when de Luna calls him “Archmage.” It’s weird when anyone calls him Archmage, like he’s Nex or something and not a man whose problems are still bigger than he is, but it’s particularly unsettling coming from people who knew him before. 

“You don’t need to call me that. I’m not offended. It’s just that we clearly weren’t speaking the same language before, and I want to get ahead of any other potential confusions while we still can.” 

“As you say. Well, we should further investigate if that was a miscommunication or if there wasn’t anyone else in Cheliax who met the criteria, but that’s not the priority right now. Did you have a  process for discussing delegates who seemed likely to pose problems? Did Wain strike you as one?”

“ – No. As I saw it, most of the delegates were going to pose problems of one sort or other, and if I didn’t like it I might as well write the constitution myself. None of my companions were following the day to day events that closely. 

I wasn’t worried about Wain before her speech. If anything, I was optimistic – I wanted more people from Pezzack. And I didn’t realize she believed she was being forced to attend against her will.”  

"She believed she was forced to attend against her will?"