"Well, I've got a spell that'd work if he's in this particular house, and can proudly confirm he is somewhere in Creation other than that." But you, hot boy, are a fifth circle wizard.

"If he's on another plane I doubt I'll be able to get to him," he says, "and if he's smart he's made it to Bachuan and is still running, same. In the event that he's foolish enough to be in teleport range - it really is something of a threat to Her Majesty's justice, for a man to be able to murder seven people and try for more and only get out due to a guard's negligence." He nods.

"If he hasn't run, I'll take care of it." He hasn't actually gotten to scry-and-die anyone yet.

Eulàlia would melt, except that that would be pathetic. 

"Terrible how you're all the way out on the coast," she says. "Were I in anyone else's debt I could just bump them up a bit on the Plant Growth rotas I've been setting up for the Barrowood druid."

"Alas that I am out of range for your mutual generosity," he says. "- I do appreciate the firm support you've given the issue of Molthune. I'm optimistic that that will go well, though I'll admit to some worries that on other important issues, we may not be able to sway the requisite votes, given that while reasonable people may be persuaded, Her Majesty has in her wisdom provided us with a number of delegates in whom the faculty has gone somewhat underused..."

He wants her to bribe delegates! This is not as comforting on a deep emotional level as sex would be but it's probably strategically even better because it's a favor he only gets while they're on good terms; the bribes are to follow her, and then she'll follow him. "Most people are moved by something, if it's not reason. I'll see if I can make some friends among the other delegates presently displaced to the palace and perhaps jittery about their post-convention futures. Seguer wasn't particularly disturbed by all the chaos, we have room to make some hires."

"Thank you. I've been trying to recruit talent where I can, but I doubt I'll be able to find room for everyone."

Yes, she picked up that he's penniless. She is regrettably not rich enough that this lets them instantly solve all of each others' problems but it is for her purposes better than if he were rich. "What else are you working on, beyond an end to the civil war in the north?"

"Immediately? Trying to steer us out of crises. Get us all home alive. We're hoping to get a censorship bill passed that will put an end to the bloodthirsty pamphlets without it taking a decade to publish a cookbook. In the longer-term future -"

"- I have no fears for our country for my own lifetime, beyond any acts of idiocy proposed by members of the convention that all right-minded people will oppose. The archmages are with Cheliax." If the archmages were against Cheliax there was nothing they could do. "But Galt has demonstrated that a level of military and civil efficiency unparalleled in history is possible without any divine intervention. Galt is held in marital union with Cheliax, and I have no worries that this will change. But if in a hundred years the archmages' gaze have passed and another nation, Taldor or Qadira, say was to suffer its own revolution and copy Galt's military methods, with a larger population..."

He shrugs. "We would need an army of Galtan quality to oppose it. An army drawn from every stratum of society, with good discipline, meritocratic promotion and swift training, and we would need an efficient and incorrupt system of taxation to pay for it, and one of justice to ensure the taxes are paid. And we would need to accomplish this it without copying the political disasters that lead to the army's development, because that would be a disease for which there is no good cure."

Absolutely none of those are matters Eulàlia has opinions about and half of it sounds carefully phrased the way one carefully phrases opinions adjacent to dangerous ones, though it doesn't as a proposal actually sound dangerous. 'the army should be competent, not incompetent' sounds safe. Is he saying that they need to make the union with Galt more of one? Eulàlia doesn't want that since Galtans are apparently all Chaotic Evil.

The thing about her relationship with Joan Pau is that she does all the figuring out what she believes and wants when she's somewhere else; in front of him she sets that all aside to respond with relaxed cleverness. "Can these methods be copied only for the Queen's army, or could Cheliax respond to - Taldor, or whoever else - with two hundred smaller units trained similarly? The Chelish army seems difficult to make effective and difficult to keep that way, but if Galt has some trick what stops you or I using it?"

That's a good thought that suggests she's paying attention! "Unfortunately, one of the main advantages they have is economies of scale. The same way twenty different tribes couldn't stop Taldor during its era of expansion, even if they managed to unite against it for a battle, so twenty different feudal contingents would have twenty times - or, more likely, ten times - the needed administrative personnel..."

His approving smile is more precious than gold, because no gold can buy safety and hot boy can. She will ask as many reasonable questions about what makes Cyprian's armies great as he seems enthusiastic to answer.

"Lord Marshal!" ...gods, the look on the man's face. 

"- I just wanted to ask if there's anyone on your staff here in Westcrown who reads theology in their free time. I'd like, for the censorship debate, to have some literature of the kind that's permitted in Lastwall despite being in a sense radical in content - I'm sure someone has diligently in language too dense for anyone to get through it argued that all monarchies are illegitimate, or that all inherited titles are, or that all states not founded on territory conveniently recently expunged of inhabitants by a lich-god are. I want to make the point that even radical reasoned arguments ought to be welcome and permitted, it's just about whether the form is incendiary."

Oh what a relief. Thank Iomedae.

"Yes, by coincidence. Not on my staff, per se, but we have some visitors from Lastwall in town and one of them - Alexandre Riguez de Luna - is very well-read."

"Excellent, thank you. Will a letter reach him at the temple?"

"Yes, or I can introduce you tomorrow morning."

"I'd appreciate it and will be there tomorrow morning in any event, I try to make the Sunday sermons.

- if the party has been a trial I regret it as your host. That you may avoid it in the future, or come prepared to do battle - I wrote on the invitation it started at fourteenth bell not at sixteenth and that it'd feature a tour of the gardens, which any Chelish social secretary seventy years ago would have taken to mean everyone should bring their eligible children. As I say this I realize your social secretary is probably just your regular secretary and at best took a moment to try to fathom how I'd fit gardens into the mansion."

They're very small gardens but the fact you aren't constrained by actually keeping the plants alive is helpful for making them impressive ones. 

"Ah. That would explain it... In the future I suspect my secretary and I will appreciate what probably feels like an excessive degree of bluntness and straightforwardness, if you can bear to be so rude as that."

"There is a district of Axis with a magic about it that compels truthfulness, not as an Abadar's Truthtelling but as a habit of mind. One can neither speak with indirection nor even think with it. The merchants will say to you 'the man across the street has higher quality goods and I'm worrying that I can't stay in business at the prices that'd make people want to buy here anyway' and the politicians will say 'I find something satisfying about being in charge of other people, but because I have this deficit of character I'll do this job for less money than anyone else will'.

I went, once, and - at once regretted it, because I'd gone twenty years at that point happily and busily lying to myself about how much it was my fault that Cheliax was ruled by Hell. It is an ugly thing to stop lying to one's self and an uglier one to do it much too late. It took me years to have the nerve to go back, even though it's got all the highest-quality goods.

If you would like your invitations to say 'you need to get married, I need to get married, most of us need to get married, most of the Chelish populace needs to understand what marriage even is, and I worked some gardens into the demiplane to try to make this ordeal at least interesting", I will not feel unbearably rude but rather slightly at home."

"Well then, please feel free to say that. I will, at the very least, know what I'm getting myself into."

Their conversation seems to be at a point where he can enter without intruding. "Duchess, what a fabulous party." He's met his fellow vassal before, and recognizes the count, of course, but they haven't been formally introduced yet.

Well, she can fix that. "You do me too much credit, all of its delights have been a consequence of its guests. Do please permit me to introduce to you His Excellency Alexaera Cansellarion, Count of Lladó, Baron of Alzina, of Figuerola de Meià, of Aren and Aurignac, Chosen Knight of Iomedae and Lord Marshal of the Glorious Reclamation.

Lord Marshal, allow me to introduce to you His Grace Felip de Fraga, Duke of Fraga, Count of Massal, of the great war in the north before the unexpected peace here in the south."

He smiles. "Your Excellency, it is a pleasure to meet you in person. I doubt you recall such a small thing, but many years ago I sent you a letter hoping that we would meet in a reclaimed Cheliax, and here we are."

"Here we are! And of course the war in the north will be over soon, or at least the end is within sight, which is better than anyone has been able to say since the First Crusade."

"So I hope. Many of my friends are still on the front, and I wish them all a swift and sure victory."

Carlota is still in the conversation? Good. "How have you been finding the adjustment from Lord Marshal to also ruling your county? I would hardly know how to manage Fraga without my wife at my side, who was raised from the cradle to be a duchess. I trained for a life of adventure and battle, and was expecting the same for my son, before our joyous surprise last year."