Valentia is alive again! Still kind of torn up about the servants. Mostly because she failed in the mission that was assigned to her, and a little bit because she absolutely cannot bounce ideas for what to wear when their new host is entertaining off of any of the survivors. She hadn't really had to worry about this at Charthagnion Manor. She honestly finds Archduke Narikopolus moderately creepy, given she can remember what things were like three years ago, but for everything he's done, she has not heard that he's ever destroyed someone for wearing insufficiently fancy or feminine clothing to a gathering. Her brother once told her that he did torture a man to death for leaving a bone in a fish, but she thinks it was a guest's plate and not his own, which is technically speaking a positive sign about how he treats his guests. Sort of.

- anyway! Valentia brought her mother's sleeves of many garments (and still has them, since her corpse wasn't looted), so she can wear absolutely anything she wants. She tried wearing the kind of gown that the Duchess de Chelam does - slightly simpler, so as not to outshine anyone - but she's not used to the sleeves, and not used to the idea that she can simply take them off and be wearing her adventuring dress underneath. The dress fit her perfectly and was perfectly comfortable, but somehow she felt like she couldn't breathe, under all of those layers of fabric. Her body still felt like it might need to run at a moment's notice, and you can't run at all, wearing something like that. It wouldn't take a moment to remove the sleeves, but her lungs simply will not believe her about that.

So in fact she is wearing an adventuring dress to a social gathering. You could only very debatably call this a faux pas in Ilnea. It's tasteful! It's expensive looking! It's feminine! It is, objectively, very beautiful! But it's the sort of thing you could run in if you had to, and it's not what the Duchess is wearing at all, and she has no idea how much of a misstep it is in this company. She's gambling that it's less of a misstep than not breathing.

The archduchess is back, after days of wearing herself out too much for proper socializing. She's moving slowly, but relatively cheerful; tired like returning from a long but successful hunt.

She's dressed in a relatively narrow gown with a patterned print of songbirds on white and a high waist, which cuts off just above the ankles except for a train in the back, loosely based on what was fashionable in Galt or Andoran a few years ago.

"I heard you acquitted yourself very well, Lady Valentia," she says as she takes a seat, "I'm glad to see you are well and whole again."

Archduke Xavier's own arrival is, of course, flashy, since he is the sort of man to wear military uniform to many, many occasions, which he forgoes here only because his peacekeeping authorities have been archducal, not noble. Instead he is wearing clothes suitable for a nobleman who has to actually fight, which quietly rustles in a way that suggests he's wearing armor under it. "Indeed," he says. "You died as we all should, when our times come."

Joan-Pau probably counts as a subtype of those counts she wants to compliment, or at least those counts who, while not an ideal choice for her own marriage, are at least not shockingly terrible. He can dress well*, if not extraordinarily, and he looks good, and he's fifth circle, and he only occasionally accidentally makes enemies due to constantly underestimating how terrible everything in Cheliax is.

Anyway, he's here!

(*: This calls for a brief interlude in the current state of the Molthuni signaling equilibrium. Sleeves of Many Garments are very expensive by the standards of commoners, but cheap by the standards of the nobility. You would expect, therefore, that coming to court in one of them would be a sign of desperate poverty, but in fact one of the major cliques of the younger generation in Molthune has been pointedly wearing inherited sleeves to formal occasions in defiance of their elders since Galt rebelled, as a way of demonstrating that they were true patriots who spent their wealth on soldiers and magic items, unlike their decadent parents and cousins, and therefore much more suitable to give military commands to. Joan-Pau sold his silks when he was seventeen and is therefore semi-accidentally saying that he thinks the war is not over yet, due to being incapable of buying another set.)

Eulàlia despite having been making a point of reliably supporting the liberal nobles in everything they do had not yet received an invitation to their events, nor was she expecting to; she is the daughter of a notorious man, young and without friends here in Westcrown, until by sheer fortunate accident she was handed responsibility for getting the druids of the Barrowwood maps of Plant Growth routes through the whole Heartlands and half of Sirmium. She was expecting to prosper by that, eventually, unless it instead got her killed, but she wasn't particularly expecting it to improve things this soon. 

She'll delightedly attend, though! She has far less wealth than other parties present in terms of 'political capital' or 'assurance she won't be disposed of as soon as the Queen meets someone who wants Seguer', but she has plenty of wealth in the form of beautiful dresses, and Cheliax is not so turned on its head that it is not advantageous to look rich.

Being complimented by two archdukes on the manner of her death is really not on the list of experiences Valentia expected to ever have, let alone be present to have to respond to, but she will do her best!

"Thank you both, you're very kind. I would rather have succeeded, of course, but I suppose we can only choose if we fight, not if we win."

Heloisa was quite disappointed that the riots put a temporary end to events where her daughters could be induced to speak to fine young noblemen thus far bereft of wives, and is glad to return to her true work. The Duchess de Chelam, unmarried as she is, is in theory their direct competitor, but there is such an overwhelming flood of unmarried noblemen at this time that she dares hope they can all achieve their aims.

Scholastica does not especially wish to speak to any of these people, but she can appreciate the necessity of both marriage and of meeting the people who she will spend the rest of her life working with. Her priority ought to be physical power, she thinks. Scholastica is overwhelmed at the thought of eventually managing a duchy herself, but it doesn't seem completely hopeless. Defending one seems hopeless.

Carlota has actually put a lot of thought into what she wants from a husband but it all came out a little depressing. The thing is that she ought to have a lot of children; one of Cheliax's most important present deficiencies is the kinship networks that let the nobility sometimes back down from a war with one another, and there are at least five alliances by marriage she'd arrange if she had anyone to hand out for them. And if she marries a man with a title (and she means to) she'll need a reasonable crop of options for his lands, too, and she's already 27, which is old to be getting started. She ought to plan to spend the next decade continually with child, and she's well aware that this is famously exhausting and might well prove incompatible with running Chelam, defending Chelam, clearing out all the monsters in Chelam, occasionally participating in the kind of high stakes politics in Westcrown where one values the ability to flee a mob as a gas, and otherwise pulling her country together.

Her task is less burdensome if she marries a man without a title, in that she could probably get by with four children not eight, but a man without a title will want to run Chelam, and she finds something particularly dreadful about anticipating the sort of marriage she spends trying to fence her husband out of the political power that is hers by right while, of course, obeying him in all other things as is her duty. 


This leaves marrying a man who has his own title and doesn't want Chelam, is powerful enough he can divert some resources towards it if she needs them, and ideally likes her for the person she is at present while also handling it reasonably gracefully if she is too exhausted to keep it up; she prefers that to 'finds the person she is right now vaguely annoying, but will probably like her better once she's too exhausted to do any politicking', even though objectively the latter would be fine, because she does not really want to resent her husband and she worries that she will if he thinks that bearing him eight children and being too tired to do anything else improves her. But then, the only options are someone who'll gracefully tolerate it and someone who'll actively prefer it, and perhaps it's a very dangerous arrogance to look for the first. Blessed Iomedae, show us the path of duty.....ah, actually, You just decided to remain celibate. 

Carlota's anxiety about the whole thing has not of course stopped her from politely but unambiguously flirting with the archdukes and Lord Cansellarion. With everyone else she's aimed for good working relationships, but with a mind to which of those good working relationships could turn into a marriage in a pinch.

Salut would not marry for the good of the realm if her life depended on it, and it does not. Give her an adventurer with poetry in his heart and not the slightest taint of hell about him, or give her nothing at all.

He's aware, of course, that many of the noble attendees of the convention are looking for husbands or wives, especially those resurrected out of the past without whatever spouses they may have had originally. He probably ought to be working on it himself. It's still going to be awkward, especially given the recent revelations about his family that no reasonable person would hold against him to his face but might well still consider when choosing a father for their children. At any rate he expects to spend much of the dinner answering less-than-pleasant questions about his genealogy.

... one advantage of the Menadorian nobility with all its tieflings and orcs is that they know they live in a glass house with respect to this sort of thing. Valentia doesn't look hellblooded. in fact she's quite pretty, and she seems much more interesting than the typical noblewoman—

Huh, what the fuck? Where did that come from? He buries it; she's the exact opposite of who he should be looking for along so many axes.

Juan is present! He greets his host politely, and introduces his sister.

Lucretia is not currently holding up an invisible sign reading "HELP, I'M TRAPPED IN MY INSANE BROTHER'S HOUSE", but only because she's not sure whether it'll help right now. She convinced her brother to bring here using reasoned argumentation - that is, observing that he can make allies by arranging a match for her. So they have the same goal! The goal for her to end up in someone else's house, and not his!

Jilia has not entirely gotten used to the idea that she ought to need children. The Lord Mayoralty isn't properly inherited and she had a chosen successor if she happened to die in a position to favor one. What she actually believed was that she'd either die condemned a traitor for dancing too close to the edge of Asmodean orthodoxy or survive to die in the revolution that would have come in time. In any of those cases she'd not be best served by marriage or children. Also she's very old to be starting, 31; there will only be a few even if she's married tomorrow.

Really she ought to find a powerful adventurer of decent character - fifth circle or so - who can handle serious monster attacks across an entire archduchy. Preferably with some support network that can respond to smaller crises lesser nobles would handle, so she can pick some lesser nobles who can't, in fact, handle those. If he's no good with politics that's entirely well, and if he wants to run most of the duchy and leave just Kintargo to her that's fine too, as long as he isn't an idiot who will botch the job.

So, the ideal looks more or less exactly like Joan-Pau Ardiaca. But unfortunately the primary face of warmongering for the Molthune faction is one of the few men who would cause her political problems she isn't sure she could handle. And in any case, of all the men who will be massively in demand, she suspects he will be second of all non-archdukes, and possibly ahead of some of those.

She is decades out of practice at flirting seriously and would be utterly hopeless if Rexus didn't tease her enough to keep her from entirely forgetting how it works.

"Yes. When the fight comes looking for you you can fight or you can run, and you picked the right option."

Xavier needs to marry, and he is talking to an interesting and attractive young woman, but he is not, particularly, thinking of these two facts as related, twenty percent because she's a tiefling, ten percent because she's only a count's niece, ten percent because her father's illegitimate and sixty percent because his last three marriage proposals to Interesting People were met with, respectively, flat refusal, howling gales of laughter, and "I like you, but..."

The problem is that Chelish noblewomen are fundamentally very uninteresting, because everyone who isn't inclined to run off and be a hero is uninteresting, but people who do want to run off and be heroes don't want to stop until they're forty. Hence the unsolved problem.

Joan-Pau is happy to greet the new guests as they arrive!

(His romantic opinion is that he probably has to get married at some point, little though he likes it, because he's not going to find the right person. The right person would have to be as smart as he is, as full of honesty and integrity as Feliu, and willing to run support for his latest insane schemes, and no matter how eligible a bachelor you are you can't plausibly ask for two of those and at best you have to settle for one.)

Oh, yes, Juan Ventura! He met him once, back before he was duke. Liked hunting, he recalls. He should greet his vassal.

Alexeara Cansellarion has spent his entire adult* life celibate because any family would happily be used against him by the forces of evil, and has long since gotten used to celibacy. He's abstractly aware, now, that he should be looking for a wife, he just...doesn't know how. And nearly every eligible candidate is half his age or younger. Most of the women he actually likes on a personal level are married, themselves celibate, or dead. So rather than looking for a potential wife, he's spending a fair bit of time avoiding potential wives when not busy with other obligations. He still goes to convention dinner parties, though.

*Also his childhood, but that's less marked.

"Count Cansellarion! A pleasure to finally meet you. Allow me to also introduce my daughters, Scholastica and Salut."

Scholastica curtseys, and smiles sincerely. She supposes the man must have his pick of every unmarried woman in Cheliax, but that's no call to avoid the man; he must pick someone. And if one has to marry a Chelish nobleman, one really couldn't ask for more.

One could, one just isn't likely to find it. Not here, anyway. "I am sure you must be bored of talking about your struggle against the Thrunes, but if you do find yourself moved to storytelling tonight, I am sure you will find an eager audience."

Who are these people and why did Chelam invite them instead of the usual set of variously pragmatic gentlemen? 

"I don't doubt that I would, but I have just spent most of the day explaining the events of the convention to a Lastwall investigative team, which has rather blunted my desire to tell tales, regardless of how attentive and enthusiastic the audience." Now, for a way to escape without offending anyone before they find some other reason he should spend the next half hour in their company - 

"Unfortunately, I have some things to urgently discuss with Archduke Requena about the events of earlier this week. I thank you very much for the introductions, Duchess."

"Of course. We shall have to speak more later, when your business is concluded."

Oh he's as bad at this as she is, isn't he. Shelyn save him, and he's the - second-? - most eligible bachelor in Cheliax.

"Xavier! I wanted to ask how well your men have encountered any issues patrolling the city, where I or my men could be of more help?"

(a few moments before -) 

"Gandia." He bows. "I don't think we'd had the chance to talk, I wanted to tell you how sorry I was about your father's death."

Juan bows back, only a little sloppy about it. "Your concern is appreciated, Archduke. He was a great man. I hope to follow his example."

HA.

"I wish I had more time to know him -"

"- Ah, hello, Marshal. The situation still seems under control, unless your men happen to have more of a knack for investigative work than mine. The streets are still quiet, thank all the gods, though there's too many bodies we don't have names for."

"Not for the most part, but there are a few with some expertise. If your men want to send any open mysteries along, they might have a bit more success. For unidentified bodies, you'll want Pharsmins once they're done clearing the undead off the streets, of course."

"We've got some killings that look like murders," he admits, "and I'll be glad to get them to someone who knows how to handle them properly."

"Terrible lawlessness in Westcrown, these days."

"Indeed. Juan, allow me to introduce to you His Excellency Alexaera Cansellarion, Count of Lladó, Baron of Alzina, of Figuerola de Meià, of Aurignac and of Aren, Chosen Knight of Iomedae and Lord Marshal of the Glorious Reclamation.

Lord Marshal, allow me to introduce to you His Grace Juan Ventura, Duke of Gandia, Count of Maella and Parlava."

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance." Ventura's accent isn't Molthuni, so - "Are you one of the lords the archmages raised from the dead?"

"No, count." If there is emphasis on the second word, it's ambiguous. "My family spent the long years of exile in Taldor, and I am lucky not to be alone. This is my sister, Lucretia."

She has heard of Alexeara Cansellarion. He is older than she imagined, but a paladin is good. Definitionally. She curtsies. 

Oh, that makes sense of it. She looked much too young to be the duke's wife. "I am pleased to meet you as well."

"She is unmarried, and grows lovelier every day." It would be marrying down for her, technically, but Juan can keep track of who the very most important counts are, at least if they come up constantly.

(She's, what, sixteen? Acceptable in Taldor, but barely so in Cheliax, and not at all in Lastwall. Carlota should rescue Alexaera here but a rescue from her would come across entirely wrong.)

Oh, now people are attempting to marry him to their relatives who are a quarter of his age. He...should really probably just pick someone tolerable so that they'll all stop.

"I believe you that it is so, and I am sure that when she is an adult woman there will be many men who would be glad to have her as a wife, if she does not choose to join the priesthood instead." That is less diplomatic than would be ideal but he isn't particularly averse to rebuking the duke of Gandia for trying to marry his child sister to men four! times! her! age!

Shrug. "I doubt so she will have much longer to wait."

Right, change the subject - "Did the two of you fare okay during the riots?"

"Fortunately, they did not touch us. And you?"

"I was unfortunately out of the city when they happened, and did not receive notice until it was all over."

Juan has a stable of comments ready to go about the poor behavior of Chelish commoners. Luckily, they answer to far more capable rulers than they once did, who will not take long to bring them to heel.

This is very silly. She is on a mission, and listening to a man who thinks she is a child speak about the riots does not accomplish it. She excuses herself and leaves to find someone else.

"Archduke." Carlota curtsies. "It is good to see you returned to us. I have a proposal I hoped you might find a moment tonight to take a look at. - a legislative proposal," given the general mood around here tonight.

"It's not that I'm averse to other kinds of proposal," he says, because why not, "but I do find them a bit hard to contemplate properly given—the shock of my recent experiences. Anyway, do you have a copy with you?"

She does!! Featuring the changes from the latest round of revisions, it now reads: 

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 it is marked with an Arcane Mark of the creator and a note of the Statute under which it is permitted, of which five are henceforth enumerated, with the Queen or a future legislative body permitted to add others.

Firstly, all material is permitted by the First Publication Statute of Cheliax if 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, notwithstanding a direct decree of the Queen to the contrary; 

Secondly, material is permitted by the Second Publication Statute of Cheliax if the material is published by a licit and authorized publishing house, and marked with an Arcane Mark on each page of a copyist registered with that publishing house, that it may be attributed to a man who is fully legally liable for any lawless consequences of its distribution;

Thirdly, material is permitted by the Third Publication Statute of Cheliax if 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). It is unlawful to mark a book as permitted under this statute if it adopts the form of a book of Accounts, Recipes, etc. to make a political, social or religious argument; in any case where a work is even ambiguously of political, social, or religious effect it must seek authorization under some other statute.

Fourthly, material is permitted by the Fourth Publication Statute of Cheliax if approved by any board of censors appointed by the Crown. No such board exists and this Law does not create one; but should one in the future be created any materials it authorized would be legal under this Law.

Fifthly, the right to know the Law being fundamental to a Lawful society, any book or printing of the Law in which the law is not abridged or modified is legal under the Fifth Publication Statute of Cheliax.

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 an Arcane Mark indicating under which statute they are authorized, 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. Falsely marking a work as authorized under a Statute which does not permit its distribution is henceforth illegal, and punishable with the destruction of the spellbook used to so mark the work, with a sentence of up to hard labor, with 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 an Arcane Mark indicating under which statute they are authorized, is legal, if those works are not displayed publicly, not copied save in extremely limited quantities for personal recordkeeping, not sold, not distributed, not read aloud, and not made available to others for display, copy, sell, or read aloud in any way. The possession of works which are marked with an Arcane Mark indicating under which statute they are authorized is legal, even if that mark was made contrary to the law, except where directly forbidden by decree of the Crown.

"It's much more sensible than the law was in my day," he says after looking it over. "Of course, if Taldor of old tried to implement this system, the six thousand solidi would turn into a bribe for the censors and no one would ever get paid for damages even if they occurred—it's probably a good idea if it can be prevented from becoming that. Although I'm wary of giving Molthune and Osirion that kind of authority over our law—the benefit of Lastwall's exception can probably be gotten by declaring that the Church of Iomedae can print whatever it likes—the Church, that is, not any empowered cleric, an important distinction in light of recent events."

"I do not want to write in a special exception for the Church of Iomedae, though I acknowledge they would probably not use it for ill. I do not really expect either Molthune or Osirion to start allowing the printing of radical literature and if they do we can always remove them as allies in good standing in this respect, but if there's some specific thing they permit that gives you pause perhaps I should reconsider that conviction."

"I suppose the Church can afford a bond of six thousand solidi and if they couldn't the Abadarans would probably put it up for a nominal fee." Maybe not after the last week. "The thing I'm concerned about with Molthune and Osirion is that they might permit proselytization for gods that we would prefer to ban—though I don't actually know their policies on that. Probably at least you want to clarify that a pamphlet being permitted in one of the countries on the list doesn't excuse it if it's prohibited under some law other than this one."

"The bit about nonwithstanding if it's barred by some other decree of the Queen is meant to cover that, but maybe I can write it more clearly. One of my significant concerns here is that most of the population Cotonnet chose for the convention is  hostile to laws having more than three clauses. Everything in this law makes it less restrictive, not moreso, but I suspect it'll be harder to pass than a simple ban and the introduction of a board of censors. I'm still optimistic, though. When I've talked to the ordinary people of Cheliax they've been emphatically in favor of ending the pamphlets at once and I expect many of the convention attendees will feel similarly."

"It's legitimately a complicate issue, though, and while people are rightly suspicious of Asmodean trickery that's no reason to make the law worse—perhaps you should petition the queen for an emergency decree stopping the pamphlets for the duration of the convention. By the time the new constitution goes into effect it will almost be too late. Cotonnet won't like it, but then at least we might be able to debate what the law going forward should be without it feeling like a referendum on the riots."

"I have counselled her to that effect. My impression is that the Queen is unwilling to act to curtail the pamphlets unless this is the will of the assembly, as she doesn't want to be seen as - taking a stance that'd influence ours."

"It remains unclear to me whether the convention is empowered to pass laws with immediate effect, or just to produce a document for the Queen to promulgate or just as likely to ignore."

"We can pass laws to immediate effect! Abolition's going to happen immediately, as it's otherwise too damaging to have the rumors of it in advance of it actually happening."

He's not really sure she has any authority to claim that. Presumably abolition will formally happen by a decree of the Queen even if she's following the convention's mood on the issue, and the Queen may well be too dependent on the goodwill of her Galtan archmage to decree a ban on pamphlets, convention's mood or no.

Alexeara eventually manages to extract himself from the duke of Gandia listing all the horrible things that he thinks should be done to rioters, oblivious to every attempt to explain mercy or compassion. He'd keep arguing with the man, but eventually it became obvious it was a lost cause. After being caught again by the duchess of Anferita, and being introduced to a couple more eligible bachelorettes in whom he has no interest, he manages to make his way over to Joan-Pau and relative safety.

"Marshal! Good to see you. How has the monster-slaying been going?"

"Ardiaca! There's always more to do, but very few things that require me, specifically anymore. I got an anonymous tip about one of the last immolation devils left over from the war a couple days ago, so that's one fewer."

"I am very pleased to hear it. Have you seen the Abadaran pamphlet on slavery? I think we're making real progress towards a low-crisis solution."

"I don't currently have the staff free to look through all the pamphlets and find the ones worth paying attention to, so no - Against?"

"Yes, the High Banker of Molthune wrote it to explain why inherited slavery is theologically closer to slave raiding than debt slavery and therefore should be abolished in Cheliax. - My sister, Silvia. I don't know if you two have met?"

"If we have it was many years ago and only in passing."

"Alas. Possibly I should make a more formal introduction, at some point; she's an important figure in Molthune province, after all, and -" he raises an eyebrow "- rather more in political sympathy with you than with me, where we disagree." Because Abadar is opposed to all offensive war.

Joan-Pau. Over the past week I have been introduced to seventeen sisters, twenty-four daughters, one aunt, a dozen cousins, two vassals, eight noblewomen speaking in their own right, and one man willing to be grand polymorphed. If I misjudge your intent and your sister is married or celibate, then I would be delighted to be introduced now; Otherwise - and know that I mean no slight to you or your family with this - please, take pity, and wait until this convention is over.

"Yes, perhaps you should. I suppose I ought to read her writings first, is it just the one pamphlet or has she written more?" And he can smile, expressing only the parts of his emotional makeup that he endorses feeling right now, and listen to his friend expound on his sister's many virtues, and face with steely resolve and a paladin's courage the prospect of another extremely eligible woman half his age.

To be fair, she's an older sister, so it's only half!

"Are you meaning to attend Wain's 'trial' tomorrow?" she asks the Count-Regent, as the party present who she would guess is other than her most excited to see Valia Wain die.

"I probably will. Of course I expect to see justice done, but it will do part of me good to actually see it." He's been spending a lot of time thinking about the odds of someone trying to stab him if he leaves the mansion without more security than he has, but he's not sure how much he wants to talk about that.

"I've been checking the bulletins frequently for any news of the man who led the mob that came to my home. It's just - hard to feel safe while they still live."

Poor kid. At least if someone does come to stab him personally he's pretty confident that he can notice and stab them first, unless they're an actual targeted assassin. "I agree. I'm unsure how much of the rest of the city agrees with them, right now, and I expect delays to embolden the criminals further. Right now I'm regretting leaving my best security to defend Ilnea, but that Westcrown is more dangerous than expected doesn't make Ilnea safer. I sent for some anyway, but I hope it's not a mistake."

"I wouldn't say the crowd seemed sympathetic, at the 'trial' of the 'Friend of the True People', but I also don't think they were properly - on the side of justice. I think it might be important for the executions to be public and not just the fact-finding. You can't make much of a show about the fact-finding, and most people - don't care about the Queen, or Law, or peace, they care about who they'll regret defying -"

"Mm. I do think people need certainty about what the law is and what the consequences are, and I imagine that not actually seeing the consequences makes them seem less certain. Especially in combination with a broad push towards leniency."

"Maybe when the convention restarts we can pass a law that executions must be public, may not for serious crimes be swift, and maybe that the victim's families should be consulted in the manner of the death. Probably too late to get it done properly for Wain but maybe not too late to keep order in the city."

He wishes he could blame this on her being a recovering Asmodean but this opinion wouldn't actually have been out of place in old Taldor.

"—as a point of clarification, was attendance at public executions mandatory, under the old regime?"

"Not in Seguer." At least not formally. That would be a lot of work, and kind of unnecessary. People attend executions because they like seeing justice done, and because there aren't many other sources of entertainment around. "That I wouldn't think much of, as a policy; if a man's got work to do, what's achieved by demanding he abandon it?"

"Most countries do executions in public, but deliberately making spectacles of them seems distinctly Asmodean. From what I've heard of how the old regime did it, it seemed less about encouraging fear of the law than it was about training the audience to think that watching a man be tortured to death was entertaining rather than horrifying."

"I have no desire to encourage men in cruelty, Archduke. I fear only that leniency, too, can encourage men in cruelty, for they learn that no matter what they do to someone -" is he vulnerable to her voice trembling very slightly - "they need never fear answering for it. If a man contemplates stirring up a mob, and thinks of his fate, and decides not to do it, that's less cruelty in the world, not more."

"I'm not suggesting that we stop executing people, just that we do it in private—Lord Cansellarion, how is justice done in Lastwall?" He wouldn't normally interrupt but the man would probably in fact prefer to discuss public executions than yet another proposal of marriage, and while he is in a manner of speaking introducing Cansellarion to yet another young, single noblewoman, this one does appear to have her sights set on someone else.

Yeah Eulàlia has zero desire to marry a paladin. He hasn't offered to duel for her at all and probably isn't allowed to because paladins suck.

Three vassals give the man the benefit of the doubt.

"With regard to executions? Civillian courts usually carry them out in private, military courts carry them out in front of a gathering of soldiers - the involved or affected company, usually. In either case it's as swift and painless as possible. Usually beheading."

A Chelish person - so, Llei, but probably not the Archduke or the paladin - can tell that Eulàlia is very very scared and very very angry. "Thank you, Lord Cansellarion. That makes sense. I suppose it is in any event little matter what the procedure would be, when the leader of the mob who came to my home in any event does not appear to stand accused of anything and most probably is not even in custody."

"That's very unfortunate. I know a lot of the mobs dispersed before they could be arrested, but while tracking down every participant would be difficult I think an effort should be made to catch the instigators and leaders, at least. Hopefully such an effort is underway and he'll be caught soon."

"No, no, he was caught. The Archduke Xavier caught him in the midst of slaughtering his way through the home after mine, and took him in. He simply has not been charged with any crimes, nor have inquiries been answered about whether he is still in custody. I of course trust wholly in the wisdom of Her Majesty and do not imagine it ever possible to be inappropriately merciful."

"Oh." What possible reason could the queen have for - OK, no, probably this is a result of the watch being corrupt or incompetent or something else besides 'the queen personally decided to spare this one rioter for evil archmage reasons.'

"Would you like me to look into this? My inquiries might not be answered any more readily than yours, but I can try. Did you learn his name, or anything else about him?"

"He identified himself proudly though of course perhaps falsely as Rui d'Argent, he killed - the lords of Solpont and Altama and several more but I didn't recognize them. He acted proudly in the name of Good and justice, told us so, and was sure that the Queen supported him wholly -" She should stop, she's going to get herself killed. 

"I will see what I can learn of his fate."

"I am very grateful, my lord, and do not doubt that Good and justice are in this and all things ultimately triumphant." She wants to be not here. She wants to be - with Joan Pau, except she can't afford to come across clingy - 

- no, wait. She wants from him a feat of wizardry. And wizards sometimes are perfectly delighted to be asked by pretty girls to do feats of wizardry. "If you'll forgive me -"

"Of course."

"Archduchess! Nasty business, this week. Have you spoken with Her Majesty about it? It occurs to me that you alone, of us, has experience of governing a city inclined to rebellion without falling to the comprehensible temptation to either let the rebels burn it or do it yourself."

"Duke Puigventós, a pleasure to see you again. I haven't; I've been spending most of my time dealing with the people of the city directly. Doing favors, establishing my presence. I've found it's vital, in keeping a city calm, to have someone they know, who they believe will listen to them, so that they will listen in return."

"Well, I hope it works, and it sounds more credibly like the sort of thing that might than most of the proposals I've heard thrown around. I think a few years back, at Eodred's ill-fated wedding, you were introduced to my son, Guifré, now count of Palnes."

"Archduchess. I am honored."

Well, she wasn't going to avoid this forever. He's so young...

"So much has happened since, it seems much longer. Has Palnes been proving manageable, Count Guifré?"

"We've had peace, praised be the gods, and plenty of trouble but less of it now than a year ago. In your capable hands of course Kintargo is flourishing."

"You're too kind; anyone with as much experience would do fine." Ravounel has been overwhelming, but how to say that in a way that doesn't encourage him to 'offer his support'... "It's left me with entirely the wrong retainers for securing an archduchy against monsters, sadly; I really ought to find some veteran adventurers to tie myself to."

"What needs doing?"

"In the mountains we have orcs, and I think a dragon;" - because it survived attacking Vyre after she talked to it ten years ago - "most of what comes over the Nidalese border is refugees and horsemen chasing them but neither is easy to deal with peacefully and undead and kytons spill over as well; there are monsters in the deep sea not far off shore and we don't know what kinds yet, I need to deal harshly with the druids of Ravounel Forest some time soon if the little girl they sent doesn't prove much more useful than she acts; and Barzilai Thrune almost certainly left some greater devils around before the archmages dealt with him. That I know about. Menador has it worse, but their Archduke and his nobles are much better suited for dealing with them personally."

"I hope it not outrageously presumptuous, Archduchess, to observe that were you to offer your hand to the man who got rid of that dragon and saw the border villages a year of peace you'd have a thousand men spring to the work at once. ...what sort of dragon is it?"

"Red. Building-sized, last it was seen, so an adult specimen. I'm reluctant to entrust the future of the archduchy to pure strength at such a volatile time; foreigners or borderline Asmodeans could both be quite destructive in different ways, but I hadn't given the possibility much thought, I am still used to thinking myself married to Kintargo. ...You're probably correct that I ought to try it."

How can she get herself out of this...

She absolutely can't! "It is to you that the archduchy's future has been entrusted, and it's yours to rule no matter who you choose to aid you in that task. Where was the dragon last sighted?"

"Either near Terapsillion in the northeast, or about fifty miles from the Menador Gap, but it's been quiet. For certain, ten years ago in Vyre. Shortly after I convinced it Kintargo wasn't worth its time." Okay, she can boast a little, she likes telling this story. "I told it Nidal would be a better target and it didn't want to face the Chelish army teleport reserves, which made it go away. I could not possibly have anticipated that it would have a short attention span and attack Vyre instead of going a much longer way."

And now she's responsible for Vyre. She's really not happy about that.

He will happily listen to the story for as long as there's more to tell of it!

Valentia is aware that she is supposed to be looking for a husband. It is important. For her, for her father, for her mother. For her brothers, with their terrified heartlands wives, who her father forbade them from divorcing.

Unfortunately, almost everyone here is too important for her and looks utterly miserable, especially the other young women about who are being more diligent about their work than she is. Half of them are not Chelish, and she can see the distress written all over their faces. She does not want to compete with them, and is sure she could not if she tried. So -

"Hello. Valentia Napaciza, niece of the countess of Ilnea, in Menador. Forgive me for introducing myself. The sheer volume of strangers here makes it a problem for which we ought to have hired a logistics officer." Many nobles would be offended, but she thinks -

She smiles. "Scholastica. My mother is Duchess of Anferita. We were of Kortos, before."

"Near the city? I've never been, but they say it's something out of legend."

"Further north. The countrysides aren't so very different, but it's much safer. Very little you could call a real monster, and dozens of adventurers looking to kill anything arguable. My sister is a bit of one, but I'm afraid I spent most of my time raising pegasi before this."

"Pegasi! Do you train them yourself?"

"My father is the expert, but yes. They're mostly wanted by adventurers, so training is a long process of building rapport, training their flying skills, and exposing them to new situations, so they don't panic the first time they come across something unexpected. It's an odd business. Without magic, one can only usefully sell to men the pegasus judges worthy. Some people simply charm them, but then you run the risk of being dumped off one the moment it's dispelled, or the pegasus feels you are taking unnecessary risks with its safety."

"How many do they find worthy?"

"Depends wildly on the individual. You can breed pegasi to be more accepting, of course, but it cuts against other things one might want. As a rule, the best ones know their worth, and have high standards."

Pegasi are...intelligent good creatures. They don't speak, but they understand language fine, and in emergencies there are plenty of accounts of them finding a way to communicate something complicated. She doesn't really want to pick a fight with her guests, much less to jump into a conversation just to do that, but -

"It strikes me that there is something troubling about breeding pegasi, in that I would expect them to have their own patterns of courting and to have all the distress humans do at being assigned a spouse - or, really, all the notably worse distress humans feel at being commanded in an assignation without marriage." Carlota would absolutely oblige some people to marry under some circumstances but obliging them unmarried to sleep together would be horrendous.

Ah. She's really more used to fielding criticism from the other direction, but this is a different place.

"I don't disagree. To my knowledge nearly all creatures have their ways of courting, though pegasi have higher standards than most. They do not marry, of course, but they are loyal creatures, and prefer to care for their mates and children. In general, a pegasus physically forced to bear children cannot be ridden after, and can be permitted no significant contact with her children. Some breeders would say one makes it up in volume, but I don't think it improves quality in the most important senses, and would claim it's a poor business decision on the whole. But I agree that it also seems a wrong to them, and have been told that it clouds my sense."

Xavier cannot help overhear this conversation, and is, as happens fairly rarely to him, struck dumb. It's not that he hasn't heard people talking about breeding hippogriffs before, and it's not that he doesn't envy Lastwall's elite pegasus archers, the fastest cavalry in the world, and he's sure Molthune's leadership has discussed ways to try to try to copy it, but they have some moral standards -

Seriously what! He is currently imagining this conversation making its way back to Skybreaker, who understands Taldane perfectly well even if he can't speak it with a beak and imagining trying to talk him out of a dashing aerial raid on the pegasus breeding facility. He might be able to convince him that pegasi are more like hippogriffs than gryphons for all the obvious reasons but that's false -

" - I've never heard anyone speak so ill of their own conscience," she says, perhaps ill-advisedly, once she's found words at all.

Oh dear. She's spent so long expecting to be horrified by everyone she meets in Cheliax, and here they are being horrified with her. For something she agrees with the duchess about, but - 

"I don't personally produce new pegasi without the parents' agreement," she says, which she worries sounds an awful lot like 'I don't personally torture my children, but all of my friends do'. "It is, unfortunately, a common evil on Kortos, though I can't say I think it's a worse evil than humanoid slavery, which of course is far more rampant."

"Actually, Duchess - if you'll forgive my ignorance, I've heard from my mother that the convention passed a resolution against slavery in Cheliax, but I am uncertain exactly what situations it applies to. I will be happy to see slavery go, and if the law should interfere with owning pegasi as well, then so be it, I suppose. But long experience with them and with other beasts has left me uncertain of the lines that seem so obvious to others, and I am curious what line this convention draws."

"It is our hope to introduce the first measure addressing slavery on the floor on Moonday, but it addresses only the slavery of halflings, precisely because it is difficult to define, and give force of law, all of the distinctions that strike me as being of importance. I hope the convention will address those too, but the slavery of halflings is widespread enough, and widely-speculated-on enough, that it seemed ill-advised to bundle it with what I expect to be a very complicated debate.

But that's to speak of the law, and - what you said sounded, to me, like you feared that your concern for the wellbeing of your charges would cloud your judgment. And - that is your judgment; there is no greater thing it approximates. If you desire to do right by pegasi then I hope you will not wait on the rest of us, or better yet that you'll advise the rest of us. I do not know there to be a pegasus breeding industry in Cheliax but if there is I do think we should ban it." The Archduke's looking horrified, hopefully that's because he disapproves of enslaving Good intelligent creatures to force them into the service of men not fit to ride them as a matter of character and not because Molthune actually has a slave pegasus army she's managed not to hear of.

"Indeed," Xavier says. "There is no pegasus breeding industry in the north, at least; horses and hippogriffs, yes, but no pegasi. It would provoke a revolt." Though to be fair, everything does, in Molthune.

"I ought not to wildly speculate on policies for an industry I have just learned of but 'all pegasus breeding must be done by men judged worthy by the pegasi, with no charms involved' is the first idea I thought of."

"Others have not thought very highly of my opinions on these matters, but if you are interested, I will give them. I see very little difference, morally, between pegasi and horses. This is not to say that I think it is fine to mistreat both; I mean the opposite. Pegasi have more complex needs, and higher standards for their riders, and for that reason raising pegasi is more demanding work. But I think there is a great tendency among humans to hear that a creature reads as intelligent as they do, by a wizard's tests, and only then consider its wellbeing. In fact, its pain would be the same, however much or little of us it understood. Pegasi are choosy, both with their mates and their riders, and should not be forced to bear children or riders that they do not wish. Horses are much less so, but it is not unheard of for them to reject a mate, nor for them to reject a rider, and I know of no civilization that cares. Pegasi understand what happens to their foals, and will mourn a foal that is given to an unworthy master. Horses love their foals when present, but cannot understand when a master is responsible for taking them away, and therefore can be robbed of what they love without much consequence. They each feel the sting of the whip in precisely the same manner. But a pegasus is far more capable of resistance and escape, while a horse is easily rendered defenseless, and easily made to accept such treatment. I am not certain that this does not make it worse to strike the horse, just as it is worse to strike a small child than it is to strike a man. I certainly do not think that a man who beats his horse is any kinder than one who beats his pegasus. I only think that he is less foolish."

"But I do not think that either species is very well equipped to make its way alone in civilization, and I have heard that those raised in captivity generally do very poorly when released into the wild. I do believe that we have a responsibility to see to the welfare of all creatures we raise, but I do not think this is in any way the same thing as saying that the law should act towards all of them as it acts towards people. What specific treatment the law should prohibit, I am not sure."

This is a very long speech.

"There are a great many moral matters that aren't properly legal matters, and I'm inclined to say that the right treatment of horses, and children, is mostly that, because it is hard to imagine how a lord might intervene on the situation and improve it thereby, where improvement could come readily from men cultivating - more patience, more virtue, more awareness of their duties. But - the pegasi do seem a matter, to me, readily improved by a law. Or possibly not because perhaps there is no such industry in Cheliax. Not in Menador, I take it, Valentia? I know you have gryphons....used to have gryphons." She knows that in Acts Menador had gryphons, which is really an embarrassing amount to be out of date on knowledge of your not very distant northern neighbors.

"We do still, some of us! But you must earn a gryphon. They will never bear a rider they do not respect. I have heard of people stealing the eggs, but not of it going well for them."

"I have to say, I find this sympathetic in the gryphons and the pegasi. Not that it would be right to enslave a race of people just because they're mostly Evil, but - there is something that appalls me particularly, about enslaving a race because they have standards and you can't be bothered to meet them."

"I persuaded Skybreaker he'd get into more interesting fights, win more magic items, eat better and get stronger faster if he came with me. The same way I recruit most of my men, really."

"You have a gryphon?" This would be very cool for most people, but actually doesn't make Xavier in particular much cooler, because you sort of automatically assume that Archdukes are very impressive. It's just that she didn't know what the particular impressive things would be. "Where did you find him?"

"The Mindspin Mountains! I went in hunting Kuthite raiders and discovered he had the same objective. We hit it off and I explained that it was usually this exciting where I was because that's where I was trying to go, and he decided next to me was the place to be."

"I see. I've seen them flying overhead, but I've only really met one. Not friendly. Tolerant, on a good day. He belonged to the father of one of my - well, I shouldn't say adventuring companions in this company. Friends."

"Do you adventure? I've heard Menador is quite dangerous."

"No, no. Only in the sense that I had three older brothers who wouldn't let me hunt monsters with them. Being fourteen and very dramatic, I put together a group of some of the minor lord's daughters who were similarly annoyed, and we decided that we would adventure ourselves, no boys allowed. It was in most respects a very silly children's game. And then we got a little older and the no boys rule was rather embarrassing, and we thought about changing it and being serious, but - at some point people in the area started occasionally coming to us with real problems that they didn't trust my father or his men with. It is easier not to be scared of five teenage girls who like to play hero. So we decided to be silly and help where my brothers could not, rather than serious and take the same jobs they already did. But in the last year half the group has gotten married, so more recently I have been bored."

"Sounds like a good way to get started," he says, making a note of the easier not to be scared point. People in Cheliax seem to be scared quite a lot. "Goblins and wolves, rather than serious challenges?" He is almost-completely straight-faced and only very slightly visibly joking.

"Sometimes! But goblins and wolves are really among the easiest things to go to the local lord about. If the problem is - 'we think the local school is haunted, but the priest does not believe us', or 'my daughter is missing, I do not know if she has run off with a boy or if the orcs have taken her', who will you go to? Certainly not the lord or his men. But you may risk me, occasionally."

"Ah. Yes, I see that." He wants to give her a job offer! The job is "low-level adventuring party leader!" Tragically she's already doing it for someone else.

"That is a very good solution to a problem I've found myself encountering frequently, which is that people accustomed to Asmodean Cheliax often - do not report problems until they have grown so large and unambiguous that there is no question of whether they were presumptuous to report them. Instead of 'at the outset, when there is a single ghoul and addressing it is trivial', or even 'at the point where it was predictably going to become a great disaster."

She's not especially doing it for anyone right now, actually, which is a far greater tragedy.

"It's difficult. They're right not to trust the authorities, in many cases. I think being a group of young women helps, and I think not acting in an official capacity helps. But I also think that starting as near children and patrolling the same area for eight years helps, and there is no shortcut for that."

He nods. It's a good point.

(He briefly considers an insane instantaneous marriage proposal at this point and rejects it instantaneously.) "Well, if you find yourself bored in Westcrown, we're still finding zombies in the streets. Somehow I doubt you will, though."

"I think my father would prefer I not immediately place myself in mortal peril again, so I will leave the undead to you this particular week. At some point I should investigate the city's many and numerous problems, but not alone. Actually - Lady Gaudi-Bittner, you said your sister was a bit of an adventurer?"

"Much less than you, I think, but she would certainly like to be. At the moment she's only first circle."

"A caster! Will you introduce me?"

"Yes, happily."

Her father wasn't expecting it. The news that the war had started had reached Seguer, but their men were still forming up. The first news the war had ended was a team Teleporting in, paralyzing everybody with powerful magic, announcing that Her Majesty Aspexia III was the new Queen of Cheliax, and executing her father on the spot. One of the women pointed, coldly, indifferently, like someone selecting melons at market, at three of his men - she knew their names, somehow - and they killed those too. 

They let themselves into the fortress, then, and let the prisoners out of the dungeons, and asked Eulàlia where they'd find the tax records, school records, the treasury. 

Eulàlia supervised the paperwork fairly closely. It was a good way to get her father's approval, to catch someone cooking the accounts. There was nothing to be gained by defying them. She took them into her father's office and gave them everything they would need. Records, maps, names of local officials, ongoing proceedings of various kinds. Only about half her mind was occupied by contemplating how she would die, once they were done. They asked if she was a wizard - yes - first circle? - no, second - and if any of the guards were hers, personally, and with numb lips she pointed those out. And if any of the secretarial staff were, and she pointed those out too. They asked if she renounced Asmodeus and pledged herself to the service of the new Queen, and of course she did, with all her heart. They notified her that she had their permission for the time being to rule Seguer, in accordance with the new law of Cheliax, and dropped a stack of decrees on her desk, and set off.

You'd think that after that nothing could scare you but it's the opposite, really. Every minute since then has been like watching her life flash before her eyes at its inevitable end.

"Count Ardiaca?"

"de Seguer?" He dips his head in recognition.

"The charming fellow you and the Archduke d'Sirmium apprehended the evening of the riots, the man who identified himself as Riu d'Argent."

"... Has done something of interest? Isn't he in prison?" 

"The thing of interest he has done is 'not be in prison', as far as I can tell. I was following the matter with some interest."

"Ah-hah. Yes, I would expect you to. I don't suppose chance you know where he is now?"

"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." 

"I spent my whole life preparing for the war, and then it was over almost before it had started. It was a bit of a shock for the reclamation, going straight from preparing for war to administering the peace, with almost no war in between - It was a good surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. The county on its own would be manageable, I think, but the reclamation is still involved in efforts across Cheliax that I have been directing, and there's the convention on top of all that... I must admit, it's a bit much for one man." And here's the part where the duke of Fraga introduces his twenty-year-old daughter...

"At least we had staff to bring with us, ill-prepared as they might have been to their new tasks. I inherited much of the household of the pretender to Fraga, and when I interviewed them to see who should remain and who should be replaced, I at least had my company to consider as replacements, and my wife had her friends from Taldor and their recommendations. I think we only ended up with one of two appointments drawn from the pools of the Reclamation and others available to all of Cheliax. I feel for the resurrected nobility, who have a harder task and less to do it with."

Caterina is at the party, over with Isidonia, and is 18, not 20. But as much as he respects the man, there are two unmarried archdukes, and he wants to explore those options more carefully first.

"It was certainly the most difficult thing I have ever attempted. You need a few people whose reports you can be reasonably confident aren't patent nonsense to get anywhere on anything, and I ended up having to hire foreigners for almost every sensitive position - and then, of course, it's a bit much to expect the people of Chelam to trust them. We are on more stable footing at this time but a year ago I'd have traded my left arm for a dozen sensible people accustomed to working together who speak the language, follow the law, and think that I might be interested in knowing about things even if they haven't figured out yet how to pin the blame for them on someone else."

He nods. "I hope your footing continues to grow more stable. What are the serious problems facing Chelam, especially those we might be able to assist with?"

"Yields are terrible, though I hear that negotiations at the convention with the druids have gone surprisingly well." Seguer came to her for maps earlier. She hadn't even imagined they were at the stage of negotiations where maps might be helpful. "There are local lords I'd replace if I had anyone suitable to replace them with. At this time we are not more terribly troubled by monsters than any place is, but - I'm a third circle wizard, and not an inexperienced one, and have a particular knack for making very fast horses, and have been substituting for a force I trust unsupervised by just offering it lots of supervision. I do fret over whether we'll have more trouble in my absence."

"I too am heartened by progress with the druids. I worry they are less hierarchical than we are, and their delegates may not be able to treat for the whole of their forests. But even a few friendly druid citizens can do much for the country, much as a few friendly faces can do wonders for an administration."

He considers bringing up that he has already had worrying reports from Fraga, despite leaving most of his retinue there, and as Chelam is further away, her reports must be even more stale than his. But there's sympathy, and then there's being depressing. He's not getting a great opening, so he might as well make one.

"Have you met my eldest son? My grandfather swore that his line would bear his name until the duchy was restored, and so his name is Felip as well. My sorcerous blood runs strong in his veins, and I hope that he will one day surpass me."

He's within eyesight, watching the conversation and waiting to be gestured over. He is 16.

"As we are all commanded to hope, and often enough blessed to see realized." It is a perfectly sensible match and the man the Duke is gesturing at looks barely old enough to grow a beard. "But you must not judge the fulfillment of your hopes off the next ten years; I am told every man's courage is mostly rashness and his fervor mostly foolishness for his teens and half his twenties, and it grieves me to report that some women are also so afflicted."

At least he's not the only one being offered unsuitably young matches. Oh no, he's not the only one being offered unsuitably young matches. He will save the sympathetic look and comments until after the duke of Fraga has left.

"Indeed. I had it much easier than he does, I fear; I spent the first ten years of my adulthood gallivanting across Avistan, no responsibilities but making myself worthy of my name, and was not called to marry until my father was on his deathbed, by which point I could present myself quite adequately." He smiles at Isidonia from across the room.

"Cheliax's situation is quite different. If things were stable, I would give him the same opportunity I had, but as a people we seem perilously unbound to one other, and perhaps our youth must be taught courage and fervor by the experienced, instead of by the world."

He's right, of course, and Fraga's nearby and wealthy and an important ally, and - her true rejection is that she simply cannot bring herself to swear her obedience in marriage to a little boy.

Well. The more sympathetic of her true rejections. The other is that she thinks she can land an archduke.

"Perhaps when this convention business is concluded I can host you all in Chelam, because you are of course correct that we are a perilously unbound people and that among our most urgent duties is addressing it. But - while I flatter myself I do not look it - I am a hundred and eight years old. I believe a woman owes her husband deference, and obedience, and the sincere conviction that she shelters in his protection and best serves Heaven in his service, and - he can't be sixteen. I'm sorry."

He smiles. "There's no need to apologize, and I would appreciate visiting Chelam greatly. You are, of course, welcome in Fraga anytime." He catches Isidonia's eye. "If you'll excuse me, I think I will rejoin my wife." He turns to Cansellarion. "Lord Marshal, the same goes for you. Again, what a pleasure to meet you."

Carlota will murmur a polite goodbye. She should go speak to Isidonia at some point but probably not at this one. 

"My sympathies."

"You have the worse of it, I think," at least in terms of volume of solicitations, though not in terms of - what he would be surrendering by agreeing to any of them. Carlota is firmly committed to take all her opinions about the disadvantages faced by women to her second grave because otherwise she will come across as a wild-eyed radical. "I was aware they wed younger, in Taldor, and wouldn't have listed it particularly among the evils of Taldor, but - they're so young." She gestures at Lucretia, who would in fact probably be a good match for Fraga's boy and is eyeing him from across the room. 

"What was the usual age of marriage in Cheliax before? In Lastwall it's around twenty and - even that seems very young, from the perspective of someone coming to marriage quite late."

"Around twenty, or at most a few years past it. I think the problem is that a great many teenagers will go make decisions much less wise than marrying young, if you try to tell them not to marry young. 

I don't think twenty is too young, exactly. I think that if both of you are twenty you can grow into it together, and the ardor of youth probably eases some of the challenges of the first years of marriage. But - it is one thing to be two young people attempting to grow together and another to - not that I'm done growing, of course. But these days I make very elaborate and complicated mistakes instead of the blazing and straightforward mistakes of youth."

"Yes, exactly."

Issa’s hiding from the party in the servant’s quarters of the mansion. All the actual serving will be done by unseen servants, so the staff isn’t needed. It’s nice to have the evening off, even if it’s in a tiny windowless room. And since mansions are furnished by magic, it's a tiny windowless room with fancy comfortable beds, if narrow ones. She is sitting on hers and reading a book she picked up while on her terrifying obligatory pamphlet route, about a brave adventurer appointed by an odd and hilarious series of coincidences the king of a distant foreign land.

Juan has spent a while talking to several of the women in attendance, introducing Lucretia to a handful of other men only twice her age before losing track of her, and drinking enough wine to, perhaps, slightly impair his usually fantastic judgement. 

He wanders down a hallway, and into a set of rooms that aren’t especially the part of the mansion where the party is happening. He peeks into Issa’s room, and smiles when he sees her. 

“What a tragedy, that such a beautiful woman should be spending such an evening without company.”

What.  

He’s dressed like he’s very rich and important, almost certainly a nobleman, and the room’s really not very big and - Issa curtsies deeply, lest she cause some horrendous offense. She doesn’t look terrified. She’s Chelish. “Your grace,” she murmurs. 

“It’s a fine party. But speaking with so many people can be tiring,” he muses, casually entering and shutting the door behind him. “Perhaps you have the right idea, staying out of sight. But loneliness can be a burden, too, no?”

“Your grace, I’m not -” is he imagining that she’s someone important who should be at the party? He’s looking at her rather like that, like he happened upon a duchess taking a rest in a private room instead of like he happened upon a servant in the servant’s quarters.  She is acutely aware he’s between her and the door, that there is no accident in this nor any generosity, but also there is something very compelling, about being greeted like a duchess like that, even knowing full well it’s a pretense and also knowing exactly what the pretense is for. “You honor me,” she says, instead of whatever objection she was halfway to making which was in any event very stupid and wouldn’t have worked. Her heart is still pounding but -

“I only recognize the obvious,” he smiles. “And I am lonely sometimes, too.”

“I think,” says Issa, attempting valiantly to recover and then use her senses while he’s doing her the courtesy of a conversation here, “that it is for this reason that my mistress, the Duchess of Chelam,” who might be annoyed if you hurt her servants without cause, and probably not invite you to future dinner parties, “arranged tonight’s event, that noblemen might find themselves suitable noblewomen. My lord.”

“The Duchess is doubtless very generous, to have arranged such.” He closes the distance between them and reaches for her, cradling her face. His touch is soft, right now. Gentle. Absolutely not going away at all.

“And yet, having found a greater treasure locked away, I find myself disinterested in lesser jewels.”

She does not actually in any sense contemplate resisting. It wouldn’t work, and it would be humiliating and stupid and probably illegal and he’s being nice, right now, and her heart is hammering too loudly to hear her own very stupid thoughts anyway. She holds still, and lets the warm flushed feeling that might be terror or something else spread from where he’s touching her, and tries to feel special, and mostly succeeds.

"What're you doing in the kitchens?"

       "Well, can't go back to the room, now can I, Issa's fucking some fancy nobleman."

"She isn't." 

        "She is."

                 "Which one?"

        "I can't tell the fancy noblemen apart, can you?"

"She's not even that pretty."

        "Men don't really care about that, you know. For who they'll take to parties, sure, but -"

                  "She's getting above herself. You know, the Duchess asked her about one of the laws, and she wouldn't stop bragging -"

                                 " - turned me down, you know, and I'm no nobleman but I wasn't thinking to run out on her either."

        "Stupid whore."