The people of Pezzack would certainly have done that. She hadn't, in fact, been expecting the people of Westcrown to, but she's not sure why not. Maybe just because the Archmage Cotonnet had asserted that the delegates would be protected, and she'd assumed he meant some archmage thing by that. It wouldn't have surprised her if the first mob to attack a delegate all turned into frogs or something; isn't that the kind of thing archmages did?

She shakes her head.

"When we agreed that you owed the Queen the truth, Valia, I meant all of it, the parts that speak poorly of you along with the parts that speak well of you. Anyone clever and courageous and capable enough to light a city aflame on her second day visiting it has the courage to admit she did not do it while full purely of high minded ideals and convenient misconceptions."

"I'm not saying that! I was absolutely being - small-minded and willfully ignorant. But I do not think I was specifically intending to get Ibarra killed." Not that she'd have been sad if he was killed. Evil powerful wizards who are trying to make everything go as badly as possible really do seem a uniquely terrible idea to put in charge of writing the country's new code of laws. "Anyway we read the decrees very carefully, because I was trying to obey the Queen, and it would obviously be prohibited to say falsely of someone that he's a Norgorber cultist, but I think it was only illegal to say truthfully of someone if I said people should do something about it, or, uh, I forget the phrasing but said it and didn't have any reason for saying it other than to get people to do something about it, so I was careful to make it clear that I was saying it because if the committees went badly, maybe it was because of the Norgorber cultist who wanted to make things go badly, and I was pretty sure that made it legal to say, if you had a good reason that wasn't about stirring up trouble."

"Do you defend your denunciation of Blanxart on similar grounds? He's the one you actually did get killed."

"I don't even think it's denouncing somebody to say that he didn't want the Norgorber cultist removed from a committee! No one would round up a posse about that even in places where people do handle problems themselves!"

"You weren't intending to gently imply he was perhaps a bit of a Norgorber cultist himself?"

"I don't know any more about him than what I said, and didn't mean to say more than that." Well, she's pretty sure he sucks, because he's an archduke. 

"Valia, I would like you to imagine the perspective of a brave person of Westcrown, reading your speech after you gave it. I will read a bit of it to you. 

If you swore your fealty to Abrogail Thrune and still possess the lands, slaves, titles and riches that you stole under her auspices, and you are not repentant, then you ought to be afraid. If you are a devilspawn, you need not be afraid because you are a devilspawn, but you should be afraid because you are an evil titled devilspawn. If you came to the conference cloaked in magic to conceal your Evil, with the intent to extend the suffering of the people of Cheliax, as Delegate Ibarra did, as he was not alone in doing, you should be afraid. If you burn children to death in their homes, you should be afraid. If you worship Norgorber, you should be afraid. If you worship any power of Hell, you should be afraid, and if you worship Asmodeus you should certainly be afraid.

Afraid of what? Afraid of me?  I am not powerful; any man strong enough to radiate Evil is strong enough to kill me in one blow.

Afraid of Elie Cotonnet? No, for he invited you all, and he has said that we are forbidden from requesting that you be expelled, or indeed from debating whether your deeds and your history ought to be an impediment to your participation. 

You should be afraid of the people of Cheliax.

 For they are not in the end different from the people of Pezzack; we are all one people. The people of Cheliax know what you did to them. They witness how you have prospered from it. The only thing that stays them from retaliation is the fear that they are, themselves, as guilty as you, and as damned. But they aren't, so your peace is a lie. If I were you I would repent while you still can. I would give up your lands and your titles and your slaves and your riches; I would cease to impede the functioning of this convention with your petty Evil dealings; I would go to the Worldwound where your victims cannot reach you. That is my advice.

But to everyone else my advice is, be unafraid. This is our country. We are a strong people, a brave people, a good people. Asmodeus always feared us, and all the riches of Hell still left his grip so weak one theatre-hall of people could shake a city free of it. 

What do you suppose this brave person of Westcrown would conclude that you want them to do?"

Oh.

She hadn't actually revisited the speech, in her memory. She'd been busy thinking about what Feliu said, about what Lord Cansellarion said, about whether she is going to get Alicia and Victoria killed along with her. She had remembered the conversations that went into the speech, and the decrees they'd consulted, and -

They would think that they ought to get their friends together and stop the Evil people.

She shouldn't say it - or, she shouldn't say it if she wants to be found innocent, but she won't be found innocent anyway, and - Lluisa wanted to serve the Law, not the cause of Valia surviving -

"Valia, many of these men are going to go to trial themselves, for the things that they did. Are you going to tell me that they were fools, to read that speech and think you were warning them of a great evil they ought to get together with their friends and go and fight? That they are liars, when they testify that they believed you wanted them to do it?"

"No."

"What would a man who read your words believe you wanted him to do?"

"He would believe I wanted him to stop the powerful Evil people."

"And you did want that."

"I wanted them to go to the Worldwound -"

"You had some quibbles about time, about process, there were things that you wanted to do first. You imagined that the speech would lead men to hushed planning, that they would wait for further opportunity to properly strike, that there was some rebellion in their power which was not rebellion against the Queen - because there is still Good in you, Valia Wain, and you knew it to be Evil to rebel against the Lawful Good queen, and so flinched away from the fact that you were doing that. You did not expect your words to bear this fruit that very night. But you wanted the enemies that you named to die, by the hands of the liberated people of Cheliax."

If they didn't repent. If they continued in their crimes. If they continued in twisting the convention in service of their evil aims. And she didn't name them, she very pointedly avoided naming people in the part where she was saying that people meeting those descriptions ought to be afraid. She did that to follow the law. 

"When I warn someone it is - with intent that they heed the warning."

"This is cowardice, Valia. You entreated people to be brave and then flee, yourself, to cower in your seat and pretend you are an ignorant little girl who has never seen violence. I have agreed already that you intended a process, that you intended more caution, that you did not plan for these men to die this night. But answer me what that man of Westcrown ought to have believed that you were asking of him."

"That he should kill the unrepentant Evil people still in power, and make his country free."

"Should he hang for that, Valia, for that outrageous misrepresentation of a priest of Iomedae's words?"

"No. No, please don't - they were trying to do the right thing. They trusted me to have checked carefully enough, before I warned them, they were trying to protect their families and their country and their freedom -"

"You are the one who called them forth to kill your enemies, and told them it was right."

"Yes."

"What they did, they did obeying you."

"Not - not all of them. But - some of them, yes."