"Oh. I think almost all aggressive wars are a great evil, and Joan-Pau is trying to justify at least two, and I was aiming to not have Cheliax start any of those. Requiring that Cheliax consult Iomedae before starting any wars sounds even better than just not starting any, since it leaves a way to fight the rare wars that are truly justified without degrading a precedent about not fighting wars...

...To your broader point, yes, I should consult with you more. I'm in agreement with you on the matters of slavery and censorship which seem like they will dominate the floor debates when the convention resumes. Are there other issues that you expect to come up soon, that I should be paying attention to?"

"The Molthuni nobles won't compromise on Molthune and I'm not sure they should. They also have a broad philosophical attachment to reforming the whole Empire but I think that they'll happily make subject to whatever constraints, so long as they're unambiguously allowed to have Molthune. If we live in the convenient world where the Goddess thinks it's a good idea for the Queen to appoint a new archduke of Molthune then I think they'll be all right with the proposal to ask Her before going to war, though possibly only out of undue optimism about which wars She'll permit."

"I'm as Molthuni as any of them, and have no more love for the lord-protector. Wars of conquest are evil and lead to evil, even when they are waged against evil men who rule their countries poorly. If the Lord-Protector can be deposed and Molthune reunited with Cheliax peacefully, I would support that wholeheartedly, but Joan-Pau is calling for union with far fewer reservations as to the means."

"Sure, and he's not going to give it up, nor will the patriots of Nirmathas, nor will the Archduke of Sirmium, so figure out a way to depose the Lord Protector peacefully and be their best friend. Are you telling me the man will fight, should Her Majesty announce she's replaced him as Archduke of Molthune?"

"I think he probably won't, but there have been many wars started out of conviction that the other side will surely back down before it comes to that... And to conduct foreign policy by threatening wars that you would not fight if you were certain that your enemies would not submit is unlawful. Perhaps the queen and archmages would be willing to depose the lord-protector on their own without obliging a real war, should it come to that. If so, I would be happy to support sending an ultimatum. But I think that may have to wait, we've -" he means Iomedans, but also the Convention " - given the Crown more than a few problems this week and it seems unwise to ask for more while those problems are still being cleaned up."

"There I have no disagreement, and I don't expect Molthune to be the question of the moment anyway. I'm anticipating a renewed push to send the peasants home, which is a matter I was mostly planning to stay out of, and ...the rest depends on today's trial, I think. Her Majesty's mind is hard to guess, nor does one often profit by speculating about what can presently be witnessed, but" no, blunter. "I'd have charged treason if I wanted to be sure of a conviction and I noticed that wasn't among the listed charges. If she's acquitted then I expect most of the debate for the next few days to be about correcting those deficiences in our justice system that left her breathing."

Maybe she meant it, about a fair trial and exile.

"Vidal-Espinosa's head wasn't enough, you think? To be clear, I do think the justice system has a lot of room for improvement, and having a clearer and more complete law code would be a great benefit but - approaching those questions from the angle of wanting a specific acquitted person to hang seems likely to be counterproductive. Or, productive only in bad directions."

"Yes, it's going to be spectacularly counterproductive and damaging. It's just going to happen anyway - Alexaera, twice now I've described what people want and intend to go to great lengths to have and you have observed that this is evil and foolish of them, and it's not that you're wrong, it's that very little of it's going to be stopped with a floor speech explaining that it's evil and foolish. You have to give them a way to get what they want which isn't evil and foolish or they'll do the evil and foolish one. Does the Church have a plan for immediate crisis response if Wain is acquitted? Is there someone ready to give a speech, in the arena if they'll let you, saying that while the law did not prohibit Wain's speech it should have, that the Church condemns it in the strongest terms, that the Church is removing her as your delegate assuming it has the authority to do that -"

"No, we don't, and I would appreciate your help in formulating one - and in giving me your arguments for the parts of such a speech I'm unsure of, since I'm the obvious person to give it if I can."

"Of course. We'll also want to release some pamphlets. Different ones, of course, if she's found guilty or if she's found innocent, and they can't be fully prewritten in advance because the most effective ones will position themselves as true reporting from the trial. But laying out the Church doctrine, and why the riots were such a great evil, and that we're all grateful to Her Majesty to see justice done.

For the speech if she's acquitted I think I'd say - actually, we ought to go somewhere more private," and then she can work from a previously-written draft and offer him:

Every murderer in Westcrown will, if caught, be put to death, and they should be caught and they should be put to death. This was not a trial about whether murder is Evil. It is. It was not a trial about whether murder is unlawful. It is. 

This trial concerned what should be done when evil, but legal, words were spoken, and then misspoken, and then twisted, and then inspired great evil and greatly illegal deeds. The doers of the evil deeds will meet justice, should meet justice, but what of the speaker of the legal words? 

Many unwise and evil words are permitted by law, and if a word is permitted by law no one should be put to death for it. That was the matter this case concerned. The Queen has made it clear that no one will be put to death for words they spoke that weren't illegal, no matter how others further twist those words, no matter how much harm ultimately unfolds from them.

 In this she is entirely right: for what do Her Majesty's decrees mean, if no one can rely on them, and be safe having relied on them? 

But that does not mean that those words were not evil. It certainly does not mean that those words were not foolish. Valia Wain's speech was evil and foolish both. It should never have been spoken. It certainly should never have been spoken by a person who would be understood to speak for the Church of Iomedae. The Church of Iomedae condemns riots and arson and murder as enormous evils. The Church of Iomedae knows many of the men targeted by the riots to have been faithful and decent men who Valia Wain denounced wrongly in her ignorance. Had Valia Wain been trained in the teachings of the Church, she would never have given such a speech.

And so the Church of Iomedae has removed her as a delegate from the Constitutional Convention, and requested her release into our custody, that she may be removed to Lastwall for the Church's own ongoing investigation into how such evil words could be spoken in Iomedae's name. 

We are grateful for the noble and important work of the Queen's magistrates in identifying and convicting the guilty in the riots. We will have many senior men in Iomedae's priesthood at the temple tonight, to discuss the verdict and dispel any remaining confusion. And the army of the Glorious Reclamation will remain vigilant in the streets of Westcrown, that all Her Majesty's citizens may go about their business safety, and that any man who strives to do his neighbor violence will die for it.

"I think Valia's speech was foolish, and led to evil consequences, but was not in itself evil. So we will need to edit that part, unless you can convince me otherwise."

Ah, paladins. "I think that denouncing men wrongly as unrepentant Asmodeans is evil, if you could have found out easily enough it was untrue, or if the - effort you put into checking if it was untrue was grossly disproportionate to the audience of your denunciations. Perhaps not having checked much is not evil for a private conversation. But for a speech before a body of a thousand?"

"By Valia's account - in the speech and later - her intent was not to denounce any specific people as Asmodean, merely as evil and as having been granted titles by the infernal regime. And even that was secondary to the purpose of reassuring the bulk of the convention that they were not the targets of the Diabolism committee... Foolish, mistaken, and reckless, but not evil. I think. Do you think if I speak after the trial and condemn Valia's speech as foolish, reckless, and in error that will be sufficient? Or is there some formulation of that that would be sufficient?"

"I think that if you say it was foolish, reckless, and in error, that will probably be enough."

"Then I think with that change I can give the rest of this speech - What else do you think needs to be done?"

"Getting her to Lastwall's not just important because it sounds vaguely like a punishment and gets her out of swords range of a hundred angry people, it'll stop the convention from spending the next week proposing variants on "fire that magistrate, get a reasonable one, try her again.' Beyond that - there should be pamphlets explaining how people should understand what happened. I know people who can work on those. And probably you should ask the Queen if there is anything else the Church can do today in support of her trial and in response to whatever verdict she anticipates, and you should plan to have lots of people at the temple tonight to do a sermon backing up the Queen, answer questions.... I understand that if the Queen decides to put her to death it will be difficult to have a sermon backing her up so possibly you should plan that one in advance too."

"I will ask de Luna to prepare something for that eventuality... And maybe borrow a couple more priests for the day from Vellumis... And then talk to the queen, again, if she'll see me."

"I think that's wise. I'll see about having an entrant into the pamphlet-games that appear to have replaced gladiatorial games in Westcrown, which I do fear are so popular precisely because they're the closest anyone can come to watching other people flirt with death. And - I'll see you at the trial, I suppose. Goddess go with you."

"And with you."