"That might be the best angle on it. For cutting off the inevitably more popular ones...maybe you could get somewhere with" sigh, "one of those dreadful dialogues."

Simplicio: Valia Wain has been acquitted!

Fiducia: Indeed, it is so; the magistrate reviewed the case and determined that it was the 'Friend of the True People' who with the Page set afire Westcrown.

Simplicio: so Valia Wain is a hero of the people!

Fiducia: it is a poor hero of the people, whose only achievement is to have your name employed to lead the people to foolish slaughter.

Simplicio: but, they are not to hang Wain, so she must be a hero! 

Fiducia: it is the habit of the law in most places not to hang many people who are not heroes, and indeed who are great fools and detriments to society.

Simplicio: ah, I see. Wain is a MURDERESS who ESCAPED THE LAW through a DIABOLIST TRICK, and is now free.

Fiducia: see that, for example, was an evil and foolish thing to say, yet probably you should not hang for it, as the Queen wishes to still have subjects at the end of the year.

Simplicio: I do not understand! How can Wain have done something that was wrong but not illegal?

Fiducia: The law allows me to say that in Heaven all men take the form of a puddle of slime. I should not say this. It is nonsense, and it is nonsense that probably inspires some to choose wrongly how to steer their lives. I am no hero for saying it; I am a wretched miserable man who seeks to within the law corrode the country. But probably I too should not hang for it, and if I should then first the Queen will have to actually make it illegal.

Simplicio: The Queen should make claims like yours, and claims like mine, and claims like Valia Wain's, illegal, and then hang all who speak them!

Fiducia: Indeed, and until she has done this all that can be learned from the fact a speech is legal is that she has not had the time to write a Wise Decree banning it, busy as she is.

"One of those dreadful dialogues," Joan-Pau agrees. "A dreadful dialogue to cover the popular end, a serious recounting of the facts for people paying attention, poor fool Valia Wain being released on Her Majesty's law and seconded to the Church for a proper education... I think you may want to say 'perhaps,' not 'indeed' in the last line, the radicals are radicals and they're half the people we're trying to talk to."

"Oh, probably. All right, I think this is manageable. If the Queen lessens her sentence - you can probably reuse some of the same things, poor fool Valia Wain being released this time on Her Majesty's mercy to the Church for a proper education. And if she is convicted properly then you only have to head off the people eager to have her as a martyr - did you see the woodcuts -"

"Yes. I wonder if you could get anywhere with a half-done version that was - one of Iomedae's commandments not to hurt the innocent, with Valia's hand blotting out the 'not', or if that would be too subtle. Devil-caricature would do it but that wouldn't convince anyone. I suppose on a conviction you say - 'the law is being carried out without fear or favor, proof that one standard of laws holds for all, even clerics of the realm' - you might be able to manage a radical one," says the leader of the radical young officers of Molthune, "saying that this is evidence the Church of Iomedae isn't in the same role as the Church of Asmodeus, but unfortunately I think everyone knows that by this point." 

"'Justice is done. For incitement to murder, Valia Wain has been hanged - consulted, eminent jurist... we need an eminent jurist... said that her speech would have been completely legal except that she explicitly named two people, both of whom had been attacked. 'It was a very close trial, but ultimately, justice was done,' he said."

“I am sure we can find an eminent jurist to comment to that effect if we don’t have to name them. I do think it’s a good idea to position the verdict as a narrow one, probably inevitably most people will be terrorized out of speaking on the convention floor and perhaps that’s even for the good but I do not actually want too broad a precedent. The Church has sent from Lastwall a man competent to pen a sermon in support of the Queen’s verdict if they hang her but I don’t know its contents.”

"Yes, I -"

"- For a while now I've been meaning to propose that we host another constitutional convention in forty or fifty years, make the constitution we draw up something to last until our children and grandchildren, who grew up under a nation free of diabolism, are grown enough to write their own. This assembly isn't qualified to draw up a new one, 'Citizen Cotonnet' knows it isn't, and this will mollify his pride while limiting the damage done by the assembly.

"I think next session is a good time for it, especially if I can get right up there and speak first. I think that most of the people looking for vengeance know there's a tradeoff between getting their revenge and building good laws to stand in normal time, outside of a crisis. If they have to pick, they'll choose revenge, and they know this, but if I can say - you aren't making laws forever, just for the emergency - I think this won't make the revenge more vicious and it will pass, and hopefully mitigate the effects of it on the nation."

"I think if we don't name the jurist the effect will be limited, but I suppose we can't be lucky enough to have someone willing to speak on the record in Cheliax."

"I could find a foreigner willing to speak on the record but I think that is similarly unhelpful. Or I could find you an axiomite who will say 'this language has too much ambiguity for legal proceedings to be conducted in it'.

And I approve strongly of the laws we make being temporary ones. These are terrible conditions to make good laws in, and even were I quite satisfied with our result - I would like the Constitution to reflect the spirit that our children ought to be better than us. I don't know if I share your confidence it'll be deescalatory, but - let's see which corners the escalation is coming from, and then see how to bleed it off a bit."

"I think if we can't get it off until people have already made furious denunciations, it will be worse than nothing, because it will be a weak call for moderation - weak because it doesn't have any concrete proposals. If I can get it out before, it'll be a way for the radicals to save their country and the conservatives to cleanse their souls... I think we need a Chelish jurist, so - an anonymous one."

Nod.

"'Who speaks first tomorrow morning' sounds like a very important question. I do not know if the archmage would be amenable to any suggestions that it ought to be done strategically. I guess you could just get there first and line up before anyone else does."

"I was thinking Dimension Door," he says drily.

"There you go. In Cheliax the order of speech in the house shall be determined by the spending of powerful magic, and thus we preserve the ancient privileges of adventurers without needing enshrine them in law. I will have to go brave some danger while we have the archmages around resurrecting us, so that should I ever desire to speak first I'm not stuck flying over there."

"- More seriously, if there is an opportunity to line up in advance I'll take it. But I think that we want to say this before the battles start, today; if one or another side wins they may be too invested in protecting their victory to go along with it."

"I agree. Though be mindful that we urgently need to get abolition through the floor tomorrow, however little people want to speak of it and however much they want to speak of the riots instead. The ports can't open until we do it and the situation is probably deteriorating in terms of Teleport evacuations and so on as well."

"I agree completely. I suppose it's better timed after they exhaust themselves, rather than trying to get it too across before..."

"Probably. Let everyone scream themselves hoarse and then bring abolition to the floor, line up everyone who matters to speak in favor, hope that people take the point. I think even the people who wanted this fight last week have higher priorities now. - think I should introduce censorship early in the heated yelling, or late?"

"Hmm. Hard to say."

"Someone will certainly introduce it early. The only question is if you want that to be you, or if you want to be the moderate response to a harsh censorship proposal... I think you'll have better odds first?"

"That'd be my guess also. I'm worried because our proposal is complex, and people don't have the attention spans, and if they can instead just vote for 'ban all the pamphlets and burn all the books' they probably will." Sigh. "Probably we'll need to make some calls on the spot. 

...We have a few hours. I propose we work out a bunch of pamphlets around this messaging, and then head over to watch one of the great wonders of civilization, a fair trial."

"Yes... the other thing I wanted to raise with you, before this came up, was wondering if at this point it was worth trying to simply force through Cyprian's law and constitution until the second convention. I'd rather take inspiration from it, but if there's enough rage in the room..."

"Then it might be better than the alternative, if it's only for forty or fifty years."

Oh no.

Cyprian's code of laws is quite good and they ought reasonably to draw a lot of inspiration from it. It's also - more sexist than the code of laws in Cheliax in Carlota's day. A reaction, she's been given to understand, against the dissolution and vice of infernal Cheliax, and there's plenty of that. But she would like for one's code of laws to be, ideally, not sexist at all. The question is whether she is willing to be the person who complains about that. 

"It seems quite likely to be better than any alternative that this deliberative body comes up with. I do worry some elements translate poorly from a country with universal conscription to one without it - and I do not want to try to task a state this weak with adding that. ...I also think that Cheliax does not actually need more wizards and the code, in awarding women the rights of men most straightforwardly if they are wizards, seems liable to exacerbate that, not that I have any personal grounds for complaint either about laws that favor soldiers or laws that favor wizards."

"I think we want a constitution that permits universal conscription but not, in the present crisis, one that requires one," Xavier says. "And, Duchess, I agree that we could devise our own version better suited to the needs of Cheliax. But I think it's barely possible that 'adopt the Code Cyprian and the Cyprian Constitution' will pass and put an end to the madness, and - as you say - I doubt we will devise a better one with the convention here assembled."