There is indeed a lunch quickly being spread, to which she will be lead, followed shortly afterwards by the sound of a gryphon landing in the courtyard.

Only a few minutes later Xavier will arrive to it, freshly Presdigitated clean and wearing clothes that he has clearly just changed into.

"Ah, Duchess, how good to see you."

"Archduke. It is good to see you as well." And then straight to the chase, because she's in the habit of bluntness from talking to the paladins and they are in fact pressed for time. "I have come to believe that, firstly, the Queen may be expecting her magistrates to find Wain not guilty of the charges she's laid this afternoon, and secondly that neither Church nor Crown have prepared anything in the way of public communications, either for that eventuality or for the still more likely one where the magistrate decides that it doesn't matter what the law says he's not finding her innocent under the circumstances."

"They have soldiers on the streets," Xavier says, "mine and the Reclamation both to prevent a riot. But - Church and crown?" How? The Church is too busy to send anyone qualified for this, but the Crown? - Joan-Pau is on his way."

"The Church is too busy to put on its armor. I just wrote the Lord Marshal a speech if they let him give it, in case of an innocent verdict, and also asked him to ask the Crown for custody of Wain if they acquit her, so they can announce she's been handed over for the Church's internal investigation and so there's no question of her being turned loose.

But - I would generally presume those to be steps the Crown would take itself, if they were not sure of the verdict and wanted to manage the fallout of all possibilities, and I would generally presume them, if they were contemplating the possibility of acquitting her, to have been writing and releasing some explanatory pamphlets over the last few days, interviews at the local newspapers and so on, describing how they understand the legal system to function because certainly no one else has any idea.

They have done nothing like that, so I naturally assumed that they have no such plans and haven't tried preparing the city for the contingency as there is no chance of it - which I wouldn't blame them for under the circumstances. It's probably what I'd do at home. 

Except the Queen assured the Lord Marshal of a fair trial, and placed no treason charges, and - look, by a plain reading of the law those're the only ones she's guilty of. Westcrown is governed by decree. Very few things are banned. Wain didn't do them.

 I am worried the Queen decided to hold a fair trial and is - listening to the same advisors, frankly, that she did with respect to the convention, showing no indication of her preferences and hoping that we weren't relying on them for anything.

And I do not envy the poor magistrate, and I would not bet with any confidence where he'll come down. But - there should be some explanations ready to go out, if something bizarre happens. And even if it all goes smoothly there should be some explanations being penned that don't injure any crucial institutions too badly."

He thinks about it, follows the logic "- Yes, I think you're right. I was focusing on damage control for the convention -"

Joan-Pau will hurry in, escorted by a servant, who bows off -

"- I think I understand the meaning." He'll catch Joan-Pau up on what he's seen of the conversation.

"I too was focused on damage control for the convention, with a flicker of unease when I saw the charges, and then it didn't properly occur to me until I spoke with the Lord Marshal this morning. I hope I have wasted your time on no account, sincerely. And I hope soon it is harder than it is today to flood the city with any one carefully manipulated account of events that will define it forever in the public mind. But today, if events are confusing - I would like the account of them to be ours."

"Yes, you're right."

"One for a conviction, one for an acquittal - do we need one for if the sentence is death and one for if she remands it to a lesser punishment? Copies already made or still needing the details?"

"Ready to edit with details, I think. It'll sell best if it can fit in a few choice quotes from the trial, and be credibly a product of it. We will need some copyists retained, or I suppose if we're not sure of their discretion you and I can do it. I do think a death sentence and some kind of lesser punishment will need to be pitched differently."

He nods, glances at Xavier -

"You can rely on my scribes' discretion." He has retinues, and this is one of the things they're for.

Good! Carlota would ordinarily trust her own copyist but someone told a deranged pamphleteer about the censorship law and she's hardly had time to figure out who, or how, and also she has one of them because she rules a duchy and not all of Sirmium (and because she recently returned from the dead and it takes time to build an organization from scratch). "Then I gratefully will, Archduke. Do you two read the pamphlets? The fashion of the times is - baffling and ironic dialogues between thinly-anonymized political figures, and tediously extended badly inaccurate metaphors."

Actually, he's an archduke because he has more than one of them much more than the other way around.

"You do need to stay updated. I don't think I've had the chance to express my sympathy for your bout with the slanderer yet..."

"I expect we'll all have a turn before the convention's over, just with a bit more plausible deniability if our law is passed."

"No question of it. I did observe to the crown that one of the few laws they have managed having is that one shouldn't publish on the impressive achievements of infernal powers, but the Galtan in their public affairs office - I do not refer obliquely to our archduke, the public affairs office is run by a different Galtan - thought that it was no concern on that account. 

I have never much subscribed to the view that it is important to keep people from criticizing their rulers, but I am cheered by imagining the quality will go up.

So. Wain acquitted. What.... is our line."

"Hmm. 'A trial concludes with the strictly correct legal result, and Her Majesty demonstrates her stern commitment to Law by releasing Delegate Wain' probably won't sell well.  'the true criminal has already been executed, and now his patsy is, as is proper, cleared; a chastened Valia Wain, realizing how her ineptness enabled such a horrifying tragedy, pleads her absolute foolishness and pledges to change her ways...' 'Radical Iomedaean released, proving that you have a right to freedom of  speech except as explicitly restricted by law, because we aren't diabolists any more -' what has she pledged? What cooperation do we have from the Church of Iomedae?'"

"The Lord Marshal and I planned a speech, here's a draft:"

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 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 reckless and foolish. It certainly does not mean that those words did not lead to great evil. Valia Wain's speech was wrong, foolish and reckless. 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 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 have no idea if Wain can be relied on to cooperate with anything. I do hear she's very sorry."

Xavier reads the draft carefully. "I think he has it well; we'll want to quote it where we can."

"Yes. The question is - what narrative can we tell for Valia Wain? We don't want to say 'she did nothing wrong and everyone else should do what she did.' 'She was a dupe of the real killer and is sorry she was so easily mislead' has the advantage that it appears to be true, but the disadvantage that the killer's trial is already over and so there's no grand conclusion. The obvious grand conclusions are 'the hero is free and the queen supports her' and 'the murderess has got loose through a trick of the law' and both of those are disasters."

"Exactly. You can perhaps say that the Queen's courts, reviewing the matter, determined that Wain ought to answer for her crimes against Iomedae and she's been sent off for that. It has the major disadvantage of not being substantively true and still not being all that satisfying."

"Yes. 'The Crown remands her into the custody of the Church' suggests she's being punished - suggests rather worse punishments than she'd get otherwise, possibly - but in fact I suspect she's going with the church because she wants to, so the same disadvantage still lasts even if we phrase it that way..."

"And the Church refuses to say that the Iomedaen inquisition will review her case, which sounds even more ominous and potentially deescalatory, because that'd be unlawful of the Iomedaen inquisition, having not possessed any authority to do that last Wealday. 

....to put a priest of Iomedae to death is no punishment, as she'd go to Heaven, and so in order to punish her it is necessary to remand her first to the Church? False in most of the particulars but maybe useful."

"We could just say she's being sent to the Church 'for her proper education?' I'll guess that's actually true, or if it isn't that fact will go in one of their famous failure analyses."

"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."

"If we've adopted Ardiaca's proposal, to have our children reconvene and do better, then - perhaps you are right. Ending the madness quickly is probably the best we can hope for at that point. I think tomorrow we should let the floor argue itself to exhaustion, and see how unreasonably it settles. But it is good to have a known functional constitution on hand that we can ask the convention to adopt if it's becoming clear that no useful work is getting done."

"Agreed."

Nod.