(Rojix has noticed that Liushna is not happy about these proceedings and is getting squirmy about it. Why are they still here.)

"Mostly - mostly it was that I wanted to make the point that devilspawn weren't all Evil and that I didn't want all devilspawn to be afraid of the committee's laws. And I didn't know that he had repented and I should have checked. I thought if people Detected as Evil it meant they weren't - trying to do the right thing, I thought if you repented you were no longer damned."

What did they do to her to get her to say that the Evil Hellspawn nobleman is a better Iomedaean than her — they didn't torture Victòria but they didn't put her on trial, either—

"And if he had been as Evil as you believed he was when you gave the speech, what would you have wanted to happen?"

"Him to repent and go to the Worldwound! That's what Evil people should do so they make Cheliax safer and stop being Evil and become stronger."

"And if that failed, for a mob to - ambush him in the street?"

"...no, that's for wizards, as you can't hold them. I would've wanted, if he'd stayed Evil and not repented, for him to be arrested normally."

"And if that failed, if the government refused to arrest him even though he was Evil and unrepentant, then you would want the people to rise up and kill him?"

"The Queen is Good and I believe that she'll replace the nobles if they are unrepentant and Evil."

"Did you believe that Toilday?"

"...no, on Toilday I thought she was good but couldn't do it for some reason, like not knowing which they were or having made deals of some kind or not being powerful enough."

(Liushna cradles him close, her attention diverted, and begins softy to sing to him.)

"And so on Toilday - when you gave the speech - you thought that if the nobles were evil and unrepentant, the people would have to rise up and kill them?"

"Yes. But I was not expecting that to happen in Westcrown, which was ruled by a Good queen who saved us from Hell. I was expecting it to happen in - months, or years, when the people of Cheliax got used to being free of Hell."

"So you attempted with your speech to inspire people to rebel and overthrow the government, but not in Westcrown, and not right away?"

"Not exactly? I thought - that there is an important virtue, in the speeches from the Galtan history books, and in Pezzack, and it is not an uncomplicated virtue - but what virtue is? Men should be brave, and bravery can be stupidity. They should be decisive, and that can be rashness. 

The virtue of the people of Pezzack, and of the people in the speeches from Galt, is that they know they are free. They know it even when the armies of the enemy are bearing down on them; they know it even when they are dragged through the city to the site of their execution. A person cannot be threatened, if they have decided already that the worst that can be done to them does not frighten them. They know that they obey their rulers because their rulers are just, and that if their rulers were not just they would obey them no longer. They think "I obey Iomedae because She sees farther than I, across the great battlefield', instead of 'I obey Iomedae because She is a god and I am nothing besides a god.' They laugh in the face of Asmodeus, because He has nothing to offer but threats. They hear the Queen's speech and they think if it is a sensible speech or not, because they might leave and go somewhere else if they don't think much of the sense of the Queen.

I believed last Toilday that the people of Cheliax need this virtue. I - am less sure, now. I still think it is a very important virtue. But I cannot dispute that it has to - come with wisdom - or it will do far more harm than good. I did not with my speech intend to bestir any mobs. But I intended to teach people a virtue which I do have to admit, on the whole, in practice, seems to go along with mobs, sometimes. I think that a people with this virtue will not in the end tolerate Evil rulers, and I think that this virtue spreads, the way all Good things spread, because it is witnessed and imitated, and I think that now that Cheliax is free this virtue will spread. I hope it also spreads with wisdom. I hope it also spreads with - trust in Her Majesty's Good government. I do not want anyone to imagine that murder and madness are the exercises of this virtue.

 I wish I had never given the speech, of course.

But the thing I was trying to do was not to say that they should rebel. It was to say that they were free, and to explain - what that means."

(she has to live, she has to, the magistrate has to see that—)

"But one of the things that it means to be free is that you should ignore all consequences and rebel against your rulers if they are Evil?"

"Well, surely sometimes you should rebel against your rulers! Sometimes they're Asmodeus!"

"You expected, as a consequence of giving your speech, that lots of people would be inspired to rebel against their Evil rulers, and you considered this a good thing because sometimes people should rebel against their Evil rulers, and because you mistakenly believed that in Cheliax under our Queen there were Evil rulers who needed rebelling against."

"...I guess so, yes."

"And you wanted your speech widely distributed throughout the city and throughout the country so that everyone could be inspired to this."

"Yes."

"And you expected that lots of Evil rulers would end up dead after this happened, assuming they did not follow your advice to go to the Worldwound first."

"I don't think you'd need a lot. They can - learn from a few examples."