Feather has a new theory of Cheliax.

The new human Queen is Lawful and said it plainly: in her courts at least she cares for the law, and not for Good or Evil. But most everyone else here is either Evil, or Good, or was Evil and is trying to be Good and has no idea how. For time immemorial, the humans of Cheliax thought of themselves as Lawful; they were told they were and must be Lawful; but Lawful is the hardest alignment to be, and to combine it with another is harder still. Now that they are replacing their Evil with Good their never-too-stable Law is falling by the wayside.

The tragedy of Cheliax is a straightforward cautionary tale: don't try for two alignments before you have mastered even one.

This explains why the local she best understands is Good but not Lawful. It explains why, when she looked for a priest of Erastil, she found a Lawful but not Good one. Erastil might prefer Lawful and Good but it's too hard for Chelish humans to be both so he had to compromise. Iomedae didn't compromise and her young priestess is very Lawful and very Good and appears to understand other Chelish about as well as Feather does.

If only they had gotten a purely Good goddess to replace Asmodeus.

It's confusing that Lluïsa is asking Delegate Bainilus to testify for Valia, when Delegate Bainilus spent the whole aftermath of the speech talking about how Pezzack should've just let the Asmodeans stay in charge of everything, but she's the lawyer so probably she has a good reason.

"And of Delegate Ibarra whose Deeds alone were put to a Name, why, his own Words were but Repeated. 

Message, to her and to the prosecutor: This statement is false.

The prosecutor really did not want to call Ibarra, who is a terrible person that no one will have any sympathy for, but that probably matters. He'll send an aide to go get a clarification.

He is a terrible person! Also, he did not "come to the convention intending to extend the suffering of the people of Cheliax" but to destroy the remaining servants of Asmodeus, he did not worship Norgorber in any country in which it was illegal to do so excepting Asmodean Cheliax, and he did not brag that he'd burned down houses, plural, that had children on them. He burned the house down because it was full of Chelish soldiers, though it did contain children, and it wasn't bragging, it was explaining that doing so was evil even if you had a good excuse.

Also, he is not, remotely, secretly evil.

The prosecutor will amend Ibarra's statement already submitted to the court with this new information, even though the only thing that might come of it is that the judge will call Ibarra and that will probably not be helpful. 

Brief errata accepted over this message, Delegate Ibarra.

To the stand. Archduchess Bainilus is... she thinks she has a faint outline around the edges of how she works.

"Do you, Archduchess, swear before the holy Gods of Good and Law, and before the Court, and before her Majesty your Queen, that your Testimony is True, indeed in Every Word, and that your Integrity, the Integrity of the Archduchess of Ravounel, Lord Mayor of Kintargo, &c., may be Tested and Verified by Spell should any call it into Question?"

"I do so swear."

"You are in Addition to your Titles a Delegate to the Convention ex officio, I add for Context."

"I would ask you first for Further Context to Describe the Mayoralty of Kintargo, and how the Mayoralty of a Great City is Unique among Titles."

She nods. "The Lord Mayor of Kintargo can be dismissed at the pleasure of the monarch, but is not selected by her. There is a system of who is entitled to a vote, by organization, termed the Great City Council, primarily guild leaders and with some major guilds represented by several voters, with a few old noble families entitled to their own seats. It has a small but significant measure of direct popular will selecting some members of the Great Council, as well as several other members of miscellaneous groups, among them the local naval commander, the Order of the Torrent, and the Silver Ravens, and several seats for the Church; historically Aroden, this past century Asmodeus, and at present divided between several Good gods and the Church of Abadar."

"If the Great Council is severely displeased by the Lord Mayor it can call a further vote to remove them. Some of the Great Council also serve as a day-to-day governing council in support of the Lord Mayor. There are many other details of membership, tradition, and procedure I do not believe relevant to the court, but I can elaborate if it judges otherwise."

"I have sat in the Council for twenty years and was elected Lord Mayor fifteen years ago. The Council has contemplated my removal a few times, as, I believe, did Infrexus Thrune, but on no occasion did they vote to remove me. I was responsible to both, in a way those who hold other noble titles are not; if I served the Thrune's will entirely, it would not only have harmed the people of my city, but have given them cause to expel me and replace me with someone more radical. This was often a useful excuse to the diabolists to justify why I was being difficult for them, which permitted me to be less Asmodean than most of those personally sworn to the king."

"The Mayoralty is then no Easy Title to Hold, received by Assured Succession, but one demanding Great Acumen in its Holder; in particular a Deep Familiarity with the Workings of a Great City such as Kintargo, or Westcrown. Do I have the right of it?"

"Many of the details of the selection of the Mayoralty differ from city to city, and in Westcrown's specific case it is a direct royal appointment. But that is true for Kintargo, and broadly correct for the other Free Cities of the Empire."

"What Impression did you with your Expertise in Great Cities form of the Situation in Westcrown when you arrived here?"

"The people of Westcrown were nervous. Bread was plentiful, but roofs over heads were scarce, and many people were very uncertain. Outlandish pamphlets were being hawked, and people were unsure whether to believe them, or which ones, or which the Queen or Iomedae supported. While I did not investigate further until later in the past week, I observed earlier that the people of Westcrown seemed more directionless and unanchored than those in Kintargo. I now assess this is because Kintargo had clear local leaders - not meaning myself - guiding them through the transition from diabolists to righteous leaders, and Westcrown has not had anyone to look to."

"In your Estimation, would a Girl of Eighteen not yet Born when you first sat upon the Great Council, lacking your Expertise, likely have made these Astute Observations upon her Arrival? For that matter were she for instance a Woman of Thirty-Seven as I am, still lacking such Expertise, would it be likely?"

"No. I would expect her to pick up on a weak sense of nervousness, but not more, not unless she was exceedingly talented."

"I turn now to 3 Sarenith, to Select Wain's Speech before the Hall of the Convention. When you heard it Given, did you think yourself to have heard an Unlawful Speech of Incitement?"

"No. It was unwise, that much was clear to me, but did not strike me as criminal."

"You thought it Unwise by Virtue of your great Experience as regards Cities?"

...Huh. That's surprisingly reasonable, given everything else Delegate Bainilus was saying that day. (And really puts the lie to all the Evil nobles trying to claim the speech was illegal.)

"Yes. The best analogy is that a nervous city is like a pot on a stove. If it boils over, there are riots, many people are harmed and many homes endangered. Some things add more fuel and heat to the fire, and other things take heat away. When I heard the speech, I could tell right away that this was something that would add heat to the fire, possibly a great deal of it. But many more things make the pot begin to bubble than cause the sudden point where it rolls in a boil and spills over, and the same is true for cities and riots. I began trying to suck the heat out from the stove immediately, but even if I hadn't, I would not have expected unrest to reach a boil that night or the next."

"And for this Reason you spoke in Opposition on the General Floor? What Strategy did you form for Cooling the Metaphorical Pot?"

"Select Wain, as anyone who heard her speak today has noticed, is an extremely compelling speaker, and her confidence is infectious, even when it is misplaced. I sought to make the Convention's audience, and secondarily the Select herself, question that confidence, and distract them from the feeling of... being swept up in a tide of righteousness, perhaps? I'm unaccustomed to naming it, only observing it - that it inspired. It is easiest to do that quickly, before the audience has been fully swept up."

She said Pezzack shouldn't have rebelled. Valia is still very angry about that. But it would not be productive to - do anything, actually, other than sit here and try to guess from her lawyer's face if things are going well or badly.

(It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if she's innocent or guilty and it doesn't matter if the Queen is right or wrong. It will be what it is.)