"I know its Publication to have been Harmful to the City, but would you estimate Additionally that it was Personally Harmful to Select Wain?"

"Of course! If it fell short of slander it did so very narrowly."

"Concerning the Inserted Remarks of Bernat Vidal-Espinosa alone, do you suppose them to contain Incitement to Murder?"

"Unquestionably."

"Thank you for your Testimony, Songbird Laia Solandra. I defer now to the Court."

And I try not to panic.

"Did the accused say to you anything about what revisions she intended to make to her speech?"

Valia remembers this conversation and it's probably very plain on her face.

(Victòria has put some things together about the Diabolism Committee meeting, Feliu's testimony, and Lluïsa's arguments, and thinks Lluïsa should call someone from the Diabolism Committee who can talk about all the extra precautions Valia told them to take about making sure to only deal with Evil nobles in legal ways. Unfortunately she has no idea how she'd begin to go about telling Lluïsa that, and it really shouldn't be her, everyone will just assume she's an anarchic Calistrian whore with even odds of being a rioter herself, she'd probably just make things worse.)

"She wanted to consult with ser Feliu Tauler, the paladin who just testified, but I don't recall that she said anything more specific about what changes she wanted to make."

"The court has no further questions for you, Songbird. You are dismissed."

Back into the stands she floats.

"I submit also the Affidavit of Laia Solandra sworn and notarized before me."

"I have shown forth the Absence of the Elements of Incitement, namely that Words encouraging Crime are not Present, that Intent to Incite was not Present, that the Purported Incitement was not Communicated. I have shown whence it came if not from Select Wain, that is from Bernat Vidal-Espinosa. I have shown forth the absence of a List of Proscriptions."

"Having so shown, I have no further Testimony to Present and defer to the Court."

please don't let them convict her, please don't let them convict her, please don't let them convict her

(She is not entirely sure which god she's praying to.)

"Prosecutor, do you have any final statements?"

"The defense here rests on a great many details which are philosophically interesting but not legally important. Valia Wain gave a speech intending that eventually men would die by mobs as a result of it, and indeed this happened. Faster than she expected, faster than anyone expected, but if I put an advertisement in the paper for an assassin hoping that someday someone will take me up on it, and the publisher of the newspaper decides to just kill the man himself and collect the bounty before it goes to press, I am surely just as guilty. And if he merely tries, and gets seventy unrelated people killed, I am responsible for their deaths. 

After Valia Wain did that, she immediately heard from more senior men in her church that she had done great evil, and seems to have sincerely regretted it, though not enough to actually try to prevent it. Valia Wain drew her bow, and fired its arrow, and if while it was in midair she regretted all her choices then before the Judge I suppose that will matter, but not before the Law. If she was guilty when she spoke, she's guilty. 

And she was guilty when she spoke. She admits it. The paladin who spoke in her defense admits it. She spoke intending that men die, and so they did. 

The matter of publication is similar. She gave her speech intending its distribution; that it be copied, and spread throughout the city. She handed a copy to a scribe, and off it went, distributed throughout the city. Somewhere in there she changed her intentions, but the arrow was still in flight, the advertisement still in the envelope; she's guilty. Every death in this city was a consequence of her speech, and a consequence that she desired, if not precisely in its specifics. On every charge she is fully responsible."

They're not going to make him into a paving stone. He's too good at diabolist trickery for them to use him as anything but a devil.

Every charge? Felip's not sure about that, but on any charge seems clear enough for him. He wonders how long it will take the judge to decide, and scans the crowd. Perhaps it's time for a Heroism on Vidal next to him, if he thinks it won't be too loud to be disruptive.

"The Elements of a Crime are each Necessary; if one be Absent the whole Crime is likewise Absent."

"I have shown Each Element Individually to be Absent, though any single One would Suffice for my Case, and ask therefore for Just Acquittal on all Charges. Moreover if the Court believes itself here Empowered to make, and sees fit to make, a Finding of Law that the Pamphlet of Bernat Vidal-Espinosa was Defamatory to Select Wain I believe I have shown this as well."

"Her Majesty's Plain Law makes Plain Demands of all Subjects of her Majesty. Select Wain was Attentive to these Demands and Obeyed them. That Learned Barristers such as my Colleague or Myself possess the skill to Bend Words does not mean that the Nature of her Majesty's Law is that it is Bendable. My Case stands Firm on the Bedrock of the Forthrightness of her Majesty the Queen and I have accordingly used my own Forthrightness in seeking Acquittal."

Now she is free to quietly panic.

Alexandre would kind of like it if Valia was whipped so it was public knowledge her incitement was criminal, but sees no reason to want anything more. She's Good, she already suffered enough.

She's waiting on tenterhooks and really glad she has a heroism up, or else this would be completely unbearable, and Valia doesn't even have that. At least she's going to heaven if she dies, it's not so bad, 

Alicia repeats that silently to herself until she can almost make herself believe it.

It hopes its very small amount of review proved useful.

...This is not even slightly close to the most important part of the situation, but she feels — a little bit like the way she imagines drowning feels like — about denouncing Lluïsa as Evil to the Judiciary Committee. 

She doesn't think there's anything capital proven... But she can't read the judge, the compulsion (geas?) makes him too strange.

Please, gods, don't let this good woman hang.

Justice shall be done. The lawyer was... much better-behaved than expected. The prosecutor, as well, though those are usually a cut above Mephistopheleans-for-hire.

The defense lawyer is full of shit but that's unsurprising. She made a rabblerousing speech and the rabble was roused, what else do you even need to know? Just hang her.