"Yes. He said he was there in the name of Good and justice, to kill the evil nobles. He said that Iomedae and the Queen wanted this done, that they'd summoned us to the city so the people could do it."

"Where do you think he got those ideas?"

"From the speech of Valia Wain, because she is a priest of Iomedae."

"I have no further questions for this witness, and submit her to the court, your honor."

The Archduke of Sirmium? That's... Delegate Requena i Cortes, she's pretty sure, apart from the skeletons thing he's mostly been surprisingly decent for a nobleman, why was he helping Evil nobles rather than the innocent people being murdered for no good reason — no, that answers itself. 'Surprisingly decent for a nobleman' still makes him a nobleman, and he'd rather save a single Evil noble than a hundred people like Liushna or Blai or Enric.

Lluïsa supposes there will be several dozen of these identical nobles, and wonders about the attention span of the crowd, now that it's known the execution isn't public. At any rate it has no bearing on the law. No comments, your Honor.

"How did you come to be countess of Seguer?"

"My father, who was count of Seguer during the Infernal occupation, was rightly put to death on the orders of our noble Queen. Your honor."

He doesn't like it when people try to hide things from him in court, even less when they're stupid petty things that don't matter. "So you were in fact an evil noble, like Wain had denounced, and though you'd sworn no oaths to queen Abrogail, you would have if your father had died two years ago. Is that correct?"

"- I do not believe that I am evil, your honor. I have dedicated myself in this convention to negotiations to return Plant Growth to the people of Cheliax. I have loyally served the Queen since I was appointed. I do not know whether or not Valia Wain considers people like me to be - in the category she was denouncing. If she meant also to denounce every person who it could be said would have sworn an oath to Abrogail Thrune under circumstances that did not come to pass - that is a great many additional people.

Certainly I do not think the distinction was very material to the mob."

Victòria is so, so tired of nobles trying to convince people they aren't Evil while they're actively trying to get an innocent woman killed. 

A lifetime as the daughter of a heartlands count means more evil than you can balance with a couple negotiations with barbarians that haven't even finished yet. Lucky for her, his read is now that she's a self-deluded fool rather than a liar.

"The people who were killed by the mob that attacked you - were they your servants, or your fellow nobles, or both?"

"The mob that I narrowly escaped was the same one that murdered the Lady Solpont, who spoke previously. The guards at that house were sympathetic to them; they went in unopposed, and killed the nobles. I don't know what they did before they got to that house."

"Were the rest of the victims also holdover nobles or married to them?"

"I don't know, your honor." It is not as if the holdover nobles advertise it. When she'd met the Lord and Lady Solpont the lady had been given to implying they'd both of them returned from Absalom to reclaim their ancient lands, and who would blame them.

"Holdover nobles, or married to them, or in one case not married to them but sharing a bed, and the Lady Solpont's child. Your honor."

"The court has no further questions for this witness."

"The prosecution spoke with many additional victims of the riots and mob violence of the 3rd, and submits to the court statements for most of them. We chose these witnesses to establish three things. 

First, that many people believed Valia Wain's speech lawful when she gave it, but this is because they did not understand the ordinary law of Cheliax to apply to the convention. The defense has observed that no one in response to Wain's speech called it unlawful. The witnesses make it clear that this because they did not, for the most part, have any idea what the law was, certainly not confidently enough to object to the speech on the grounds of its legality rather than the far more apparent grounds that it was reckless, foolish, dangerous etcetera. 

Secondly, that the audience plainly did understand the speech as a call for violence against the nobility. They may have been unsure if it was unlawful but they were sure it aimed to incite mobs to kill them. 

And thirdly, that the mobs which did come forth that night to carry out this terrible campaign of murders were inspired by Wain's speech. The defense implied that it was only after the alteration of Wain's speech by the so-called Friend of the True People, put to death by this court two days ago for his own role in the catastrophe, that the speech inspired men to madness and murder. But the Friend of the True People could not claim to speak for Iomedae; Wain could. The mob to which the Countess de Seguer and the Lady Solpont testified believed that Iomedae commanded them in rising up and killing the Evil nobles, and they believed this because Valia Wain told them so; when a mob declares itself a servant of Good and Justice and pointedly and specifically goes to kill out the people Valia Wain said should die, this is probably not because a madman said to tear all tieflings limb from limb but because a Select of Iomedae claimed that Good and Justice were served by this cause precisely.

There remain two key matters to establish. The first is that Wain caused her speech to be distributed, rather than just speaking it to a closed hall; for this we rely on Wain's testimony, which she will give in open court. The second is that she knew that she was calling for men to kill each other. For this we also rely on Wain's testimony, though the Archduke Blanxart alerted her to the possibility, and advised her to study Galt.

At this time we require the testimony of the accused."

...is she supposed to say something to acknowledge that? She errs on the side of not doing so as the judge previously told her not to.

"You may begin your questioning, prosecutor."

This is unfortunately not a time she can get away with casting any silencing spells on Valia.

He doesn't ask her to swear to her honesty. You only do that for people whose oaths you expect mean something, and generally that would include Selects of Iomedae but also they generally don't incite massacres. He will have her truth spelled at the end, if there's anything that comes up that wasn't covered by her previous statements under truth spell.

"There is a copy before you of the speech that you are reported to have given before the assembly of the Constitutional Convention. Did you give that speech?"

"Yes, I did."

"Can you read it for us, in the same tone you read it then? As much of a person's meaning is carried in how they speak words, not just the words they speak."

She had not been expecting that!!!