This is the most exciting place Kicharchu has ever been, except for - no, actually, including the Great Work, which is Greater, but not more exciting.

Laia doesn't actually want to be here but better to be here the whole time and catch up on some of her reading in the din than to hold up all the proceedings being dragged over from the temple, or worse, be passed over and miss a chance to help poor Valia.

This one's worth preparing spells to run away and showing up in the crowd anyway. What does the Queen want, today, and what will we get?

...Admittedly he's less likely to be stuck under Her if the answer is 'bad things'. He still wants to know.

He doesn't place any bets today. He's always liked the philosophy that you should bet for the outcome you dislike, and betting on Wain hanging is just too depressing.

It won't even be satisfying, is the thing, but he owes his sister a letter with the information as soon as he can have it in hand.

Anna is here with her scribe. She's not being given a wide berth, it's too crowded for that, but she has elbow room, which is more than a lot of them can say. Let Law be upheld, she prays, to Abadar in the absence of any god better to ask it of.

Josep is looking forward to this. He was afraid that the church of Iomedae would pressure the Crown into letting Valia Wain go, but it looks like they either didn't try, or tried and failed. In just a little bit, it will be too late.

He settles in to wait for the show. He's going to enjoy this.

Liushna was torn on whether or not to attend, but--Valia deserves to have the people who care about her and believe in her here, to witness what might be her last witnessable moments. 

If they execute her, then--then there's no point in actually trying to make the Constitution work. She won't go home immediately, of course. With her stipend she can acquire resources that the tribe will be glad to have, and also she would rather wait to bring Rojix home until he can mostly understand Itarii. 

She puts money on Valia not being executed. Gambling is still a completely wild concept but she--wants the world where Valia lives to be the right one, wants the people who think she should die entertainingly to have egg on their faces. 

She has her wings wrapped protectively around Rojix to shield him from the noise of the crowd. She couldn't find someone she trusted to mind him while she was at the trial. Hazards of being away from the tribe. 

There's a portion of the arena set aside, near the front where stairs can be used to reach the floor, where those who either prosecution or defense have affirmed may be called as a witness are seated.

Archduchess Jilia Bainilus, dressed much more as an Archduchess than she usually bothers or consents to do, is there, with a small entourage tracing out a square around her. Lady Sofia is with her, leaving the house for the first time this week; her job is to keep an eye on the crowd and assess its moods while Jilia is performing, either her role as a high noble or her role as a witness for the defense.

(It's also a test of Sofia. She might need better political skills soon. She probably knows it's a test, if she's doing her job right.)

Jilia can't entirely keep the crowd's mood from affecting her. She's optimistic: she believe the Queen is Good, and would not condemn a well-intentioned young woman for making a huge mistake. The list of charges is heartening, less in what is there and more in what isn't; treason, which means anything power wants it to. But the crowd wants blood; it's angry, and scared, and angry to cover up its fear. They'll be outraged with any result but a death.

And she may be out on the steps giving a speech to try to talk them down, if they are. It would probably be the most dangerous thing she's done this year.

Borrowing trouble. She has a speech written for it; Sofia helped workshop it. Later.

His morning spell preparations were interrupted several times by his familiar, saying he’d better not be preparing the dramatic rescue set. He wasn’t. He was preparing the undramatic rescue and quick getaway set. But he got talked out of that too. Blasted creature, why did it have to be wiser than he is? 

So, Lisandro is very grumpily sitting in the stands. What’s the point of being an anarchic wizard, if he’s just watching a show trial for a cleric of Iomedae? At least he’s got an extended arcane sight up so he can scope out any magical defenses. 

He's here, dressed for danger. He only has two guards with him; the rest are elsewhere in the city, keeping order. He didn't attend the previous trial, just read the transcript after the fact, but this one is important.

He's not sure what to pray for. Justice? Tempting, at a trial. But what he wants most is peace.

Sarenrae, let them be satisfied.

She doesn't arrive in time to find a seat, so she ends up standing in the middle of a cluster of other people in the same situation. 

Valia has to be okay, she has to be, the Queen let her and Alicia and Raimon go, and she and Raimon had actually broken the law. Valia didn't break the law, didn't do anything wrong at all, so she should be fine, she's going to be fine, she has to be fine. 

She doesn't entirely believe it. 

...She desperately wishes she could tell Valia they let her go. She tells herself firmly that when they find Valia innocent she'll just tell her herself.

Ok this time it'll be the axe, for sure.

This is the queen’s last chance to redeem herself after that dreadful pamphlet trial. If this one is boring too, Mattin will have to start holding games at the exact same time as trials so everyone sees who fills more seats.

It’s so much nicer to be a tiny bird in a high up perch than to be stuck elbowing through the crowd below. She recommends it to anyone with shapeshifting abilities.

While she’s not particularly invested in the outcome of the trial, it’s clearly important to the question of ‘will this new regime collapse into civil war.’ She doesn’t even have a particular way she wants it to go, it not being clear what outcome would definitely avoid a civil war. Civilization is deeply confusing and these people are insane.

Joan-Pau Ardiaca, brother of an Abadaran priestess, watches the trial, having quietly gotten a number of inconspicuous-looking servants to bet money on "not executed" at every bookmaker willing to both distinguish this from "not convicted" and offer decent odds on it. Hey, he's got to pay his army somehow.

Feliu expects to be called on and is here to do his duty.

Carlota is in a horrendous mood because some of the pamphlets being eagerly distributed around the stadium are the ones calling her a whore of Geryon, or worse referencing this as an established feature to further riff on, and from their distribution at the trial by unafraid vendors people will infer that the Crown considers them a great example of encouraged and reasonable civic participation. Even worse, people won't be wrong, as that does seem to be the Crown's position. She has a number of plans to deal with this, and it's possible one of her first few plans will work and it'll be solved shortly, but none of them will come soon enough for it to not horrendously damage everything she cares about, endanger her people and her legislative proposals, and quite possibly get everyone in the Mansion killed, and it feels particularly difficult in this moment to escape the conclusion that's what the Crown wants.

It would be a mistake to treat the Valia trial as a verdict on that, a mistake she has just written several pamphlets counseling people against making. The Valia trial is, she believes the Crown that far, about whether Valia broke the law or not. The Queen may be the only person in Westcrown who cares about the answer to that question, but she is the one with the authority to demand everyone sit down and answer it. 

She isn't a gambling woman, not with money; she has gambled political capital with her allies that they'll be glad of the time they spent preparing for an acquittal. She sits, and watches the wizard duel unimpressed (she could do better, with her own Major Image, were she not saving her spells in case the mobs being incited in this very moment go after her home tonight), and contemplates sitting close enough to Alexaera she could ask him to make her unafraid (she would rather die than admit that much weakness, but contemplating it does dissolve the fear a little, or at least make it possible to separate herself from it.) 

They will have themselves some dry legal wrangling, and then a verdict, and then one of two different flavors of a mess, and it is their duty to support the Crown through all of it; Cheliax cannot bear otherwise, from any of them. At least she is not Alexaera, who has to sit here acting like he approves of all this, knowing the Queen to be secretly Evil, obliged to nonetheless plan to use the Reclamation to crush the likely riots if the Queen has Valia put to death. 

It is a surprisingly cheering thought, that everyone around her carries their private and highly specific misery into this moment, that probably - not none of them, but fewer than ten of them - are thinking about the Geryon whore pamphlets at all. 

Eulàlia is here because they will not really know if Valia Wain was right or wrong until they watch her die. (Yes, she understands that the trial part doesn't include the execution). On the one hand, everyone has been stridently denouncing her, so in that sense Valia Wain was wrong. On the other, Valia Wain stood up and said that the government needed fear its people and made it true, so Valia Wain was right. She seems like the kind of person who will be right if she lives, which is why she needs to die.

There's something really special about proceedings whose outcomes are secret even from those presiding over them. 

She is not actually here. She was approached about six different harebrained rescue schemes, vetoed all of them, and expects to go unrecognized for her services to the new Chelish state.

Whenever it comes to a big production of Civilization like this, Feather is acutely aware she doesn't understand these people. They're alien to her, and she's coming to appreciate Voshrelka's gloss of them as 'insane' but that's not productive.

They don't know what alignment they are, or what they want out of life. Riot following a Good cleric? Hang a Good cleric for inciting riots? Either one makes sense but not both at once! The only thing they all agree on is that they're supposed to be Lawful, except they have no idea what the law actually says (see: everyone disagreeing on the upcoming verdict) and, also, almost everyone she asks in the crowd thinks the Queen and/or the judge are above the law more than they are enforcing it, because they can decide the verdict. Except no-one can agree what verdict they'll decide.

When she talks to any one person in isolation they sort of make sense, but as soon as you bring a bunch of them together they coalesce into a giant swirling Chaotic(?) mass that claims it's Lawful but can't actually predict what it will do next round, like some demented hive mind. We're lawful! No, overthrow the old queen and her laws, call a convention to write the new laws! No, charge a delegate for proposing new laws! Charge her under what laws, we cancelled the old laws! 

Maybe this is how Lawful people go crazy when they have no law to follow?

Alicia is at the trial, having gotten there incredibly to ensure she got a decent seat. It’s a risk, to be here, especially in a disguise carefully treading the line of “not immediately recognizable as herself” and “not obviously in disguise” if recognized, but - she’s certainly not in more danger than Valia, and the girl has no choice about the matter. Hopefully invisibility and alter self are enough to escape any outraged nobles in the event that Valia survives.

She badly wants to cast heroism to steady her nerves, but if there’s another riot after she’ll sorry regret having fewer healing spells available. She’ll spend one for the trial and its immediate aftermath, and instead sit there fretfully staring at the overwhelming powerful abjuration magic layered over the entire stadium.

Thea is here, with Dia elsewhere in the crowd.  Dia has attended a number of trials at this point.  She didn’t lecture Thea about how much more cautious Thea needs to be, so presumably the other trials at least appear fair.  Provided Valia didn’t actually lead a mob and is being tried for her floor speech, she should get acquitted.  If not, Thea will need to radically change her approach to the convention, staying silent as much as possible and abandoning all but the easiest to obtain goals.

Fernando is here and kind of confused.  They are apparently committed enough to their loyalty test that they didn’t simply release Valia once her role in it was done?  Maybe this ‘trial’ will be used to give one last test or lesson?  Fernando thought the test was obvious: don’t use a Select’s words as an excuse for Evil Anarchic riots.  He’s not sure how the arrest of the Select factors into it.

Narikopolus does not especially care what happens to Valia. He's here to know and uphold the Queen's will, whatever it is, and because everyone else who was in his house on the third is invested and needs the moral support. 

Llei is anxious and irritable and only not holding his breath in the literal sense.

They have to execute her. Surely. By hanging, fine, and straight to Axis if the goddess finds she's not done enough wrong to outweigh having freed Pezzack. Fine. But until she is executed, the people will not know whether the Queen wants him dead or not.

She doesn't. So they're going to hang her, whatever the paladins say, and then he can finally go back to being only as uncomfortable as he was when he first arrived in Westcrown. But he needs to see it, because he already knows it, and knowing it is not actually helping at all.

He seeks out de Fraga in the crowd. This execution is a start, but they'll need to keep pushing afterwards. The torrent of pamphlets flowing around the arena makes that even more clear.

The last trial was really boring so Conradí is skipping this one. He places some bets on "killed by archons" and "tongue cut out" and "stoned to death by her Raised victims," they've all got really good odds.

"Throwing rocks! Get your stones right here, guaranteed perfect size for tossing when they let us stone her-"

"Marquis." He's glad to see Vidal and the guards clear him a space to sit next to the Duke, who taps Vidal with a Protection from Arrows. It doesn't save your dignity from fruit, but it makes surviving mob violence much easier, if it comes to that.

It’s a long shot, but Iker thinks he can beat the odds. He lost some coin betting on last trial, but he’s about to make it all back. 

It’s obvious, if you think about it. Last week, if he said the new queen was going to have a kill-the-Iomedaean show, no one would believe him. That’s the last thing the new queen would do, only the old queen would do that. Iker was kinda sad about it, actually. He never saw the show with a cleric, and it looked like he’d never get to. Everyone with good taste says clerics are a better show than paladins because they still get scared. Anyway, no one thought they’d be in a crowd watching them kill an Iomedaean, but now it’s happening. So, the winning choice is something the old queen would do, but the last thing anyone expects from a lawful good queen. 

Ten gold on Malediction. 

Antoni doesn't know whether Wain's speech was technically legal and it has not even slightly occurred to him that it might matter. If the Queen doesn't want further riots — and his impression is that she sincerely doesn't — she'll do whatever is necessary to make that happen, and never might what the law or the Church of Iomedae has to say about it. She could hardly have conquered a country if she wasn't willing to hurt people to do so.

Silvia is worried. She can't say she's never broken a law under truth spells right now, and that's bad. Soon, she expects, she will need to. But she clutches her stake and remembers that killing real Asmodean priests was supposed to be a good thing with the new crown. And apparently this trial is different somehow? Thea talked about it, and some of her ideas sounded like they would mean Silvia didn't actually break the law. And it's always better to know.

Sergi and Gisella are nervous. In Andoran it would matter that she has probably not committed the crimes the prosecutor promulgated as the charges, but in Andoran a single speech, maliciously published, wouldn't have caused riots across the whole city.

Sergi hopes for mercy; if she isn't Good already, she certainly deserves redemption. Gisella would take cruelty if it calms the city.

He has his trident with him. It looks a little silly on shore, but he wants to be armed to defend himself, if the guards outside aren't enough.

It would've been better for this trial to happen right away, the day after the riots. Tell the people that there will be consequences for anarchism and riots, even for clerics of Iomedae; tell the victims that the Crown is with them, not with lawless murderers. Don't give people nearly a week to come up with stories in which convicting her is an endorsement of diabolism and proof that the people should storm the steps of the palace, or whatever other nonsense the pamphlets are saying today. The necessary message is fundamentally very simple: murder, arson, and any other forms of lawless disorder will not be tolerated, and anyone who tries to stir it up regardless will die for it.

(Not knowing what constraints the Queen is under, he of course would not presume to think that she acted in error.)

Sefora's here to support Valia, who she likes because she gives good speeches against the nobility, and not for any other reason. 

"Get your badgers! Get your badgers! Guaranteed to say something wierd in every issue!"

Let the first round of social gladiatorial combat be resolved.

If he doesn't see it, he won't know how to edit the pamphlets.

Ricard is here, existing.  Better to find out what the Queen wants now.

Poor Valia. She was trying. 

"Stop doing that, you need to look dignified."

Couldn't she have gotten my mom killed instead, that would have been so much nicer. 

Antonio is mostly here to make sure Llei doesn't do anything rash. Something's gotten into him since the riots.

(Xavi is not here. He heard they let the prisoners speak, and "trial of woman whose last speech started murderous riots" sounded like the single most likely place in the city to be murdered in a riot.)

The guards bring Valia in a few minutes before the appointed starting time. The stadium is very full, and very loud. That makes sense. There are far more people in Westcrown than in Pezzack. And most of them will want to come out, to this, to know that justice has been done. 

She finds it easier, somehow, to endure once they bring her in. It will be terrible, probably, but at least it won't be waiting. And Victòria is safe, and Alicia is safe, and the fact she was herself to die was never the most unbearable part of the whole thing. Cheliax is free; the innocent people who helped her are safe; what is there left to fear, justice? Heaven? She fears neither, or at least it is possible to imagine a version of herself who fears neither, who is full not of anger and aggressively quenched hope and blind sickening terror but of the knowledge that however badly it hurts she will deserve it and it will eventually end and Cheliax will not be enslaved forever for her absence, because it was in fact free already. 

(She does not look like she was tortured even half as much as she deserved in prison, though of course one can conceal that with enough healing magic. She does not appear to be bespelled, though the chains that hold her in place are.)

Alfirin walks slowly to the center of the arena. It is in fact somewhat irregular for the queen to give an address at the beginning of a trial, but these are irregular circumstances and the people will hopefully be made less confused by her speech rather than more.

"People of Westcrown,

We know many of you have come here today to learn what we think of Valia Wain. You will not. We have not told the prosecutor what we think of Valia Wain; We have not told the Magistrate. The prosecutor will argue that she is guilty of many crimes; That is his job. The Magistrate will use his knowledge of the law and of the facts presented to decide whether she is in fact guilty of breaking the law as it was written. That is his job. His task is not to discern whether we think Valia Wain should live or die and rule accordingly, only to decide whether the law says that she should live or die. He is bound by powerful magic to not give any consideration to what we might want, or even to what he wants, but to consider only the law and the truth as it is presented to him. This is how the courts act in truly lawful countries, and though Cheliax is still learning how to be a lawful and unAsmodean country it is our fervent hope and our daily labor that she learn quickly.

There are other, deeper questions that we know many of you have, which we will answer. We know that many of you are wondering whether we desired the riots on the night of the third; We did not. Those who took part in the killing and the looting and the arson are being found, tried, and executed. We know that many of you are wondering whether we think the nobles who ruled under the Thrunes should live or die; We have already put to death those who we think should die. Those who live do so at our will and enjoy the protection of the law extended to all of our subjects. We know that many of you wonder whether, as Valia Wain claimed, the Convention is full of evil people. A just government rules for the benefit of its people, in consultation with its people. Many of the people of Cheliax are evil, as that was the will of Hell, and so any body which represents the people of Cheliax will be a body of people with evil in their pasts. Today's trial is not concerned with representative government, nor with evil, nor the existence of the nobility, nor whether we approve of lawless violence; A speech was given, and this court is tasked with determining whether that speech obeyed the law, nothing more and nothing less.

So, people of Westcrown - If we have answered your questions, and you have no more, then you should return to your homes. If you have come seeking to learn our opinion of Valia Wain, then go home; you will not learn that today. If you have come to see a young woman be killed, then go home; if she is condemned any execution will occur in private, and if she is set free there shall be none. If you have come to make certain that Valia Wain dies, or to make certain that she lives, go home; that is not within your power. If, indeed, you have come here for any reason at all besides an interest in the question of whether Valia Wain committed a crime under the laws of Cheliax as they stood last Toilday - then return to your homes, because that is the only question which this court will answer. And whether Wain is condemned or acquitted, whatever you may think of that verdict or her sentence, know that no violent reaction will be tolerated."

And then she disappears back to the royal box to watch the proceedings and hopefully not have to stop any ill-conceived rescues or murders or pointless violence.

Well, they should definitely get that printed and distributed everywhere, if the Queen's scribes aren't on that already. 

(She doesn't actually care at all about whether Valia Wain technically broke the law and in any event trusts her own competence at legal analysis more than that of the court if she did care. She is present to support the Queen and know which disasters to expect in the city. She is of course not leaving.)

Joan-Pau leans over one of his scribes' shoulder, observes he's already copying it down, and leans back into his seat.

Well, time to go then. He’ll find out if his bet was right in the taverns once it’s done. 

Wait. The boss is here, and probably cares about the legal stuff even if there’s no show. Ugh, he’ll stay and read pamphlets when it gets boring.

Fernando didn’t have those exact questions, but he was wondering if he understood the loyalty test correctly, and it appears he did!  And he isn’t wondering if Valia is guilty either, obviously she’s not.  So with his questions answered, to follow the Queen’s instructions, he should leave.  He arrived late, so he is in the standing section, and he starts awkwardly squeezing his way out of the crowd.  He wonders if the crowd is worse at following instructions, or too dumb to realize the obvious answers.  Or maybe they’re just slow and will be right behind him on his way out.

Jilia is fully aware that the Queen is in the small set of people who can lie to her face. Still, she is cheered. No one was hoping for this, except maybe Lastwall, and so it is a poor lie, unless it isn't a lie at all.

"Get that copied," she murmurs to a wizard aide, "And call the scouts outside to see if it's being published already."

From the lawyers' bench, Lluïsa is puzzled. The magistrate is... dominated? geassed? For the side having the true case, i.e. hers, this is good, as far as it's trustworthy. It's not that trustworthy because the Crown can just decline to prosecute. What is actually going on here?

From inside Lluïsa's cloak, it's heartened that the trial is meant to be fair!

What's going on is that the Queen lost her nerve, wants Wain innocent, and doesn't want the political liability of pardoning her, and so she's decided to just throw the trial and hope this annoys her political allies less. Xarra doesn't really think it will. Certainly he is more annoyed about it.

Nonetheless, his duty is to observe that Valia Wain is guilty (confessedly so! he's just not allowed to say it!) even if the Magistrate's duty is to manufacture some reason she isn't. 



He gets up to speak.


"Honored Magistrate. People of Westcrown.

Valia Wain spent about forty-eight hours in Westcrown before deciding it the proper moment to call upon its people to rise up and overthrow their Evil rulers. That the Evil rulers had already been overthrown was of no consequence to her. That wiser men warned her that her course of action would surely lead to countless, senseless deaths was of no consequence to her. 

She decided to tell the people of Westcrown that Evil still ruled them, that they were cowards if they did not take to the streets to defeat it, and that Evil would die 'by a thousand pitchforks and stones'. 

And because she is a priest of Iomedae - and because she is a very gifted speaker - the people of Westcrown believed her. They took up the pitchforks, they took up the stones, and they went out into the streets to find the men that Valia Wain named, and the men that Valia Wain named only obliquely by description, and also any other men who struck them as the evildoers that she warned of. They took her words and they spread them, expanded on them, added further diabolical and false extensions of them - but it was her words that they worked from, her exhortation to rise up and disobey the Law that started it all. 

Believing themselves in the service of Good they dealt our city and our country the greatest Evil since Liberation Day, fearless, as she exhorted them to be fearless, they flung themselves at their fellows and butchered each other in the streets; hundreds died, and it is only by the timely intervention of the archmages that the toll was not far higher still. For Valia Wain has a peculiar gift to stoke men to rebellion and madness, and without hesitation employed it against our Queen, our city, and our people. 

After a thorough investigation she has been charged with three hundred and six counts of wrongful death, for every person in the city whose death was a consequence of the denunciations she had distributed in violation of Her Majesty's law on denunciations. And she has been charged with incitement to murder, which carries the penalty for each of the murders that she urged, of which there are fifteen established beyond ambiguity - and many more, with no doubt, but justice could not go undone for these murders while we prepared proof her words were in the killer's minds for all of them.

She has not been charged with treason, which you may wonder at hearing the list of her deeds; but Her Majesty preferred that we prosecute Wain's crimes against the people of Cheliax, who suffered by them, and not her crimes against Her Majesty, who fought Hell itself and killed the Tarrasque in one blow and can duel any demigod and fears only for the safety of her subjects and not her person.

Valia Wain presents herself as a weak, confused, well-meaning little girl. She is in fact a murderer three hundred times over. It is the aim of Her Majesty's Prosecution to demonstrate her guilt, that Cheliax may be safe from her, that Iomedae's noble Church may be safe from association with her, and that the rule of Law may be upheld."

That all seems pretty fair, really.

With mounting horror she listens to the prosecution, apparently, stab its own case full of holes. This is wrong and she can't see why and it's going to get her client executed. What is she missing?

Well, it's time to speak. She stands, and speaks as loudly as she can.

Good People of Cheliax, behold Select of Iomedae Valia Wain. Beloved Daughter of Pezzack, Delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Hers is a Name which has been on many Lips, inked in many Pamphlets, and now she stands Charged with Incitement; with Deaths resulting from Riots.

Do I stand here as Friend to the Inciter? Assuredly not; I am an ardent Enemy of the Mob and Friend of Order. I was myself set upon by the Mob on that Day which is still Fresh in our Memories, and Hurled Bodily from the Pons Tralian, which Ordeal I fortunately Survived albeit with some Injury.

I am no Defender of Riots, no Help to their Inciters. I am the Friend of Justice and Ally of the Law, and it is by the Law I say to you, that Select Valia Wain is Innocent of those Crimes with which she has been Charged. She is No Inciter.

This Hero of Pezzack, her Time as a Perennial Thorn in the Side of the Vile Thrunes ended with their Downfall, came to Westcrown, to the Convention, to participate as the Queen desires, in the drafting of New Laws to be Good and Proper to the Liberated Empire. And Valia Wain did set herself Earnestly to the Task, and worked Diligently and Admirably; I myself am a Delegate and saw this Firsthand.

Though the Select owing to Weak Eyesight cannot Read Unaided—and such is, make no mistake, the Fault of the Vile Thrunes who have ever been her Justly Chosen Enemies, for the sole Optician practicing his Trade in Pezzack was put to death by those Tyrants—she was not at all Deterred or moved to Sloth but made yet Greater Efforts to Learn and Study that a Just Constitution might benefit from it.

And when she desired to give a Speech on the General Floor—not before the Public, but before her fellow Delegates of the Convention, whose chief Duty is to Speak and to Hear Speeches, and Debate them—when she desired to give that Speech, she Diligently Consulted the Decrees of the Queen that it be assuredly a Lawful Speech. I have of course read them and agree! For she made no Threats, called for no Violence, called at worst for the Removal of certain Delegates from the Convention, and exhorted those who do Evil to Repentance. Moreover it was not even a Public Speech, but before a Closed Hall intended for the Voicing of Free Debate! As a matter of Law she is indeed Innocent for these Reasons.

Now there are those who thought it a Foolish Speech, or who Disagreed. I indeed Disagreed myself, in a Collegial way, one Delegate to a Fellow Delegate. But none at all on the whole Convention Floor, even though they spoke in Opposition, called it Unlawful, for it was plainly not. In all that Crowded Hall, none imagined such a thing; not the President, not the Archduchess who first spoke in Opposition; none at all. For I am sure they would have Spoken on it if they had! Be assured that the General Floor of the Convention is not a Place where Men are known to Hold their Tongues; the Debate is most Lively.

But there were those afterward who brought to Select Wain their Concerns; not that her speech was Unlawful, for no one contemplated this Plainly False Idea, but that it should out of Prudence not be made Available to the Public. For Valia Wain is of Pezzack and was not Familiar with the Mood of Westcrown; her Experience with Violence was limited to Noble Rebellion against Ignoble Thrune Diabolists. And so a Wise and Experienced Paladin, her Senior in the Faith of Iomedae, counseled her thus, and she was Attentive, and did not Distribute or Cause to be Distributed her Speech outside the Convention Hall. Indeed she Plainly Refused any Request to do such made to her! This is hardly the Behavior of an Inciter—an Inciter must at some point perform Incitement, which Valia Wain did not even Approach!

Yet alas the work of Evil is not able to be Entirely Halted by the Efforts of a Lone Select, Heroic though she may be, and Evil was already at work unbeknownst to any of the Good People in that Hall, for her Words had been Smuggled out of the Convention Hall by Parties Unknown, to that Vile Enemy of the People, Bernat Vidal-Espinosa. By Deplorable Plagiarism he Mutilated the Select's Words, coupling them with an Exhortation to Violence and Riot quite Opposite her true Intent. And when I was myself Hurled Bodily into the River, it was surely as though Bernat Vidal-Espinosa's own Hands had done the Deed.

But his Hands reach out and do Wrongs still, though not against me but against Valia Wain, accused of his Crimes for which she is Blameless. In truth I have Researched Law by which this Wretch may be brought to Account for his Defamation of the Select. Though he is Justly Executed, I believe there may still be Means to reach this Justice; if nothing else his Ill-Gotten Gains from Pamphleteering should be Awarded to the Select so Grievously Harmed by his Calumnies.

But while he did his Evil Work, the Good Select stayed Late in the Convention Hall, for as I have mentioned she is Diligent and thought only of doing Good Work. When at last she left she found a City in Unrest, and as any Good Priest would she set about Healing, braving the Violence most Heroically to Save those who might be Saved. At length was she Relieved of this Duty by those fearing for her Safety on those Dangerous Streets, including that Experienced Paladin I have mentioned, who guarded her with that Integrity which is Characteristic of Paladins.

Yet for all this Good and Virtuous Conduct not Violating any Law, she yet stands Charged with the Crimes of Others; and I, Friend of Order and Ally of Justice, shall show the Aforesaid through Evidence and Testimony, that the Court may reach the Just Verdict that is the Acquittal of Valia Wain.

Oh, good, his name hasn't come up yet. It's not that it's embarrassing to coordinate a rescue mission, just that it is somewhat embarrassing to do it instead of arresting Valia Wain.

What a show! He (reclining, surrounded by aides, sipping an elaborate iced fruit drink through a straw so he can still wear his evil mask) is really enjoying this trial.

A better wizard, sitting here with arcane sight up, would be able to just look at the magistrate and figure out exactly what kind of enchantment was placed and what exactly it does. Lisandro squints but doesn’t see it. Maybe the overlapping wards are all too bright. 

Did they actually find an honest lawyer somewhere? Or just bribe her excessively?

A... trial that is actually concerned with the law and if it was broken.

This is a bit of a wild concept to Voshrelka, at least as it pertains to Cheliax. In her experience, laws are mostly there as things to leverage or ignore as necessary by those in power. But this is... mostly about actually following them. Huh. Weird.

She keeps liking this queen? It's deeply strange. She's tempted to put in effort to see that she reigns this country for eternity, between this and the paper of stupid people leaving her alone and how quickly it was sorted out. She'll think on it over the next decade, as she is probably going to be doing the damnable Plant Growth circuits the entire time. There will be a lot of time to think on her long, long flights.

The Queen's speech was the first time he had any sense that this matter was being adequately handled. He looks out at the crowd, trying to gauge whether or not they feel the same.

Then the prosecutor gives a specious argument against a treason charge, and he gets to thinking.

"Confused," Sofia mutters to Jilia, "Disappointed. Looking for the lawyer's trap, I think."

"Let them look. I have a good feeling about her, I think."

That speech does sound better recited than on paper!

This is where his life would be much easier if he had his confession, but matters are not hopeless without it. "The honorable attorney retained by Valia Wain identifies accurately many of the key matters in which the court must rule, but the facts on each of them are far less favorable to her client than she would hope. 

If it were truly so that Valia Wain had sought out legal counsel before giving her speech before a packed hall of nearly a thousand, this court would still need find her guilty: there is nowhere in Her Majesty's decrees where one is innocent of murder, or of wrongful death, if one commits those crimes ignorant of their illegality. And Wain's speech, we will establish, was illegal; had she obtained counsel to the effect that it was legal, that counsel would have been mistaken.

But in any event it is not so; Valia Wain did not seek out legal counsel before giving her speech. Valia Wain was in fact repeatedly warned that her course was reckless and would lead to the death of countless innocents, before giving her speech, and ignored this counsel. Valia Wain sought the advice of a young song-sorceress and a young Chaotic priestess of Calistria, in drafting her call for the men of Cheliax to murder all those she named as their enemies. 

This is not the behavior of a person sincerely trying to determine if their conduct is permitted by the law. Valia Wain was a priest of Iomedae, and among the other delegates were a more senior priest of Iomedae, a senior paladin of Iomedae, most of the assembled nobility of Cheliax, and more than two hundred scribes, secretaries, and advisors, many of them with legal training. In this distinguished crowd, Wain sought the 'legal advice' of her song-sorcerer and her Calistrian, not because they were qualified, but because they would confirm for her what she wanted to hear, and help her make the speech plausibly deniable as incitement to murder without, as anyone lawful would have counseled her, making it actually not constitute incitement to murder.

To testify to the circumstances under which Wain is purported to have sought legal counsel, and who she sought it from, and whether she was warned clearly and specifically that her course of action would lead to the deaths of many innocents, the prosecution calls the Archduke Alfonso Antoninus Iomedae Blanxart, Archduke of the Heartlands, Count of Longacre, &c. &c. &c."

He rises from the witnesses' gallery and walks to the stand, not looking at the crowd at all.

 "Do you swear before the gods of Good and Law, and before this court, and before your Queen, that every word of your testimony is true, and that your integrity as a man of the law may be verified by magic, should any call it into question?"

"I do so swear."

"On the first day of the convention, you joined the Committee on Excising Diabolism, which Valia Wain chaired, is that correct? Can you describe the proposals that Valia Wain made to the committee?"

Victòria is confused.

The Queen let her and Raimon go. She didn't have to do that. They had unambiguously broken the law. Just about no one would have faulted her for having Calistrian arsonists put to death, no matter how justified they were. The explanation that makes the most sense is that she really was Good all along, that Victòria was wrong to call her Evil.

But she didn't let Valia go, even though Valia is actually innocent. She gave a whole speech about how the whole goal here is to decide if she broke the law! She claimed she mind-controlled the judge into following it! And maybe that's a lie, maybe she's mind-controlling the judge into just declaring Valia innocent, but it seems like it would be a lot easier to just... declare her innocent. Everyone Victòria has talked to about it knows she's obviously innocent.

...Also, she's still defending the Evil nobles, for some reason. Maybe she's just... confused? Maybe she thinks the nobles who are left over have only done Evil things that aren't worth killing someone over, and doesn't realize how many of them are murderers or rapists or unrepentant diabolists?

(Maybe Archmage Cotonnet wants Valia dead and the Evil nobles alive, and she's not strong enough to fight him? But that doesn't really make sense either.)

She hates the prosecutor. The woman who asked her questions was so nice, and friendly, and even if that was really just mind control it's hard to imagine a woman like that standing up in front of the crowd and trying to convince everyone of those terrible lies. Valia didn't kill anyone, she wasn't trying to kill anyone, she didn't break the law — she might be Chaotic but she didn't lie to Valia about what the law was, that would be awful, Valia is her — person that she cares about and wants to be okay—

(and of course he's calling the Thrune noble to back him up, no decent person would just agree with what he was saying—)

(and Delegate Oriol i Cornellà is actually... fine? She's Evil, but — maybe she really hasn't done anything she deserves to die for. If Valia is Good and Victòria and Delegate Tallandria are Neutral maybe there's room for people to be Evil just for being normal Asmodeans. It — hurts to think about that, for some reason — but she's defending Valia—)

"She proposed," he answers the prosecutor, "that any Evil person who seeks power or persists in holding it ought to be put to death—under the law, or so I interpreted her words, not outside of it."

"But even if Wain's proposals at that time remained within the bounds of the law or ambiguously so, you advised Wain repeatedly that the courses of action she proposed would lead to the deaths of a great many innocent people, is that correct?"

Ah, the good bit.

"I told her that the policy she proposed was a greater evil than the one she meant to drive out, and that she ought look to the history of Galt, for examples of how it would actually be implemented in practice."

"Were you the only person on that committee to strongly advise Valia Wain that her proposals, if heeded, were likely to lead to the deaths of many innocent people?"

(A courtesy message to the judge between questions, informing him that Archduke Blanxart is also a witness for the defense; it would be more rhetorically convenient to be able to take this apart immediately, but at least she can get it into the judge's mind.)

"Delegate Ibarra also advised her that her proposals would lead to the deaths of many people and would be evil. I don't think he used the word 'innocent'."

"Thank you. How did Valia Wain respond to these warnings from you and from Delegate Ibarra?"

Is this prosecutor seriously trying to argue that Valia should have listened to a Thrune and a man who burned down houses filled with innocent children about whether to give her speech???

Delegate "Ibarra" will successfully not laugh and instead just smile evilly behind his evil-looking mask.

...Delegate Ibarra. That's him, in the galleries, looking ridiculous as ever.

Surely they don't plan to sink their own case further by calling him.

"My warning was ignored, as far as I could tell, at which point I decided not to attempt further personal confrontation and instead petition her church to reprimand her. Delegate Ibarra's—well, his statement was given in protest of his expulsion from the committee, which occurred anyway."

"Thank you, Archduke. 

Your Honor, incitement to murder is a crime with an element of intent, and Wain's conduct in the committee demonstrates it. To find Wain guilty of inciting the people of Westcrown to violence against Evildoers this court must find that Wain understood that such violence was a plausible consequence of her speech. But she knew. In the space of a single day multiple people had warned her of it.

Almost never does the prosecution have the privilege, when trying to demonstrate someone knew something, of having multiple different people who said it to them directly in plain language in front of a room full of witnesses mere hours before the crime.

 Valia Wain has been operating as a successful politician in Pezzack for nearly two years, and as a rebel leader for the months before that. She is not mentally incompetent in any way. If she was ignorant, it was invincible ignorance that persisted in the face of repeated, very clear warnings from one of the most senior and respected men of Cheliax, the Archduke, and from another delegate, and it did not occur to her to - in curiosity about why these men had thus advised her - seek out a legal opinion from someone qualified to give one. 

Does the court have any questions for this witness?"

"The advocate for the accused has also registered the Archduke as a witness. In the name of expediency, I will permit the advocate to ask her questions of the Archduke now, if she wills, and will reserve my questions for when she is done."

!

Well, that's good.

"Archduke Blanxart. You said now that Select Wain made a proposal you took to be 'under the Law, not outside of it'. Was it then a Proposed Law in the ordinary course of the Work of the Convention, not any sort of Call to Imminent Action?"

"Her statements in the committee about which I cautioned her were such, yes. I did not have any expectation at that time that she would incite the city to lawless violence, as none of this was taking place before the public. I understood her to be proposing a new law, as the assembly was indeed commanded to do. It would have been an evil law, if enacted, but determining which laws would serve good and which evil was, as I understood it, the better part of the business of the Convention."

"When you cautioned Select Wain, did you foresee and warn her of any specific outcome?"

"The outcome I feared was the execution—by the government formed under the new Constitution—of many people who did not deserve to die, merely on charges of possessing an Evil aura. In the words of holy Aroden, 'The judgements of the Judge are not the judgements of man; civilization must tolerate many things She calls Evil, and forbid some that She names Good.'"

"As for my warning, I warned her only to become familiar with the history of Galt, which suffered many different evils of excessive zeal in the course of its revolution."

"That man seated in the Galleries; he is Delegate Ibarra?" She points.

"Indeed."

The man making an ironic half-bow? Yes.

Excuse me, the Mask of the Cursed Eye makes anyone who tries to scry me immediately be struck blind, and, more importantly, gives me a mental image of them so I know if it's Chelish assassins or not.

"He confessed before the committee that he did worship Norgorber; I know not what vows he may have taken. I have never seen him without the mask."

Wait isn't that....a crime?

(She can barely see him from where she's standing, but she feels a flash of anger that he gets to just be here and free and taunting them after everything he's done, when Valia is stuck being put on trial even though she didn't do anything wrong.)

"Would you consider it Unreasonable to be Skeptical of Advice on Prudent Lawmaking from an avowed Worshipper of Norgorber?"

Norhorberites actually give some of the best legal advice, at least the serious ones do. It’s usually a good idea to be suspicious of anyone who knows too much about the exact boundaries of the law.

Far be it from Jonatan to question Her Majesty's staffing decisions, but he really doesn't think she put her best prosecutor on this case. It would have been perfectly sufficient to mention that Wain put the advice of a Calistrian whore above that of an archduke without mentioning the Norgorber-worshipper at all.

The problem is that they had a very thorough confession that Her Majesty threw out this morning because she wants them to lose.

"No; indeed I would not have interpreted Ibarra's words as prudent advice at all, though you will have to question him directly if you wish to learn his intent."

He doesn't know that! He'd be a lot more pointed about his non-questioning of Her Majesty's wise and just decisions if he knew about that!

Well, she hopes that particular extremity is not called for.

"When you heard Select Wain's Speech on the General Floor, did you then think it Unlawful to give?"

"I did not know it to be lawful or unlawful, being ignorant of the details of the law under such a young regime. Under the laws of the Ancient Empire it might have been illegal to say in public, but I did not expect such laws to be in force. I did however understand the assembly to be an environment where otherwise forbidden speech was permitted, as it is in Andoran, or was in Galt before the establishment of the Consul.*"

(*) Cyprian.

Not perfect, but that point's what she has Archduchess Bainilus for. Even an imperfect reply from Archduke Blanxart is a free win.

"The Hall of the Convention is Closed to the General Public, is it not?"

"It is, though not to scrying, and it's usual for delegates or their servants to give accounts of its proceedings to the scriveners."

"Your own Name was Mentioned in Select Wain's Speech; did you consider such Mention to constitute Threat or Incitement against you, or Select Wain to have contemplated visiting Harm upon you?"

"No. I thought it a misrepresentation of my actions and motives but one that I would have been satisfied to clarify before the Convention, had I gotten the chance."

"Thank you, Archduke Blanxart."

"The Archduke speaks Forthrightly and scarcely needs Summary, so I shall be Brief; his Words show that Debate over a proposed Law led to his Cautioning Select Wain, not that any Specific Outcome might result, but that he considered it would be Poor Law. In other words the Ordinary Business of the Convention took place, not a Discussion of Select Wain's Speech. Delegate Ibarra the avowed Norgorberite is shown also to be one whose Advice, to the extent it may be called Advice at all, is at best Dubious. The Archduke's Words show also that at the least no Threat or Incitement against Himself was to be found in the Speech, which he did not think Unlawful when it was given. For he is an Archduke and best Qualified to judge Threats against his own Person, as any High Nobleman is."

"Your Honor, I submit also the Affidavit of Archduke Blanxart given and sworn before me, though it has some Overlap with his Testimony."

"I defer now to the Court."

What a messy trial! It's rooting for its Evil wizard, though. Even though the Evil aura is a bit sensation-akin-to-itchiness.

"Archduke Blanxart, did the accused at any point consult you on the content of her speech on the floor before giving it?"

"She informed the committee that she planned to give a speech. Its eventual content was—not what I expected, from what she said then. She did not consult me on the content, nor did I offer my advice."

"Was the speech distributed in written form inside the convention, or was it put to paper by various scribes inside the hall?"

"It was scribed and distributed to the other delegates, as has been customary for significant speeches made before the Convention; I do not know how copies began circulating on the streets of Westcrown."

"You said that you did not consider your own name in the speech to constitute threat or incitement against your person, do you believe that is also true of the others mentioned in the speech?"

Why is the magistrate asking him this?—because the people who were actually threatened would all make unsympathetic witnesses. "I have no particular insight into that. You will have to ask the men allegedly threatened by the speech, if you wish to know how they felt about it."

"The prosecution intends to call other parties Wain said 'should be afraid' in her speech, your honor."

Is he really going to call Ibarra. What is going on here. Probably not, probably it's the devilspawn regent.

He was asking because the impression of someone who witnessed the speech in the moment but did not themself feel targeted would be informative. One does not press an archduke who's declining to answer questions, though.

"Thank you for taking the time to testify for the court, Archduke. The court has no further questions for you."

"I have only done my duty," he says politely, and returns to the gallery.

Alonso is following this part carefully. During the speech, he had been spurred to action, but it was standing up and volunteering for a committee, not violence. If the prosecutor can't get any of the delegates to say they felt threatened by the speech, then the speech on its own could hardly be incitement to violence. 

But he doesn't know them or what they think. He probably would have been afraid, if he had been the archduke listening to that speech.

"The prosecution calls to testify the Lady Ined Amesel Califas de Solpont."


          She is a young woman, barely older than Valia's, and did her hair and makeup to look younger, today, as she ascends to the stand. 

"Do you swear before the gods of Good and Law, and before this court, and before your Queen, that every word of your testimony is true, and that your integrity as the wife of the Count of Solpont may be verified by magic, should any call it into question?"

          "I do."

"Can you tell this court your background, and how you came to be present in the convention hall for Valia Wain's speech?"

          "Honored magistrate. My family fled Cheliax when it fell to diabolism, and remained in exile in Absalom and sought at once to return when our homeland was liberated. Shortly after the liberation was announced I was approached by my now-husband, the Count of Solpont, who had ruled through the Infernal occupation and who the Queen had pardoned for in light of how he had always attempted to defy House Thrune and rule well and wisely." He probably couldn't say that under a truth spell but she can. "He asked if I would be willing to return to my family's lands as his wife, and assist him in restoring them in Her Majesty's glorious reign and to their rightful line of rulers. I accepted.

 We both accepted Her Majesty's invitation to the convention, and I was in the observer decks in order to become acquainted with the other delegates' wives in attendance, and taking note of the speeches." 

"And you heard Valia Wain's speech?"

         "I did. Truth be told I was only half listening to most of the speeches but Wain is a very good speaker and of course her speech was terrifying."

"Terrifying?"

         "Well, she was saying that the revolution should not be over, that the Queen's peace was not real peace, that people of every part of Cheliax should take the example of Pezzack and rise up and butcher nobles."

"Did she speak against your family specifically?"

           "Not by name. But she named, you know, the categories of people she was denouncing, the ones she was telling mobs to go after. And she said that anyone who held a title during the Infernal occupation of Cheliax should sell everything they had, become a pauper, and go to the Worldwound, and if they didn't do that they should die of it."

"And so you understood her to be calling for people to murder your husband?"

           "Everyone understood her to be calling for that! There was a very terrible mood in the hall, as she spoke, and then some people chanted 'glory to Iomedae', as if it'd be glory to Iomedae to all kill each other, and then there was a great rush for the podium. I was absolutely terrified. If I had listened to my moods we would have fled the city that very night but my husband is no coward, and decided we would stay."

"Was he unworried, by the speech?"

         "He was very worried by it, but he said that the convention had the protection of the archmages, and archmages can do -" her voice quavers - "anything, so we had nothing to fear."

"What happened that evening?"

         "Well, a mob endeavored to do what Valia Wain said, and go kill all the nobles. They snuck in to the house where we were staying, and they murdered my husband and I both, in our beds. I - I woke up in a temple, a day later, with the memory of a sword at my neck, and without my child."

"You were with child?"

         "Yes. Our first, he would've been. Or she, but I had an intuition he was going to be a son."

"Do you believe that Valia Wain gave her speech intending that mobs would kill those nobles who the Queen had pardoned?"

        "Obviously she did. She stirred them to it. She was not addressing the hall, not really, even if she was speaking in it. She was speaking to the people of Cheliax, and she wanted them to come kill us in our beds."

"Did the speech strike you as illegal?"

        "I thought that the Galtan archmage was making whatever rules he wanted and he liked the speech because it was very Galtan."

"If you had known that Her Majesty's law applied in the convention hall as well as outside it, that there is no exception by decree for convention-hall speeches?"

       "Then I'd have expected her to be arrested on the spot, for saying people should be murdered by mobs."

"I have no further questions for this witness, your honor, and submit her to your questions if you have any."

Now we're getting back on track, Josep thinks. There were some confusing things said earlier, but the prosecutor has a good head on his shoulders, and there's really only one possible outcome here, and everyone knows it.

On the message to the judge, noting the contradiction; "nobility who swore to the Thrunes" in the speech is qualified by "and are not repentant"; the exiled wife did not swear to the Thrunes, and Solpont must be repentant, had he always attempted to defy the Thrunes and rule well and wisely, and received pardon of the Queen, he must be repentant. Cf. also the Queen's own speech at the opening of this trial. (Quite aside from how it doesn't call for rising up and butchering nobles! But I'm just pointing out that the testimony is contradictory.)

It's not good rhetoric but it's a message to the judge; on direct questioning it could come out as a series of questions establishing each point.

Gods, nobles really are the same anywhere. This one might be from Absalom but she's still lying to get Valia killed, claiming the speech was illegal when it wasn't, acting like Valia telling her husband to go to the Worldwound is the same as stirring up mobs. She and her husband got what they deserved.

...their baby didn't deserve it. (Her chest hurts.) But they did. 

Noted. He's not going to bother asking the witness about the particulars of the speech; he fully believes that she's recounting it as she remembers it, being a flawed mortal being, and for his own purposes in judging the matter he has a written copy of the speech in evidence already.

"Lady Solpont, can you describe in any more detail what happened to you on the night of the third?"

"Yes, your honor, though most of what I know about it I learned afterwards because the men killed us in our beds, so I remember only great pain and terror and then waking up elsewhere. What we learned afterwards was that some powerful adventurers at the head of a mob came to the house - it was a mansion rented by many of the delegates attending the convention, and their staffs. The security was sympathetic to the mob, probably because a priest of Iomedae commanded this. The mob leaders let themselves in and murdered my husband and I and at least four other people, maybe more. ...only the nobles, though. Because those were the people Valia Wain had told them to kill, and they were listening to her."

...Eulàlia will pass a note, in case the prosecution doesn't know because of how he escaped prison, that the leader of the mob was Rui d'Argent and that when the Archduke caught up to him he said  'Iomedae and the queen have delivered the devil-lovers into our hands.' It seems like it might be important for the prosecution to know that. It is relevant to making sure Valia Wain dies.

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

Can one of his assistants go check if the Countess of Seguer, who is one of the people they'd absolutely have interviewed if they hadn't had eighty different capital cases to try in the space of four days, would be good to call to the stand. In the meantime -

He'd originally been planning not to call Napaciza, because the man is a devilspawn. But the law doesn't care about that, and the case she's guilty under the law is weaker without the confession. And they did do witness preparation with him in case it ended up seeming worthwhile to call him. So:

"The prosecution next calls to the stand the Count-Regent Llei Napaciza of Ilnea."

Alas, it is not the suicidal-to-call Ibarra. At least he's a devilspawn, not that this makes him noncredible before the purportedly dominated judge.

He was kind of hoping this wouldn't be necessary. But a lot of people sure do seem to have a lot of confidence that the people who matter care what happens to him, and he really, really hopes it's founded.

He approaches the witness stand. He thinks he's succeeding at looking neither terrified nor murderous, insofar as that's possible.

"Do you swear before the gods of Good and Law, and before this court, and before your Queen, that every word of your testimony is true, and that your integrity as a man of the Law may be verified by magic, should any call it into question?"

"I do."

"Can you tell this court your background, and how you came to be present in the convention hall for Valia Wain's speech?"

"I serve as regent for my half-sister, the Countess of Ilnea. When the nobility were summoned to participate at the constitutional convention, I responded to the call in her place."

"Did you listen to Valia Wain's speech?"

"I did."

"What did you understand her to be saying?"

"I understood her to be encouraging the people of Cheliax to kill all nobles who had served under the Thrunes and still detected as evil, and to kill me in particular, if we did not give up our titles and possessions and flee to the Worldwound."

"During her speech, Valia Wain said that among the people who should be afraid were 'evil titled devilspawn'. When she said that, was she referring to you, specifically?"

"I believed so. She looked directly at me as she said it."

“What happened after the speech?”

"After the convention's business concluded for the day, I returned to the residence where I was staying. While we were eating dinner, a large crowd surrounded the house. They broke down the gates, set fire to the building, and killed most of the people inside, including my daughter and my seven-year-old nephew."

"You'd been staying at the manor for some time, correct? Had anyone tried to kill you, before Valia Wain told them to?"

"That's correct. No violence had occurred before that night."

"Did the crowd give any indication of what had inspired them to come surround your home and murder your family?"

"They yelled that we should bring out the devils."

That's — that's wrong, she thinks, it's wrong to kill a seven-year-old even if they're a Hellspawn noble boy who's going to one day be a Hellspawn nobleman. Killing someone who hasn't done anything yet isn't vengeance, it's just murder. 

She's angry at the rioters for killing a child instead of just sticking to the Evil nobles — they didn't even kill him, from the sound of it, they just killed the child, they couldn't even do that right. She's angry at the Hellspawn nobleman for being an Evil Hellspawn nobleman going around serving the Thrunes, and for letting his nephew get killed in his place instead of just listening to Valia when she said to go to the Worldwound, and for being here and alive when so many innocent people aren't. She's angry with the prosecutor for trying to tell everyone that this is what Valia said to do when it wasn't, it would've been illegal to say everyone should kill all the Evil nobility so they didn't say that, and he's lying because he wants an innocent person dead.

Her head is foggy and her heart is pounding and they just keep going, they keep lying about Valia, they keep blaming her for things other people did, it's not enough for them to get away with all the horrible things they did under the Thrunes, they want Valia dead because she told them to stop hurting innocent people—

Well, maybe trials have a purpose after all, in persuading you that you do deserve to die. Valia wishes she could say something to the man. She wrote something, about how she'd wronged him, when she'd thought they might let her speak before the trial, but she can't say it at trial, it'd sound like she was defending herself. It would sound like she was only sorry now, that it had caused her trouble. It surely wouldn't be reassuring to him. Probably if she broke down crying he would only be angry at her, or imagine she felt sorry for herself. 

....no, maybe there's something, because the prosecutor isn't bothering to ask questions that touch on one of the most important betrayals here - 

"I denounced him falsely," she says, as loudly and clearly as she can, which is quite loudly and clearly actually. "He had repented. He had sought the guidance of the Church. I didn't know, but I should have. Priests of Iomedae died defending him. It would have - it would have been a great Evil done even to a guilty man, but he was a repentant one."

"The accused will remain silent until questioned."

If he were repentant he wouldn't be trying to murder Valia for telling him not to hurt people. She should have — she doesn't know — she should have done something, instead of spending hours writing to paladins, should've found a way to save Valia, should have found a way to stop her blaming herself for what this Evil Hellspawn did, she wishes the mob had managed to kill him — she'd be dead but maybe Valia wouldn't be—

Valia, shut up.

"The Defense apologizes for Disrupting the Proceedings, your Honor. It will not be Repeated."

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

Llei looks at the Select for a moment when she speaks, startled, and then looks back to the prosecution.

He will... figure out how he feels about that later.

The Court of course knows which author said "if you are a devilspawn, you need not be afraid because you are a devilspawn" and which author wrote "hack every tiefling limb from limb", but counsel has a duty to point this out on the message, and does so.

Beyond that she'll just prepare mentally for the embarrassing, drawn-out suicide of Valia Wain. That's where the trick was after all.

"The court has no questions."

"The prosecution calls as a witness the Countess Eulàlia Avaricia de Seguer."

She is very delighted to help get Valia Wain killed. She will go up to do that.

"Do you swear before the gods of Good and Law, and before this court, and before your Queen, that every word of your testimony is true, and that your integrity as the Countess of Seguer may be verified by magic, should any call it into question?

"I do."

"Were you present for Valia Wain's speech before the convention?"

"I was."

"What was your impression of it?"

She was unsure whether it was the will of the Queen or not. But now she knows the answer to that. "It did not seem to me to be the will of the Queen, but instead an argument that people ought to rebel against her."

"Were you among the categories of people that Wain denounced?"

"...not by a strict reading of her words. I never gave any oath to the evil Thrunes, and do not worship Evil gods, or seek Evil for our country. I have only ever served our noble Queen. But - I imagined that probably everyone seems Evil, to a priestess of Iomedae, so I was still afraid."

"That evening, were you affected by the riots?"

"I woke up to the sounds of the crowd surrounding our manor. They negotiated with the servants, said they were only there to kill all the nobles. I'm a wizard, so I changed my face and slipped out and went to summon the help of the Archduke of Sirmium, who came to disperse the mob and arrest the instigators, though they had killed half a dozen people by the time we returned to stop them."

"Did you hear the mob say anything about what they wanted?"

"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!!!

Eliad, if you win this case that's incitement to crime...

Objection to the judge; the prosecution is inciting the commission of an act unlawful under the decree (of 4 Sarenith, and therefore not relevant to this case, of course).

Ugh. It's not actually true, which she hates, but concede this point and you might not lose the trial—

"Sir - the last time I gave this speech, whether it was a crime or not, it was a terrible terrible mistake, and hundreds of people died. And there are thousands of people here now, and I - I'd much rather hang than inspire even one of them to go out and murder somebody, with my words. Is there some way I can do this - in secret, for just the Magistrate?"

(they can't kill her, they can't kill her, they can't—)

Oh, right, that's potentially incitement to crime even if Eliad loses this.

"Do not read the speech. Prosecutor, the court does not at this time need to hear Valia Wain reading her speech. If it is determinative I will order it read in a less public venue."

"Yes, your honor." He's pretty sure the speech isn't barred under the decree of 4 Sarenith but it's not an important argument to have. "Who did you consult when you were preparing to give the speech?"

"I consulted two other delegates on the committee for excising diabolism. I asked for their help making the speech legal, because I couldn't read."

"Were they legal experts?"

"...no, they were people who could read."

"Did you consult the Archduke Blanxart, who had told you that your previous idea would result in the deaths of many undeserving people?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"...I didn't like him very much, sir. I was mistaken in that but I didn't."

"Did you consult anyone senior to you in the Church of Iomedae?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I...don't really remember considering it. I wasn't thinking of giving a speech before the convention as being the kind of thing one needed to do lots of consultation about. Lots of people had spoken, and - nothing bad had happened - one man even evangelized for a power of Hell in his speech and the president just said not to do that again."

"Why did you want to give the speech?"

"- well, it was starting to feel to me like there was something important that people in Pezzack took for granted and people in Westcrown didn't, and I wanted them to understand - I am worried again about by accident inspiring people to go do murders."

"You are worried that if you answer the question of why you wanted to give the speech then that will stir the crowd to violence against the nobility?"

"...yes."

"Perhaps you could speak indirectly, saying, for example, I wished to share my strong political opinions that cannot safely be spoken in this courtroom with the people of the Constitutional Convention."

" - I don't think I can, not usefully! I wanted to explain some things about the world the way I saw it, some of which I was wrong about, to the people of the convention."

"In Pezzack, your speeches inspired people to overthrow their evil rulers and kill everyone who stood up against them, yes?"

"- to kill the Asmodeans. We were ruled by Hell, and they wanted us to all be damned."

"You inspired everyone in Pezzack to rise up and kill the Asmodeans."

"Yes."

"And you wanted to teach the lessons of Pezzack, lessons you are not going to specify for the sake of avoiding inciting the audience to murder, to the convention."

"Yes."

What does Valia mean by all this? Lluïsa has thoroughly memorized the speech, of course, but if there was a point so stirring it could move men to murder without the surrounding context it's beyond her. She understands it in gestalt as an Inflammatory Speech, the content of which matters less than the tone, and in specific, phrase by phrase, as elements of a legal analysis.

"And you were worried that this was illegal, and consulted your friends so they could read you the law so you could make an amateur legal analysis of whether it was illegal or not?"

(Valia's just really concerned about it being apparently much easier to get people to go do murders when this is a terrible idea than she'd previously imagined!)

"Yes."

She doesn't understand exactly what kind of Asmodean trickery with words the prosecutor is trying to pull to make it sound like Valia was trying to get people to commit murder, but it's clearly some kind of Asmodean trickery.

"What was your amateur legal analysis on whether your speech constituted incitement to murder?"

What the prosecutor means, on the other hand, is very clear. He means the Queen is Mephistopheles.

And, maybe she is, one can never be sure.

"Well, we weren't allowed to say that anyone should commit any crimes, which seemed like a sensible law, so I followed it."

"When you say in your speech, 'There will still be Evil, once all whose hearts are open have chosen the side of Good. But it will be outnumbered, and it will be cornered, and it will die by a thousand pitchforks and stones.', you did not believe that constituted proposing that anyone commit any crimes?"

...Valia is having some difficulty reconstructing what she was thinking, actually. It feels like it has been written over in her head four or five times, between the Iomedaen failure analysis and the interrogation and the conversation with the Archmage and the conversation with Lord Cansellarion and the conversation with Victòria. 

"...I'm not sure, sir."

"You're not sure if you were thinking that was legal?"

"I mean, I know I thought it was legal, because I wouldn't have given a speech I didn't think was legal, it's just that - after that a lot of things happened and a lot of people questioned me about this and now I know a lot more things and at least half of where I was terribly in error and I'm having trouble coming up with - the answer I'd have given the first time. I'm sorry."

"You thought it was legal, but you have no idea why you thought that."

"Yes."

"How about the part of the speech where you say, 

You should be afraid of the people of Cheliax. The people of Cheliax know what you did to them. They witness how you have prospered from it. The only thing that stays them from retaliation is the fear that they are, themselves, as guilty as you, and as damned. But they aren't, so your peace is a lie. If I were you I would repent while you still can. I would give up your lands and your titles and your slaves and your riches; I would cease to impede the functioning of this convention with your petty Evil dealings; I would go to the Worldwound where your victims cannot reach you. That is my advice.

But to everyone else my advice is, be unafraid."

Well, no objections if he recites potentially-illegal-to-recite things.

"That one I remember. I thought it was legal because it was not saying anyone should commit any crimes, just that eventually the people of Cheliax won't be afraid and will see their Evil rulers deposed, maybe legally, maybe by fighting them, maybe peacefully because the evil nobles would repent....to be clear I was importantly wrong, when I said that. I actually think that it is bad for people when they're afraid, and it makes them worse, and none of the things that I want will happen if the evil nobles are only scared enough."

"Just answer the questions, we do not need to hear about your new political opinions. You also reviewed your speech for whether it complied with the Queen's rules about pamphlets?"

"Yes."

"Why was that?"

"Because I meant to share it outside the convention hall."

"So you understood that, as it was not just a speech but a publication, it had to follow the rules for pamphlets, as well as the rules for speeches?"

"Yes."

"Why did you believe that the parts of your speech that denounced the Archduke Blanxart and the Delegate Ibarra by name, and that listed in detail the people who you considered the targets of the committee on excising diabolism, complied with the Queen's decrees against making lists of people who were guilty of evil deeds or of crimes?"

It feels like there's something curling up inside her, making her feel sick. She hopes that when the prosecutor dies the devil that comes to claim his soul is every bit as ruthless and Evil as he is. She hopes that he spends every second of every day in Hell thinking of the innocent people he hurt and wishing he'd done something, anything else. She hopes it hurts every bit as much as the priest always said it would.

Probably she shouldn't be hoping that Hell gets another servant but it feels unjust if he can just — stop existing, after everything he's done. Maybe they can torture him most of the way into a devil and then decide to just use him as a paving stone.

They’ve got the teenage Iomedaean terrified that she’ll start another riot, making her defend herself with one arm tied behind her back. Using her own good against her. Thats one way to do a show trial. Really, if the people are so ready to rise up, maybe it’s the regime who should be terrified not her.

Memorizing every detail of that prosecutors face. Just in case they make the mistake of not stashing officials in scrying-proof rooms after important trials, long enough for Anarchic-Good adventurers to find something else to be angry about. 

" - well, I thought they had to be lists of names, so 'all of the evil nobles in Cheliax' wasn't disallowed under that decree. Though it was a great evil, to denounce people for being Evil without checking far more thoroughly to see if they really were. The Menadoran nobles have been trying and the Church is -"

"Just answer the questions."

"Sorry. I thought that the decree only covered lists of names so I didn't do one of those."

If that's a denunciation list then a newspaper is a denunciation list.

But if the Queen is Mephistopheles, maybe it is.

"You named Archduke Blanxart and Delegate Ibarra. And you confessed earlier that you had meant to denounce the Count-Regent Napaciza, even if you avoided naming him in so doing."

"I wasn't denouncing the archduke! I was - complaining that I thought he had poor judgment. But I'm sure it's legal to complain that people have poor judgment, or at least lots of people at the convention were doing it. 

I was denouncing Delegate Ibarra, I guess, but I didn't expect a mob to go after him because that's stupid."

"Because that's stupid?"

"People shouldn't do murders. They should report problems to the Queen, and not try to solve them themselves."

"I don't think that's what you meant when you said it would be stupid."

And if the Queen is Mephistopheles she's not just sitting next to a court wizard holding the dominate on the judge, she's probably dominating the judge herself.

Lluïsa can at this point recognize that this is insane catastrophizing but it doesn't help.

Pay attention. Bear witness to whatever Valia Wain is doing that isn't quite suicide, somehow.

She meant he could take them if they did. And she was so unwise enough to think that this true fact meant they wouldn't try.

"I was not trying to get anyone to kill Delegate Ibarra, I was just complaining about him."

"I don't think that is what you meant either. If you had said such a thing of a man in Pezzack, what would have happened?"

"In Pezzack if there was a powerful evil wizard, and he worshipped Norgorber, and he bragged about how he had burned down houses that had children inside them, people might decide they had to do something about him. And so they'd get everybody together who was a very strong fighter, and we'd talk about it and decide if it had to be done, and then they'd - ambush him on the street and try to kill him before he cast a spell. 

And I know that murder on suspicion is a great evil and I know that one should report crimes to the Queen and not try to solve them one's self, but - see, in Pezzack there wasn't the Queen, there was just us. I - have not had time to learn very much of the teachings of Iomedae but I think that the law, as it functions in great cities where great harm will come if people war on each other, is very different than the law in smaller cities where everyone knows who they trust and where you can't hold a wizard to give him a trial. I don't know if the thing they do in Pezzack was unlawful but I can't think what they should do instead.

And I guess when I said that Delegate Ibarra worshipped Norgorber and was a powerful Evil wizard if I'd thought about what would happen I might've predicted that the strongest men in Westcrown would ambush him on the street and try to kill him before he cast a spell. But I wouldn't have predicted they'd go to his house. Because that would get them killed, and not work, because he's a powerful wizard."

"So you thought they might try to murder him on suspicion but they would try more effectively."

"I was - imagining an entirely different kind of place where everything is very different, when I thought about what might happen."

"And when you denounced Count-Regent Napaciza?"

(someday he'll be squished down into a paving stone, unable to hurt anyone, unable to do anything but feel the fires of Hell around him—)

The prosecutor is a piece of shit garbage human but it's not like Liushna had been unaware, at this point, that Cheliax still has lots of piece of shit garbage humans in it. 

"The Count-Regent repented and is an ally to the Church of Iomedae and a better one than I am and it was a great evil and a great betrayal that I spoke against him." This Valia feels strongly about, unlike the question of whether she wanted a more organized mob to stab Ibarra.

"Indeed. And yet you denounced him, expecting - what?"

(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."

Select Wain has a good point with her suicidal, eloquent speech.

It's precisely wrong in Lluïsa's case, but pointedly so.

The Queen is Mephistopheles. (Maybe. But when you think about it, who else was ever going to overthrow Asmodeus in any way?)

Fine. Mephistopheles owns her soul; she is not free, and never will be.

So it's Mephistopheles looking out from behind Magistrate Puigdemont's eyes over the dominate. What can he do? Take her soul again? Threaten her with an eternity in Hell? No, and no. That is guaranteed, and therefore irrelevant.

"All right. That at least one Evil noble would end up dead because your speech would inspire people to develop the virtue of being indifferent to the consequences of their actions, and then go and kill them."

"That's not what the virtue is but I agree that I expected that as a consequence of my speech changing peoples' hearts and knowledge, they would become less likely to cooperate with injustice and more likely to fight it. And depending how exactly things happened and whether that virtue got there ahead of some other ones - then, if I'd been right that Cheliax had Evil nobles, I'd have expected to make it more likely someone fought them."

"So you got what you expected, just much faster, and with a different concept of what made someone a worthy target. Unjust bankers, unjust lawyers, unjust lawmen, unjust devilspawn...three hundred people dead, because you succeeded at teaching them this virtue of yours."

"I made a great many very foolish mistakes. I do not think the speech was illegal but of course it was a terrible error."

"Do you imagine that mobs would have burned the city down, but for your words?"

"No."

"Do you agree that you, in writing your speech, in arranging for your speech to be distributed, made the people you denounced in your speech immediate targets for that night's mobs?"

"If I'd expected mobs at all I'd have expected them to go after the people I said should be afraid."

"What, then, is this defense of innocence? You meant for the terrific violence that resulted from your speech to be slightly more convenient, and more distant, and less manifestly destructive and unreasonable. But you intended it."

"I wasn't actually planning, sir, to say I was innocent, but my lawyer thinks so, and she's a lawyer, and I'm not."

"I have no further questions."

At the last, the client's trust.

She is innocent, she has to be, they checked — she checked — could she have stopped this if she knew more about the law—

"You said you wanted your speech distributed throughout the country. What did you do to bring this about?"

"- oh, nothing, your honor, because after I gave it Feliu told me it was dangerous and it might inspire riots if it was spread through the city, so I declined to give it again at the Church of Shelyn, and I didn't help with any pamphlets. But it was too late."

"Do you know anything about how it made it to the streets?"

"Well, there were lots of scribes in the room, and lots of copies circulating, and I guess someone took it out of the halls, or was watching the halls with magic. But I don't know anything that anyone who was there doesn't know."

"The copies that were distributed in the hall when you gave the speech, did you write and copy those yourself?"

"I can't write, sir, so I couldn't do any of the scribing myself. I did give the scribes the copy the other delegates and I had put to paper when we wrote the speech."

"Did you tell anyone else of your intent to spread it to the streets, before changing your mind about whether to do that?"

"When we were planning the speech we planned it to follow the pamphlet rules too because we wanted to have it as a pamphlet, but after I gave it Feliu warned me before I did anything else to spread it."

"Do you believe the delegates who helped you compose your speech might have arranged to spread it outside the convention hall?"

"I don't think so, your honor, because they were arrested and interrogated and then released, and probably they wouldn't have been released if they had spread the copies, since it's not settled if that was illegal yet."

"They were not involved, your honor."

...To be fair they did let her go even though she had done some crimes. Different crimes, but still crimes.

.........it's confusing that the prosecutor is just admitting that she and Alicia weren't involved in spreading it around. Maybe he knows they'd be able to prove they weren't.

Okay now it makes sense why they’re so afraid of her. That second speech on freedom she gave when they cornered her into finally saying it. Did she just put that together on the spot? Gods, ‘laugh in the face of Asmodeus, because He has nothing to offer but threats’, is this girl entirely sure she’s a cleric of Iomedae and not Milani?

Why did he let himself get talked out of preparing the rescue spells? 

"In what manner were the scribes to whom you gave that copy of your speech employed? Were they in service to other delegates, or servants of the state assigned to the convention, or was there some other arrangement?"

("Some of them are half won-over, Archduchess. Not most, but... she's a fantastic speaker, even afraid and despairing.")

("Keep her alive another week and she'll be one of the best Good has.")

"I don't know, your honor. I had watched how other delegates gave speeches and I had seen how they would give the scribes a copy to work from, so the scribes didn't have to write it down as they spoke and then make copies for everyone who wanted copies, but I don't know if the Archmage Cotonnet hired those scribes, or if any delegate did." Why does that matter?

"Did you give any instruction to the scribes?"

"....no." Why would she have done that. That would have been terribly rude. "I just said, here's the text of the speech, but I'm giving it from memory so it might be wrong in bits, sorry."

"I have no more questions at this time. The bailiff will now cast a truth spell on you. Do not resist it, and then assert that you have told no lies and made no attempt to mislead the court." The best feature of the new regime is that sometimes they have bailiffs that can do that. He doesn't usually need them but for a case like this it's nice to be sure.

(The bailiff casts an Abadar's Truthtelling.)

"I have told no lies and made no attempt to mislead the court."

"Prosecutor, do you have anything more?"

They should have done that for the lying Evil nobles!!!!

It is hard to guess what standard the magistrate is trying to apply to the 'did she publish the speech' question, but he's not going to win that by argument. He is pretty sure that Wain just agreed openly that she tried to convince everyone to overthrow their Evil rulers even if she didn't expect it to happen this quickly. But of course, the defense hasn't spoken yet and the Queen wants her innocent.

"Nothing more."

"The advocate for the accused may now present her case."

It's actually sort of hard to hate her.

She'll be fine. If Iomedae hasn't abandoned her - and he sees a little more, now, how that can be compatible with not wanting him dead - then she'll wake up in Axis, at the worst, and that isn't so bad.

Too much poking around about whether she really meant to do it, not enough lions.

If the old queen was running this, right around now would be the part where the Iomedaean begs for death, the cleric casts malediction, and the Iomedaean realizes dying isn’t going to make it stop. That’s always the high point of the show. 

But no, it’s just going to be lawyers poking at each other the whole time. Praise Iomedae and her Lawful Boring majesty the queen. 

Well, the Queen wanted a contested trial and the Queen appears to have gotten one. 

Carlota would feel fairly sure that 'confessing you meant to cause people to overthrow the Evil nobles' was sufficient for an incitement to murder charge, but on the other hand the country is presently ruled by mad Galtans and they seem to have rather inadequate standards for what constitutes incitement.

A person cannot be threatened, if they have decided already that the worst that can be done to them does not frighten them.

Anna wonders if Valia realizes she would have been a fine Hellknight, if she'd tried that before Iomedae picked her. That there is more than one way to teach her lesson, and that discipline, real discipline, not the shoddy rule by fear of the regular army, is meant to do the same, among perhaps four other equally-necessary lessons.

When he heard the queen's speech his first thought was that she had somehow managed to turn her offer of a fair trial into an excuse to mind-control people. But... apart from that the trial in fact seems to be fair? Which doesn't mean it is, just that if it's a show-trial the queen's doing a good job, which he knew already...

He feels sorry for the victims of the mobs, especially the ones who weren't or couldn't be raised. He feels sorry for everyone in the city, really, living a lifetime under Asmodean rule, and growing accustomed to Asmodean rule, and then the moment they were free of that having a bunch of insane political freedoms that nobody asked for forced upon them. It's not really surprising that they would turn overeagerly to violence, the first time they were told that violence would win their salvation.

He adds a paragraph to his draft speech on treason to account for Valia's most recent argument. She's not wrong, about the virtue of freedom, and she has already acknowledged that she was wrong to reach for it first, but that can't be the final word on the topic.

The prosecution's case seems damning. Valia intended to distribute the speech, and thought it would be the parent of rebellion--wise, just, timely rebellion--but she misjudged Westcrown. Even if she thought better of it before the riots, the arrow was already loosed. If anything, it was worse for the Friend of the People's mangled version to get out, instead of her original speech.

The defense may yet have some ace up its sleeve.

Thea notes to herself that, if she is ever on trial, not to decide she’s guilty in advance. (Probably against her lawyer’s advice?)  You would think that would be obvious?  Thea takes a moment to try to reconcile this defeated depressed Valia with the Valia she’s seen before.

Thea realizes the inference.  The prosecution probably worked Valia over with loads of enchantment magic and technically-not-torture to disorient her and make her believe falsely in a way that passes a truth spell.  So, once you’re arrested, just assume any doubt of your own innocence was planted by the prosecution via magic and ignore any feeling otherwise as the feeling is probably the result of enchantment.  As to the technically not torture… food and sleep deprivation  maybe?  

Using that as a presumption, after a day of interrogation by government prosecutors, one could probably pass a truthspell arguing one’s own innocence, because after all, one’s memory can no longer be trusted.  Thea can’t replicate memory alteration magic, but Nuria Tosta is second circle so she can test some of this idea…

As to the Queen’s opening trial statements… well, maybe she wants a closely contested trial?  Or has somehow failed to actually fully reform the prosecutor’s procedures?  Oh wait, she claimed she enchanted the judge herself, maybe she thinks thoroughly enchanting people is normal and acceptable Lawful Good behavior?  It is, admittedly, a different way of doing things than the Thrunes preferred.

Ah, the good part is about to begin. It shifts reassuringly; its pet Evil wizardemployer is exhibiting strange physiological signs. It's unclear what reassuring shifting of a disassembled archon under a cloak might entail, or whether these physiological signs are normal for this species, but an attempt is made.

Now is not the time for terror. Now there is only Law.

"The Court is already in Possession of the chief Elements of my Case which I restate for Clarity."

"Firstly, the Decrees of her Majesty the Queen setting forth what the Law is."

"Secondly, a true and faithful Transcript of the Speech of Valia Wain."

"And, thirdly, a copy of the Pamphlet of Bernat Vidal-Espinosa."

"These three are Sufficient for Acquittal under the Law. The first two on their own are in fact Sufficient for Acquittal under the Law; the third merely relevantly Explains the Deaths at Issue. I heard the Speech given, and have Reviewed it since, and am familiar with the Decrees. No Proscription List under the Decree of 29 Desnus is present, cutting down the charges of Wrongful Death under said Decree at their very Root. I have said earlier before the Court and the Public and her Majesty the very Queen that Bernat Vidal-Espinosa is guilty of Incitement. Behold how I am not Arrested, and shall not be; the Decree of 29 Desnus is not a Decree to Prohibit All Mention Of Crime. Behold how Factual News Sheets are Published in the City, reporting on those Judgments which are Public, and enjoy the Happy Tolerance of her Lawful Majesty."

"My learned Colleague has presented the Testimony of many Witnesses, that the Terror of 3 Sarenith was a Lawless, Evil Terror indeed. Were I not Opposing Counsel I could perhaps have given like Testimony. I was Bodily Seized, accusations of Diabolism on the Lips of the Malfeasors, and Hurled as I have said into the River. Behold how I once again Lawfully make Mention of Crime, much as those Witnesses for the Prosecution did. Behold how they each left the Stand not in Chains but Free as they Ought be."

"And of Delegate Ibarra whose Deeds alone were put to a Name, why, his own Words were but Repeated. Behold that he sits in the Gallery—you may Know him by his Outlandish Mask—not Guilty of Proscription against his own Self."

"To Incitement I now turn. It is clear Incitement is not Present by the plain Text already in Evidence, not calling for Crimes, calling at worst, though even this is Debatable, for Expulsion of Delegates which is a matter not of Law but of the Workings of the Convention and reserved to President Cotonnet to Judge. Those doubts my Colleague has raised, having the Unenviable Task of drawing as it were Blood from a Stone without the stone to flesh of Favorable Fact, regard the State of Mind of Select Wain. I shall show by Reliable Testimony that it was not the Mind of an Inciter. I shall show her Plain Horror at the prospect of such Riots as occurred."

"It is also already Known to the Court through Testimony that Select Wain did not Distribute or cause to be Distributed copies of her Speech outside the Hall. I shall Show and Clarify this matter further. Such is a necessary Element of Incitement, that the Purported Inciteful Words be Communicated to the Incited."

"Acquittal is thus well Established on Facts and Law in Record. Yet I the Ally of Justice have a Duty to, and shall, Establish it Further that all Doubts may be forever Quelled in Open Court."

It's not risking her soul to continue. Her soul is lost already.

"Why then are there Doubts, if the Case for Acquittal is so Clear as I say? Doubts arise chiefly from one Blazing Question that must be put to Rest before the Acquittal which Law demands."

"Why does her Majesty the Queen publish Decrees of Law, Promulgating them to All, making them Easy to Obtain and Read?"

"Select Wain knew the Answer in her Heart by Instinct; perhaps this is why hers is a Heart pleasing to Iomedae. I came to it through Mental Labor but know it also."

"Her Majesty the Queen wills that all shall Read the Decrees, and Comprehend them, and Obey them, and in this Obedience be Innocent before the Law of All Crime. She has said as much just now before the Court; I quote her own Words: 'A speech was given, and this court is tasked with determining whether that speech obeyed the law, nothing more and nothing less.'"

"Perhaps this is Novel to all of us, accustomed to those Laws preferred by the Archdevil of Contracts, great Labyrinths of Words which no Mortal may Navigate. Perhaps it is also Novel to all of us, accustomed to a Tyrant Crown which might Brush Aside all Law at its Will. But we are now by the Grace of her Majesty in an Empire where all Law is Written, and Written in order to be Read, Comprehended, and Obeyed. What Select Wain did by Noble Instinct we may all do Deliberately."

Both feet must be forcibly wrenched out of the world where the Queen is Mephistopheles, or she can't give her all to the case.

"And therefore to Proceed with the Quelling of All Doubts I will present Testimony. The Archduke Blanxart of the Heartlands has already given his; I therefore proceed to the Archduchess of Ravounel, Jilia Bainilus de Kintargo."

Showtime.

She walks up to the stage and witness stand, with as much stateliness as she can project.

None of that sounds like an ace, to him.

If Bernat and Valia had been working together, both of them would still hang for this riot; blame is not conserved, when the law is concerned, and the public is unlikely to be much more forgiving. That their partnership was unplanned and at arms length is a mitigating factor, but Valia needed the blame to land solely on Bernat, instead of being shared. And even if half the floor marched through the witness stand and declared they were not incited by the speech or did not expect a reasonable person to be incited by the speech, it remains that some thought it would lead others to violence, and some is enough to establish incitement. The lawyer is focusing on the addenda to the decree, and is perhaps forgetting its main body:

The people of Westcrown are further reminded that incitement to the murder of their fellow citizens is forbidden, as is the practice of violence against their fellow citizens. This remains true even when the citizens in question are accused of a crime or other evil deed.

That said, she is right that he would like to see that foul Ibarra brought in on incitement; his taunting crosses the line. 

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.