"In favor."

"Do you have someone in mind?"

She won't do much but slow them down but she might provoke them into admitting something foolish.

Elias waits silently, nodding along to His Grace's requests but saying nothing.

"Exactly," Berenguer-Aspex says. "Someone with the forces to secure order when the Reclamation leaves. Capable, disciplined, and not urgently needed in the rest of the country."" 

"Surely you mean that the convention should recommend a candidate to Her Majesty, for her to approve on an emergency basis. Let's not cause any confusion about who this power rests with in the long term in fixing problems, pressing as they may be."

"Oh yes," he says insincerely. "To Her Majesty." Her Majesty is not doing her job and he'll pretend she is if everyone else wants to.

He nods. "Recommends to Her Majesty for immediate appointment on an emergency basis."

"A city-dweller, of course. Certainly doesn't have to be from Westcrown but no one else will be able to do the job."

“I have a man who’d do well. Manel Sarroca, formerly d’Orval. Born here, raised in Cassomir in Taldor by a good family. Not a noble but thought he was - his mother lied about his birth.

He came back after the four day war, restored order in Ostenso with men and food. He was doing a good job there, by all accounts, until someone checked his mother’s story and Archduke Requeña i Cortes regretfully removed him.

He has some men - I was negotiating with him to help clear out part of my March, but he’s needed more here.”

"How soon can he be here, if summoned? The rest of us ought to meet the man, before we recommend him to the queen."

Thoughtful nod.

“He accompanied me to the convention today - he can be here as soon as we send for him.”

How fortunate and not at all because this nomination was settled days ago. 

"Then I suggest we do so now, and discuss other business of this committee while we wait." He nods to a servant.

"What is the man's record from before the Four-Day War? Adventuring? Ruling?"

“He began guarding merchants on the Inner Sea, and did well enough to form his own company. He can tell you the specifics.”

"In that case, while we wait for him to return, I'd like to turn to the question of freedom of the pen. I know that we passed some" wholly inadequate "restrictions this morning, but — as His Highness the Archduke mentioned — those restrictions did not include a ban on slander or libel. I see little reason to permit that sort of defamation, given the immense harm that recently resulted from such behavior."

He passes out copies of a draft version of the law. This might technically be illegal, because apparently when the radicals were busy leaving loopholes in the censorship law large enough to march an elephant through it did not at any point occur to them that they had defined a "small audience" to be smaller than the maximum size for a committee.

1) To publicly make, aloud or in writing, a false, scandalous, or malicious claim about another person is a crime.

2) To privately make a false, scandalous, or malicious claim about another person is a crime unless the statement is true.

The punishment shall be not less than a fine of 10gp and not more than the punishment for the conduct falsely ascribed to them, be it a crime, or not more than exile from Cheliax, if the conduct falsely ascribed to them is not a crime.

"This was the law in the years before Asmodeus. I suspect it may need some modifications for our present circumstances, but I believe this is a good starting point, and I'd like to have a final version ready to present to the floor when the session resumes."

"I would like to modify it to 'claim or insinuation', the habit of pamphlets being to say something indirectly by metaphor and this still being conduct that should obviously be prohibited, and I would like in order to reduce the discretion of the judiciary to direct them to apply the maximum penalty in cases where the claim was made intentionally to a wide audience or in print for wide distribution and not withdrawn immediately. The lighter penalties should be for slanders that are unintentional, not intended to reach a mass audience, or apologized for; if a man writes some vile slander in a pamphlet that he papers the whole city with, he should be punished exactly as if the slander were true of him."

"Is this law intentionally scoped only to individual targets as opposed to any large class of them such as 'nobles' or 'wizards' or such?"

To run an economy through, thank you very much. It's like you think money comes from the sky.

"Everything would be a crime if you include 'by claim or insinuation', Count Solpont. What you just said would be the crime of slandering the judges by insinuating that their judgment is poor. That is not a standard by which judges can Lawfully judge, even if the queen continues to geas every justice she selects. Find another wording that wouldn't condemn you with penalties up to those prescribed for treason and the committee should of course consider it, the scurrilous pamphlets about Geryon are dead but I don't want more speakers like them any more than you. The rest is re-outlawing things already illegal under the censorship law and seems a waste of time."

"For the original proposal, verifiable truth, under magic, must be a defense even in public statements. We can argue partial versus total defense if you insist, but given the state of local justice, particularly the many unvetted barons and local lords, it is needed. If the local baron is a diabolist and there is no paladin on circuit to appeal to, it must be legal for the one or two of his servants or subjects who are aware to denounce him, if when the denouncement is able to call justice in they can verify that the original person believed and was justified in believing the the accusation."

His brother is burning in Hell because he cannot possibly justify the expense of a Resurrection when those funds could be spent repairing his county's infrastructure, he is perfectly aware that money doesn't come from the sky.

"'has poor judgment' is not a scandalous or malicious claim, Archduchess, and ought not to be prohibited, and the law has always required that a specific person be identified, if not by name, so 'judges' don't suffice either. ...it would be acceptable to me if truth were a mitigating consideration during sentencing, but there are absolutely true words that should not be spread widely, because of the immense damage they do to the social fabric. I was going to draw an analogy to Valia Wain's speech but of course you spent this weekend diligently working to get her freed to continue to poison our city, so I suspect you do not see eye to eye with the people of Cheliax in this matter."

He's right but he shouldn't say it. If Conde Solpont spends half the meeting provoking the Archduchess they aren't going to get anything done.

Count Solpont did not actually take any issue with the Queen or her new appointments, one week ago, and was diligently de-Asmodeaning his county, and missed absolutely nothing about infernal rule. Now he means to destroy everyone who ever helped Valia Wain get away with it and will gladly go to Hell for it. He does not think he can reasonably be expected to be civil when insulted by the deranged radical whore queen of the radical whores, even if she's an Archduchess.

"Perhaps one might say that to speak to a person empowered to make lawful arrests is a third category?" Elias offers quietly, "and so permit denouncement of criminals even before open court, provided the accusations were true."