Okay, that’s good. As long as keeping track of reputations is still legal, he thinks things should be fine.

Back home whenever someone started making up evil rumors about people you'd just get a bunch of your friends together and teach them a lesson, but apparently there are too many people in the cities and they all ban together to protect each other, so you have to send in the guards. And that other sortition guy made sure they can still talk about the important things in town. Sounds good to him.

Enric looks fine with it, so she supposes she’s fine with it?

Why are they still talking. Wasn't lunch supposed to be an hour ago?

Berenguer-Aspex is very unimpressed by these people. "I mean no offense to the honored archduke - but the people calling for new modifications to the bill are, mostly, the people who supported Valia Wain, who burned the city down a week ago. And what's there to say about that? We're here to make laws, not listen to a bunch of 'Calistrian young ladies' tell us what to do. Delegate Oriol - one of the non-Calistrian young ladies - wants to make what Valia Wain said legal after Her Majesty just made a decree that it wasn't, and what else is there to say about that? It's a good bill, but I'm halfway to saying I'd pass it if it wasn't, because the people who want this city in flames cannot win."

She doesn't — well, she doesn't want most of the city in flames, anyway.

"I'd actually like to make a procedural point," he says, "which is that I don't think Delegate Oriol's proposed amendment defined 'convention business' very well. Certainly talking in committee is convention business, surely talking in the halls is convention business, but is it convention business if five delegates meet to talk in a cafe out of hours and twenty men hear them? I think that's ambiguous, and if Delegate Oriol is willing I'd like to see it revised to clarify that point before we hold a vote. Delegate Oriol?" Can he get a quick response from her?

It sounds like a perfect question for Forms of the Convention, Thea continues to wish she had message. 

People only call him 'honored Archduke' when they think he's an idiot. It's not like he hasn't noticed. 

He wouldn't actually be offended, if Berenguer-Aspex spoke his true mind. He might decide the man was stupid, short-tempered, and unlikely to be persuadable by reason, but the protestations of no offense aren't actually preventing that.

It's not about you being personally worthy of respect, it's about Archdukes being worthy of respect.

If the queen, the great wizards, and the very gods picked some Calistrians to bring to the convention, there’s a reason. Maybe because they’re too scary to not invite, like that story where a queen forgets to invite a powerful fey to a party. But maybe because the nobles need to know what kind of thing people take revenge for. He’s not going to say that out loud though.

(He assumes it’s not the other thing Calistrians do, there’s no way Aroden and Iomedae were looking for that.)

"Your Point on Drafting is Well Raised, Delegate Ardiaca. I must Apologize for the Hastiness with which the Proposal was Drafted; I will Withdraw the Proposed Amendment that it may be Carefully Worded by the Committee on Forms."

And in the meantime, maybe she'll catch her own slanderers in a slip of the tongue.

"I have heard men here call me a bandit queen, though I have engaged in no banditry, and none of my men have engaged in banditry. And yet I do not think a judge would call it slander, when these men are so high and mighty. Who will the magistrates send to investigate, in the western hills, to learn the truth of things? Who will pay for those men to go? Who then decides the truth?"

Is she unaware of truth spells. She probably is unaware of truth spells.

Sefora has accurately hit on the basic problem, every additional law the convention passes that requires any discretion tilts things in favor of the nobility and the powerful.  This law even has a built in mechanism to allow the tilting by setting the minimum punishment by lost income!  Magically compelled judges partially compensates, as well a list of non-slander examples, so it isn’t enough to motivate Thea to strongly oppose the law.  

Actually… given the shortage of clerics, if she gets another two circles (maybe even just one more, depending on how long the cleric shortage lasts) she might even be among the powerful herself, which means she would benefit from the generally slanted nature of the law.

"Delegate Séfora, our magistrates have a number of ways to determine matters of fact, most relevantly truth spells. If you wish to testify to this convention that neither you nor any under you have engaged in theft, assault, or murder, I hope that no man in this room will tarnish your reputation by accusing you of banditry." That is to say, it is obviously not slander to call someone a bandit queen just because they've decided their lawless theft and murder technically doesn't count.

In any case, there isn't anyone in line to debate, so he doesn't need to call for a vote for cloture. "At this time, I call for a vote on the proposal — both whether we should enact the proposed law against slander, and whether that law should include the proposed amendment that would exclude all true statements from being considered as slander."

But what does that mean they're supposed to write on the ballot?

First a vote on the amendment to protect all true statements?

Against! Obviously!

He's pretty sure the rider hurts him more than it helps him. He's against it. (In favor of the bill.)

Carlota's plan for getting to go to Heaven this time was to, instead of not doing the right thing, do the right thing. But that's very hard, see. She is pretty sure that a more lenient slander law is Good. Also she does not want to. She would have expected that it would be easier, in trivial cases like this one, to do the right thing. It really isn't.

(She could abstain, but that's beside the point. The amendment's almost certainly going to fail. Her decision doesn't matter at all, except in that it's the answer to a question about herself. 

Ugh.

In favor. Incredibly grouchily.)

Probably she won't be in that much trouble for abstaining twice in the same day.

In favor! There's nothing wrong with saying Evil nobles are Evil!

She doesn't know the answer to this one! - oh wait, she can probably just ask, as long as she does it cleverly and infrequently.

Sitting this one out because it's not worth having or just not worth fighting for? she Messages Joan Pau.

He wants the funny mask guy to be able to keep insulting people! He votes in favor of the rider and writes at the bottom that he also supports the rule about letting delegates say whatever they want. Maybe if he's the only person to write about that it'll automatically pass.