Oh, fuck, of course there's a contract.

....it doesn't look like a particularly evil contract. It says you can terminate it whenever you want, right there. But if doesn't say what happens if Korva doesn't successfully keep something secret, or fails to provide assistance because something else comes up, or what it actually means to be retained, which she doesn't know, and -

She feels mildly ill contemplating saying no. It is obviously idiotic to say no. She'd double her weekly earnings, and more importantly she'd get to tell the Duchess de Chelam things -

- but it's also obviously idiotic to sign a contract you don't fully understand with someone you don't know. People do it because they're scared, and it's expected, and it's awkward not to, and only an idiot would say no, and if you don't understand everything it means you're very stupid, and -

- and you never, ever get yourself back, after, if you ever make a single mistake.

She bows very low.

"I am very sorry for wasting your time, Duchess, but I - don't think I can sign this, actually."

"- this in particular, or any agreement?"

Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot -

"... probably any agreement. I appreciate the offer quite a lot, and the payment is very generous, and I would love to be able to help, but -"

Alien. From Axis. Trying to hire you to explain things about Cheliax to her. You have to at least -

" - this is a contract. It looks to me like a reasonable one, of the sort I'm sure they use in Axis, and I don't particularly expect that you intend to harm me in any way with it, but - it is not a contract that I fully understand, or trust that I can fully understand, or for which I can confidently expect that I know how it will be enforced later, or which I can trust does not contain implicit rules which I am likely to break, or for which I have any idea what the penalty is if I should be found to have broken it. I'm sorry."

Gods, she really does feel ill. She wants to be safe so badly, and it's safety, at least for a moment, it's belonging to someone who can protect her as long as she doesn't piss them off, it's such a ridiculous and stupid thing to say no over, and that's what it is. That's what she's doing.

"Do you want to write your own and send my staff that one?"

"I - don't know how to write contracts," she says, trying not to sound pained. Maybe she could pay Luisa?? Luisa - doesn't have any specific reason to want her to be indentured to the Duchess de Chelam forever, probably, and it's probably expensive but not as expensive as being indentured to the Duchess de Chelam forever because she broke a contract and they, what, indentured you by default to pay off any damages, or whatever it is they do now -

That sounds like a remarkably crippling problem to have and Carlota can't entirely help being irritated with Tallandria for having it. It's not Tallandria's fault. She was probably doing just fine in her context whatever it was, and then got dragged here by an archmage who probably wouldn't intervene if someone did manage with tricky contracts to ruin their life - no, that's not fair. He has specifically now that he realized the necessity provided all the official legal advisors. "The Archmage has provided this convention with legal advisors. I do not know if they consult on all convention business or only on legislative proposals."

It's honestly never occurred to Korva that she could write up a contract about anything for any reason. It's a specialist skill, like wizardry, probably gained only through years of miserable study and also risking your life. She assumes that if she tried it it simply wouldn't work, like a small child pretending to cast spells. You would take it to whoever enforces contracts, and they would say, no, this is just a piece of paper that you scribbled on, it doesn't mean anything at all.

" - that's true. If it's acceptable to you, then, I think I would like to take this to one of them, and return it later, either with more confidence or with revisions."

"Of course. If they have questions for my own attorneys they are welcome to reach out to them." She taps a name and address on the bottom of the contract below the place for their signatures.

"Thank you." And she'll bow again.

It's late, and poor Zara must be wondering where in the world she is, and she still has more work on that front to do after this, but - this is important.

She heads over to one of the sources of legal advice. 

"Excuse me. I was - wondering if you were available to, uh, explain and possibly help draft contracts. Generally."

"We are here to assist with convention related business, so I can assist you if you want to learn about contracts for the sake of lawmaking, or for the sake of hiring staff or accepting roles related to the convention, but not if you are interested in contracts for another business of yours unrelated to the convention."

"Uh, another delegate is trying to hire me to help review her speeches?"

"That is within our remit. The next thing that you need to understand is that I am a lawyer, but you are not my client, and so I can speak generally to questions about contracts, or describe the kinds of advice I would give a client about a contract, but my advice is just the advice of someone with legal experience, and if what you want is a lawyer to represent you in the hiring process you will have to hire a lawyer separately for that."

"...how about I give it to you for a first pass at advice, and if I am not confident that I understand it I can go find one of those."

"That works for me."

He reviews it. 

"This contract does not obligate the mentioned delegate in anything, though if you do not fulfill the listed obligations the Duchess could decline to pay you. Breaking confidentiality in an employment contract is pursued in the civil courts ordinarily, assuming it doesn't rise to espionage of a form that's also illegal without an employment contract. However right now there are no civil courts open."

"....so what does it do." Korva cannot actually discern any specific thing that it does, but it would be bizarre to make a contract that didn't do anything, so clearly she's reading it wrong. "I assume that we're going to have civil courts again at some point, but - do we just not know anything about how they're going to work, or what penalties they'll assign for anything?"

"I do not think we know very much about how they will work. If you are concerned that the default penalties for breach of contract when we get civil courts back will be unreasonable, you could specify penalties for breach of contract in this contract, and then I'd strongly expect the civil courts to stick to what's written. For serious matters that can't wait on civil courts many people choose to specify that the Church of Abadar will arbitrate disputes related to the contract. But the Church of Abadar will want to review contracts they're going to be asked to arbitrate."

"I assume you also have to pay for that. Okay. Was there a default penalty the last time we had civil courts?"

"I don't know about how it worked in Asmodean Cheliax but in most places, a person suing for breach of contract would have to prove that the breach of contract cost them something, and then the other person would be liable for the costs, if they had indeed breached the contract and thereby caused them. So for example, if a person had agreed to confidentiality, and then sold a secret to a business competitor, they could be held liable for damage to the business done as a result of the secret being sold to the competitor. - being held liable in this context means that you would owe the money. If it is found that the breach caused 20 gold in damages, you would have to pay that."

"What happens if you don't have twenty gold, or if the damages are something impossible to confidently measure in money, like - people thinking less of you and not passing legislation that you wanted them to pass, or something?"

"The damages would still be calculated in terms of money, even if they took the form of reputational harms. I do not know of any jurisdiction where the civil courts treat 'legislation not going the preferred way' as a harm for which damages may be pursued, but Republicanism is yet new. 

My understanding is that in Cheliax at present, a person who owes uncollateralized debt without a payment schedule which is substantially in excess of his or her net worth may be consigned* himself for the value of the debt, and the value of his consignment* paid towards it."

*debt slavery, which has entirely distinct vocabulary from slave-slavery, and from several other kinds.

So you can in fact end up indefinitely indentured by signing this, if a court operating by a system of rules that doesn't exist yet rules that she did not take "reasonable precautions" to keep everything she learns in the course of this job secret. And any second-circle wizard can read her mind. Yeah.

"Is there any way to know ahead of time what 'reasonable precautions' are? You have to spell them out explicitly and then get the Church of Abadar to agree to enforce a specific penalty if you break them?"

"Well, if there were civil courts, you could look at what had been ruled reasonable in other contracts with similar language. In the absence of civil courts it is difficult to guess how they will interpret even very standard contract language. Someone might approach that by asking for Abadaran arbitration, in which case they could rely on the Church continuing to use the standard it has used in the past for reasonable precautions, or by spelling out what specific precautions they are expected to take, or by stating that the penalty for breaching the confidentiality provisions of the contract may not exceed some fixed amount which they can afford."

"....okay. Thank you. Uh, one more question, since you're free. The part where it says I am retained by Chelam, and 'entitled to the protection that conveys by law and by custom.' Does that part do anything?"

" - I believe at the moment since there are very few laws in Cheliax there are also not protections of law specific to the staff of a duchess. By custom, yes, I would predict that'd encompass - quite a few things. By custom in many jurisdictions notice would be provided to a duchess if someone employed by her was to be arrested, or in some places her permission would be needed. By custom in many jurisdictions she could prosecute crimes committed against her staff. By custom in some jurisdictions she would be responsible for answering if some other noble had a quarrel with you. I do not know anything specific about the traditions of Chelam."