Cheliax abolished halfling slavery today. He genuinely hadn't expected them to, not when it's such an easy wedge with Andoran. It makes it likelier that De Luna's read is right, that diplomatic rapproachment with Cheliax should have been a higher priority, that they could've bribed the Queen to end slavery a year and a half ago. Maybe that's what Cotonnet is here to speak of. 

(Whether or not that's what Cotonnet is here to speak of, he gets an appointment at his convenience the minute he asks for one. He and his wife are Andoran's only hope and Andoran knows it.)

"Are we speaking privately?" 

He asks even though they're alone, and he can't detect any sensors with his arcane sight. 

"As far as I know." Which would be less well than Elie, probably, but Andoran didn't make it this long by being careless about security, and Morgethai's special sanctums blanket his conference rooms.

"Good. Your men are in a holding cell in Westcrown, ostensibly on charges of attempting to manipulate the market in salt cod. I'm sure they'll be happy to learn that they didn't cost the Halflings of Cheliax their freedom today, despite all their best efforts. I don't want a public incident any more than you do – " and probably substantially less, judging from the general course of Andorani foreign policy – "but if the Queen of Cheliax is going to return them quietly, we need your assurance that this will not happen again." 

Oh no. 

What were they thinking  - this week, of all possible weeks, when it was most certain to be actively counterproductive -

He is genuinely and sincerely very angry, and not particularly attempting to hide it. "Who? What did they attempt to do?"

Sincere. Right. Codwin is one of the most charismatic men on the planet, and he won't forget it. 

"Your Eagle Knights tried to burn down every ship in Westcrown harbor to prevent the transport and sale of slaves out of the country in the days before abolition. This would have been unnecessary, as the ports were closed, but of course they're not interested in that sort of detail. Fortunately, they were apprehended. 

– And I will really find it much easier to have this conversation if you're not feigning ignorance."

That is even worse than he imagined. Not even on the high seas, where the law is unclear - not just the ships actively being loaded with slaves - the absolute peak of reckless, destructive, arrogant -

- he should have arrested Andira five years ago. He cannot do it one year in advance of an election she's expected to beat him in, not without shattering everything that both of them sincerely do believe in. 

"- Archmage, I did not know of this. I would never have countenanced it. If I had expected it I would have warned the Queen, and if necessary I would have attempted to stop them myself. I am very glad that you stopped them. We'll pay for any damages, obviously."

When Élie's in a good mood, he has a lot of respect for Codwin and everything he's managed to accomplish. The man's job is impossible. Élie himself is currently and actively in the process of failing at it. He'd like to think that's influencing his judgement less than the fact that the flower of Andoran took one look at his weak, stumbling experiment in Republicanism and decided to literally and figuratively light it on fire. 

"It doesn't make a difference to me if you told Marusek that you needed to be able to honestly say your hands were clean. I know you can't lie to me directly, but I can't believe that this happened in opposition to your wishes. The nation of Andoran exists, to your eternal credit, because you're perhaps the only man in the world who can talk Chelish dukes into acting like people, who can make them trust you – and now you want me to accept that own allies are going about committing acts of war against friendly neighbors without believing it would please you to have done so?

I know you must have had a reason for it. I don't know what you were trying to accomplish, but I suspect that if we both had full information we would find that we wanted the same thing, and I cannot help us get it if you will not talk to me."  

"Andira does not listen to me at all. Andira has not listened to me since Cheliax fell; the only reason she ever did was because I could sometimes, sometimes persuade her that the country would immediately be destroyed by Hell if she played her hand too recklessly. That is no longer true, and she does as she pleases. I did not want this. I cannot imagine she could have thought I wanted this. I have begged her to restrain the Knights from offering Cyprian the provocation he is quite plainly waiting for. I can guess, if you'd like, what she was thinking. It's that the convention was finally, finally to end slavery in Cheliax, against the will of the Queen, and so the whole thing got put on pause so the slavers could get a return on their investments. It's that it doesn't matter how much of a provocation she offers since Cyprian's busy right now anyway and will invade in the spring regardless. It's that the whole concept of 'property' seems to serve slavers much better than citizens.

She is wrong, of course. It is still my responsibility, of course. But she is absolutely not listening to me."

Oh, dear. He's not quite at the point of feeling sympathy for Codwin – imagine if his biggest political problem was that the opposing party was too enthusiastic about ending slavery – but nor does he envy him the experience of Andira Marusek. The bigger problem is that, if Codwin didn't order the attack, he can't actually gaurantee that it won't be repeated. The Eagle Knights will have less cause after today, but that's not the sort of thing he'd like to rely on. He wouldn't put it past them to develop an interest in orc slavery in Menador out of sheer spite. Nobody wants a war, but if Marusek really is deaf to reason – 

Actually, no. The bigger problem is – "Do you have intelligence that Cyprian is planning an invasion in the spring?"

Blink. 

"Only from the man himself. He asked Morgethai for help with the crusade for Razmiran. She asked for his word that Andoran would remain independent." He doesn't finish the explanation. He doesn't need to. Cotonnet knows Morgethai's not participating in the crusade for Razmiran.

"I meant to discuss the matter with you once the fighting for Razmiran is over, as I know you bound not to participate in that. I - have no desire to see you at odds with your allies, I know what a terrible risk that is. But Andoran will fight, and Cyprian I think underestimates us. ...not by so much he'd lose."

He hadn't known about that. 

It shouldn't surprise him: it's obvious enough that Cyprian wants Andoran, as a client if not an outright conquest. He probably wants the whole empire, with Varisia and the River Kingdoms thrown for dessert. But wanting isn't the same thing as taking – he should know – and he's never believed that Cyprian was the insatiable, nation-gobbling ogre of the Absalom press. He's a tyrant, certainly. But he's a tyrant who fancies himself a second Aspex, a hero, the father of his nation. He'd wait until Andoran was having some sort of crisis – some hope that they'd welcome him – a provocation, at least – or he might wait forever. 

And he'd spent the past year feeling so smug about how the devils just couldn't help but stab each other in the back the very first chance they got. 

"If that's his intention, he hasn't shared it with Cheliax. I'm sure he has plans – I doubt he has specific intentions. If I heard of such a thing I'd certainly try to prevent it."

"I am very relieved to hear it. It is, of course, very important to me to prevent the Eagle Knights from going around committing acts of war against our allies, but - they expect he'll find his excuse, sooner or later, probably sooner, and I think he must accept that too to have declined an archmage's aid over it.

I can conduct an investigation. If the men you took prisoner are in Andoran's military I can court-martial them. If they're not - and usually the ones who make trouble aren't - I am almost inclined to say 'perhaps they should just be prosecuted for sabotage', if they're in fact guilty of it. If you're very sure you can hold them. Andira did raids to free her people from Cheliax even when everyone involved was risking malediction over it. I don't really understand the current Chelish legal system, what'd they be facing for sabotage?"

"A fine proportional to the value of the goods they destroyed, or attempted to. In this case, the actual damage was fairly minor. The intended damage – but we don't want that to become public knowledge. ...I am not under the impression that this is going to deter their companions in the future." 

"No. They won't bother Cheliax once you've abolished slavery. I understand that it would be unwise as a matter of policy to let one be influenced into abolishing slavery by the possibility that people will commit foolish acts of war until you do, but - I am separately willing to offer the Queen or the Convention nearly whatever resources at Andoran's disposal they demand in exchange for abolishing it, as I should have done eighteen months ago, and intended to make that offer before I learned of this situation at all. 

The bigger problem is that - I can't arrest Andira. I am sure she did not break any Andorani law; she almost never does. And even if she stops going after Cheliax, this suggests a catastrophic lack of good judgment, on top of the already known lack of restraint. Cyprian can probably just - make some kind of promise of protection of Taldor's shipping and then he has it. And - this persuades me more firmly that she should not be in power, but she is very popular and I believe likely to win the next election."

"Nearly all slavery in Cheliax is halfing slavery. And most of the rest is orcs in Menador, which – let me put it this way: the primary champion of that institution in the Convention is a Menadorian orc, probably because he realizes that if they abolish the institution they'll just start killing all the orcs who come over the mountains instead of leaving the women and children alive. I don't think it should be allowed to continue forever, but when we end it I want it to be because we had a better idea. I don't know what you can offer us to change that calculus, and I don't understand what changed in the past eighteen months to make you want to offer it, but I am reasonably confident that the government of Cheliax has no desire to provoke a war with Andoran on behalf of Cyprian." 

"I can make the Eagle Knights guard the border with Menador and figure out something better themselves.

The thing that has changed is that when I attended the wedding of Her Majesty Aspexia III and Cyprian, and when I initially conveyed Andoran's request that she contemplate abolition which was refused, I believed that she and Cyprian meant to reunite the Empire, and would not entertain abolition until slavery in Cheliax had served precisely the purpose that in this last week it served. And yet I have not been met with a declaration of war, or even the precursors to one, so I now believe that is not their aim, in which case it is worth offering whatever it is that will lay this particular evil to rest. 

The people of Cheliax need aid. I would like to provide it to them. But the aid would be taken in taxes from the people of Andoran, and the people of Andoran do not want their strength to flow to a monarchy that retains slavery, even if it will buy the souls of that monarch's subjects. But when I observed this to De Luna he said he thought Cheliax would accept a sufficient bribe."

"....I believe that her Majesty, a Galtan, was primarily thinking of her profound desire for peace between the peoples of Cheliax and Galt." Which is true, as it happens. Catherine had intended to marry Cyprian well before any of them knew about Alfirin. 

He's annoyed. He's not really trying not to sound annoyed, not that it would matter, because Codwin's ability to read his emotions certainly surpasses his own ability to conceal them. This is the second time in less than a week (sidereal) that he's learned that someone he liked and respected was doing something absurdly wasteful through some combination of total incomprehension of his motives and mulish unwillingness to just ask. He's tempted to blame Iomedae, but then there's that time Shawil decided to kidnap him to Axis for a lecture on not taking over the world on absolutely no provocation. Not to mention the whole quivering populace ready to declare him a tyrant. Is it something in his face? He prides himself on the fact that he's really never less than completely straightforward with his allies. He's not asking for credit, here – it's simply how he prefers to carry himself in the world – but he's really running out of ideas for what he can do to earn some benefit of the doubt. 

"Cyprian rejected Andorani independence even in exchange for an archmage's aid with the most important war he'll ever fight. I do not think we misread his understanding of what the marriage means, though I would of course be enormously relieved to learn that it is not his wife's, and I never believed it was yours."

Yeah, he doesn't have an innocent explanation for that. 

"Of course we all knew that he had ambitions. I hadn't imagined he intended to go after Andoran, though. Not with the River Kingdoms unconquered, or even Taldor – he fancies himself a liberator, I think. And he's not stupid." 

"He's not. But - the Empire, reunited. To a certain kind of person - the kind of person who reads a lot of histories, or imagines himself in a lot of histories - it has an appeal that more River Kingdoms never will. And a port on the Inner Sea, and - I think it's not too hard to bend ones thoughts around until one expects to be greeted as a liberator even in Andoran. At least Andira's Andoran, and - she may well win the next election. 

I don't think he'll do it, with you and Naima and Morgethai opposed."

Well, yes, but that's what he'd thought the situation was now. 

"What, exactly, are you asking me to do?"

"I think that if you and the Archmage Naima have intentions around what you'd do if Cyprian invades, it is a good idea to communicate those, certainly to Cyprian and possibly fully publicly, so that Cyprian cannot deceive himself about it. I think that if Cheliax doesn't intend to invade then I need to meet with the Queen and ask her what she is trying to accomplish. ...do you believe that, if she gave her word as to her intentions, I would be right to rely on it?"

"Publically, Cyprian has no intentions towards Andoran, which would make declaring my intention to defend Andoran from him diplomatically complicated. Privately, I could go through his foreign minister, though she'll certainly deny it. I didn't think it was particularly unclear what the Queen is trying to accomplish, but since you're confused it does seem that you should meet. I'll vouch for her word on this. 

But, personally – I'm Galtan, too. If you were asked to commit to murdering men of Andoran to protect a foreign power, would you do it?" 

"Not happily. It would matter, to me, what they were doing, and what they believed they were doing. I have tried quite hard not to execute men of Andoran for their vigorous activities aggravating foreign powers, but perhaps by this I condemn more of their kin. 

If I thought I would prevent a war to promise to stop it, I think I would do that, and sometimes of course I would be wrong that my promise would prevent it."