"I am familiar with the public account of events but if Andoran was involved in any way that is news to me."

"Andoran was not involved in any way. That is rather what I wanted to talk to you about. You are to a first approximation the only person who has built a stable post-Asmodean state without an intervening decade of bloodshed."

"I hve had a few conversations with Her Majesty Aspexia III. While I consider Andoran a tremendous success in the most important respects that matter, I don't think that people elsewhere tend to parse it that way."

"Why not - take a bunch of the Chelish wizarding students to Morgethai's, or send a bunch of her teachers to Cheliax? Why not send them powerful Good adventurers? Why not staff their miserably inadequate government?"

" - because Her Majesty Aspexia III has chosen to restore the monarchy, marry Cyprian, and retain slavery as an institution, and Andoran's resources must be directed in accordance with the will of the people of Andoran, who consider all three of these to be enormous Evils they will not prop up and assist even to save the souls of the tyrant's free subjects."

"They're doing the whole - Constitutional convention. It looks liable to ban slavery."

"Cotonnet's insistence, I think. If it had been his decision Cheliax would be a free Republic, and Andoran would be honored to give them absolutely any aid in our power. We did have an enormous number of people ask about participating in or assisting with the convention, but they were all refused."

"Did you try asking Her Majesty to end slavery?"

"Of course! We sent a formal statement pleading for it and offering any assistance in the transition she required."

"Did you try bribing her more than that?"

"No. Do you think it would've worked? Our assumption was that she had retained the institution deliberately, for the sake of division with Andoran."

"- this is not an assumption I had expected Andoran was operating under. Can you say more."

"Redact it from the versions for everyone in Cheliax, but if the Preceptors want it - Cyprian would like a port on the Inner Sea, and one presumes from the fact of their marriage that he and Her Majesty Aspexia III would both like to reunite the Empire, and he cannot reasonably invade Andoran without great provocation. But the people of Andoran regard a neighbor where hundreds of thousands of people live in bondage as, itself, provocation, and so if Cheliax retains slavery a war is inevitable. Anyone who desires that war, then, would be wise to retain slavery."

"I see the logic but it seems mistaken, as they're permitting the convention to vote to end it."

"I think that the Archmage Cotonnet does not necessarily see eye to eye with Her Majesty, in this as well as in other matters."

"Certainly. I think you could probably have gotten slavery abolished in Cheliax a year and a half sooner by pursuing that as a diplomatic priority."

"If you are right about that we would very much regret not having done so."

"Is there advice that the Church could have usefully given you, in the matter of diplomatic relations between Andoran and Cheliax -"

"Talk Cyprian down. I don't think you can do it but certainly no one else can."

"I get the impression that Her Majesty Aspexia III considers herself really quite independent from Cyprian, and may be surprised by the degree to which her neighbors presume the situation otherwise."

"Only thing I know about the woman in her own right is I asked Alexaera if he thought she could be trusted to be negotiating honorably and in good faith."

A question which Alexaera ordinarily just mightily endeavors to avoid answering. Codwin he may have just told, 'no'. "That's all I wanted to ask you about."

"What does the Church figure it got wrong this time."

"A truly astonishing number of things. What do you think the Church got wrong?"

"The people of Cheliax are scared and they want to be good, and who's their example to blindly and somewhat stupidly copy off? Their Queen, who if she's Good is Good the way Cyprian could've been Good if fate was generous enough to him, by virtue of killing sufficiently many Evil things, who has as far as I can tell provided them no principled account of what moves her at all? The Reclamation, which is fundamentally grounded in all of the most admirable and least imitable, least desirable parts of Iomedaenism? No one likes Andoran's answer to what a good man is. But I don't think they're going to end up being more satisfied with what you get if you studiously refuse to offer any. Especially if you tell your people their rulers are Good and then absolutely at no point show them any hints of what you mean by that, besides 'opposed to Hell' and 'very good at killing things'."

"If Cheliax does abolish slavery will you be open to providing them with more assistance?"

"Of course. Even with slavery - the volunteers are at their door every day. They're turning them away for their own reasons."

"Cotonnet's principled conviction that the fate of the Chelish people ought to be decided by the Chelish people, I think."

"...the man himself is no more Chelish than I am."

"I think he would much rather have a local run the Convention, but there's no one who could. Whereas filling it with Andorens would be - stacking the deck."

"My own take is that you've got to stack the deck. You've got to do it honorably, you've got to be thoughtful about it, but the point isn't to demonstrate Republicanism can win a fair fight, it's to have free people who know they're free and are pursuing their vision of the Good. I wouldn't've let foreigners in as delegates, or not more than a few of them, but I'd have strongly encouraged them to join on as staff and advisors to the delegates, to draft proposals and write pamphlets..."

"You don't think there's been a bit too much encouragement of pamphlets?"

"The pamphlets aren't the problem. The problem is that Valia Wain was the first person to tell the people of Cheliax what it looks like to be Good, and she was wrong about it, and everyone else was themselves too wrong about it to answer her, or too scrupulous, or too busy."