This looks really bad! How is he going to - wait, no, he can just make up a crime to say he's charging them with, and when he's done with them he can say there wasn't enough evidence and release them. Seems like a good chance to earn some goodwill, then.

"I must agree with his lordship. For those men lawfully carrying out the Queen's bidding, this law will impose no hardship, and for those who work against her purposes this will make it clear when they do so."

She and Dia still don’t see the trick or the trap, but they’re sure the noble (Bellumar?) who presented it is one of the conservative nobles, and her gut instinct tells her there is no way one of them would give the slightest inch to commoners without substantial gains elsewhere.

He looks towards Duke De Fraga. His grace seems... in favor! Great, he's in favor too, and can say a few words to that effect without committing to any particular reasoning that His Grace might disagree with.

"I'm concerned about the collateral damage here. You mention the corvee as a carvout, and I think this is good, back back home the authorities would sometimes round up all the lowlives and put them to work doing something useful for once, and I want to be clear this is still allowed."

He didn't ever buy their labor himself, but it was good for public projects without raising taxes on people who matter.

"I think that that would, in fact, be disallowed, unless some other decree was passed making it legal, which would have to specify who was eligible and so on."

Well he's definitely going to vote against it then, but it's not worth picking a fight with a count over.

"This doesn't apply to orcs, right?"

"Well, it doesn't apply to enslaved orcs, because it says 'free subjects of Her Majesty', and it doesn't apply to any orcs that are...not subjects of Her Majesty at all, like if they're raiders from the mountains or something, but if there's a free orc who's a subject of Her Majesty, then it would apply to them."

Hmm, does it require the archmages to send the sortition delegates home? How uncharacteristically gentle if that's the intent.

Reply: It could perhaps be so construed, were one to read 'Detention' as extensive beyond the process of Justice; Élie Cotonnet is not the Crown, though the Crown under whose Auspices we Convene is of course the Crown; I would myself expect the Letter summoning me to have the force of Law. Though the last clause is Bellumar's and not Mine and I imagine a simple Clarifying Decree would nullify such a Requirement. Of course we should not ask the Queen to do our own jobs.

He's going to be polite about this, because Bellumar is a peer and he really seemed like a sensible fellow yesterday, but seriously, what the heck?

"I'm concerned about the effects here. Every limitation we place upon the guards who enforce order means they have less time to do their jobs and more criminals get away; I'd rather not leave thieves in the street for the sake of high minded indealism. And giving people the right to question justice is of less immediate concern, but the long term effects might be even more corrosive."

At first read this seems fine? But she remembers that the Count who introduced the bill was one of the ones she had suspicions of from the previous day, though she didn't remember exactly what he said or how suspicious of him she was due to those things. He wasn't the one who had spoken against worshiping Desna, at any rate. 

The arguments against hadn't raised any pressing issues. Maybe the bit about charges not being made public? If they're not public, who is being informed about what the charges are and why should she think that charges being written down somewhere has any effect on what happens? What prevents random charges from being made up and then dropped for lack of evidence? 

... She does not want to stand up and say words in front of this many people, especially when she's as confused as she is. Maybe it would be good to anyway. 

She wishes she'd gotten the exact words down, but she can't write as quickly as they read the laws, even when they slow down how fast they are reading. 

... Maybe whatever the alternative is would be worse, like with censorship yesterday. Most people speaking are complaining that it's not bad enough? 

I see. I suspect that was in fact the entire purpose of this law, in Bellumar's eyes, and the rest merely a distraction. Thank you.

Now, who does she pass that to... Joan-Pau? Carlota? Blanxart? Actually, send a runner to the President warning him first.

Joan-Pau, she decides. Message: I think this is a disguised attempt to force the President to send all the sortitions home immediately. That's certainly against my archduchy's interests and I think it's against the country's and those of everyone not from Bellumar's faction. I don't have any ideas how to respond, though, it's otherwise a good law.

"I understand your concerns, of course," he is answering the peer count. "But there are two directions in which confidence in the law can erode. People can doubt that they owe the law and the Queen their absolute obedience and be encouraged in questioning the Queen's decisions about what purposes to put her subjects to or implying that she needs a reason for anything she does. That would be a great ill. But also, they could develop the habit of relating to the Queen as demons relate to a demon lord, treating Her Majesty's decisions as unpredictable and incomprehensible, and therefore not doing what Her Majesty commands because they see no difference between obedience and disobedience. And this, too, would be a great ill. We must teach the people both that they owe their government obedience and that their government functions predictably, so that it is possible to obey."

He hadn't realized that until now but now that he has seen it it's obvious, so he will pretend he knew it all along. Message: Allow them to return home, I think, not force them. Have you already spoken to the President about this?

Sent him a runner, I don't think we need to rush him. Part 3 with 'shall upon the End of Detention' makes it mandatory to send them back, even if they want to immediately return with a third teleport. I think.

Victòria doesn't think she owes anyone her absolute obedience! Absolute obedience is for Asmodeans and people who aren't even trying to do the right thing. But she's pretty sure the law doesn't actually say anything that would make people feel like they had to obey the law just because it's the law so probably it's not a secret trick to make people more obedient.

That doesn't really resolve his confusion. Maybe the man has gotten really unlucky in what his county is like, and is overgeneralizing across Cheliax? But it's sane enough that they don't have to have this out on the floor, he'll send one of his aides over to talk to Bellumar's aides instead.

I think he can say that it's not a kidnapping if they want to stay, he responds. But I don't know what to say either. I suppose ask the President, if you can, if, should the law be passed, he'll consider it to apply to the meeting? If so I suppose we have a public debate on an amendment. He's not looking forward to a fight today, but you aren't always.

Hmm, Bellumar is still talking perfectly normal sense here. But so would Lluïsa be, were she plotting something. The count could well be admirably Mephistophelean—no, that's not admirable anymore—if so the blame is half on Lluïsa for not anticipating that angle in drafting, half on the Crown for putting sortition on shaky legal grounds in the first place.

It's not really bad, surprisingly; it doesn't throw anyone out of the convention, just permits them to leave. This is the first time she's ever failed at something and had it not have awful consequences for her.

Oriol wasn’t much help, he was even more confused by all the complicated language than she was, not that she can blame him.  She did understand that he wants to stay, so she’s up, disguised by magic, to speak.

“If I understand this correctly, and please correct me if I’m wrong… us sortition delegates qualify as having been teleported and this convention isn’t a conscription or Corvée?  So it would require them to send us home?  I wouldn’t mind going home, but there’s been plenty of good sortition delegates I’ve heard speak I wouldn’t want to be sent home against their will.  So I want to make sure this proposal wouldn’t send them home as well, that is, anyone that wants to stay, even if they were originally taken against their will.”

I'll ask... or not. I ought to get an item that lets me do messages myself, it's a Hell of a thing to ask my fourth-circle bodyguard to interrupt an archmage.

Wait, is that the trick? If the Evil nobles want to trick people into not kidnapping people, which it turns out was Evil, that's way better than a lot of things they could be doing, even if she's still hoping Delegate Iroria's proposal can stop the nobles from just outvoting everyone.

She gets up to get in line immediately.  She should have seen the trick sooner.  She hadn’t thought she would need her counter proposal, so it isn’t fresh in her mind, even though she’s rehearsed her wording a few times.

There are a lot of things he's thinking right now, but the most salient is that the convention has technically only been in business for four days. 

"I commend the effort to protect citizens from unlawful detention, and am at this moment conferring with the Queen to arrange for a royal decree to regularize the status of delegates conscripted to serve as delegates in this body. That is, this law will not affect the status of the sortitions. 

If you will suffer me to speak just a bit further – I believe I have made my opinion of attempts to disenfranchise other delegates extremely clear. It will not work. You will not profit by it. The delegates chosen by sortition are here because they represent perspective of the great majority of Chelish citizens who are neither by nature nor experience fitted to seek power, and who quite naturally prefer to avoid it. I know that many of you do not wish to be here, and I am grateful for your service and your sacrifice. An injustice is being done to you, and it is not one I would countenance in less dire circumstances. But these circumstances are dire, and your voices can, must, and will be heard." 

Oh, I meant to ask you whether it might be possible to let the sortitions optionally go home after a month of service, and replace the ones who leave with another draw of sortitions. De Luna made the point that willing sortitions might in fact have a higher rate of participation, and I think a month is probably long enough for them to determine whether they want to be here. Not that now's the right time to talk about that, it just reminded me.