Well, the assignment is to teach the people of Cheliax about Good, and if they'd already figured it out then there wouldn't be one. (The risk is that they will murder their advisors in a rage when they don't like the advice, but - you have to attempt cooperation, if you can afford to at all.) He comes up behind the little boys. "What was this man accused of?"

If someone is being lawfully tortured to death, what should you do about it? It's a puzzle Iomedae wrote about a lot, when she was twenty seven and serving in the armies of Taldor. He did not really understand what made it a puzzle - obviously you work cooperatively with the local authorities to do better without actually intervening in any of their actual existing judicial procedures, obviously you don't randomly start vigilante execution-interference which will torch a lot of your long-term avenues to improve things - until someone was actually being tortured to death in front of him.

"He's an orc!"

     "He killed his master, he did!"

          "I'm going to hit him in the eye."

     "Are not! You couldn't hit a raindrop in a storm."

          "Fucking watch me!"

You shouldn't throw stones at him, he wants to say, except perhaps it's actually a mercy. 

"I think we should - go talk to the Archduke as he requested," he says to Arn, though his feet aren't in fact doing that. If he were a real cleric he'd have healing.

"Yeah." He doesn't move either. 

Right, then. They'll head on up to the Archduke's villa where perhaps the man will still be alive when they clarify the matter, not that that's better.

They've been spotted in the town already; a servant comes out to greet them and invite them to enjoy the Archduke's hospitality. The Archduke himself is out front when they get there. He's in his fifties, and clearly a warrior, wearing fine armor in brown and gold.

They did not have time to do an enormous amount of studying Chelish feudal courtesies and the Asmodean ones are ludicrous but they'll make an attempt. They bow. "Your Highness. Lastwall expresses its gratitude for the skill and valor of the men of Menador who have come to our assistance at the Worldwound, and hopes that our cooperation will be long-lasting."

"As do I." He... will not say that he's wishing there were more of them, he's already received the information by letter and decided to try to be very understanding. Maybe they'll send more next time if he asks for more after his men have been of use. "Menador has always prided itself on its defensive capabilities. But I'm afraid we've misplaced many of our other ancient traditions, and shall need your help in recovering them. We thank you for any assistance you can offer us. But come inside, you must be hungry."

The inside of the house is - not comically heaven-themed. The redecorating is actually quite competent, and there are many places in the inner sea where it would look perfectly nice. But it's a bit of a ridiculous contrast to the square.

They are in fact hungry. He thinks Iomedae would find a way to gracefully bring up the execution right now but he cannot think of one at all. ("Did you know that torturing people to death is Evil?" He cannot say that to an archduke. It will not save tortured people. It will only cause problems.)

It's not yet dinnertime, but there's a spread of bread and cheese and fruit and several other kinds of relatively simple foods in the courtyard, where a handful of women are out reading and sewing. (Some noblewomen still sew, in Menador, at least when still in the process of replacing half their wardrobes.) Narikopolus completely inwardly winces a bit at who's present, but it isn't as if he can realistically hide the structure of his entire family; if they mean to advise him to turn half of it out, he can deal with that then. His wife is there, anyway, and she has enough proper ladies in waiting out with her that it would be unreasonable to expect him to introduce everyone. He'll introduce the most important people, and they can greet the Iomedans as the honored guests they are.

There are halflings scurrying around in the background, cleaning or carrying things. Most of them make some effort to remain out of sight, but one of them does appear to take Arn and Marit's bags up to their rooms. 

"I think we can be most useful to you if you tell us a little bit about - what you are hoping to get from this. I would not want to advise you on how to run a place like Lastwall if you are not persuaded it is a good idea to run places like Lastwall; it would not work. I can point out every Evil thing I see if the problem is that you do not know which ones they are but - Evil is usually more complicated than that. One key idea of Iomedaenism is that Good ought to be purchased where it is least expensive, like any other thing you'd buy. If I suggest random Good things to do I will be ignorant of how expensive they would be."

"I suppose I would most like to run the place like Menador of a hundred years ago. Very few people now remember what that would mean, though, and I'm not one of them. I do know that one large part of it was the worship of Iomedae. Much of the knowledge we had is lost, irrecoverable. But Iomedanism, I think, we can re-establish, if we first learn what it means. But beyond that, I - well, I had meant to build a temple, for Iomedae, one worthy of the county of her birth. But I was advised that this would be no great service to her, and to instead seek out better advice on what would be. I'm afraid you may find us quite a bit more ignorant than those who are evil solely out of convenience. Asmodeanism demands quite an inconvenient degree of evil, really, but we are still learning to live without it. We only recently obtained our first copy of the Acts, and some in the household are still working through them."

One of the girls silently holds up her book, which is indeed one of the household's several copies of the Acts (he ordered several of them made, as soon as they had a copy to work from). He nods at her.

"Acts is - a pretty good place to start but it's not exactly written for helping people escape Asmodeanism. I guess maybe once we have worked with you for a while we can try to write up something that is, for everywhere else that'll need it. I'm afraid I don't know very much about what Menador was like a hundred years ago, but - it's good you have in mind a thing to aim at."

"I think - it's not that grand temples are Evil. But they are not usually the cheapest Good you can purchase. And - another key idea of Iomedaenism is that it is often to Good's advantage to do things Evil cannot imitate. Evil can also build grand temples, so if the temple is grand that doesn't tell your people why Good is any better than Evil. The temple having channels does."

"We did hope for that. I understand supplies of them are unfortunately very limited, right now."

He's not trying to complain, but it's kind of rubbing salt in the wound. The Erastilians and Pharasmins still won't admit to existing, so at this precise moment, the town has less healing than it did before.

"- Kantaria doesn't have anyone? Supplies are limited but it's my hope that should be possible to change. I imagined there were other churches. Iomedae picks fewer clerics than most gods, and of course none at all this year, probably because She's busy with the war effort."

"Kantaria - the town, not the county - does not have any clerics of any kind operating openly. There may be someone in the town who's empowered, but they're not running public channels. We believe there are a handful of Erastilians operating in the outlying farmland, but they'll be new, and we're neglecting to collect any of them because the last ten times we did that it was to kill them.

Pharasmin midwives and Gozreh clerics have always existed, but only because we generally have no way of identifying them, and they're certainly not revealing themselves now."

So if someone set up a channel schedule in Kantaria it's possible that more people'd add themselves to it but for now they're all sensibly terrified. "That makes sense and I will communicate it to the Church in Vigil. I think most of the - advantages that Good has - are really advantages of being trusted to be Good, and for that reason will take some time to accrue, though they really do have very outsized benefits once they exist."

The really obvious and overriding benefit of Good is that if you're not Good - in the sense of vocally swearing allegiance to it, if not reading that way - the new regime kills you. He doesn't say that. He makes a thoughtful 'hm' sound.

"I'm not sure we need to be persuaded of the benefits of Good, but if you'd care to enlighten us, I'm sure there are many more we have not yet realized."

"People are more likely to report crimes to the government if they expect the government to respond fairly and proportionately. People are less likely to commit crimes in the first place if there are few laws and all of them are reasonable laws. People are more likely to end up doing something they're actually good at if they have the freedom to choose what they do. If husbands are loyal to their wives and wives to their husbands and both are concerned with the wellbeing of their family, their children are better fed and better cared for and will become stronger, healthier, better men. A state with a peaceful border does not have to devote as many men to protecting it and similarly a person with Good neighbors and business partners does not have to spend as much of his time on guard against their efforts to trick or rob him."

"Men fight better in the service of someone they trust who they believe will do right by them. And fight better when they trust that at home their families are safe, and that their courage defends them, instead of being wasted on some thing irrelevant to them. If people think the law is comprehensible and that they will not be harmed if they follow it, they will bother to learn it and follow it. If people are approached by someone offering them money or power to betray their country they are much less likely to accept if they like their country and expect reporting this incident will go well for them. If men are not pressured to give their word to unworthy causes they may guard it, and still be in possession of it when they need to give it to important ones worthy of them."

Most of those do not really obviously have to do with good. Maybe he's just really confused about what good is. Obviously men would much rather defend their families from marauding orcs than go fight at the worldwound, but this is selfishness; the wound matters more for the rest of the world.

The idea that fidelity makes children stronger seems... false... in that a man who is faithful to his wife will have maybe four or five sons, if he's lucky and not often away, and it really seems like the most important kind of strength is the one that comes from surviving battles that killed ten of your brothers. Narikopolus himself is legitimate, but his father was not.

He should probably agree with it anyway, the next time it comes up.

There is no actual discernible pause before he speaks. "Does Good typically lead to peaceful borders? I was under the impression that Lastwall didn't have them, either."

"It doesn't help any with orcs. It helps a great deal with civilized neighbors; Lastwall's almost never been at war with either of ours, and most countries are at war every few decades."

"Might be the Law, as much as the Good."

"I think a lot of things are a mix of both. The Good, and also the fact it can be relied upon to continue."

This seems like the kind of advice that would be really relevant if he were the Queen of Cheliax, and not the Archduke of Menador. But he did ask, even though the border is the one thing he doesn't need advice on. This isn't really the conversation he meant to be having at all, and he's not completely sure how to have the conversation he meant to.

"Unfortunately, our border is mostly orcs and Kuthites. I don't think things were different there under Aroden, and I don't particularly expect them to be different now. But I do expect we'll see many other positive changes, as we learn and change our course."

"Are there specific questions that you wanted to consult us on?"

These people are really way more reluctant to tell him anything about the party line than he was hoping. He's going to have to somehow painstakingly draw out the information about what he's supposed to be doing, without being so obviously Asmodean in his assumptions that they report back that he needs to be removed immediately. 

"Well, it's not much of a guide, but I suppose the one I was advised to ask was - if not a new temple, then what? What needs to be ripped out and replaced first?"

"The - legal system, probably. I suspect that Asmodean Cheliax punished a lot of things that should not be punished, and punished things much more harshly than is necessary or just. ....torturing people to death is Evil."

"Well, of course."

....wait.

"Oh, you mean - always?"

"Yes. Always. Even as a punishment for crimes."

Have they managed to infuriate the archduke already.

"Huh.

Well, what do you do instead?"

"Lastwall beheads people, or hangs them so as to break the neck instantly."

"So in a case of, say, petty treason, you still want to kill them, but you want to do it as quickly as possible?"

"- Lastwall does not have, uh, petty treason, and I don't know precisely what actions it describes. There are crimes for which the sentence is death, sometimes without exception and sometimes only if other features of the case make it particularly egregious."

"For murder."

"Yes. Lastwall executes people for murder. As swiftly as it can be done."

"Huh.

Valèria, entertain these gentlemen for an hour. I have to go kill someone before I decide whether that makes any sense at all."

"All right. Hurry back."

"Thank you."

It is really extremely encouraging that he is willing to actually do it even if he hasn't yet decided if it makes any sense at all.

Narikopolus rides out to the town square, not alone, but not with anyone he couldn't wave over on the way to the door, and not particularly waiting for those to catch up. Children scatter and then peek from behind fences as they see him. Adults don't bother, or if they do they know how not to be seen at it.

Lastwall beheads people, or breaks the neck, but that's not the principle; the principle is that the man ought to be dead. He stops his horse, draws and takes aim without dismounting, and nails the man with an arrow right between the eyes. 

"Now that that's done," he says when he gets back, "I'd appreciate a longer explanation of why in particular it should have been."

"....well. You were familiar with the idea that in other contexts it is Evil to torture people?"

Shit, all other contexts?

"Sure. But in most contexts it's also Evil to kill them, and obviously we agree that this doesn't apply to sentences carried out for crimes."

"People suffering immensely is bad - I don't mean anything profound by that, just, we would ourselves much disprefer it, and everyone else mostly feels the same way for the same reasons. 

A lot of bad things are - the least bad thing we can do, doing anything else would result in a lot more bad things on the whole. Executing murderers is like that. You can try to spare some murderers, ones whose circumstances were very unusual and are really uniquely unlikely to murder again, and Lastwall does have provisions for that, but for the most part, if you didn't execute murderers, there'd be a lot more murders. You wouldn't be preventing killing, you'd be encouraging it. 

But you don't have to torture murderers to death to discourage other murders. Iomedae wasn't sure, in her day. Taldor did torturous executions and she wanted to know, as no one had checked, if it was really necessary, if executing murderers painlessly would be like not executing them at all in terms of how it encouraged more murders. But it isn't. If anything probably it's salutary for people to be less inured to the suffering of their fellows."

"Meaning it isn't in Lastwall, or is it not done elsewhere either?"

"Lastwall and Lastwall's protectorate and at Lastwall's Worldwound forts. It - may be more of a problem in post-Asmodean Cheliax. Though - I would not particularly expect it. The most operative thing is just that most murderers are very unwise and not considering the consequences of their actions much at all. If they were, the fear of Judgment would probably be sufficient to move them,"

"That sounds like it rests on the idea that if they don't commit murder they'll be judged differently."

"I think murder looms extremely large in how most people are judged. Even in infernal Cheliax, probably."

"You expect that most people who don't commit murder are neutral?" Narikopolus is not neutral. Then again, Narikopolus has been torturing a lot of people to death, so that doesn't really prove anything.

"I am not very sure. This is a costly topic to research and what we have is guesswork. But - in places where people don't worship Asmodeus, I think most people who are Evil are Evil because they've killed people they did not need to, including killing babies just born or in the womb, or tortured people, or raped people, or enslaved people.

My guess would be that around here most people are Evil because worshipping Asmodeus is a great Evil but... worshipping Asmodeus is easy for most people to repent of once they are not required to do it, few of them having done it for reasons that are - important to their concept of themselves. I would expect that probably the people who haven't done great unnecessary violence to others will for the most part not be damned, not if they're given some time and guidance to - reorient away from Asmodeus. Which is time and guidance we are trying to provide.

It's harder, of course, for people who have, but - very much not impossible."

What, is all enslaving people evil? How are you supposed to -

"But you'd expect anyone who has done any of those things to be judged evil."

"Not everyone. But - a lot of them, probably, particularly if they haven't changed their ways."

"And haven't done corresponding Good things - saving peoples' lives, and improving them, counts to everyone's credit as much as hurting people counts against them."

He really hates to argue, but there are, in fact, two things that are essential to maintaining his position in Menador, and to maintaining Menador's degree of separation from the south, instead of ending up managed by incompetent crown appointees like Ravounel and the Hellcoast.

One, absolute loyalty and obedience to the new Queen, and evidence that if anyone gives him direction, he can be relied on to run the archduchy in a manner that's in step with the new regime.

Two, the entire archduchy not being a flaming disaster. Right now it is probably the least disastrous archduchy, and he'd really like to keep it that way.

"So, it seems to me that the vast majority of Chelish men who commit murder, or the handful of remaining capital crimes, were probably already evil, but are moving their fate from Hell to Abaddon, or from Abaddon to the Abyss. But from the perspective of keeping public order, those ultimate fates are invisible. People don't see them, and they don't think about them. A lengthy execution is a moment for everyone else sees what awaits them, if they die with no advocate.

On the other hand, to kill a man with a sword, or an arrow, is to treat him as an equal. He's in your power, but not fully, so you use what you have to hand. Such a man, if he's an orc at heart, thinks he can expect Volkorgoth when he dies, having been honorably killed. He's probably wrong, and going to the Abyss either way, but that's not what he believes. You stab him, or even hang him, and with very little courage he can tell himself that he has nothing to fear at all. He may think that his fate may in fact be improved by his actions, and he'll face no great pain on the way. You crucify him, and most people will figure even the orc gods have no such use for him, having ultimately been killed as a slave. Even if he's a human, he's still very clear on the difference between dying in agony and humiliation, and being sent on his way quite kindly because we merely don't want to see him again."

"And your guess is that there are a lot of men who would commit murders, if they expected a swift death for it, and are only not committing murders because they expect a slow one?" He is really quite sure it doesn't work that way in general but there is not a lot of point in trying to convince the archduke about men the archduke has met and they haven't. 

"I believe that there are not in Lastwall. I might believe that there are not in Taldor. I worry that the same may not be true in Menador. I do expect there are still many improvements to be made." It's not as if he was thinking about how little torture he could get away with when he got into his current sentencing habits.

....well, he sort of was, but in the sense that he was being lazy, not in the sense that he was merciful, which is not really the same thing in most contexts.

"It was important to Iomedae, when she tried it, to notice whether it seemed to make any crimes more common. So that she knew what she was trading. It didn't, so that is how the countries that follow Her teachings do it, but - if it did prove to make other things worse then it would not necessarily be worth it."

"But it's still always evil."

"There are things that are evil but still permitted if they are the least evil possible option. It is common for people who" care about paying lip service to Iomedaenism but actually want to do whatever they want "are trying to reconcile this with other practices to take this too far and do lots of evil things without really checking if it's the least evil available option, but - in making policy one should generally try to do the thing that has the best results."

He winces slightly at that oversimplification but he can't think of a quick way to summarize when that's false and when it's true without giving the man a very long lecture on morality that he seems unlikely to want.

They are literally here to give long lectures on morality. And he's here to pay lip service, but, you know, at minimum better lip service than he gave Asmodeus, which is a bit of a difficult bar to clear.

He nods, thoughtfully.

"I think it's important to make the transition as clean as possible. I don't want to declare an end to executions by torture, and then need to go back on it a few months later. Maybe we should, but if there's anything with no obvious risk of causing a crime wave, perhaps we can make those changes first. It's less evil the quicker you kill them?"

"If they suffer less, which would usually be 'you kill them more quickly'. Giving them time to reflect before you kill them is good, though."

"So if we nail the arms straight above the head, and they die inside an hour, is that better, or worse?"

This is actually traditionally considered the more severe form of the punishment, so it should be fine. Usually doesn't even take an hour.

"...better. I think."

"Ideally one would talk to someone who's experienced both. I don't know if that describes anyone....and you shouldn't do it to anyone just to learn the answer."

"With the arms out, the condemned is up for a day or so. With the arms up, the process is faster. The condemned suffers more acutely, but it's usually over inside half an hour. Obviously it depends some on individual strength. Traditionally, the faster one is considered the more severe form, so I don't see that there should be any problems switching to it."

"It seems like it might also be confusing to people if the change you make when you stop being Asmodean is to switch to punishments understood to be more severe, whether or not they are, and from that description I am somewhat uncertain of."

"Is there some small city or region where you could try not executing people torturously, to extend to the rest of the Archduchy if it doesn't cause a lot of problems?"

"Maybe. There's not a consistent law about how to crucify people, and it's a much smaller change than ending torturous executions all together. In practice I don't think it will be very confusing, and I'll consider how much more change the legal system will bear right now.

Petty treason, by the way, is violent rebellion against an authority other than the government. Though right now it isn't officially a separate crime, and the technical sentence is generally murder or attempted murder."

"Can you tell us a bit more about what authorities other than the government there are that people are rebelling against?"

"The master of a slave or indenture, the employer of a servant, the owner of the land that a person resides on, or another superior as specified by contract, such as a husband or wife married on unequal terms."

"One feature of the law in Lastwall is that crimes are generally treated the same regardless of the relative social standing of the killer and their victim, and the exceptions are in the direction of - crimes are a more serious matter, and punished more harshly, if committed by a person in a position of power and trust against those they have power over."

He's going to need to take half a moment to get his head around something about that. "What do you mean by a position of trust?"

"An officer in the military. A magistrate. An investigator. A priest or anyone authorized to speak and act for the church. People where - when they commit a crime, not only does it have whatever direct harm it has, it also undermines public confidence that the people in that role are law-abiding, honorable and trustworthy, and who are in roles where that trust is important."

"Ahh, so you punish representatives of the government more harshly." That makes some sense; if you appoint someone to do something, their superior is extending trust that they'll do what they were assigned to do, and failing at that could be worse than merely committing an ordinary crime. "Well, right now it's all murder, but the sentencing varies."

"What sorts of things affect the sentencing?"

"It's informed by what the sentence would have been before the queen abolished nearly all crimes. Status of the condemned, different for a slave or a serf or a free man or a lord. Sometimes status of the victim. Whether the crime was committed in a particularly heinous manner, or many crimes were committed together. In this case the official sentence was murder, but specifically the man was a slave who murdered his master and another member of his master's family, so he was crucified. I suppose the least serious case that might be technical murder is something like not accepting a duel refusal, or killing someone you have the authority to discipline, but we're mostly not executing people for those."

"I see. You aren't executing people for those because...they don't seem like a very serious problem, or they are so commonplace you'd end up executing too many people?"

"Well, they weren't previously murder at all under most circumstances, but I don't know where else you'd put them in the new system. If it's a really botched duel I might put the man in the pit or the blood well."

"The pit or the blood well?"

"Pit has an animal in it. Blood well is a covered stone pit full of water. If you're still alive when we pull you out three days later, that's it."

What??? Why????

"For what sorts of things are people sentenced to, uh, fight animals, or tread water for three days?"

"Well, you can do trial by ordeal for anything, if it's a serious crime. But it's mainly for any situation where you're tempted to say - well, maybe it deserves death, but we need this man for the defense of the realm. If it's true, let him prove it, instead of just letting him go. Or the other way around, where the thing wouldn't be a death offense for someone else, but there's some ambiguity about the status of the man who did it. Let him prove himself, too, if there's call.

The Asmodeans didn't love it, either, but it's older than they are." 

And it's not that different from the justification for the dies ira, but he's not really planning to share his arguments for how traditional ordeals are compatible with Asmodean theology.

"I see. That is also not how things are done under the code of law Iomedae wrote, but - it does not seem like it is a particularly high priority if it isn't an Asmodean practice and is in some cases perhaps a merciful one."

Nod. "Well, I'll think about the executions, and decide how to alter them in the meantime. Would you rather look for more poison to draw out by talking to me, or by some other avenue of investigation?"

"We're here to be of assistance to you, whatever you expect that looks like. If you don't have in mind any specific questions it might make sense to get situated and speak to other people and observe some proceedings, but we're also happy to talk for longer if you'd prefer. Or we could split up."

"Mm. I suppose I had hoped that we would have enough Iomedan clerics to hold services, for my household and for the people of Kantaria. I don't know what we most need to hear, but I expect we would learn from almost any topic you chose to speak on."

"We are qualified to hold services, though obviously we can't do channels. There is a standard set of sermons for conscripted soldiers from the countryside who are new to formal religious instruction and we might start with that until we learn enough to tailor it more to people who were previously subject to Asmodeanism."

"I'm sure it would be instructive. The castle has a chapel, though in the town we have nowhere to hold them but the hollowed out Asmodean temple. We've neglected to redecorate it apart from removing almost everything that was previously inside, but of course you can have what men you need to get it into an acceptable state. Or hold services in the square, I suppose, if it's easier."

"If people won't be freezing and can sit comfortably and it can hold as many as choose to come it's acceptable. ...the Church isn't opposed to temples being beautiful, many people find it spiritually beneficial when they are, but it's a matter for peacetime."

"I understand why one might be fine with a very simple temple, but it's - well, you can go look, and tell me if you want to make changes."

If it has lots of horrifying torture setups they'll probably want to make changes. "Thank you."

They've had a long journey and should get settled, then. In theory showing them to their rooms could be a halfling responsibility, but in practice there are so many widowed and unmarried women at loose ends in this household that one of the teenage girls immediately jumps on the opportunity. The rooms are spacious and well-decorated, fit for an archduke's guests of honor. An archduke who is really into heavenly aesthetics.

They will be appropriately grateful for the rooms. And probably should start trying to suss out what else is horribly wrong here by talking to people who aren't Narikopolus. Would the woman who showed them to their rooms like to show them around the rest of the estate, maybe, and tell them about how things have been here lately?

(Are they putting her in danger if she says something bad about the archduke? They absolutely cannot promise people meaningful confidentiality, here...)

The particular teenage girl who has finagled the position of their guide is dressed better than a servant, but much less well than some of the other women, if they're paying attention to that. Her name is Queralt, and she would love to show them around the rest of the estate. It's more a castle than a villa, really; Kantaria itself is actually in more danger from the Barrowwood than from mountain orcs, but it still pays to have strong walls. They've seen the courtyard; there's also a chapel (which is beautiful, if perhaps a bit low on decorations of obvious religious significance), a small library (with a somewhat suspicious number of empty shelves, right now), and the training grounds out back, where a half-orc in light armor is instructing a handful of boys and a couple of girls in archery. This is in contrast to every other part of the house, where there have so far been notably more women than men.

"Only lightly exciting, really. Menador wasn't touched by the war, so we have all of the improvements and none of the grief that came with them in other places. Of course we've all been very busy redecorating, but the house looks much nicer for it, I think. And a handful of people divorced, and Genoveva lost her husband, but that's really quite painless as wars go."

"...divorced? Why? Were they in disagreement about whether to stop being Asmodean?" You could divorce your spouse for being an Asmodean in Lastwall but that is because in Lastwall this would be shocking and unexpected.

"Well, you know, they were alliance marriages, and House Narikopolus isn't allied with any of the old southern nobility anymore."

"Ah." That is terrible but makes a great deal of sense. "Are all of the children still being taken care of?"

"Most of them." This is sort of a complicated question.

"Most of them?" he asks. He is going for 'neutral and not judgmental' but Chelish people are much better at social games than Lastwall theology students.

Well, one of the women in question killed her children, but it occurs to her now that that might be a crime, actually, and not something that you want to say to Lastwall theology students.

"Ferran's wife took her daughter back south, so I'm not sure what happened to her. I don't think the Henderthanes are doing very well, these days."

"I imagine it's been very frightening for the political situation to change this abruptly." 

"A bit, I suppose, but all of the really dramatic things happened farther away. It's really just been strange not having anyone watching. The crown hardly sends anyone, and you're the first people we've seen from the church."

There's something off about -

"Just to be clear, the Church doesn't have any authority to make arrests in Cheliax, or to - supervise - anyone except so that we can later explain the situation here to people. We are not here to get people in trouble for doing Iomedaenism wrong."

Well, it would be a bit unfair to get people in trouble for doing Iomedanism wrong before they've explained absolutely anything about how to do Iomedanism correctly, even when they've been trying very hard with no guidance at all, and she understands that Iomedae is the sort of goddess who prefers that things be fair. It's really sort of unfair anyway, because they are going to be removed just like the Henderthanes if they persist in doing things wrong, and if it's the crown and not the Church doing it it makes very little difference to Queralt, who is a terribly marginal house member and unlikely to keep being part of it if everyone has to flee to wherever the Henderthanes went.

All of that seems very impolite to say. 

"Oh no, of course not. I understand you're not Chelish at all. You're from Lastwall, right?"

"Yes. A long time ago a great many of the people who attended Iomedae's divinity school in Lastwall were from Cheliax, but not lately, of course."

"Could we send people?" Is that how you're meant to learn anything about Her?

"If they wanted to join Her priesthood, yes. Though right now she's not empowering many priests and I don't think we're expecting that to change in the next few years."

"I see. Well, I suppose they'd want to know the penalties for failing beforehand, but I'm sure some people would go anyway."

" - ah. It's not - so, the Goddess has limited resources with which to act in the world, and we don't know much of what constraints She is under. For a long time we knew about how many priests She wanted us to train each year, and we did that. Right now, She's not picking nearly as many priests, but that's not any kind of failing on the part of the people who were studying to be priests, and there is no punishment for anyone for the Goddess not choosing them. That would be - well, it would be pointlessly harming people, mostly, and also it would be ...wronging the Goddess? It would make Her have fewer options like 'pick up lots of people in five years when She has the budget', and as you observed fewer people would go to divinity school if they were punished for failing out of it, so it would limit the set of people she could choose as priests."

"Not being chosen by the Goddess isn't a failing even in normal times when She's choosing the usual numbers. The Lord-Watcher of Lastwall isn't a paladin or a cleric, but he made the same oaths and lived by them and eventually ended up in charge of Lastwall because he was the best person for it. Some people are more useful to the Goddess doing something other than being a priest."

"...and of course not everyone is useful to the Goddess and that is also not them doing anything wrong or for which they should be punished."

...it's chilling, somehow, that Iomedae doesn't have a use for everyone, even though it's really quite obvious that some people are simply useless, and there's no reason the goddess of war would be confused about it. It really should have been obvious before that she wouldn't have a use for Queralt, and maybe it was, but she didn't feel sick about it then.

It's also occurring to her that she's been - really very wrong about how much direction an organized lawful church like Iomedae's would be willing to give them. She doesn't know what she'll do if it turns out Asmodeus is the only god who's willing to tell people what He wants. Die, she supposes, for not already knowing.

"Well, then perhaps even more people would like to join, if you have space for them and there isn't even any cost for not being chosen. And perhaps if they're not they can be something else."

"I think we should start with - the things about Iomedae that the Church wants everybody to know, not just her faithful, and then the things that the Church wants her faithful to know, and then if there are people who at that point want to go learn the things her priests should know they can." `

"That seems reasonable. I'm sure we'll all be very excited to hear them. We know a little about other faiths, but Iomedae in particular has been banned more than others, so I suppose it'll all be new."

"I think we will probably also lecture a bit on other faiths, because it sounds like you have a serious shortage of Good and Neutral priests in general, and if we can get anyone selected by Sarenrae or something that'd be good too. But certainly we know the most about Iomedae. 

Is there anything you have been curious about?"

"I'm not sure I know enough to be curious, yet. I'm sure I'll have all sorts of questions once you've started giving sermons."

The chapel and the library aren't empty - they have to pray to Iomedae and study her teachings, after all - but the training grounds are lively. There is a sense that was absent, in the other places, that people actually want to be there. A couple of young men spar with swords, but most of the space and most of the effort is devoted to archery. There are five boys, some of them quite small, and two older girls, trying to hit a series of targets that are eventually quite far away. Two of the boys are obviously orc-blooded, and the instructor is a half-orc, currently sitting down to eat an apple and lazily correcting forms. 

"Training grounds. It's not always just children back here, of course, it's just Carles is giving a lesson. Let's see... Ignasi and Helena are Valeria's, Josep is Estel's, and Ariadna is Maleït's, all the Archduke's. And then Armand is the Archduke's grandson, through Maleït's eldest son, and then Hector and the little Ignasi are Carles's. It's too many to remember all at once, I know."

"Who is the Archduke's wife?"

"Valeria. Well, Maleït, too, but she died - ten years ago, I think?"

"I'm sorry to hear that." It is probably not productive to observe that men shouldn't have bastards to - well, definitely not to anyone other than Narikopolus and it's a hard thing to imagine it being productive to tell him either.

"You really shouldn't be, she was awful. He had to execute her for murdering one of his other sons."

"Oh." He should probably say more than that but can't for the life of him think what.

"When is a good time to do a sermon where we won't be interrupting much else?"

"Here, or in the town? Oh, but I suppose we have to fix the temple before you can give sermons there. I'm sure if you gave one after dinner tonight you'd pretty well fill the chapel, but if you needed more time - well, I think they'll show up whenever's convenient for you, really."

"I expect they will but don't want to interrupt a lot of valuable work thereby. Tonight after dinner should work all right, though."

"Lots of us aren't doing much. The men will go out and do things, but they'll be at it for days at a time, you shouldn't wait on them. What age do you want, should all the children come to services?"

"I think so? Of course the very little ones don't get much out of it but otherwise someone'll have to stay out to watch them, right?"

"Well, the slaves could watch them, but if you don't mind we can all come. Carles, when are lessons tomorrow?"

     "Archery's all afternoon, with different sets. In the morning they read, or something."

"All right, then if you do it in the morning you can have them when they're not practicing, but they can really move it around to whenever works best."

"...the slaves should probably also come. Ideally."

"Oh. Well, I suppose we can tell everyone, then, and if the babies are there too it won't matter."

"Thank you. I suppose we'll start preparing, if we are going to give the first sermon tonight."

They return to the chapel that evening for their first sermon to Asmodeans about Good! And technically about Iomedae but they're going to start with the very basics here.

He feels quite apprehensive. Probably this is going to be horribly misinterpreted but he doesn't know which parts will, or how he'd find out other than by giving it. 

"Pharasma when She made the world made Law and Chaos, Good and Evil, the dimensions by which men's souls are sorted when they depart this world. Good acts are those that benefit other people. Keeping other people safe from harm. Feeding them, or tending to their injuries, or teaching them, or telling them stories. Making their lives safer or freer or happier. Every time you are kind to another person, that is a Good act, and the Good gods smile on it. When you teach a child so that they will grow up wiser and stronger, that's a Good act. When you work hard to grow a good harvest so your family will not be hungry, that's a Good act. Every person matters to the gods of Good; every happy life is a joy unto them, and every cruelty disturbs them. 

Evil acts are those that harm other people. Robbing people is Evil. Terrorizing people is Evil. Torturing people is Evil. Killing people is Evil, except in those cases where it is necessary to protect other people. Enslaving people is Evil, again except in those cases where it is necessary to protect other people. 

People who have done mostly Good in their lives go to the Good afterlives, Heaven and Elysium and Nirvana, all of which are places of comfort and beauty, of rest when you want to rest and interesting work when you want to work, of delights and inventions, of happiness and safety. No one in the Good afterlives forces anyone to do anything. No one is afraid and no one suffers. People who have done mostly Evil in their lives go to the Evil afterlives, all of which are places of torment and suffering and destruction. The Church believes that almost no one would choose the Evil afterlives, having witnessed them.

The Neutral afterlives are fine places and lots of people like them, and many people would with full information prefer Axis to Heaven, but both are places where almost any person can find joy and comfort. The Church of Iomedae, and most other Good churches, do not try to insist that everybody should be Good, though they feel very strongly that nobody should be Evil.

But the reasons to be Good and not be Evil are not just witnessed in the next world. Good places are safer than Evil places, because there are many people who will defend you at need and few who'd do you harm for their own benefit. Good merchants are better to buy from than Evil merchants, because they will not try to sell bread cut with sawdust, or potions that will poison you. When Cheliax was not ruled by Hell it was more prosperous, and stronger, and the greatest armies ever to walk Avistan were the Lawful Good armies of Taldor under Iomedae. People hurting and wronging each other is not a good foundation for a society, and people who can rely on goodwill and generosity can do more ambitious things that leave them and others better off. 

Iomedae is the Lawful Good goddess of the war on Evil. She was born a human woman here in Menador, to a family that was faithful followers of Aroden. In those days women were very rarely trained to fight, but Iomedae was determined to be a paladin, and won her parents' reluctant agreement that they would let her train and see if Aroden chose her. He did, when she was only fifteen, and she rode off to join an Arodenite paladin order and fight the great evils of the world in her day, of which the greatest was Tar-Baphon, a necromancer-lich who had conquered his way nearly to Menador and plainly meant to overrun the whole world. Iomedae was a good fighter, and a spectacularly good commander of men, and she was particularly concerned with the gods and questions around how to communicate with them and how to steward their resources wisely. After the war ended and Tar-Baphon was sealed away, she founded Lastwall, a province of Taldor governed in accordance with her principles.

The first of the principles Iomedae taught is that gods, and certainly men, have limited resources, and that a great virtue is doing the most important things first. Lots of things are Good, but some are lots more Good than others, and Good like anything else that matters should be first sought out where it can be obtained most easily, and Evil first destroyed where it can be at little cost. The second of the principles that Iomedae taught is that governments and armies can be Good, and are indeed stronger when they are Good. It was previously believed that men must do Evil to rule, and that such Evils as were involved in rule were inevitable; she concluded that they were not, and that countries can do the right thing and be stronger by it just like people can. The third of the principles Iomedae taught was that the greatest Evils of the world could and should be fought, ultimately including even the Evil gods. She ascended a great enemy of Asmodeus and all the other Evil gods, and we believe She is very busy, right now, fighting Asmodeus, and presently winning."

Narikopolus would not have thought of most of those things as good. He's not entirely sure what he thought good was, other than insistently never doing evil, but most of those are normal activities, and he isn't particularly used to thinking of himself as a person who regularly does good things. Other than that there's not a lot of new information besides the principles of Iomedae, but those are not what he would have guessed were the primary teachings of Iomedae. The second one is a little bit concerning, but at least now they have a bit of an idea what their instructions are. And the first principle seems protective; they can look for the least disastrous kinds of good first, and say that that's what Iomedae would want from them.

It seems kind of unbelievable that Cheliax was more prosperous before it was Asmodean, if the present day is anything to judge by, but he supposes that thirty years of civil war are probably not particularly good for prosperity.

How does it work to be a lawful good goddess of war if killing people is evil?

"The ordinary introductory set of sermons about Iomedae follow the Acts, which are the story of her life, and talk about the moral questions that she spent her life trying to answer, and how they relate to the questions that we face today. I am planning to do that set of sermons, but I am worried that - they are written for the people of Lastwall, and the people of old Cheliax, and they might misunderstand the people of modern Cheliax and what they need to hear the most. So I want you to ask lots of questions. To think of something confusing to ask about every single sermon, and ideally to ask in front of everybody, but, if you are unwilling to do that and can write, to write it down if you can write it and pass it forwards so that I can read it. I do not think I can teach you well if I do not know what parts of this are confusing."

Queralt doesn't actually look around, such that it's visible, but she glances, out of the corner of her eye, for a moment, and feels the half-second of hesitation, and realizes that in another awkward moment it will end, and someone will say something, even if it's very stupid.

She wants the Iomedans to like her. She isn't good and isn't smart and isn't talented and isn't a proper member of the house and isn't even especially pretty, not compared to lots of other women, and the only thing in the world that can save someone with no actual positive qualities is being brave. You can always be brave. It usually kills you, eventually, but it wouldn't be bravery if it didn't.

She raises her hand.

He beams at her. "Yes?"

She does not take a moment to swallow. She is calm, and cool, and going to ask her extremely stupid question.

"How can Iomedae be the lawful good goddess of the war on evil if killing people is evil?"

"That is a great question. There is a simple answer I will give for the children, and then a more complicated answer for the adults. The simple answer is that killing people is wrong, except to defend other people. If a murderer comes to your home to kill your children, it is Good to stop him, and you will probably have to kill him to stop him, but that's no Evil. Most wars are not fought in the defense of innocent people. They are fought over men's pride, or over taxes, or over wanting to control more land. But to fight a war to protect people is not Evil, and the war against Tar-Baphon was to protect the world.

Also Tar-Baphon's armies were mostly undead, and destroying undead is a mercy to them in addition to keeping other people safe from them.

Likewise it is not Evil to fight at the Worldwound, defending against demons who come to destroy us all. 

The more complicated answer goes like this: say that a man in a place that has no rules at all, who is strong enough to fight most of the other men if he needs to, wants to have as few killings as possible. He can stop some killings by not, himself, killing anybody. But he can probably stop more killings if he makes a rule, which is that killing is not allowed, and then kills anyone who breaks the rule. Killing is evil, so why would he kill people? Well, because the rule means there is less killing, on the whole.

In the same way, Iomedae wrote that war is a great tragedy and a great evil. But sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes an evil necromancer is trying to kill all life on the planet. Sometimes you are invaded and should defend yourself, or you aren't invaded but only because everyone knows that you would defend yourself. And sometimes things are so bad than invading would actually improve them even though it involves killing people. Right now uncountable trillions of souls are condemned to the lower planes, where they are tortured and ultimately where they are destroyed. And on the Material, the Evil gods do things like - well, like what they did to Cheliax. Asmodeus caused Cheliax to be torn apart and destroyed utterly by thirty years of war. Every time Cheliax united around a person who could bring peace, Asmodeus had them killed. Every time they tried to negotiate a treaty, Asmodeus arranged for it to be betrayed. He brought war to Cheliax so He could rule it, but then His rule was full of war, too, because people do not like being ruled by Asmodeans and will resist.

Most wars are Evil. But a few wars are necessary and those are the ones Iomedae fights."

Absolute bitch thinks she deserves to speak first.

"If Iomedae is winning now, why was Asmodeus able to win the civil war a hundred years ago?"

"It's hard to guess all the details of power among the gods. Aroden had just been killed so most people figure that Iomedae was very busy picking up the pieces of his church on a hundred worlds, and the Worldwound had just opened. And ....Asmodeus expended some fairly extraordinary resources, trying to hold on to Cheliax. It's possible that the forces of Good could see that they'd need three archmages, and they didn't have them, then.

But it is possible the true explanation is far stranger than that. We have only a very small window into all of the bets the gods are placing."

A boy, this time. The young people can get away with asking stupid questions, he thinks; the older people possibly can't.

"Is it evil to kill mountain orcs?"

"Another good question. The right thing to do, with neighbors, is to make agreements with them, that you won't go past the border and neither will they, and then keep the peace so long as they keep it. But - Lastwall also has a border with orcs. They don't make agreements like that, and they haven't usually got a king or lord or anybody on their end who could keep it. Is there any orc among the mountain orcs you could negotiate with for peace, and then he'd keep the other orcs from bothering you?"

The half-orc not quite in the back, sitting with his sons and a human woman and a younger human teenage girl. "No."

"That is unfortunate but it is not very surprising. So the answer is, if there's any prospects of peace one ought to be trying for it, but there aren't always any such prospects, and if someone meets you with war you've every right to fight back. It's not Good to permit the butchery of your people. If they raid you, it is not Evil to kill them. It is Evil to make their deaths particularly slow and painful, but not to kill them. If you go ride deep into the mountains just killing orcs you run across who had nothing to do with the people of Menador, that'd be Evil. But not the ones who fight you, not if you would like peace and can't have it."

Pretty sure there aren't any orcs in the Menador Mountains who have nothing to do with the people of Menador.

Younger girl, this time. "Why does it matter how people feel?"

"Do you mean, why is it good if people are happy, or bad if they suffer, that sort of thing?"

"Yeah. You said it's good to make people feel happy and evil to terrorize them, but how people feel about things doesn't change anything, so why does it matter?"

"Well, do you care if you yourself are happy, even if it doesn't change anything? Say you could have a lovely dream in which you are a hero and save the kingdom and fly a pegasus, or a terrifying nightmare in which you are chased by horrible shadow things, and you'll get up in the morning either way, do you still prefer one or the other?"

"No."

"Huh. I think if I asked that of my little sister at home she would say that she would rather have the happy dream, because it would be more fun, because she likes feeling happy more than feeling scared. I like feeling happy more than feeling scared. Arn, do you -"

"I haven't given it a whole lot of thought but I would've expected it to be pretty much everyone who likes being happy. If people didn't like being happy I can't think why they'd do things like ...eat maple candy and do silly dances and sing to the river when no one will hear them."

"Candy tastes good, but the other things don't do anything."

"Well, if candy tastes good we'll go with that. You'd rather taste candy than some other flavor, even if they're neither of them going to poison you and it doesn't matter to anyone but you?"

"....I guess so."

"So lots of people care about being happy or being scared the way you care if you're eating candy or bread, even if it doesn't matter."

She doesn't look very satisfied, but she doesn't seem to have a follow-up question, either.

"You might think that people shouldn't care about that. Iomedae spent a long time when she was young trying not to need anything or want anything, because her country was at war and if she needed or wanted anything then she would be spending less time saving the world. But when she got older she realized that had been a mistake, because - the world is mostly saved by doing more, not by wanting less."

Still disgruntled, but still not able to put a question into words.

Eleven-year old, one of the girls who was practicing archery. "Why didn't they teach girls to fight, when Iomedae was young?"

"Well, they didn't know that girls could be brave and strong like boys. They thought that when they went to war they would be too scared, or would panic and be foolish, and that everyone would wish they had stayed home. Iomedae is the person who proved that some girls are suited to be warriors and generals and leaders."

That is VERY stupid of people in the past, but it's pretty cool of Iomedae.

The older adults continue to seem kind of unwilling to ask questions, and the bravest children are out of them, now. The servants and slaves have been sitting in the back in complete silence, and seem extremely unlikely to volunteer anything any time soon.

"Thank you all. I think I'll try to do these every evening for now, and we'll start repairing the church in the main square so we can do them for the public also. I will need your help to do this well, and am very grateful for it."

"I think they're scared of us," he says when they get back to their rooms.

"I think so. I don't know what to do about that."

"Maybe one of us can promise not to report home beyond confirming the other's report and then take confidential questions."

"That might be a good idea. Depending what exactly they're afraid of."

The next morning - very early in the morning, she hopes before the priests are awake, Queralt shows up to the training grounds. She takes aim at the far target, and doesn't hit it once. 

"Mmm. I hope the whoring's going well, because you still can't shoot for shit."

"There's wind today."

“There’s wind,” he repeats, sarcastically. He draws his own bow and hits the target only very slightly left of center. “Thank fuck nobody ever raids when it’s windy, Queralt. Go get your arrows and try on the baby target, see if you can correct for it.”

She makes a frustrated sound, but she gathers them up again and tries on the closer one. Still bad, but at least she can do a little more seeing how bad she is, now.

"They can't channel at all, you know. Their goddess doesn't want them, I don't see why you should."

"I like them," she says, and misses entirely again. "Montserrat is with you because she likes you. I don't see what's wrong with that."

"Oh yeah? Which one do you like?"

"I'm working on that."

"You're an archduke's daughter. As long as the house survives, you'll do fine."

"You're an archduke's son."

"And I'm doing fine.

Helps that I can shoot, though. Your form is shit, you need to keep your elbow directly behind the arrow. Like this, see -"

She goes to see the lay priests after breakfast. Would they like to head out into the town today and see the old temple? It's bad, but it's not getting any better not being looked at.

They would! (They're at this point kind of curious what exactly is so bad about the town temple.)

Queralt can take them there!

The outside contains two massive bloodstained spikes on either side of the entryway, not currently in use. The little shrines to other gods are all outside, now, hanging out in the same general area. There's an improvised one for Iomedae, not in the style of the others, done in wood instead of stone. 

The inside still has pews, and still has bloodstained spiked metal cages hanging from the ceiling. All of the stained glass has been shattered, but mostly not properly removed, so the edges of scenes remain. Mostly pictures of flames and devils torturing people, although the central cicular window at the front still has the edges of a red star. The two walls at the sides of the sanctuary are plain black stone, but the front bears an impressive and terrifying mural. Someone's tried to scrape away bits of the paint, but not with much success. You can still see the petitioners being tortured, disassembled, twisted into impossible shapes, and melted down into devils in the forges of Phlegethon. An inscription above reads WEAKNESS SHALL BE BURNED AWAY. There is an odd central area of the floor with a red and black star on it that interrupts the pattern of the front pews, but there's nothing else there now.

"It's not nearly so bad as it was," she says, mildly. "They already took out the altar and most of the decorations, so it's just the mural. But it's only paint, so we can just paint something else over it. Or just go over it in enough coats of white, so you couldn't see it, but there was a painter around for redecorating the house. The interrogation rooms are off to the side, that way."

"I see why we'd thought they'd want to make changes."

Why does the church have interrogation rooms. It's a church. Wouldn't that be the responsibility of the civil authorities.

"I think I am confused about what responsibilities the Church of Asmodeus had. Did they do...law enforcement?"

"Not for regular crime, usually, but for heresy and such. And they worked with the the schools, I guess, and we had a cleric for signaling."

"I see. Well. I guess we had better look at the....interrogation rooms, and see if they can be repurposed for something not Evil."

The primary interrogation room has hardly been touched. The archmage didn't need it cleared when she visited, and whoever did rifle through it knocked some chests open but evidently wasn't interested in repurposing most of the torture devices. There's a cat, and a saw, and some brands by the fireplace, and some other recognizable things. Then there are some that are either weirder or broken, and whose function is not immediately obvious.

"I think the table's bolted to the floor," she observes, shoving it a bit. "Could probably rip it up somehow."

"Conference rooms can be useful," he says, a bit dubiously.

"...the Church of Iomedae does not employ torture during interrogations. And also heresy is legal in Cheliax right now. If there was any confusion about that."

"I guess that's sensible, since there's no one to enforce it right now anyway. I hear there's only twelve or so official laws in the first place, right now."

"And because ideally we do not want people to think that everything is - just as it was, with a new god they must fear having the wrong opinions about."

"Of course not." It would be kind of stupid to enforce it before they'd gotten around to telling anyone what the rules were. Even if they are going about that process agonizingly slowly. "You can't proselytize for hell, which is sort of like a heresy law. But that's the only one I know about."

"In Lastwall you can't represent something as a teaching of the Church if it's not, and you can't spread lies about judgment or the gods, and there are some things that you can only write or say if you also provide the Church's commentary on it. I think those are perfectly good laws but I worry that if you made them laws here then it'd be even harder to get people to ask us questions at sermons. Or to talk to us at all."

People have been doing lots of talking to them!

"What do you want them to talk about?"

"I don't know! If I knew I could just tell them the answer!"

"It would be good if we could expect to hear about bad things that are happening to people. I don't know how much we're not hearing about those because - no one knows that the things are considered bad, or because no one expects that we could fix them, or that no one expects we could protect them from retaliation for reporting anything which is probably true that we couldn't, or because they expect us to get them in trouble or get someone they love in trouble. Probably some of all of those."

Well, admittedly she didn't tell them about Carme killing her children, that's probably the sort of problem they're talking about. If you were really loyal you'd inform on everyone, and Iomedae's is the church they're meant to be loyal to now.

It wouldn't really get the house in trouble if Carme were found out. Carme did it on her own. If people didn't like it they would just have to throw out Carme, which is sort of ironic because of course Carme did it so that nobody would be in doubt about her loyalties or think she meant to do anything with the claims.

"One of the women who left her husband after the war killed her children afterwards," she says. "I guess that isn't happening now."

"That seems like the kind of thing we'd want to know about, yes, so that - even if it's in the past probably the reasons it happened are still true? And so more people might kill their children unless the reasons it happened are changed. Unless it was - not particularly related to the war or the Church or the laws or anything like that, in which case it's just a tragedy."

"Well, the war's over," she shrugs. "But she didn't want anyone to question what side she was on."

"And....if she didn't kill her children.... people might question what side she was on?"

"Well, the children were part of a house that didn't surrender before they got removed, right."

"Murder is illegal right now, right? I know that there aren't very many laws, but - that's one of them?"

"Yeah. I don't know when it happened, exactly." They're going to kill her but the house will be safe, so Queralt will be safe, because she didn't do anything -

"Do you think she would be willing to talk to us about this?"

"Maybe?" She'll have to if they're going to do an investigation, right - or, well, the investigation will be the Archduke's responsibility but he'll have to do it if that's what the Iomedans want, or he'll be removed. "You could ask her."

"Okay. Would you like me to try to make sure it is hard to guess who let us know about this?"

She blinks. "I guess so?" Carme's full sisters might be angry, but you can't really blame someone for telling - well, no, you can, if she might have gotten away with it, and the church obviously has no idea what's going on with anyone right now. She's just confused about why he would ask about something like that. "It'll probably be kind of obvious, though, unless you talk to some other people first."

"That is what I would do, I'd talk to lots of people over the next few days and only ask about this after that. It is important that people can tell us things without themselves getting in trouble for having told us."

Well, the only people likely to be angry are other teenage girls, and it's sort of pathetic to be scared of other teenage girls, but she supposes it would still be nice if they thought that maybe one of Carme's full sisters said it. "I guess you'll probably hear lots of other stuff if you talk to other people, too, so it'll probably be good either way."

"Do you think there are other kids who are in danger of - someone murdering them to prove they are loyal to the new regime?"

"I dunno, maybe. Probably not if they're already here. But I guess maybe there are other nobles who haven't settled yet."

"Who haven't settled yet?"

"Figured out where the new lines are and who it's not safe to be associated with. They were still replacing some of the nobles last I heard, so I guess if they replaced another one then probably some people would cut ties who haven't yet. Not here, I don't think, but other places."

"Who was this woman married to?"

"Son of the Duke of Vinarós, I think. The old one, of course."

"Does he know that his children were murdered?"

"I don't even know if he's still alive."

"Are there other children here in Kantaria whose status might depend on who the Queen removes elsewhere?"

She has to think about this. Obviously if the Archduke was going to kill any of his children he'd have done it by now, and the only ones the rationale applies to are Maleït's anyway. The Henderthane girl isn't here anymore. Most of the extra women around are from Menador, and you marry a southern man he usually doesn't come up to Menador.

"I guess Iolanda's husband is from the south, and her children probably have claims to somewhere," she says, dubiously. "But she didn't divorce him, so it wouldn't make sense."

"Okay. I just - would really want to stop something like that before it happened, ideally. I don't want anyone to think that a good way to be safe under the new government is to kill children."

Queralt isn't very sure that it's not, since she heard that some of the consorts in the south were killed with their spouses, and it seems like being very clearly not a member of your former spouse's family might help. But nobody ever said that the church and the crown had to be making consistent demands about which things you should believe.

"Sure. I think it's less bad in Kantaria because we stayed out of the war. It's just that Carme was in the south when the war happened."

"I'm very glad that the war did not need touch here.

All right. I think we want to remove...all of the torture implements...and if there's someone who can either remove the Hell mural or depict a Chelish army marching on Hell to free everyone that would be good. I see why you wanted to rebuild it and I think in some ways it would be much better but - there are higher priorities and will continue to be for a long time."

"All right. I'm sure we can get you some men for it."

Then perhaps by Sunday they'll have a temple that's only slightly horrifying in which to host services.


In the meantime they should talk to everyone else in the Archduke's household who'll talk to them, partly to make it not clear where reports of murders are coming from and partly because it's just a good idea to get more oriented. They should probably split up for this; it'll go faster.

There's a teenage boy who wants to talk to one of them! Entirely because it'll get him out of cantrip work for a few hours, but he really hates cantrip work. This is "irresponsible" and "short sighted" and "being a useless idiot who will die by twenty", but it really sucks, okay. 

Sure, sounds great, they can head for a walk around the grounds. He doesn't think he's cut out to be a wizard?

Oh, well, he's not saying that. Well, maybe he is. He can hang some cantrips fine, it just takes him a long time to learn new ones, and he hasn't gotten any of the combat ones down yet, and he won't be able to kill anything until he has at least one of them down consistently. He doesn't think he has enough of a handle on them to do first circle spells at all yet. He tried it once and it really didn't go well. He's supposed to practice ten hours a day until he's got it, but he feels like his brain is dribbling out through his ears if he doesn't take breaks sometimes. 

Who sets his practice schedule?

His mother, Estel. She went through the Westrown academy and wants all of her children to be wizards, though of course only some of them have managed it. Wizards are more powerful than archers in the long run, not that that's relevant to most people. He's an archer, too, of course, but not a very good one of those either.

"And even if they don't get really powerful, even a weak wizard's a lot of service to his country, at the Worldwound or somewhere."

"Sure. That's where the Archduke met her. Maybe I'll go, too, in a couple years, if I can hang first circle."

"I'm trying to get a sense of how things work around here. Does the Archduke just have...a number of separate families, each with the children raised by their mothers?"

"Sort of. Obviously we all live together, and some of his nephews and their families do, too. Right now there's Estel - my mom, the wizard - and Valeria, and that's pretty much it. When I was a little kid there was Maleït, but she was executed for murder, so her daughters sort of have different widows taking care of them, though they're mostly old enough they don't need it anymore. And he had kids with some other people a long time ago, but they don't live here anymore. Except Carles and Ivet and Queralt, I guess."

"Who's Queralt's mother?"

"She's dead, too. Killed herself, I think."

"Related to the war and the change of leadership, or before that?"

"Oh, no, when she was a baby. I think. I was, you know, also a baby."

"Mmmhmm." What an awful tragic situation all around, really. "Have things gotten more difficult since the four days' war?"

"Oh, I dunno. We haven't got a cleric, so people are doing less fighting stuff in the forest, but if we don't go in then pretty soon it'll start coming out a lot more. But I can't kill anything yet, so I'm doing most of the same things. Unless you have any tips on the Iomedan way to hang an acid splash. I'd kind of assumed it was the same way."

"I think it is the same way, unfortunately, and I'm not a wizard myself and can't guess what way that is. I imagine it's frightening having the whole government change even if no one's bothered any of you about it."

"We didn't especially like the old one." He is Very Clear on this point.

"Asmodeus really has very very little going for him as a god to follow, and I didn't hear any other good things about the Thrune regime either. What do you study, outside magic and archery?"

"Draconic. Geography and noble houses. Warfare. The Acts, lately. Riding, and a bit of fencing and some work with other weapons. Used to do etiquette sometimes, but not right now. Most of the rest of it doesn't matter without archery or wizardry, though."

He wants to know what the man thinks of Acts. He absolutely cannot just ask that. “I guess the etiquette is probably going to change quite a bit. Did Acts inspire any questions or confusions?”

"Well, they're sort of hard to follow. We didn't know any of the history behind them, so we had to kind of puzzle out what the Empire looked like and which things happened where, and I don't know if we got it right. It's a lot more interesting as a story than other holy books, but I've only read two of those."

“Oh, it should have occurred to me that the Asmodeans probably destroyed all the history books, they’d have shown the Empire in Her day was twice as large.”

"They used to burn and replace them every year, actually. Nobody's come to do it for the current ones yet, though."

“Every year? Uh. In most countries it’s legal to buy books from lots of places and once authorized they stay authorized and of course everyone has a slant and some outright lie but you can tell what everyone from Taldor to Ustalav agrees on and they agree on things like the bounds of the old Empire if not how justified its wars were or how virtuous its kings.”

"Well, I hope they come by with new ones soon. Maybe the parts about the war will make more sense then.

Do you have other stuff you need? I'd talk longer, honestly, but I can't eat until I hit six hours."

“No, just trying to make sure we hear anything anyone wants us to know about. You might have an easier time learning magic well-fed, though, most people do.”

"You should tell Mom, not me. Maybe she'll budge if you remind her that feeding people is Good."

“I will tell her that. Thank you.”

A woman who is seven months pregnant by one of the Archduke's nephews wants to know if they can possibly get a cleric who can channel in the next month, or if she ought to be traveling to see one somewhere. One girl actually does have questions about the acts, particularly about the part where Iomedae talks an undead monster into killing itself and whether that's a good act because it's always good to kill undead monsters. Estel is giving private lessons to her nine-year-old, one of the boys they saw doing archery the other day, but is of course available to speak to the Iomedans at any time they wish.

He's going to write to Lastwall right away emphasizing that there are literally no open clerics in the city. He doesn't know if they'll arrive in a month even if they're sent at once. He and Marit do have one cure potion for emergencies and would of course share it if a birth goes badly but if there's somewhere she knows she'd find one that might be safest.

The woman is not going to complain to him, in particular, that teleporting or traveling north through the gap to Kintargo is also not especially safe, relative to how safe one can expect to be with a cleric on hand. She thanks him for his time and assures him that she understands, and is capable of making it sound sincere, since to do otherwise might imply that she wishes they had their Asmodean Chosen back.

He'd really like to get these people a priest! He is sure the Goddess would too! He'll write to Lastwall and he doesn't know what'll come of it. He will write promptly, though.

Marit will meanwhile talk to other people to try to get a sense of whether there are murders on the immediate horizon, what facts about the world outside Asmodean Cheliax it is useful to establish for sermons, and whether people are confused about other straightforward things.

Valeria will invite him for tea and manage to talk quite a bit without afterwards obviously having said anything. Apart from her, a collection of minor noblewomen with not immediately comprehensible family connections gossip in the courtyard together and play with children or instruct them in reading or mathematics. They're happy to include an Iomedan, even if it does cause them to determinedly turn the conversation to the subject of what virtues a person should strive for instead of whatever they were talking about before. None of them seem especially likely to murder the children in question.

The noblewomen in the courtyard will have him as long as he wants - apart from Carles and Narikopolus himself and various retainers who aren't part of the family itself, there do not appear to be any adult men in the castle right now - but the rest of the household isn't otherwise showing up to talk to him.

He would like to talk to the servants and the slaves but it seems a terrible thing to do to them before he has a confident assessment of whether Narikopolus will retaliate against them if they complain. He puzzles over the problem for a while and decides to mostly give up aside from going to the kitchens to make an announcement that he thinks is almost definitely futile. 

"In an Iomedaen country it is important that every person can report wrongs that were done to them, no matter who did them, and it is important that no Evil is done even - especially - to the people who are not important and not rich and not powerful. And in terms of souls to save from Hell it does not matter at all who those souls were in life. If any of you would like our advice, we are here to give it, and if there is anything you want to tell us, we are here to listen. I do not think I can protect you if you tell me anything you have been ordered not to. But if you were so ordered, that was Evil, and Iomedae hears your prayers as loudly as anyone and weighs your souls as highly as anyone's and will not consider Kantaria hers if law or custom allows that any of its people are mistreated."

The people in the kitchens will stop working and listen in polite unease and not especially know what he's looking for them to tell him. The head cook will assure him that if they become aware of any wrongdoing they'll of course tell him immediately.

This is about what he expected but it's still fairly upsetting. He thanks the head cook and gets out of their way and works on a first sermon about the Acts, 'these people have never seen a real history book' edition.

One of the servants will come to tell him privately later that one of the other servants is still praying to Asmodeus, in case that's the kind of thing they're meant to be reporting now.

He appreciates it, thank you. Which one? 

It's one of the housemaids. Early twenties. She had a child a few months back and killed it, too, if that's also the sort of thing they're supposed to be reporting.

It is really very important that people stop killing their children, yes. Is there some specific thing that could be done that would make it seem like a less appealing thing to do.

Well, this servant would obviously never kill her children, so she really couldn't say.

Right. He appreciates the information. 

Last thing before evening sermon, inform the Archduke's mistress Estel that people who have eaten adequately actually learn faster than people who have not. 

"I see. May I ask if that is a moral position, or merely a piece of practical advice?"

"- somewhere in between? It is not a matter the church or the law would intervene on even in Lastwall, parents know their children best and you are clearly acting out of desiring good lives for yours, and I trust the matter to your judgment and won't raise it again. But I do suspect that Asmodean wizard education was not just trying to create wizards but trying to injure people in the course of making them wizards, and so did a bunch of things that are not done anywhere else and are not good practice for training men."

"Mmm. 

I do not know whether you have been given the full structure of his Highness's family. Do you know how many of his sons have made it to the age of twenty?"

" - no." 

"Thirteen. Of those, three still live. An adventurer in the north who does not speak to him, a half-blood, and my son Alfonso-Ignasi, who is out at the moment. All others have failed him, in this matter. Valeria may be different, and I hope for the Archduke's sake she is. But I have given him a living one, for now, and I will see his brothers brought up to live, if they can. 

The boy is lazy. Not incurably so. But left to his own devices, he does not study, and if he does not study, he will die. So if you suspect only that the practice does not help him, I will keep my own counsel here."

"That's - itself not a way things go, in other places," he says, after a moment boggling at it. "Of course men must risk their lives to become stronger anywhere. But - an army that is careful and plans well and is concerned with the survival of its soldiers can hold a border and handle monsters nearby - hold a Worldwound fort, even - and lose only one man in twenty each year, one in ten if things are very hard. They get stronger a little slower, but they do get stronger. It seems to me that it would do enormous damage to a society, to lose its sons like that. I see why, facing those odds, it would not seem to you that you had the option of - having a son who will mature of his own accord."

"The Archduke keeps the peace from here to Isger, against the mountains and against the whole southern border of Nidal. House Narikopolus has done this for a thousand years, and done it so well that neither the Thrunes nor the new Queen has removed them, even when all others fell. It cannot do this without a strong leader, and it does not do this without sacrifice. But whatever you see that lives and grows here does so behind those dead.

I liked the Acts. I thought that Iomedae was very much of Menador. She did very many things that a lesser warrior would not have tried, for they were very likely to get her killed. Yet she did them, and she lived. So it must be with those who survive in this place."

"I cannot argue with anyone who knows the price of becoming that strong and is willing to pay it." Though he still suspects that you get something horrendously fucked up if you make everybody try.

Not being horrendously fucked up is for commoners.

All right, here goes with the Acts lecture series, plus some historical context for people who have lived in Asmodean Cheliax and are banned from history books.

900 years ago the Taldane Empire included what is now Taldor, Galt, Andoran, Druma, Isger, Cheliax, the northern tip of Rahadoum, Molthune, and Lastwall. The Emperor ruled from Oppara; Menador was a distant frontier, bothered little by politics in Oppara, ruled by House Narikopolus. They were devoutly Arodenite. Aroden was the god of humanity, of men by their strength and tools and creativity and invention and magic making the world subject to their will, and ultimately rising to contest with the gods themselves. 

Acts doesn't emphasize it, because Acts had to be allowed past the censors in Taldor, but the accounts of her childhood Iomedae left with her church in Lastwall make it clear she was a bit of a heretical Arodenite, and he is going to go into that in the sermons more than he would in Lastwall because 'being morally good is not the same as agreeing with everything the church says' seems like a lesson these people could maybe stand to be exposed to. Iomedae was angry about Hell from the moment she learned of it, at a young age, and demanded to know what was being done about it, whether the Empire was invading to rescue everybody from eternal torture, whether Aroden was doing it.  She was upset that her father's serfs could not leave their land, because if they felt called to fight Hell they would have to disobey either their lord or their conscience. She knew Aroden's holy books from memory and drew a great many unusual conclusions from them. When the Archduke came to visit her family her father in fact forbade her from speaking at all until he'd departed, in fear of what she would say. (That part is in Acts, as is her solution, which was to secure permission to speak as long as she spoke only in holy writ.)

Iomedae's family was devout, and supportive of her ambitions in a sense; they agreed that it was the destiny of man to surpass the gods, and that the Empire must ultimately become a power that could destroy the Evil gods that were the enemy of mankind. They just thought that Iomedae could serve this noble cause by having a great many strong sons who could fight for the Empire, and were skeptical she could serve it any other way. They let her train with her brothers, but only because she was very stubborn and very evidently had a knack for it, and they fretted over whether her training would damage her prospects of marriage.

The war with Tar-Baphon, King of Ustalav, had begun by then, but it was distant; Ustalav had been unified, Belkzen had been conquered, one of the Empire's armies sent north to defend the province today called Lastwall. The war reached Menador only by vague rumor; most people disbelieved that the necromancer calling himself Tar-Baphon was the same one Aroden had fought and killed in ages long past.

And then when Iomedae was fifteen, Aroden chose her; and her family acknowledged the will of their god, and spent all they had to equip her and send her off to the religious orders that took women, segregated in that time from the ones that took men. 

As before he would be very glad of questions. 

Why would the serfs want to do anything about hell?

"Well, in places where people were not taught to think it is all right that people are in Hell, many people do not think it's all right, and want to stop it. Iomedae herself had this tendency to a deeply extraordinary degree and wanted other people who felt as strongly as her to be able to help the cause no matter their birth. I don't...actually think that very many of the serfs were yearning to fight Hell. But some of them would probably have chosen different lives that let them do more for their families and the world and the Church and the damned, if they'd had the choice."

"You can do stuff for people who are damned?"

"Heaven does raids on Hell to rescue people. And powerful wizards can do it too. It is hard to rescue a specific person, and of course very dangerous, but it's easier to help some large number of people, and just because it's dangerous doesn't mean it's never worth doing. And Iomedae's ultimate goal has always been to destroy the Evil gods that rule Hell and fix it."

Whooooa. You'd absolutely die but what a way to go.

That's the spirit. He smiles at him.

She can't think of a good one but she's trying to ask one every sermon. "If Aroden was a god, why would he want humans to be strong enough to fight the gods?"

"Well, Aroden was a human before he was a god. And he thought there ought to be more like him, more gods that were once humans. There's a phenomenon where - so, Iomedae is from Menador. She is her own person, she is not like the average person from Menador, but she understood the people of Menador, right? She had the virtues that Menador taught her. She was brave and strong in the ways Menador taught her to be brave and strong. People are much changed, in becoming a god, but they try not to change what they care about. Aroden thought that formerly human gods would care about human things, and that it is better for people to follow a god like that, who cares about things they care about, who once led a life they can recognize their own lives in - than a god who does not really understand humans." He has not given much thought to Arodenite theology because Aroden was dead before he was born but Iomedae wrote plenty on the logic of godhood.

....how many gods are there who used to be people. 

Oh boy. Important clarification. Aroden was once human. Iomedae was once human. Cayden Cailean was once human. Irori was once human. Norgorber was once human but is probably banned here, don't start worshipping Norgorber. Nethys is sometimes said to have been once human. And there are lots of minor gods, too, that were once human. Aroden left the Starstone in Absalom so people could follow him to godhood and it is not even the only route.

What is the "Starstone".

It is a magical means of attaining godhood that Aroden left in Absalom so that people could follow him to godhood. They almost always die trying, of course. Does Narikopolus have any wizards who have been there and can speak to this. It is one of those things that millions of people have seen and can speak to, but he isn't one of them. He's seen pictures. It's set behind magical traps on an island surrounded by void.

.....probably. Not in the house at this second. He hasn't been there personally.

"Iomedae ascended by the Starstone, once she was ready. Most people who have tried it have died but she knew many of the secrets of the gods, by the time she ascended, and was very sure it would work in her case. She left the church her armor and her notes and her holy book, and then she went to Absalom and ascended to godhood. ...we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, in the Acts, but that was her final act on the Material."

Oh shit, now they know he hasn't finished it yet.

Teenage girl. "Who's Cayden Cailean?"

"Chaotic Good god of adventure, bravery, and drink. - I'm going to do, once we have the main temple open, sermons on all of the Good gods, in case any of them can pick someone up as a priest when Iomedae's busy."

Well, if anyone were going to pick someone a god of adventure, bravery, and drink would be a solid bet, but probably they don't get anyone. She's not going to say that.

Where's... Taldor.

Thank you Genoveva, probably a lot of other people were wondering that and were too nervous to say so. Uh. Is there a surface where he can attempt to draw a large map of the Inner Sea. It's not going to be a spectacularly good one but it'll approximately suffice. Here's Lake Encarthan. Here's Lastwall, where Marit grew up, and Molthune, which he passed through on his way to Kantaria. Here's Cheliax. Andoran, which freed itself from Hell about fifteen years ago. Taldor's over here on the other side of Andoran. A boat leaving Ostenso could make Taldor in.... probably a week? He's not an expert on boat travel times. 

The various kids are actually going to stare at this map for a while and ask a bunch of basic geography questions instead of anything else about theology. They don't reliably know where anything is, even the recent breakaway parts of Cheliax. The revolutions were almost fifteen years ago and it'll probably also become apparent that some of the younger ones didn't know that they were ever a part of Cheliax at all.

...you know, that seems valuable and important. It's probably helpful for realizing how much the Asmodeans were lying about everything and it's important when you're choosing your life course to know things about the world and what problems it has or had. 

Also in Lastwall the fact Hell's been dropping pieces of the empire since the day it conquered it was taken as reason to believe that the whole thing would crumble just like it eventually did, once someone was ready to fight for it.

Most of them realize that the Asmodeans were lying about lots of stuff. They're kind of shaky on whether the world actually looks anything like this, and not saying so. But it'll probably make the Acts make more sense if they know what Lastwall says the world looks like.

Maybe the mural that replaces Hell in the church in the town square should just be a map of the Inner Sea. 

It also has two other walls, if they want to try drawing one and still have space left over for a normal mural.

He's not actually any good at drawing but he and Arn can both try and see if either of them can pick it up relatively quickly. 

Today, though, after the sermon, they want to talk to Narikopolus, if he's available.

Absolutely.

"Thank you for your time, Archduke. Obviously we're just starting to get a sense of what people need and what they're concerned about and what's going on. Everyone has been very helpful."

"There is a - fundamental awkwardness about our role here and we wanted to discuss that with you and see whether there is some way to address it. Essentially it is that - we are here to assist you. We want to teach you about Iomedae and help you recover from Asmodeanism and escape Hell. And also - I wrote to Lastwall last night to explain that there are no Good clerics here at all and they need to send one urgently, and that I think this is likely a safe enough environment for one, at least politically. I assume that that, too, is part of what you wanted us here to do, to communicate to the Church and potentially to the Queen that work on fixing things is underway here."

"Certainly."

"The problem is that these two duties are going to frequently be in tension. Say that someone knows about something bad happening here, and they want to fix it, but they don't want it reported to the Queen or to Lastwall - they might expect that they cannot usefully get our input at all. Or if someone wants to - confess to some crime they committed, for the sake of their soul or for the sake of discussing how the rules could be changed so as to prevent it in the future, they're not going to have that conversation with someone who might report them. In Lastwall a priest can offer confidentiality for confessions, and be barred by law from ever repeating them or intentionally conveying anything they learned in them. We can promise that - with the caveat that we can be mindread or obliged to testify - but I'm not sure people will....believe us about it..."

"That seems very useful." Possibly it works that way in Lastwall. "Of course I don't know Cheliax to have any such legal provision right now. If you want to hear about crimes it does seem that it might be difficult to get people to confess to them."

"Mostly people have been reporting each other, for potential crimes. I am not sure how to approach that. Obviously we want to know about them but it seems....potentially corrosive, the way it's currently being understood."

"What do you mean, exactly?"

"Well. Reporting crimes you learn of to a just legal system that will address them appropriately is the right thing to do. It is also, of course, very painful and difficult to report someone you love for a crime. The impulse to protect people is a Good one. It shouldn't always be overriding, but - pitting Good impulses against each other is the kind of thing you want to avoid, wherever you can. 

I don't think the people we have met yesterday and today have the slightest reason to believe we are, or would be making demands on behalf of, a just legal system that will address them appropriately. I think everyone we have talked to would not be very surprised if we do random vicious unpredictable things and order lots of people executed and sent to Hell and make everything worse for them and their loved ones. And - it seems unfair to them to expect of them, given that, that they report things to us."

Also you still do torturous executions.

He doesn't say that.

"And you're concerned that this means that people won't report crimes, or that they are anyway?"

"I think it means some people won't report and that some people will, in which case I do want to follow up, but - I think it would impede us in our primary duty here, which is to heal the wounds Asmodeus did to Menador, if people are relating to us mostly as - here to punish evils we learned of."

"Well. As I understand it you don't in fact have the authority to punish people here, except by recommending a course of action to me or to the Queen. If it would make your job easier I suppose you can avoid telling me about any crimes you learn about, though I don't know how long it will take people to notice that the specific crimes they speak to you about aren't being followed by charges."

"I mean if we do that we'll tell everybody we adopted a policy of doing that. If you are comfortable with our doing so I think we might do that for now." 

"And...write to the Church in Andoran, honestly, for advice on how to balance assisting law enforcement and not encouraging everyone in Asmodean habits of relating to the Church and the government. In Lastwall this doesn't really come up." Because people have justified confidence the government will be reasonable about things.

"If you don't believe that's acting wrongly, then I won't say it's acting wrongly, either. Menador still has much of its law enforcement; it doesn't have spiritual counsel. If you can only be one, it makes sense to be the thing we don't have."

"If I speak to you about crimes we learned of in general terms without identifying a person, but you are able to guess the situation, would you feel obliged to act on that information?"

He has no idea what being loyal to the Queen looks like when the Iomedans are suggesting that he not enforce the Queen's laws. Is that the intent, to get him to say something obviously disloyal? 

"At the moment, I'm willing to defer to you here on whatever policy you think would be most useful for healing the damage that has been done to Menador."

"I don't think we know. Hopefully the Church in Andoran has more concrete guidelines. But - not arresting people yet is more reversible, I think."

"I am worried that it seems like sometimes people murder their children, and it seems important that we prevent that from happening in the future. Do you know anything about why it happens and what can be done to prevent it."

"Hm. Do you mean infants, or children, I'd expect those to have very different answers."

"...both? Both of those things are murder and send a child to the Boneyard."

"It was previously illegal to kill a child born more than a year ago. Before that point, infanticide was legal, which seems like enough to explain the practice to me, especially in any situation where someone has a child and doesn't want to. If someone is killing older children, that is known to be illegal, and will be for different reasons, as they probably believed themselves to have the option of killing the child as an infant. I'd expect the latter to be much rarer."

"And people kill children as an infant if - they aren't married, or don't have means of support for the child?"

"Often. Sometimes it's simple preference, or the woman is doing something not easily compatible with raising children. Adventuring, working a job, studying in school. Not that we have schools, anymore, so I suppose not that."

"This is now illegal, right?"

"I understand that the murder charge now applies regardless of the age of the victim, yes. We haven't been using the typical sentences for murder in those cases, but - we can, I suppose, if you think we should be."

"Where the typical sentence is - torturing them to death? I - don't really think that would help, no. I - Lastwall often finds mitigating circumstances, in cases of infanticide."

"I see. We're currently whipping people when we do find out about it, but I can't say how long they'll take to stop. It isn't one of the laws they're used to seeing changed."

"Is there something other than punishments we could do to help people stop killing their babies?"

"If I were a cleric the first thing I would try would be a sermon, really. Kantaria does still have an orphanage, as well, and you can inform people that it's much better to send them there, if they can't take care of the children themselves. We've told them, of course, but - I'm no good at sermons."

"I'll try." It would be easier if he could fathom why they are tempted to do it. In Lastwall the rare case like that is usually some horrible tragedy where the baby is born with a deformity and mistaken for a monster, or a girl is raped and doesn't tell anyone and panics when the baby is born, or a woman is seized by evil spirits during childbirth.

"And the older children? What circumstances tend to produce that?"

"I think that's far less common. I've seen cases of madness. Cases where a child committed a crime or dishonored the family and the parent preferred to kill them by their own hand than let someone else do so. The occasional very bad famine. Cases where a child was dying anyway, I suppose. Father learned of infidelity much later and took it badly, maybe. Parent meant to give a survivable punishment and made a mistake. But no single rampant problem, I don't think."

"Thank you, that's helpful. Have you thought of any other things you want us to look into or questions for us?"

Sigh. "You said, in your first sermon, that slavery was an evil except where it was needed to protect someone else."

"Yes. Lastwall only does it as punishment for a crime. ...and we do conscription, obviously, but that too is to protect people."

"I see. If one has - prisoners of war put to work, is that analogous to the punishment for a crime case?"

"It could be. The conditions would still have to be conscionable but it is not the kind of thing that is categorically prohibited."

Well, that much is a relief, even if he's not going to like the answer to the next question. "What would it mean for the conditions to be conscionable?"

"In Lastwall, or anywhere the Church supervises prisoners, prisoners may not be lied to by an authority, tortured, humiliated, or threatened. ...explaining criminal punishments does not count there as 'threatened'. it is fine to say 'if you kill someone you will be executed', but you can't threaten anyone outside of describing the punishments that can be issued judicially or by discretion and under what circumstances they'll be issued, and punishments that cause lasting injury or death have to be issued judicially. You may not withhold any of food, drink, comfortable temperatures, medical attention, appropriate clothing and bedding, or lighting, except where those are genuinely scarce and being similarly rationed outside of custody. Food served to prisoners should be adequate to maintain them in good health. You have to protect prisoners from crimes committed against their persons and have an avenue for them to report such crimes. They may attend religious services, or refuse to attend them. They should not be restrained beyond the degree required for security."

"I see." He chews on this. 

"Most slaves captured in the mountains are sold to individual owners. Here, they use them to work the fields, but every year we capture more than Kantaria has need for. The rest are sent south, and even if we could enforce conscionable treatment in Kantaria or in all of Menador - and I'm not at all sure we could, or have the authority to even if it would work - there's certainly no way for me to enforce it in the rest of Cheliax."

"What would happen, concretely, to the orcs captured in the mountains, if slavery was banned?"

"We'd kill them. For a while. Then it would get harder to kill them, because - Kantaria itself is profitable, most years, but the marches to the north don't bring in enough in taxes to pay, effectively, for their own defense. Nor do most in Menador."

"Okay. I think that enslaving and selling the orcs is Evil but am reluctant to recommend that switch with that context."

"I think ultimately the Queen is going to have to decide if she wants slavery in her country and on what terms if so, it doesn't seem like a good idea to try to ask individual lords to bring about an end to it or major reform to it in their territory without her buy-in. It is Evil, though, almost certainly as actually practiced and probably with close to the best possible implementation. 

Are children born to enslaved orcs slaves?"

"Goes by the mother, right now. Enslaved mother, yes. Free mother, no, regardless of the father."

"If that wasn't the rule, would people just kill slaves' children?"

"Hm.

"You know, I'm not sure."

"Children being born into slavery is more of an evil than prisoners of war being captured for it."

"Ideally you probably want a legal structure that keeps the children with their parents - and doesn't permit breaking up the parents' marriage - but I imagine that might be outside your authority. It would be the closest to doing right by the people involved, though."

"I don't think I'm permitted to pass laws about slavery. And if I were, I wouldn't do it now, without knowing what the Queen plans to change. The household itself has slaves, of course, even if they're not most of the ones we produce. I suppose the halflings are unrelated to all of this, and could probably be freed, now that that's legal."

"I think freeing this household's slaves would be a good thing to do."

He looks a bit like he wants to say something, but he doesn't, quite.

"Of course. I can have some manumission papers drawn up."

"Thank you. If there are complicated cases where it will make things worse we can of course try to iron those out, and it'll be good for understanding what kinds of complicated cases there are, but - I do think mostly it's better to avoid slavery wherever it can possibly be avoided."

"I'm not immediately certain what it will mean for the families where one parent is enslaved and the other is free, or for the slaves who were, in fact, captured in the mountains. But there are some we can easily free, and the others are no excuse for them. What was it you said, exactly? That good should be pursued first where it is easiest to obtain?"

"Yes. The more complicated and more theologically accurate version would be that good should usually be pursued wherever a given amount of effort will produce the most good but that adds more complication without adding more clarity for most people."

"Well. We can free the halflings easily enough. Converting the fields deserves more thought, and - I'm not sure I'm certain exactly what you advise we do with the captures."

"In the cases where there is a free person who has children by an enslaved person, are those - situations being conceptualized as marriage? Or as... rape is one of the things that's illegal, right?"

It had actually not occurred to him at all that any instances of sleeping with slaves might be an instance of the thing the Queen had intended him to be policing, when she made a royal decree banning it. Rape is - was - definitionally, the crime of forcing oneself on a person free to refuse. A slave isn't, and in the usual case effectively can't, so it's not even really clear what they would be policing - 

"I had not understood that decree to include any circumstances where one party was enslaved. Are you confident it's meant to?"

"I can't speak to the Queen's intent but in Lastwall having sex with a prisoner or a slave would be considered rape, as they are in no position to refuse. Obviously there would be some unusual circumstances - say that a couple was married and then one were enslaved for debt, which doesn't happen in Lastwall but does some places, I wouldn't say that dissolves the marriage - but a typical case, where someone purchases a slave and then has sex with them, would be rape, as Lastwall defines it."

"I see." Shit.

"None of them are married, legally. Slaves can't sign contracts. How they are seen is somewhat more complicated. Sometimes, anyway."

"That...makes sense.

In nearly all of the ways that it is bad for a person to be raped, it is just as bad for them if they are also enslaved. More so in most cases, probably."

"I am most concerned about what this means I'm meant to be enforcing legally. I can't - well. I can, I suppose, punish anyone who sleeps with a slave, if I write the Queen and determine that is truly her intent. If it is, of course, we'll do it. But -

Have you spoken with the children's archery instructor?"

"Not yet, no."

"Well. He'll make time, if you do. He is a slave, legally, but his children are free."

"I will. Is there anything in particular I should ask him about?"

"His family, I suppose. What he would do, in my position. I couldn't tell you."

"I know this is a lot of things to be asked to change at once." Even if they are all stunningly basic things like "do not force people to have sex with you". "We definitely want to talk to people and make sure that things aren't being changed - randomly and confusingly in a way that leaves people who are supposed to benefit worse off."

He's actually not personally doing that one right now, admittedly not because he hasn't done it many times in the past.

"I appreciate it. We certainly have many changes to make, once we determine how best to make them."

"Just for, uh, completeness, Lastwall also considers it rape to have sex with children, or with people who do not understand what is happening to them."

"That's good to know. I'll include that when I ask the Queen about what we're meant to enforce.

...if a child decides to have sex with a slave, what does Lastwall call that?"

"I don't know. It might depend on whose idea it was. Is... that a situation that comes up."

"I think I'd have to say it depends on where you draw the line for what a child is. If we mean sixteen - sometimes."

"Lastwall considers sixteen year olds accountable before the law for their conduct but consider it to be a significant mitigating consideration, if a person is sixteen, because whatever idiocy or evil they got up to they will probably grow out of it, whereas a man who is a criminal at twenty five probably is not going to change. Sixteen is in any event old enough that - if both people were free, and no other feature of the situation was coercive, it would not be illegal to have sex with someone just because they were sixteen."

"Sixteen is the age of adulthood in Cheliax. It's not especially unusual for young people to begin having sex a few years before that. What is Lastwall's line, for free people?"

"Lastwall does not recommend marriage at the age of sixteen and does not recommend sex outside marriage but would not charge someone with rape unless the victim was thirteen or younger. Or refused, obviously, but that's applicable at any age."

"Doesn't recommend it?"

Oh my. "Under most circumstances the thing that promotes stable families and children who are taken care of is for both men and women to avoid sex until they are prepared to marry, and then to marry, and to be faithful to one's husband or wife. Of course not everyone in Lastwall lives up to that standard, but - honorable people do. It is not, as a matter of policy and governance, a good idea to ban prostitution or to punish people severely for promiscuity, because it already has very damaging consequences and the people not deterred by that do not tend to be deterred if you make it worse, and because if prostitution is legal you can at least supervise it somewhat. But it is not considered acceptable. People should marry, and then they should be faithful. Or they should be celibate. ....this is probably not the cheapest Good to be purchased here."

That honestly sounds actively irresponsible, given survival rates around here, and like it would leave quite a lot of people miserable and unprotected for no reason, but it's not like he wasn't already aware that Iomedans are disapproving of most instances of sex. It just sounded for a moment like it might be a weaker recommendation than some of the other things.

"Well. We can talk more about that once we've dealt with the places where Good is easier to purchase, then."

"Yes. Uh - just one important clarification, if you tell your people anything about this. If anyone has been forcing their slaves to have sex with them, and they hear that that is not allowed, they should not try to cover it up by murdering the slave, that would make the situation worse and not better."

"I think in most cases it's not secret."

"I am glad to hear it," he says, somewhat weakly.

"I'll think about what to tell people, and how to keep it from making things worse."

"Thank you." More confidently, and very sincerely. 

The next day, the men arrive.

They can be seen from quite a ways out, from the castle walls - a few dozen riders on horseback, moving a larger mass of people on a forced march along the river. The women get to work immediately. The occasion demands at least a modest feast, and there are preparations to be made before tonight. Some are purely excited, and some are anxious; they won't know whether anyone important died until the mass reaches the town.

Queralt goes to find the Iomedans, to take them up to the walls to see.