"Many women are perfectly capable warriors" (he nods at Ser Jornet) "and rulers" (he nods to the Duchess), "but it's often a wrong to force a woman to take on a role like that, the same way most women would be wronged by being conscripted as soldiers. ...I can imagine circumstances where it would be worth it but I'm not sure whether they hold in Cheliax."

"I was to a certain extent raised to it but that's substantially because my mother took it as something of an omen that my first cantrip was Detect Fiendish Presence, my sisters were - raised with a view to the possibility but not much underlying investment in it. And my whole family is somewhat oriented toward raising paladins; one of my brothers was a paladin also."

"Raising women to be adventurers or rulers often competes with raising them to be wives in a way where raising men to be adventurers or rulers does not compete with raising them to be husbands. ...also just as a practical matter a woman of twenty-five exactly as competent as her brother of the same age will be a worse ruler over the next ten years because she has the additional demanding duty of bearing the next generation. If she's sufficiently more competent than her brother perhaps you'd rather she have two duties than he have one but the differential isn't trivial. ...Chelam had sons from eldest to youngest, and then brothers, and then unmarried or female-succession-married daughters ahead of sisters' sons, but I don't know if there was a rigorous justification for that and if there was it was a very old one. In practice if the oldest son was unsuitable his father would tell him to go fight monsters until he became suitable or died, or oblige him to take vows."

STOP OBLIGING PEOPLE TO TAKE VOWS

Yes, Carlota's got it. Nod nod nod.

"How does - raising women to be adventurers and rulers - compete with raising them to be wives -" All of the people who aren't Evil kind of make marriage sound really unappealing while also insisting it is the only permissible way to fuck people. Eulàlia would like to fuck people and also be an adventurer and ruler.

"Well, there are only so many hours in the day, right, and if you're adventuring you're not spending them learning to manage a household. And most people consider close male friendships inappropriate for a woman of an age to marry, so you're adventuring either with a group of other marriageable-aged women - who will then marry - or with close male friends who your prospective husband might be suspect of. 

- and a lot of people would also say that - it works better for a marriage to have a cleaner division of roles, that a husband will be happier if he's the one who can fight and you appreciate him the way we appreciate people who possess skills we do not, and that men want women with feminine virtues not adventurer virtues. Though I think 'what do men want from a wife' is in fact a matter that is - more varied than people usually let on."

Wait, they're not even supposed to have male friends now? 

"They say that Archmage Naima adventured while pregnant but I assume almost everyone who attempts to do that fails to become Archmage Naima and more likely loses the baby, so while I confess there's a certain romanticism to marrying within an adventuring party the wife will inevitably fall behind over time."

"I think more highly of Archmage Naima than almost anyone else I have ever heard of but I cannot really countenance risking your children for any stakes lower than the ones she faced."

It's the right thing to do, though, for those stakes. She is not going to say that because she does not want to make her fiancè concerned about his future children.

Joan-Pau doesn't want a wife, he's just ethically obligated to get one.

"All true. But these are generalities. I have a daughter who is pregnant with her third, and spending her pregnancy focusing on research, as she very recently hit third circle as a wizard. I have ten others who I would be horrifically wronging to send into combat beside their brothers, but that does nothing to make her less capable. But she is illegitimate, so not relevant to the succession question." Unless he were to divorce Valeria and marry Estel, which the three of them are all clear is not in fact impossible, depending on how things go.

"I have always been grateful to live in an empire where it is understood that some women do have the souls of warriors and can be wronged by being kept at home, even if they are not the typical woman and their course would serve the typical woman poorly."

"I certainly appreciate that I had the choice to put myself at risk on a course most would consider untraditional, though it was not a warrior's in any ordinary sense and would not, in a healthy country, be dangerous at all."

She's strong enough that she knows her alignment, without any real fights. Which is validating, in a way, that Creation recognizes that her risks were real.

She raises her glass for a toast. "May our children's politicking be lethal to very few of them."

Angela lifts her stunningly delicious bright orange yogurt beverage. One day she will go to Heaven and she can have stunningly delicious things to eat all the time and it will not be diverting any resources that could be going somewhere more efficient because the people in the Summerlands farming all the time are efficiently recovering from the wounds of mortality.

She'll return it, of course. "Our children's and our families's."

May Sofia never reach the level her cousin has.

This is the instant when a Gate starts to open at the head of the table, which for political reasons Carlota seated no one at; the Archdukes are facing each other across it with none elevated above the others.

To the ordinary human eye a Gate opens instantly. To see the Gate start to open, rather than just register its sudden presence, you have to have reaction times well into the supernatural. 

He sees the gate start to open and reaches for his sword which is NOT THERE and it takes him an instant to remember why - he reaches for Carlota - 

- but all of the people with incentive to kill everyone here would do it in a Time Stop -

Joan-Pau's reaction times aren't precognitive but they're damn good and he's ready to counter the next spell - 

Someone who's been in this room the entire time is suddenly a part of the scene in a way in which he wasn't five seconds ago, since he has his sword - 

He'll go for the draw but too slow, too slow - 

He barely has enough time to begin the motion of standing and drawing his sword, but he is moving -

Elorri's far enough away from the Gate that in a split second decision he grabs his bow instead of his blade, and an arrow -