Bird hiding in an unusually large bag is also wallpaper, just very curious wallpaper.

"Nerius, let us discuss your concerns in more detail tomorrow, after which I can repeat whatever portion of what I am intending to say tonight seems prudent considering them. Goés, that does extend to your horse."

Elorri will stay, he just needed to have that clarified.

He nods and departs.

Carlota is competent at confidentality. Axis is good at that, in particular, for people. ...she should ask the Lord Marshal if she may tell the Queen about this because she'd like to inform the Queen about the demiplane incursion, it has security and international relations implications.

Well, this is certainly exciting. 'Exciting' is very rarely a positive thing when it comes to participating in southern politics, but it is, evidently, an inevitable one.

She looks to her father.

Trying to figure out what the safest course of action is here! It's really very inconvenient that the Iomedans refuse to just tell you what to do!

They - are trying to be Iomedae's. Iomedae did not want them to know. Morgethai obviously did, although it's not at all obvious that she wanted him to know. She can't have cared deeply about the secret getting out, to do it like this. Does knowing any secrets they don't already know give anyone more reason to kill them - but the Lord Marshal is planning to tell them more things anyway, he can just not tell them anything else that would be deeply destructive if it were to get out, except apparently for some reason he's planning to do that anyway - is it more dangerous to have only the half of the secret that Morgethai but not Cansellarion wishes for them to have -

An Asmodean would just tell them this never happened and implicitly or explicitly threaten to kill them if they acted otherwise, and a part of him deeply misses that.

He looks to Narikopolus.

Narikopolus isn't leaving.

You cannot un-know a secret. You also cannot, actually, easily regain one if you pass one up.

He nods to Valentia, and does not get up himself.

"If you'll excuse me, Your Grace. It was a lovely meal." She will bow and depart.

"The church has have communed with Iomedae about whether Mephistopheles is secretly ruling Razmiran, having first heard this from Cyprian, who was told it by queen Aspexia during the four-day war. Iomedae declined to answer this question. Our inference is that She believes that we can operate effectively and wisely without Her confirmation, and that Mephistopheles is paying Her a great deal to decline to identify Him because He values secrecy highly; She also declines to answer questions about whether other people besides Razmir are secretly Mephistopheles. I find it very inconvenient, but not so inconvenient that I would rather a hundred thousand more souls burned in Hell.

Theologians within the Church are currently contemplating whether it is likely that Iomedae has been additionally paid for us to keep secret any conclusions we draw about Mephistopheles' identity or actions, and what we should do if that is the case. This possibility is also very inconvenient. If we had actionable information or conclusions that would substantially help the cause of Good for us to make known, we would make it known despite that concern. If we knew or confidently believed that Razmiran were ruled by Mephistopheles, and we believed that any of you would if informed substantially help us to change that, those people would already have been informed.

Many arms of the church of Iomedae are assisting Cyprian in Razmiran. We began making plans to do so shortly after having been informed by him that he believes Razmir to be secretly Mephistopheles, and having made some effort to determine whether Cyprian was deliberately lying.

Operations in Razmiran are proceeding on a schedule that we expect to lead to victory before Arodus, but not as certainly as any of us would like. We are not in any way short on able soldiers; We are not even short on powerful heroes. Operations against Razmir are mostly constrained by a shortage of very powerful spellcasters, and in particular by a shortage of gates.

I do not believe Morgethai to have lied to us this evening. With regard to everything besides Mephistopheles' identity and actions, on which I offer no comment, I do not believe Morgethai to be factually mistaken in any of the things she said this evening.

I am willing to field additional questions though I expect you will find the answers to all the most important ones unsatisfying."

"If we abolish slavery and pass some kind of declaration of friendship with the people of Andoran, does that buy her. Has anyone asked."

"Does she need us to abolish slavery? We can, if it will make the difference, but it's not what she asked for."

"I was assuming that it's the only way to be cozy with Andoran. If it's not necessary I'd prefer not to do it but if it is, the committee could have it to the floor by Oathday."

"I do not know what that will mean without the queen and the archmages behind it and I do not know if they can back it, for this purpose."

Bwahahaha, now all your realpolitik leads you to "abolish slavery," not "deport an entire village," now the shoe is on the other foot!

I know, isn't it great?

He looks around the room. There are a dozen people in it, at least. Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

This will leak to Her Majesty.

He's pretty sure abolishing slavery would be evil, but he can't say that.

The counter-raids will just be starting. He told them to take wagons, this year, for the children. He's not a man who feels at all ill about ordering his people to kill them all instead of taking prisoners. But he's going to feel very weird about people celebrating it as a victory.

The Queen is already complaining about how the convention is doing too much foreign policy without consulting her. The job of Kin is to sit down, shut up and work on irrelevant trivialities for three months.

Except that under these conditions, the Queen is under an oath -  

- The problem is that if they already swear to make peace with Andoran they have absolutely nothing to offer Andoran in exchange for cutting it out. They'll be risking war with their closest ally and gambling everything that Andoran will stop being an idiot instead of dragging them into wars, because they value the world not being destroyed by Hell.

"This is a conversation the head of the foreign ministry ought to have with the Andorani ambassador to Cheliax," he says. Except the head of the foreign ministry is banned from talking on behalf of the Queen and Andoran might elect a new government next election as free as any king to ignore his predecessor's agreements. Or, in this case, her.

No one has told Carlota that the Queen has complaints about the convention doing too much foreign policy! "What about mirrored agreements in our parliament and theirs, which only go into effect when the other is passed and have some high threshold to repeal? No one's done that before but I imagine Republicans would find it inspiring...something like to avoid the tragedy of blood shed between brothers we both commit to referring disputes to Abadaran arbitration, maybe, which would still let us sue and extradite -"

"I think that would probably not be helpful if we don't tell them about it or work with the most pro-Chelish factions in their parliament," he says. There are people he know in the Andorani parliament who he regularly exchanges letters with, but it would be a tremendous expense to hang the war with Razmiran on that "- what I'd like would be to establish some kind of dispute-resolving body, if we can, try to get ambassadors from Galt and Andoran and Cheliax in the same room and hammer out some way of resolving crises like this. But of course building any institutions for the future trades off against solving the crises of the present." 

"We would definitely have to tell them about it and work with them. I'm not sure that a two-way agreement is in competition with a larger and longer-standing one. Once there's a proof of concept it's easier to add countries to it than to get everyone on the same page to start, and if Cyprian's set on invading Andoran then I don't really expect Galt will be a good-faith participant in talks anyway -"

"If Cyprian is innegotiably set on invading Andoran the entire program of guaranteeing Andorani independence to get Morgethai's support for Razmiran is impossible," he points out. "If the archmages are bound not to intervene in the war, any Andorani policy we carry out needs to be what we would do anyway if it's going to get their support, and without their support Cheliax cannot meaningfully contribute to war with Galt, leaving aside that that war would be a tremendous tragedy and one that I would not support participation in."