There are many reasons to wear a sword. "Excellent," he says. "Delegate Tallandria? I am at your service."

"Oh! Archduke." She can bow, she's clear on the fact that you're supposed to bow to important people when they don't sneak up behind you, holy shit there are a lot of important people in this room. "Ah - so, the family committee has been discussing the crisis levels of child abandonment in Cheliax. I am told that the orphanage system is currently costing the crown more than half the cost of the entire military. That is, for context, after ending daycare services that a majority of women in the cities relied on, and after cutting staffing and other resources so much that the children who stay there full-time are now quite literally dying, even more than they used to. I haven't seen expense reports from before the war, but I would guess that providing services that people could actually rely on cost more than the entire military.

Given that, I think that solving the child abandonment crisis should be a priority for everyone. If the military needs more money, then child abandonment is the single greatest problem standing in the way of that. Among other things, I am working on a proposal to make siring bastards itself a crime. I'd initially thought that it would be, ah, laughed out of the room, but one of the noblemen on the committee believed that it would be feasible if the penalty were exclusively a fine, such that wealthy men were only required to provide some compensation to the mother, and commoners actually had to change their behavior. My intent is also that a man can get out of the penalty by marrying the woman in question before the child is born, if she'll have him, at which point he'll be responsible for supporting it, and the child will hopefully not end up in the orphanage system.

It's not ready to go to the floor, there are still quite a lot of details to be worked out, but I wanted to ask if you thought the broad idea made sense and would be willing to back it."

Delegate. He will give her a very shallow bow to acknowledge her extant status. "I agree that the situation with the orphanages is disgraceful," he says, "and of course every man ought to take care of his bastards," Xavier says, "but I would refrain from calling siring an illegitimate child you intend to care for a crime, and so declared by the state a violation of a man's law and honor, instead of merely a tort for failure to provide for a child he bore. But it is a disgrace for a man to abandon his children, legitimate or otherwise, and I would certainly support a law to rectify this."

What the fuck, why are archdukes bowing to her at all!!

"We did also discuss that as an option. I think the argument against is that it's currently a very significant cost to society as a whole, but I suppose you're right that doesn't apply in the case of someone who is in fact supporting his children even in the absence of marriage. I do think that either way, the proposal is going to require a civil court system to determine whether people are meeting their obligations after marriage, which I understand we currently don't have."

"Yes, I understand that to be the business of the judiciary committee," he agrees.

"They haven't gotten to it yet, though. Alexeara, does the Church have a stance on just introducing the Code Cyprian? I have my quibbles with it but we need civil courts quite badly, not starting from it is a slight to the Queen's husband, and it seems to be working reasonably well."

YEP.

"I think it will do fine. I don't know the church to have an official stance, but the sparsity of the law code in Cheliax has been an ongoing problem and I cannot think of any code which would be better for Cheliax to adopt wholesale."

..........now people aren't directly talking to her anymore and she's not actually sure if it's rude to ask if anyone has a copy. Probably it's rude. She can get one from the other staff members later, maybe.

"On another note, your Grace, am I correct that congratulations are in order?"

"You are! You know the Lastwall custom, I take it. It was a surprise to me." She steps over to Alexeara, very neatly, landing half a step behind him. "The Lord Marshal has done me the great honor of asking for my hand."

"And I was most pleased that Her Grace did me the honor of accepting."

"Well, congratulations, then. May you have many happy years together."

Wow, stuff really just keeps happening. Are you supposed to congratulate Duchesses on getting married. She's pretty sure you're instead supposed to fuse into the wallpaper at this point.

She flashes Alexeara a delighted smile and bobs her head politely at the Archduke. "You can expect an invitation shortly to a formal event announcing our engagement which will most probably be on Starday or Sunday. I'm going to see if I can arrange the palace ballroom for it. One has to invite everybody to that sort of thing so it'll be a good occasion to mingle with some of the immigrant nobility without making it clear which of them I'm tremendously irritated with."

She realizes only after saying this that possibly one should tell one's fiancé about one's engagement party before telling the Archduke of Menador. Ah well. Aside to Alexeara, "I have presumed I should coordinate with your secretary about scheduling and invitations."

Marit arrives alone, with only the expected number of swords.

Elorri's primary weapon is not a sword but he does have one for emergency swording situations. Does this Mansion have a stable or does he need to leave Katixa just hanging out outside?

Angela's got a sword. She can cast spells through it and hopefully will have no reason to do so tonight.

"A very reasonable presumption. I don't myself know whether I have more commitments on Starday or Sunday."

Oh look, more archduke.

...Drat. She thought she had more time than that.

There's not a stable, she's really not got all that much extradimensional space here.

"Archduchess! Welcome!"

WHY ARE ALL THE ARCHDUKES HERE.

At least the specific flavor of humiliation that the Archduchess adds to the clothing situation comes with a novel sort of almost friendliness. She did try to warn her. Obviously there's a sense in which this makes the situation even more humiliating, but she thinks the Archduchess is probably more likely to be feeling annoyed impatience about it than sadistic joy, which itself would at least be a change of pace from the dull confused disgust that everybody else is probably feeling, if they're taking note of her at all. 

She's also, uh, probably actually less likely to die of archduke overexposure with the Archduchess here. Probably. Unless she's mad about her accepting an offer of employment from Carlota. Shit.

"Duchess, thank you! And it looks like I owe you congratulations?"

"The Lord Marshal has done me the great honor..." Carlota can do this specific script an arbitrary number of times this evening with as much enthusiasm as she had for it the first time. Her mother told her once, a long time ago, that a woman communicates far more about her marriage in the look in her eyes when she looks at her husband than in anything else and it seems like that one in particular is just straightforward to do right. Carlota is a very competitive person and is wholeheartedly intending to win at marriage.

"Well, you both have my congratulations, and my compliments on both having excellent taste in spouses."