Well, no, but we'll do our best.

Oh, you can certainly try. But so long as the power is in the hands of the people, and so long as the people are Chelish… 

Lisandro is rethinking some things about republicanism. He missed the revolution, but from the stories people tell, it’s what turned the Andorani people good. Perhaps it doesn’t work when the people are just handed freedom without fighting for it.

The only thing worse than Chelish people who won't tell you what they want is Chelish people who will, eh?

It has been a long time since Sergi was moved to violent anger. You don't get angry at monsters in your father-in-law's march; you just kill them. Orcs weren't among his problems, nor sahaugin or drow. And even when bandits or intelligent monsters showed up, well, his confessor told him it didn't help, and he was right.

He hears those men. He is angry, and his hand is at his sword.

He stops as he starts to draw it. No. They do not deserve death for being awful people. They deserve to be better, and to look back on this with shame.

He wants them to feel it. But it is an Evil want. Let it pass.

He hugs his wife. She knows why. It helps.

Sarenrae, save us all. Even those men. And save every woman from them.

"It was my intention to propose today the right not to be tortured beyond what is necessary, as I described earlier. It would not directly conflict; the committee on 'Urban Order' proposed a law for the Queen to approve and decree, and not part of the Constitution we are asked here to write as the Rights committee proposed. We do need some laws; a law on slander and on censorship are important to have, and for neither would I want something made unshakable as the principles of a constitution, as I understand from speaking to Galtans and Andorens, are meant to be. But we also have that true work ahead of us; the structure of the government and which things it cannot pass laws to do. No one who has lived their lives under infernal rule will fail to grasp the importance of limiting the state in that way. Still, I will bring it back to my committee and consider if we should amend it first."

"A great deal was said in that debate, though not as much as if those with expertise had been allowed to continue to speak; those who have governed the modern Chelish people and those paladins who have administered justice to them. Much of it I disagree with, but there is only one speaker who demands a reply. Count Rodrig Bellumar, who said a great deal of things which are completely untrue. I do not know whether he believes these things, though I find it hard to imagine how anyone who is not an extremely credulous fool could believe that the official reports of the number of riots in Westcrown under the Thrunes were remotely accurate. He said that there were no riots like last week's in Westcrown during the Thrune rule. This is nonsense. There were many. Last week's riots were somewhat worse than the usual worst riot of a year, but not as bad as the worst riot of a decade. The same was true in Corentyn, Ostenso, and Remesiana. They were all reported as much less bad, of course; a Lord Mayor whose primary goal is to protect his position would not wish to give true reports, and so none of them but me did, because I had different goals. I cannot speak confidently of Egorian; in the other major cities and most of the minor I had factors reporting on business matters and matters of unrest, but in Egorian I did not ask them to risk it. All cities riot; sometimes for bread, sometimes from a political cause. Under the Thrunes, the large were almost always reported as bread riots and the small ones not at all; in Oppara, the Grand Prince spends more money on the grain dole to keep the city from rioting over bread than he does on his armies, and still doesn't abolish them. But the political riots happen anyway, everywhere."

"This is all very obvious, to anyone who pays attention to affairs beyond their village. I can forgive the recently resurrected for not having fully oriented to how pervasive the lies of the infernal government were, but a nobleman of Taldor, which traded with them actively, should have no such deficit. If Bellumar did not know this, he should have known, and knew he should have known. He said false things to you anyway, and then followed them with a number of claims I very much doubt he believes in the slightest and claims about me I'm very confident he doesn't believe at all. He is Taldane and not Chelish and looks down on you for it; he thinks someone who has known Chelish people well by the hundreds and tells him something about them he doesn't like must see them as foreigners, when I see in you a hundred faces like those of my city, who I know like cousins and care for as my children and grandchildren. He pretends that anyone who has not broken the few laws we have today has anything to fear from the penalties passed, ignoring that everyone in Cheliax knows that just law is a luxury only Good buys and which we cannot assume will hold in the future any more than it did in the past. Let you and all my other countrymen who hear him speak again later remember that; where his words are not lies, they are making no attempt to be true. Trust them no more than the words of Mephistopheles."

Well, he has to answer that, naturally.  He will stand up and walk at a very leisurely pace to the podium to do so. 

"I don't think the Archduchess is well," he says, when he reaches it. "That is very understandable; the work of lawmaking is upsetting, and these last weeks the hours have been long, and the topics of of conversation upsetting to the tender-hearted. And Sunday, the day traditionally spent in prayer and reflection, to restore our minds and hearts to peace in anticipation of the week's labor, the Archduchess spent testifying on behalf of Valia Wain. In this she achieved a great success, with Wain found innocent of any criminal role in the burning of this city, but perhaps found herself without the time for peaceful reflection that would have served her well. 

Her words about me are untrue, of course. If a man spoke them I would call him to account for them, but I have no desire to see this young woman in any greater distress than the convention has necessarily imposed on her in obliging her to do men's work for which she is clearly unsuited. I believe her, that she cares for you as her children; I would that this were the qualification to govern."

The Count failed to actually address the central claim of the Archduchess, so she’s probably correct and he doesn’t want to admit that.

…Fernando’s still not sure how he feels or how he’s supposed to feel about Valia Wain.  He could just try asking one of the Paladins, but this might be a case the Church isn’t in sync with the Crown about loyal orthodoxy.

"Boooooo, she's got a sword, can't you SEE her SWORD!"

Government and parents actually are kind of similar?  Work some discipline into your subjects/children and hope they do what you say.  The punishments are harsher under Evil, but the basic concept is the same.  Maybe he’s never had children?

You’re not supposed to say that about an archduchess before a crowd but admittedly if there was ever an archduchess to say it about it would be this one. 

He’s not going to clap, obviously, but he can’t bring himself to disagree.

She’ll add her voice.  Not too loud at first in case no one joins in.

“Boo!”

“She has a sword!”

Thea hopes she knows how to use it.

Wow, this guy sucks. Victòria disagrees with Delegate Bainilus on a lot, but that doesn't mean you should just not let women write the laws at all. If everyone writing the laws is a man and nearly half of them are Evil nobles or people like those awful awful men who were talking earlier, they'll probably do things like make it legal to force yourself on any woman you want. And Delegate Bainilus defending Valia was good.

It's not that he's wrong about the proper role of women in government, but it's not prudent to say it in a room like this.

"Coward!"

“You I’ll duel. After hours.”

Are the nobles going to do this every day now? 

"Oh, I'm happy to fight you any time you like - but you're still a coward. Not because you're afraid of me, you're not. You're afraid of a girl."

He smirks. "After all, she has a sword."

Iker sort of gets where Bellumar is coming from. A man doesn’t fight women and small children, just hit them so they shut up. But that doesn’t work for the sort of women who make it onto the ‘special squad for killing really big demons’ or the ones who are wizards or something. A fancy noble woman carrying a sword is probably one who fights, and it’s kind of stupid to not realize that. 

“I am aware it is the custom of Asmodean Cheliax to have men duel women. But it is an evil custom, that being why Asmodeus introduced it. Men should protect women, and women do not forfeit that special consideration owed them as the gentler sex only because it is necessary for them to carry a sword. Furthermore, I do not believe the Archduchess intended her words as a dueling insult, but rather believe that she was moved by her womanly passion for her children to tearful accusations which are not rightly a dueling matter. We will not serve the fledgling peace of our country if we take feminine expressions of emotion as the insults they would be among men."

"BOOOOOO!"

Facepalm.

The slip is utterly beneath his contempt and his face shows it. 

He's just going to continue to give his "that sure is a lot of words to explain why you're afraid to fight a girl" superior smirk.