She arrives at a respectable time, and gives a respectable nod. They are ambiguously equals, but Carlota is a duchess in her own right, instead of a duchess-consort. "Duchess, you honor me."

And what is for lunch?

Vudrani, which hopefully won't come across as a snub since Isidonia wasn't there last night and which is delicious enough Carlota will happily eat it two meals in a row. There's lamb and lentils and rice and flatbread and sticky honey dumplings.

She'll make idle conversation about the food, and about Vudra (she's never been, but really would like to try it someday, maybe once the archmages get those teleportation circles working...) and then - "Last night Alexeara asked for my hand, and I accepted. I am very happy, but also really quite unsure of myself all of the sudden, and I can hardly go running to my mother for advice."

"Congratulations!" she beams, genuinely. 

"Unsure of what?" She's not quite old enough to be Carlota's mother, but she is old enough that her eldest is on the marriage market, and has been thinking Quite A Lot about what that looks like in modern Cheliax.

"Thank you!"

"I would like to do this right. I would like to set an example for our people that this still can be done right. I think marriage is improving and I would like to be improved by it. But he's hardly going to tell me - I asked him to tell me what he thought of as the most important parts of marriage, and almost everything he listed was an obligation of the husband, which is very endearing but it means it is all on me to figure out how to be a suitable wife."

She smiles. "I believe that you can. I certainly found my marriage more improving than decades of sermons. You already know the responsibility of rulership, of sitting on a throne that will outlast you and making choices for it instead of for you. I find marriage similar; the thing that you are being and building together becomes more important than you, and you become better because it needs you to.

Men often think only of themselves, and stare straight ahead instead of seeing the whole picture. Yours is an unusually perceptive man, but he will still have his blind spots. Your role is to clarify and simplify things for him, putting him to tasks he can valiantly accomplish and hiding from him duties that will drain his resolve, which is doubly important if your husband is a paladin.

But whatever balance you find, you'll find it together. Tradition is a guide and a starting point, not a hard law. It wounds Felip too much to hear farmers pleading hardship to get out of their taxes, and so I hear those cases. He jumps towards dangers that I prefer to be safe from."

She turns an appraising eye at Carlota. "Are you planning to merge Lladó into Chelam? They are not too far from each other, after all, and he seems to have taken on more tasks than even heroes can manage."

"I was going to see what shakes out with Molthune before I make specific plans around that. The Molthuni think that if the Queen does decide to annex it, she'll give it to Alexeara."

Damn, they should have introduced Caterina to Alexeara. 

"I'll pray that she does. If anyone can restore peace to Molthune, it's him," she says quickly.

"There are too many things that only he can do. You are right, I think, that one of my obligations is to figure out which parts of it need to be in front of him....I asked him to talk to your husband this morning, about getting the public executions and the Lord Mayor through but being able to rely on the nobles who listen to your husband for some fights to come. I think he would have done it anyway if he'd thought of it, but he hadn't.... of course I would not want anyone to have the impression I am steering him, as they rightly think much more highly of his judgment than my own."

"We've worked together successfully before," she says sweetly, thinking mostly of two nights ago, when her husband and the two of them brought down a lich, "and I have every hope of that continuing. I would not worry too much about the perception that you are steering him; paladins must naturally be independent of many forms of material influence, and so any steering would have to be of the subtle sort that few would notice.

Which brings me to another thought. We, along with many others, were disappointed by the performance of the floor this morning, and you are putting some thought into what shape the government will take in the long term. I think it is clear that it is far too early for the people to write Cheliax's laws, with the infernal scars still not healed, and so there must be a more sensible legislature in the final design."

"I agree wholeheartedly. I have been thinking about how this ought to have been done, with the benefit of hindsight. I think with a much smaller body votes matter more, reputations matter more, and it's easier to avoid factions. I would do dukes and above, I think, and representatives of the major churches, and a few seats by the Queen's appointment which she can choose by sortition if she wants. But I do not know Alexeara's thinking. I do believe he's giving the matter thought."

"A wise proposal for a manageable body. I had a sketch that would result in roughly the same effect, where each county granted a transferrable vote, but five votes were necessary to sit in the legislature. It remains to be seen what the costs of collecting all the nobility at once have been, but it seems wise to have a short law-making season or delegates in the capital speaking for nobles residing in their realms." Fraga is nice, but it's all farmland. She really would rather live in Westcrown year-long, though she doubts Felip would go for it. 

"Do you think you'd find it tedious to be so far from the major cities, now that you've lived in Axis?"

"I mean, I'd certainly miss Axis. But - I wouldn't miss it more in Chelam than in Westcrown. They're both very nearly the same amount of not-Axis."

"- huh. I would have expected that - I mean, a city has theatre, has restaurants, has new interesting people to meet, it's where important news lands and important things happen -"

"- all of that is true. .... six hundred is a much bigger number than two hundred, but if one is accustomed to a million..."

There'll be no instant universal forum. No one will have at will telepatic bond with everyone else or associated group telepathic conversation management interface or even construct produced individualized concerts for recreational jogging. There'll be no working plumbing and no immersive pretend multiplayer space empire management games -

"You need to cut that out."

" - I apologize."

"Were you reading my mind? What is wrong with - never mind, I know the answer to that. Never do that again."

"I won't." It hadn't actually occurred to her you could come to Axis's attention that way! 

" - a short season in the capital would be my own preference, as I'm going to have several homes to travel between either way, but maybe it is better if everyone appoints representatives who can do the work of a legislature full time. I suppose it'll be less of a crisis-response job once a reasonable number of laws have been introduced."

"Indeed. It will be safer to delegate and a much swifter job the more the legislature has a common vision for Cheliax, even if there are some recalcitrant holdouts. If trading and debate is an essential feature of their business, it will be more necessary that the principals attend directly."

Isidonia has finished her lamb and is now daintily sampling a honey dumpling. "Felip has been concerned about the convention's costs to the country, and I think is eager for it to conclude its most important business, and as much as he likes giving impromptu speeches I imagine him to be more persuasive with time to prepare and consult separately with those he can influence."

"I imagine so. I think it might be over sooner than everyone believes." Which is to say, Alexeara's working on a constitution but don't you dare spread that around. "What would be most important to you and your husband, beyond a more restrained group of members?"

"When I reviewed the Galtan Constitution, what struck me was the lack of social distinctions. Every person a citizen. Simple, obvious, and wrong. We must acknowledge the special status of wizards and those touched by the gods, even if they do not serve the state. Most importantly, I worry that few in this convention have had to balance the books for anything larger than a household, and do not understand how this country is set up and organized beyond their personal experience, and few even deeply understand that. Abolishing slavery without compensation has already ruined many a landholder; if serfdom is abolished without a compensating tax levied on all freemen, it will ruin almost all of the nobility." More than a few would raise their banners in that case, and she cannot predict whether the Queen would veto that provision, or simply win the resulting civil war on her own, or let Cheliax turn into a Western River Kingdoms. She'd rather not find out.

"On the other side, I am suspicious of replacing nobility bonded to their realms with transient administrators. One need only witness the depravity of the Lord Protector of Molthune to see what a man might do when it is not his son and grandson who will have to pick up the pieces. Neither of us think we should reinstate the Infernal Privileges, but I would rather we settle on something more like the Cheliax of your time"--or Taldor--"than Andoran."

Well, noble and religious privileges are compatible with Alexeara's interest in limiting the Queen. Serfdom...probably less so. Iomedae wanted a country of freeholders and only partly because she'd noticed the nobles were the main force pulling against the centralized state. But maybe pulling against the centralized state is more important to Alexeara - she should talk to him about that, actually -

"The Cheliax of my time destroyed itself. But I would not see us chart Andoran's course, certainly. Alexeara's mind on many of these matters I do not know. I do not think he is by temperament a radical in any respect."

"Beyond that is mostly matters for the government and the people, not the Constitution. One of the things we've realized at the convention is how much better we have it in Fraga than the rest of Cheliax, and Felip has turned his thoughts to who we could part with for the royal administration." Including the Duke. "I understand the Convention should not be appointing people directly, but perhaps we should try to place as many of those appointments in the hands of local nobility or the dukes, rather than have as many royal appointments as the Thrunes did."

She starts on a second honey dumpling; they're quite good, actually.

"For the people, our top priorities are re-establishing all the good churches and the institution of the family. If the constitution can help, it should, but I imagine this mostly to be a matter of recruitment, education, support, and leading by example." She smiles again.

"On that note, both of us are happy to help ensure your marriage is a success. Do you know the Duchess de Lestdemarc? I imagine the three of us might have much to discuss, on how to make high marriages go well."

"Not well, and I'd be very grateful for a better introduction. I will confess I have rarely embarked on something this important feeling quite so unprepared. I was ready to marry, but - a long time ago. I am not sure how much of my mother's advice still applies."

"I'll put something together. Have you set a date?" Spring and early summer are best, of course, but there's not much of early summer left, this year.

“We are waiting until the convention is over, so not yet.”

"All the more reason to work quickly, then. Thank you so much for inviting me, lunch was delicious." And the conversation rather informative.