Carlota is going to go into this conversation assuming he wants to apologize profusely for having led the people of Cheliax into selecting a lion-based justice system, or at least that's the attitude she's going to show until proven otherwise. "Count Cerdanya. My condolences on the outcome of the vote. I am sure that the enthusiasm of the commons for having as many people torn apart by beasts as they can caught you by surprise, and I know you would never have pushed for a floor fight over torturing people if you'd anticipated that is where it'd go."

Oh, for the love of Aroden.

"The will of the commons has certainly brought surprises, Your Grace. I admit that I have always thought governance ought to be the purview of those brought up for it, with virtues suited to the task, and the outcome of today's floor session has done little to convince me otherwise."

"I have mixed feelings. Republicanism is a very poor system of governance, of course, and the law that this body passed today is ugly and embarrassing. But on the other hand - I have found it a humbling reminder of how our subjects view the world. I suspect that a majority of the delegates who just voted to have men torn apart by beasts believe that isn't Evil.  Think about the implications of the ignorance just displayed in this convention hall for our state as a whole.

If you start torturing people in the public square, many of the witnesses will mistakenly think that torture is not Evil, rather than that the state has decided to do Evil sometimes for what some believe is the greater Good, and they'll go back to threatening their children with a hot poker to get them to memorize Acts and flaying them for talking back, if they ever stopped. 

This is on the Church, of course; they should have been spending the last eighteen months doing far more explaining of the simple principles of Good and Evil to people. But they didn't, and most people don't know. If you have that annoying priestess of Calistria disemboweled before a cheering crowd you will not teach the people that treason is a serious matter, you will teach them that treason is what to call it when they want to have some fun.

I cannot stand the commons, but I am glad to have had the point illustrated before the law was made instead of after."

"That seems a concern worthy of attention, but difficult to address without abandoning the prospect of administering justice entirely. A man who witnesses a torturous execution and concludes there is no Evil in torture might just as easily conclude from the practice of swift executions that there is no Evil in murder, which is no less dangerous a confusion. Certainly it could be true that torturous executions corrupt the spirit so greatly as to render them no longer worthwhile, even considering the tremendous harm wrought by the riots, and if it is a great priority of Your Grace that all criminals die a swift death I would be happy to discuss the matter further.

But I admit it seems a bit of a moot point now, with the convention's role in the matter concluded, and I find myself more concerned with the broader question of how to ensure that the various confusions and vices of the commons do not cause tremendous damage to the country. Last week's vote on the question of permanently abolishing taxation for all delegates failed narrowly, and if a distinct but similar proposal is brought to the floor — or, more likely, proposed as an amendment to an otherwise-sensible provision of the constitution — I trust that neither of us would wish it to succeed.

To that end, it seems to me that it could be rather dangerous if the laws of Cheliax were to be decided in significant part by the will of the people of Westcrown. It does not seem to me that they are possessed of any more virtue or good judgment than the commons present at the convention, and I expect we will all suffer for it, if it proves to be the case that riling them up against each other is an effective strategy."

"The Queen will surely not make her decisions about whether to throw people to beasts for the amusement of the masses based on counting up how many petitions she receives in favor of or against it. What the petitioners are doing is saving their souls.

Your actions are all the more confusing to me if, as you say, you understand the nature of the people of Cheliax. You gave them - a people who are, yes, astoundingly ill-suited to making moral decisions - the opportunity to vote on whether other people would be tortured to death for their entertainment, and they voted in favor, by overwhelming margins. It is the single thing in the convention they've been most excited about so far, and by taking this ill-conceived bill to the floor over the objections of men with decades more experience than you in actual governance, in permitting so little debate on it that they managed to vote in confusion about whether the lions are Evil, you forced on them a question that you are entirely right they were not ready to answer with any wisdom. You invited this foolishness and then you did not permit the debate that might have changed their minds or at least made them aware of the consequences of their idiocy.

I want the people of Westcrown to be aware that torture is evil, that they should not get their sport from watching men die for their entertainment. They are morally confused, but they are desperate to do Good, and they are doing Good right now, standing in that line. I do not think the Queen will reject your bill on their account. I think she will reject your bill for the reasons that every single man with long experience with governance rejected your bill, because it is bad for the Chelish people to witness torturous deaths as sport."

"Your Grace, it is reassuring to know that it was not your intention that every floor disagreement spill over into the newspapers and streets of Westcrown. But I fear that if the Queen does reject the bill, not everyone will see it that way. They will see that a few delegates sought to inflame the passions of the people of Westcrown and denounce their opponents by implicature, and believe that this worked.

The law does not, in fact, prohibit men from publishing false claims about the nature of Goodness." In part thanks to her efforts, of course. "I think we can reasonably hope for a situation where men leave their disagreements on the convention floor, and do not attempt to stir up the people of Westcrown against those who disagree with them, or a situation where every vote of consequence sparks a flurry of people taking to the presses in an attempt to disparage any who disagreed with them. I do not think we can possibly hope to maintain a situation where men denounce each other to the people of Westcrown only when they are in fact in the right — and even if such a thing could be achieved, we have all seen how the people of Westcrown react to accusations of wrongdoing.

I did, in fact, consider that it might be prudent to delay my plans to put this law to the floor. Unfortunately, when I reviewed the transcripts of the other committees, I discovered that the Archduchess intended to preempt us by introducing the proposal which she read out on the floor today, which I believe to be ill-conceived even if one wishes to outlaw torture entirely. If she did so against your advice, I would be glad to know it. If you wish to propose reasonable modifications to the formal rules of procedure which would have prevented this amendment from being proposed — as it could have just as easily been proposed in response to the Archduchess's provisions — I would welcome collaboration to that effect. Even if you simply wish to educate the commons about whether it is Evil for convicts to be torn apart by wild beasts, I think that would be a wholly reasonable project. But it will be easier to muster support for any such collaboration if men do not fear that you will take every disagreement as an excuse to turn the people of Westcrown against them."

"I think that you perhaps underestimate how achievable it is to condemn Evil and not condemn Good in the press. We are, thankfully, free of the regime where we have to contemplate every possible thing that anyone will say being broadcast throughout the city. There are at present two publishing houses; neither will publish calls for Evil. If the Gazette's article is itself harmful, that is one matter. But if you suggest that my opponents will do the same thing to me - they cannot, because I will not bring a measure to the floor over the opposition of the Lord Marshal, the Good churches, and multiple archdukes." And perhaps just as relevantly, the idea of a press as a weapon that endangers all misses the fact that I control the press.

"If you had come to me last night about this concern of racing to the floor I'd have brokered a compromise with Bainilus, and I'll contemplate introducing some rule that prevents such races in the future." The decision not to settle this privately was yours, she doesn't say, but implies very loudly.

If the press becomes a necessary weapon she will not remain in control of it. It would not actually be particularly difficult for the Duke of Fraga, for example, to secure the necessary bond for a publishing house; it would be a waste of resources that could otherwise be put to better purpose, but Jonatan does not doubt that he would do it if necessary. It would not actually be particularly difficult to, say, paint the supporters of the original censorship law as defying the practice of Lastwall for personal gain, to the point of being willing to sell out the country to liches.

(Jonatan considers all of this to be sufficiently obvious that there's little point in making it explicit.)

"I had not been of the impression that she was open to compromise on this matter, but I would be glad to learn that I was mistaken in that. —It would be wise, I think, to introduce modifications to the process for amending a proposal alongside the provisions against racing. There is harm to the racing, but eliminating the racing will not eliminate the ability of any two members of the commons to propose all kinds of absurd modifications." And it absolutely cannot be him who introduces modifications to the amendment process; it would be taken as a sign of frustration about the gladiatorial games amendment rather than as a legitimate procedural concern.

Why would Fraga start a publishing house, on her assurance she'll publish whatever he wants so long as it's not advocacy for Evil? He does not conceive of them as in this manner opposed. And in any event getting the publishing house off the ground was work that started on the fourth of Sarenith, and is not easily done any faster. He can argue that the censorship bill wronged Lastwall, if he wants, and learn how many of Lastwall's representatives she spoke to while developing it. The way to win is usually just to have done more work than other people assume you did.

"I agree wholeheartedly, and am at work on it. My inclination is to require proposals to be posted for three days prior to being brought to the floor for debate, and amendments required to be submitted during the first two of those days. It should improve matters. But I do not think that was this morning's core error. Your proposal would not have passed a body of sober and responsible Chelish men. You knew the Archduke Narikopolus to be opposed to it, and you know Menador votes with him. You must have guessed, if you read the Rights transcripts, that Requena would be opposed to it. The Lord Marshal I know pleaded with you not to do this. My archduke speaks on the floor more reluctantly but I will guess very confidently he voted against it, too. 

Your measure was only ever going to pass because of the enthusiasm of the rabble for getting to hear the music of peoples' screams. If you do not approve of measures being decided in that manner you should stop bringing those on which the nobility and the righteous churches oppose you, especially without even the slightest effort to settle our differences in private."

Jonatan is not at all convinced that this proposal, without the gladiatorial amendment, would have failed were it only the nobility voting. If voting were still public, perhaps, but the vast majority of the nobility are reasonable men, not staunch radicals willing to risk the country for a chance to experiment with laws more suited for Axis than for Cheliax.

"I am confident that I, and all those men who voted for this bill in committee, would gladly attempt to settle our differences in private, if they expected their efforts to be reciprocated." 

"If you attempted to reach out to my staff, or Requena's, or Narikopolus's, and were rebuffed, that grieves me greatly to learn." You liar.

"Your Grace, I believe many people mistakenly interpreted the actions of the Rights Committee earlier this week as a sign of disinterest on the part of Archduke Requena and those he worked with" including the Archduchess, who was notably missing from that list "in settling such matters in private, where cooler heads may prevail. If this impression was mistaken you have my sincere apologies for misjudging your intentions."

"I feared that you might be under the mistaken impression these matters could not be settled privately, and so I urged the Lord Marshal last night to speak with you before today's session to try to negotiate something. Was he unable to find you?"

"The Duke of Fraga and I spoke with him briefly before the floor session, and were able to settle several matters privately, and agree to settle several more. But — perhaps the fault lies with myself here, as one used to modes of speech a hundred years out of date — I did not understand him to be offering to come to private agreement mutually agreeable proposal with regards to the matter of criminal punishments, nor to broker an agreement with the Archduchess to delay bringing the matter to the floor. He has my sincerest apologies, if I misunderstood what he was proposing and so brought us to this outcome when it could have been prevented."

"I will convey your apologies." Admittedly being blunt enough for Alexeara to catch on takes some skill but she's still judging him for this incredibly 'I tried nothing and it didn't work' approach to settling diferences in private and is absolutely not hiding either how unimpressed she is or that it's rather too late now.

As far as Jonatan is concerned, the breakdown of the custom around settling differences in private is straightforwardly the result of the Duchess's confederates' stunt on the ninth, but you can't count on women to be reasonable about such things and it certainly wouldn't help to point it out any more explicitly than he already has. ...and she did notice the issue and ask the Lord-Marshal to rectify it, and that's not insignificant, however frustrating her radicalism.

"Thank you, Your Grace. I trust the Lord-Marshal will convey this to you, when you speak to him next, but in terms of immediate future priorities — Urban Order is looking into proposing legislation to regulate private worship of Evil powers, Evil cults, and other matters of that nature. The Lord-Marshal had some concerns with respect to implementation and enforcement, but I don't intend to bring anything to the floor until we can work out a mutually agreeable proposal."

"I am glad to hear it. Those proposals we are at work on in Safe Roads, Infrastructure, and Slavery likewise contain no surprises and I do not expect to bring them to the floor without plenty of discussion among all reasonable parties first to ensure that any resolveable disagreements are resolved.

- a great many people spent the week after the riots working on a censorship proposal to stop the pamphlets, and we consulted with every reasonable man we knew to have a specific interest in censorship, including consultation with Lastwall. It was not rushed to the floor to beat your proposal, the existence of which I was not actually informed of, but to end the pamphlets as swiftly as possible. I understood some to have injured feelings about the Rights committee having met in the morning, but I assumed you more reasonable, since you did not at any point speak to me or to Requena or to Narikopolus or to Blanxart or to Bainilus or to the Lord Marshal - all of whom I had consulted on the matter of a mutually agreeable censorship law, and all of whom would have informed you that there was collaboration underway on a proposal."

That would really be more compelling if the law had, in fact, banned the pamphlets, or if there were more reasonable men and fewer radicals on that list of names, or for that matter if she were willing to provide any assurances at all about the work of the Rights Committee.

"Your Grace, I admit that it surprises me to hear that you consulted the Lord-Marshal; when I consulted the Lord-Marshal on the same matter — after the initial proposal was brought to the floor, I do not mean to accuse him of duplicity — he endorsed the use of a board of censors. But I assure you that I bear no ill will for the fact that you did not realize that I, or for that matter the Duke of Fraga" who, unlike Jonatan, is a duke, and not just a single at-the-time-unremarkable count out of more than a hundred "had an interest in censorship, nor for your desire to see the pamphlets banned as swiftly as possible. In any case, that is behind us now, and I trust that you share my commitment to ensuring that such misunderstandings do not reoccur.

—On that note, it occurs to me that you may also wish to consult with the Duke of Fraga and the Marquis of Almenar about Captain Sarroca's plans for public order, should the Queen accept the Convention's recommendation as to his appointment."

“Of course the Lord Marshal supports a board of censors! Every rational person supports a board of censors! I mean to introduce one as soon as the state is not cripplingly short of literate and loyal men with any sense. The only dilemma is what to do in the face of that shortage.

I had the Duke de Fraga to an event on Starday but while we spoke we regrettably didn’t stumble on our common interest in censorship. But as you say, it’s in the past, the pamphlets are gone, the mission accomplished. Its only present relevance is that I would not see anyone justify racing bills to the floor over the objections of the Church and without consulting the high nobility with reference to a bill that had consultation from all of them and that was hurried because of an imminent emergency.”

"It seems we are of one mind, Your Grace, in wishing for an end to the bill racing."

"I'll have someone bring you a copy of the draft rule this evening. If you stop rushing measures opposed by the Church through the floor without talking to anyone who could broker a compromise I'm sure the Gazette will decide it's more important to go after the venal idiots who want to raise their salaries."

...It would not actually help to discuss his attempts to determine whether the Lord-Marshal would be open to compromise on the matter.

"I look forward to reviewing the draft, Your Grace."

She'll get Alexeara's account later, his will be truthful. 

"And I look forward to seeing your future proposals before you read them out to the crowd."