This ranger, who would rather be leading an expedition into the forest, is instead wrangling a newly purchased lion in through the animals entrance. 

"Oh, look at you! Look at you! Welcome to Cheliax, you beautiful creature. Don't snarl. We'll make sure you're fed right, groomed right, looking good for the fights. You like fights, of course you do. King of the grasslands, holy beast of Iomedae. Well, you'll have some evildoers to fight soon enough."

Is the honored man of this house, the delegate Guerrero, around by any chance? He was hoping to meet with him. 

(He's kinda nervous about the lion. Probably if this conversation goes well he won't be fed to it.)

One of the lackeys lets the boss know someone wants to talk to him.

 Mattin smiles, friendly affect not at all hiding the way he is clearly enjoying the nervousness.

"Mattin Guerrero, and this is... Ibarra. I am Delegate Mattin and this is Ibarra the Lion. What brings you to our door?"

"Well, Delegate, I'm very grateful for the work you're doing on bringing entertainment back to the city. It's going to be great having real shows again. I bet people will riot less, too, if they're not so bored. 

I work for the Duchess of Chelam, and she's all in favor of the city having entertainment, but she's not very happy about it coming about by the convention chanting 'LIONS, LIONS'. This time it embarrassed some idiots she hates, so that's all good. But she wanted to make sure you wouldn't do it when it was her bills being argued."

"You are so welcome, and I hope to see your face at the games. Right you are about the riots, any man would rather watch the lions than be fed to them."

"Now, if the good Duchess of Chelam is afraid of being embarrassed by the chanting crowds, we can work together to soothe that fear. Maybe even bring up some laws that get the crowd cheering for her."

The duchess, afraid of him. Of being embarrassed, not much but it's still power. Enough to get him something good out of her.

"Well, I had a few ideas on that front. See, the law we just passed - even if the Queen goes for it, and she may not - says that it's not illegal to sentence people to the lions. But it doesn't actually properly restart the games, and if they can only feature criminals then everyone's bidding for the small number of condemned. So perhaps we should do another lions law, that says that anyone may sign up for the games if it's voluntary - that's not even Evil - and maybe we can bring the Days of Wrath back if we call them something Iomedaen."

“Good ideas. Volunteers, of course, and it would be unfair to bar indentures from volunteering, of course. But what committee could bring this lions law? Those first ones filled up so fast.”

"Well, we just discussed how the games were a matter of public safety, so the Duchess's committee for that could contemplate them. But first she's bringing a measure to stop everything being raced to the floor and to stop amending them on the spot in the middle of speeches."

“So sensible. Move the power from the chaos of the floor to the back rooms and manors.”

Making Mattin’s preferred battlefield, and himself, irrelevant. 

”If that’s to happen, sounds like I need to get myself on the right committee first. Or kill a lich. One of the two.”

"Or get invited to the right back rooms and manors. Look, rousing a crowd's a fun way to do politics, but it's a very risky one, if the crowd goes and does anything stupid. And the Queen might refuse to sign the laws that we pass that way - she hasn't signed this one yet. You need a way into the room, and you can have one, just so long as the Duchess's bill passes tomorrow."

“Hmmmmmm…” 

He exaggerates pausing for a moment to consider, making it look like a power move instead of him actually needing some time to think. The crowd is an unreliable weapon, but it’s the one he’s best at.

“If I spend every coin in my pocket on the entry fee at the door, I’ve got nothing to bet with when I get to the dice table. See?”

"Do you only have the knack for convincing delegates to vote for lions, or could you bring them around on boring stuff too?"

Better. That does sound like a reason to keep him around, instead of making promises and then forgetting them as soon as he’s not a threat anymore. 

“That’s something. I don’t do boring, but anything the crowd does want, I can remind them that they want it, make them want louder.”

"Well. Someday pretty soon there's gonna be a vote on a real honest constitution and the Duchess really wants it to pass, and I am sure there'll be something in there people are excited about, especially if you're helping us with strategy. And she's working on a bill to let volunteers fight animals that'll come to committee tomorrow.

...and I'm authorized to offer you a dinosaur." He just learned today that it wasn't a fancy paperweight. Well. It is a fancy paperweight. 

(Count Roselló of Graells had an exotic animals hobby and fled the country in a hurry. And was promptly stabbed in an alley in Absalom. A shame. Lilia liked him.)

“Volunteers gladiators coming tomorrow, I like that. See the committee responding to the people.”

Mhm, yes, stir up enthusiasm for a real constitution. Alright. Dinosaur!

… Mattin is no fool. He has fallen for this scam once, and then fed the smuggler to his own ‘dinosaurs’.

”Are we talking the tiny lizard turkeys, or a proper gigantic one from the jungles?”

He produces the paperweight from his backpack. It's stone, and fierce, and fits in his palm. "Petrified, obviously, and there's a shrink item spell on it. You know how those work? It's four thousand times heavier, when the spell's off. So I think a proper gigantic one from the jungles, though it's the only dinosaur I've ever seen."

He passes it to Mattin, carefully. 

“This is Roselló‘s beast. Impressive work, getting it off of whoever looted that manor.”

Impressive work to the actual looters too, the count had some nasty deathtraps and even worse maimtraps. 

“I know how the stone and flesh spell works. Saving the most convincing argument for last, were you.”

He cradles the tiny stone dinosaur, quite successfully bribed. 

Well, he got a bonus if he didn't have to use the bribe. But better to use it than to have the alliance shaky and the Duchess irritated later, and much better to use it than to be eaten by lions. "I'll be there for the fight, when you decide to show the beast off. Enjoy."

And off he'll go.