"Conde, welcome. I'm afraid I haven't; I've been busy helping our new Lord Mayor get situated."

Dinner is Longmarch fare with a bit of a twist, beginning with a dish that combines potatoes, eggs, sausage, and peppers.

"I do hope that's going well."

He retrieves some annotated committee transcripts. "I'm sure you've already seen the proposal out of Safe Roads to reduce the necessity of haste in drafting laws. That aside, a number of committees are contemplating proposals that are rather more radical, so to speak. 

Most pressingly, the Committee on Necessary Alterations to the Monarchy appears to have tasked itself with drafting the main body of the constitution. The committee is chaired by the Lord-Marshal, but as for the remaining members of the committee... I think Delegate Marti's first attempt at a proposal for the structure of the legislature rather speaks for itself."

"Only time will tell, but I hope our trust was well-placed." 

He indeed discussed the proposal on haste extensively in committee, but he hasn't thought much about the Committee on Necessary Alterations, and doesn't know Delegate Marti, even by name. He skims it then passes it around the table. "Well, thoughts?" He looks first to Felip.

"Overcomplicated," he judges quickly. "The requirement that laws that make any moderate change be approved by each estate individually means the state will be unable to settle disputes between the estates, except in those rare cases where a proposal touching on both their interests has majority support in both estates." 

Hmm. She had hoped to talk this over with just Felip, but if Jonatan has already discovered the importance of the committee--Carlota will suspect it came from her, unless she somehow manages to maneuver this now.

"What I see," she says, "is that the Lord Marshal is unlikely to get drafting help from his committee, if this is the caliber of material they're producing." 

She gestures towards the transcript. "But I note he speaks approvingly of the idea of mirroring the convention, with the idea that the estates might have different responsibilities to match their different concerns. I think we should present him with a well-developed draft that gives the religious and elected legislatures appropriately rather narrow remits and reserves the remaining power for a committee of the nobility.

Incidentally, I had lunch with de Chelam today, where she shared the news of her engagement to the Lord Marshal, and specifically encouraged me to bring concerns privately to her and the Lord Marshal. I think he might appreciate your assistance with his draft, Conde, while finding the attention of the whole floor distracting from this important task." 

Oh, good. He had been hoping the two of them would get together, and is somewhat surprised it's moving so quickly. They laid those plans while focused merely on the marriage aspect of the convention, and thinking about it in the context of politics it seems not wholly positive.

He nods. "I certainly agree that bringing this matter to the attention of the floor should be avoided if at all possible. But I worry that if we wait to speak to him about the matter until we've presented him with a draft, we might inadvertently neglect considerations of great importance to him. It might be prudent to speak with him before his committee has devoted extensive time and effort to drafting, to ensure we are of one mind."

Next up is a roast suckling pig, with the classic apple in its mouth, offered to the guest. (There are also several baked apple dishes on the side; the apples are recognizably prominent Longmarch varieties, including a few common in Cerdanya, both a heritage varietal that would have been around in Jonatan's time and newer ones developed since the civil war.)

"There are several ways to get on the same page," Felip begins, "but I find the best is to provide the page yourself. If we write sections of the constitution and present them to him, he can criticize and we can edit together, and what he does not comment on will be ours instead of his. And the provision of labor is our table stakes. If we just add our demands to the pile of his considerations, it is only the implicit threat that we have pierced his secrecy and could bring more attention to him that would cause him to take them more seriously than he was planning to.

His education, if I understand correctly, was a martial one and not a legal one. A drafting partner would more than double his progress, I expect, and he must yearn for swift completion of this task as much as any of us, with his other duties."

"Their wedding will wait until the conclusion of the convention, I hear."

Jonatan's taste in food has been rather shaped by decades in Heaven, in respects that he only partially remembers. Still, as food on Golarion goes, this is one of his favorites; he compliments it effusively.

"I certainly did not mean to imply we ought threaten him into acquiescence, Your Grace, merely that we ought approach him in the spirit of collaboration as men with a shared desire for a stable and prosperous country. If you think it would be best to prepare a draft proposal for the legislature prior to approaching him, I defer to your judgment."

"Just so. The essence of leadership is discovering what other men need and providing it to them. We could even prepare multiple drafts to cover a range of strategies he could take, to be more clearly providing him options instead of taking the reins."

"The Conde must sleep tonight if he desires to have spells tomorrow," she reminds her husband. "If there are only so many pages that can be produced, putting thought into which to produce will likely go a long way, and I suspect a third legislature proposal would be less useful than a first judiciary proposal."

"Right as always. So let us sketch out a legislature and see how long it takes us." He gestures, and a servant fetches a scribe to take notes. 

Is Her Grace imagining that he would produce a draft in a single night? ...No, more likely he simply misunderstood.

"I admit I find myself unsure of how best to accommodate the Lord-Marshal's desire to see the estates of this convention represented in our legislative body, without requiring common men to take up tasks for which they are not by nature suited."

Actually, this is important enough that he ought to use his full faculties, even if it runs the risk of ruining dinner. (It will definitely ruin his appetite, at least until he turns back.) He turns, and collects his thoughts.

"First, it should only have one body, large enough to include everyone of note but small enough that discussions are manageable. It should meet infrequently enough that they can attend to their duties elsewhere, and allow for delegation, so that men with more might than wisdom can appoint jurists and negotiators to draft and debate for them.

We could begin with the dukes and archdukes. The elf wizard thought a seventh circle wizard was the match for a duke; suppose we adopt that, and for clerics as well. If a church wishes to be represented in Cheliax's politics, let them show it with their strength."

She perhaps has lower standards for a draft. A sketch with enough details that there's something to discuss; that's all they need.

"The Duchess de Chelam proposed something similar, when we spoke. I think there is much merit in it, but we should perhaps consider the relevant individuals more closely, and attempt to foresee how their deliberations might go."

"I admit that what I have heard of the wizards of the infernal regime leaves me with little expectation that their presence in our legislature would leave Cheliax better off. Clerics of the righteous gods of similar power, perhaps, coming as they do with a god's endorsement, though I find myself uncertain whether there is a single seventh-circle cleric in the entire country." If he means to set the standards so high that no clerics meet them that is wholly understandable, but it ought to be done deliberately if it is done at all. 

Her Grace seems to have noticed the radicalism among the archdukes; he need not comment on it.

Hmm. When Chelam proposed the archdukes set the schedule, it seemed tolerable only if almost all of the power was held by his liege. If the archdukes and the dukes have the same strength of vote, the dukes will outnumber them--but how many of the other dukes would have voted alongside him in the debates they've had so far? Only a few of them are on committees, and their opinions recorded by the scribes.

"It does seem that on many matters of note, the counts and the archdukes disagree," he says slowly, "and I fear the counts may be more in touch with the realities of governance.

But it seems we face a tradeoff. If there is one body which contains both dukes and meta-dukes, such as they are, it can be legitimate and select. But if there is a body that contains all the counts, or even all the barons, then there are many who justly view themselves as a baron's peer, despite holding no title. The council will either be Grand or grand." He gestures 'tall' and 'wide', while saying them. 

"Cheliax once merited a cleric of the ninth circle," he says to the Conde, "and not just because Asmodeus viewed it as his possession. Once the current crisis has passed, I expect it to look more like the Cheliax of your time; perhaps with even more lofty clerics if we nearly hand them a duchy on arrival."

"Frankly, I think we will not manage to produce a legislature we are happy with, and so the question is simply what strategic retreat is possible and preferable, with an eye to the future. The Queen chose these archdukes, likely with the intent that her will would flow outward from the throne through them. If we are to resist or channel that will, let us do it carefully and deliberately."

"I'm afraid the example of Arodenite Cheliax will be of little use here; the Estates General convened only rarely, and never within my lifetime." In the Age of Glory, people had said, only the Age of Glory never arrived. "But I worry that however wise and honorable the archdukes, limiting the legislature to only a few men and their trusted representatives will leave them far overworked, when the entire legal code has so recently been abolished. If it were the will of the Queen for the archdukes alone to craft the laws of Cheliax, she could have invited them and them alone to the Constitutional Convention, but she chose instead to extend invitations to every count."

"Well, and to randomly selected Chelish people, from all walks of life; not even just the citizens, as Cyprian would have done it. I think we cannot be certain what of the Convention's design was her will and what was requested of her by her allies, who have deliberately decided to not make the same request of us.

Cyprian took the Infernal model and refined it; I suspect it will be disaster for Cheliax if we let the Galtophiles do the same here. But I think our Queen does not have Cyprian's taste for tyranny, or she would have shown it in a flurry of decrees this last year. I think instead she means for us to take on most of work of governing the country, so that she can focus her efforts on the problems that require a legendary blade, or take a well-deserved rest.

I think that more men in the governing body increases rather than decreases their work; a Queen need not negotiate over every line in her decree, when our committees seem to be inclined to debate them. If it takes a hundred draftsmen to compile a code of laws, a council of fifteen could simply hire them as staff. 

And speaking of hiring, we should have an eye to the ministries, as well. Deciding the man for a role of responsibility is often more important than drafting the text of the law he must implement. Perhaps we should move those appointments to the council from the crown, much like we are considering doing that for sheriffs."

"Ah, while we're on the subject of Galt, I had also meant to inform you that the Rights Committee is entertaining an attempt to abolish or radically alter the nature of serfdom." He passes the transcripts over. "I doubt that proposal is in any danger of passing the floor, but you ought to be apprised of it."