"What's the weather going to be like at this time of year, how many clerics are we talking about, and will their return home require an escort drawn from the rest of the forces?"

"There are a few dozen of them, all told, and it should be possible to do it without an additional escort if you send them downriver with one of the supply barges that's returning to Nerosyan. The weather near the Abyssal rifts can be unpredictable, but at a guess... this time of year it might be cold enough to snow in Drezen, but I wouldn't expect it to be cold enough for long enough that it starts to pile up." (It's currently Arodus.)

"All right. If any of them are willing to stay I will be glad to have them, but 'might be cold enough to snow' is not the point at which I am sufficiently desperate for Endures that I need to take them from the crops and childbeds of Mendev."

"Understood. I'll make sure that's communicated to them." 

Time to look through the handbook. ...Harmattan is not naturally a very expressive person but it nonetheless rapidly becomes obvious on his face that he has concerns.

"I did run this idea by the queen and then by the Baroness, should we invite one or both to whatever you have to say?"

"That sounds like a good idea, assuming they aren't busy. You mentioned you were making some changes?"

"The handbook prescribes quite a lot of execution for things like raping prisoners and the Baroness was reluctant. I'm not thrilled about the implied present troop discipline but it is what it is and if we have the penal battalion we can use it, for first offenders who might be able to serve the campaign in a position of reduced trust."

"I think that will still be unpopular, but at least less unpopular. My other concern, beyond general harshness, is that many of the officers will be unhappy that the punishments are so much harsher for officers than ordinary soldiers — not because they're breaking any of the regulations, necessarily, it's just... insulting."

"...insulting."

"It suggests that they're less valuable to Mendev's army than common soldiers. —That's not to say there aren't some offenses that should be offenses for officers and not for their men, but there's a difference between that and punishing the officers much more harshly for the same offense."

"I... don't... think it implies that? More is expected of them; more weight is placed on their reliability; no one should aspire to promotion for the pay and perks without fully expecting these penalties to be purely academic - one does not bother expecting more of someone with little value."

"If you had two swords, one adequate but completely ordinary, the other cold iron and forged by a master smith, which would you care more about losing?"

"Which one is going to break if I try to hit a demon with it, Captain?"

"Ideally, neither. But if either did break, one would be far more difficult to replace than the other."

"I would certainly not patronize the same smith as the one who sold me an ostensible masterwork that failed in the context where it was meant to operate for my replacement."

"If you were to demote officers for failing to live up to your new standards, that would be less controversial."

"...I think I can countenance that."

He nods. "You will still need to be careful about how you present it, but it should be possible to make it sound like a sign of respect rather than an insult." He flips to another page. "This also doesn't specify how they should appeal to you to show mercy to their men in exceptional cases, did you have a procedure in mind?"

"The handbook emphatically advises negligible discretion as it is a mechanism for corruption to enter the system."

"—I don't mean to suggest that you would take bribes!" he hastens to reassure him. "I just meant that some cases might genuinely be a poor fit for these rules."

"Can you give an example, historical or fictitious?"

He is starting to get the sense that 'what if someone broke regulations, but they were very good at fighting?' is unlikely to be a persuasive argument. 

"Say there's a civilian settlement being evacuated, and one of the men disobeys an order to retreat because there are still people left to save, and by some miracle he survives. I'd think twice about giving him another assignment like that, but..."

"That is not how an organized military unit must behave. If someone anticipates that they are prone to this sort of behavior I would prefer that they notice in advance and ask to be considered for some smaller operational team with more tactical independence."

"Showing mercy doesn't have to mean a pardon, it can mean reducing a punishment. If there's no way to lighten an unjust sentence, some of the men will be more hesitant to report violations to begin with. ...As a separate matter, the Queen's power of pardon is absolute, but in practice that's not likely to come up on crusade unless something has gone seriously wrong."

"I do not mean to object to her power of pardon. You're - suggesting I assign my own person a similar power? I do not expect to be commonly willing to use it; sooner or later they will catch on and that will have nearly as much effect on willingness to report."