"Huh."

"With t'other line," Ferrer changes the subject, "I think if you're explaining crimes you oughta explain that too?  Like, supposing I said the food sucks, someone as really wanted to get me on something could twist it to criticizing the Queen, but the Mendevians maybe just wanna know if we're eating better'n them, an' if you say 'confidential information excepted' it kinda sounds like we're hiding something."

"Hmm, that's a good point.  How do you think that line should go?  It would've never occurred to me to count 'the food sucks' as disloyal...  Would 'I will not report it in any way I think could plausibly harm you' do, to let me talk normally to the Mendevians but not contribute to bizarre Chelish politics, or do you think I'm too naive to manage that?  I wouldn't blame you," slight smile, "but in that case you have to come up with something else."

Well, yes, but even with this bizarrely cheerful paladin you don't just say that.

"Mm- trouble is, it's gotta come down to your judgment, too, not just your word, an' folk as've just met you..."  he lets the sentence hang.

Was that one of those Chelish ways of not saying a thing outright?...  Yes, he thinks, and he appreciates Ferrer coming close enough to actually saying it that he managed to notice, but the trouble is he still doesn't know what to do about it.

"Folk as've just met me, I know better than to try doing this with. Folk as've known me for two days, which you're right is still not very long, and might not have given them the best opinion of me anyway... I don't have something better than my judgment to offer you, Ferrer. I would if I did. But you said yourself, I can't just swear to never say anything or it'll look like we're hiding something..."

Is he being an idiot again? Maybe he is. He really cannot tell what will and will not make them feel like they can just say things – do they ever do that, he's starting to wonder – but he should still ask.  "...We could have this conversation be fully confidential.  No judgment required, I will not repeat or act on anything no matter what it is. It doesn't work to do that all the time but it's fine to do for an hour. Would that help?"  If it's scary to spring an oath on people without warning, does that mean they'll give him any sort of answer if he only proposes one?  He suspects not.  A very careful Chelish sort of answer, maybe, that he might decipher if he's lucky.

"Oh, I ought give you privacy then, I expect they've a cistern somewhere I might help with-"  she gathers her notes back into her satchel and pushes up to her feet.

He appreciates her so much.

"Thank you, Learned. I would do it for you as well, another time, if you like."  Not that she seemed to need it, but he really should've thought of it earlier, to offer. 

"And you two, d'you rather talk together or separately?"

They glance at each other briefly.  

"I'll go," Cambra mutters, tosses his forgotten cards on the pile and follows her out.  (Three sevens and a two, apparently.)

Right then.  What the fuck does he even say.

"Look, kid," he begins finally, "I get what you're going for an' it's a, a kind thought.  But it ain't gonna work the way you want it to, it only partway worked for us 'cause you gotta know how to be around paladins up here.  An' Artigas, s'pose," he adds.  "But- y'can't hurry trust.  Not even with paladin shortcuts what might work in Taldor.  If you're gonna go down to the mainland, you gotta figure out a way to handle folk being scared of you that don't need'em to stop."

"I know that," a serious look.  "I will try, I know it's going to be hard, and thank you for explaining why this kind of thing won't work."

"But do you want me to swear proper confidentiality, for this conversation?  Not... I get that I can't make you trust me, no matter what I swear.  But would you like me to, anyway."

"Mm, that's most of what I wanted to say, but- I got nothing against it."

"I genuinely cannot tell if this is an oblique Chelish no or an oblique Chelish yes."  Wry smile. "Though at least I've now noticed that it might be one or the other."

"But let's, if only so you can tell me if that one is straightforward enough to be any good to someone who doesn't know me but knows paladins keep their word. And if I'm... managing to do it in a non-alarming way this time."

He does write it out – this one's a standard form, or near enough – offers it to Ferrer to look at, reads it out where they can both see the text matches.

"Anything you say to me for the next hour or until both of us agree we're done, I will not tell anyone about, nor to the best of my ability act on in any way, without your uncoerced permission, except for any parts of it I find out about from another source in a way that would have still happened without this conversation. I so swear on my Law and in Iomedae's name."

He reads along silently.  "Y'forgot the bit about planning serious crimes.  ...I do believe you, that y'don't think we will."

"This is full confidentiality, it includes planning serious crimes. It's important that people can talk to paladins about that, sometimes. I still don't think you will, but I wanted the version that doesn't rely on my judgment or on whether we agree on what serious crimes are."

"It seemed a bad idea to have that apply to all our conversations for weeks," though he doesn't have a very clear idea of why, and  should write his order and ask their thoughts on it in addition to their thoughts on all the rest of this, "but for a limited time, this is the standard oath for when someone wants to talk about difficult things."

"Huh." 

"So... that gives the paladin a chance to talk 'em out of it he wouldn't've had, but it means he's gotta do a lot of acting if'n he doesn't want anybody to notice anything's different..."

"Yeah. It's why there's a 'to the best of my ability' in there, because I've been judged competent to take this oath but I'm not going to be perfect at not doing anything differently. It's really supposed to be... less acting, and more putting that stuff in a separate part of your head where it doesn't feel like it's real."

"So, does this seem like it would do anything useful for people who don't know me but know paladins keep their word?"

"Hmm, could confess to crimes where they were in on it but y'want the ringleader more... no, that don't work.  Could... ask stupid questions, if'n they knew y'were leaving town?"

Amused noise.  "They can do that.  Might be good for giving more people some idea of how paladins work."

"The usual reasons for confidential conversations are... people who did something Evil in the past and want to talk about how to not go to Hell.  Witnesses to crimes, who may have been in on it but we don't know about that, or they're just worried that we'll think so.  People who are currently doing something Evil and want help in stopping - they're in a gang, or being blackmailed into crimes, or something like that.  But mostly it's people who aren't doing any crimes, it's just that it's easier to talk if they don't have to worry about that."

"So the witnesses- y'couldn't act on what they said then, but y'could say, come back tomorrow an' tell me this an' that but not the other thing an' you won't get arrested?"

"It says 'without your uncoerced permission', so they can just tell me I'm fine to talk about this and that but not the other thing – but yeah, if there's a lot of it it might be cleaner to finish the confidential conversation and have a separate normal one with just those parts.  Or talk through what they want known, write it down, and then give it to me later.  That's probably what I'd suggest, with anything complicated."

""Mm."  He nods.  "What sorts of- no, that don't work- can you tell me some fake examples from paladin school, of stuff folk'd be worried about what's not a crime?"

An appreciative nod for how Ferrer clearly understands.

"I want to move to a different town, but the baron has his ways to keep people from leaving and I don't want him to hear I'm trying. My husband beats me and the children so badly that it scares me, is there anything I can rightly do to stop him without breaking my marriage oath?  I was drafted to fight in a war, we killed people half of whom probably hadn't done anything wrong, we set villages on fire with women still in them, and I feel like I shouldn't have done those things but it's not as if I had a choice.  My family died to a plague and my life is miserable and I hate all the gods for it, will I be damned just for hating them?  I don't want to obey my parents or marry who they tell me to, if I run away from home can I ever lead a Lawful life again?"

"...folk say you'll be damned for hating the gods?  'S that... true?"

"It is not.  Folks will say all kinds of things, because their grandparents said so or because the local priest got himself confused about how the gods work.  You will not be damned for hating the gods or speaking against them, in itself.  If you live a worse life because of it, and I expect you usually would, you will obviously be judged accordingly, but it'll only be the ordinary judgment due your life.  If you convince other people to abandon the teachings of the righteous gods, and their lives and afterlives are worse by it, you will be judged for that too, although only some of the Evil is yours.  But if you only think bitter thoughts, that's fine.  If you drunkenly shout that Iomedae should rot in the Abyss Herself if She couldn't protect your family from it – She does not exactly agree with you, but neither does She mind, if nobody heard you who's likely to be led astray by it."

"And I expect in Rahadoum many people still reach Heaven, if they've lived good lives otherwise. Though I wonder what exactly they do there."

Slow nod.  He seems to relax, just slightly, although he's also closing off again.

"...think that's all the questions I had."