"They claim that it isn't in the nature of their goddess to use a person against their purposes, for conquests they wouldn't have agreed to enable."

Freedom believes that for Lastwall to go on some conquests she hasn't authorized would be employing her against her purposes. The radio show isn't sufficient for that to be a real constraint on Lastwall. The guns are. Lilia is finding this conversation very informative. "You wouldn't agree to enable the conquests?" she says. "But Lastwall is well governed, and at internal peace. There are few bandits on its roads. Its leaders never abuse their power. Has anyone told you the horrors to which the people of ordinary kingdoms are subject, by the caprice of ordinary kings? Maybe once they do, you'll tell Lastwall to go right ahead."

Iomedae is pretty sure she can't be persuaded that Lastwall should conquer Avistan. Because she doesn't know enough, because letting Lastwall conquer Avistan is a characteristic sort of mistake to make, because if Lastwall thought they could use her to do that then it recharacterizes everything else - because they told her they wouldn't -

"I really do dislike that they're a military dictatorship," she says, since she can't say any of that. 

Awww. Freedom wasn't just pretending, she's actually a bit of a Chaotic Good idealist who has just thrown in her hat with the paladins - no, that doesn't fit with actually joining an order - Freedom is a teenage girl with messy internally contradictory political opinions and enough Splendour to convince herself of any of them at any time. To a god this probably just looks like the human condition and isn't prohibitive for paladining.

It's a better answer than the one she expected, anyway, which was 'b-b-b-but that's Evil!'

"I suppose you are unlikely to be appointed the Lord-Watcher of Avistan yourself and are quite likely to win it in a fair vote," she says. 

Iomedae looks startled. "That's - not why."

"Sure it is - look, this is again the thing where you are not competent with the level of analysis that everyone else is engaged on. You think that places should be a democracy and you are very well positioned to win their elections and whether or not that's among your conscious motivations people'd be very foolish to discard it from their understanding of you."

"I'm too young and don't know anything about - several things I'd need to know about."

"Well, there's no elections to win this soon, anyway. But you're telling me that if some guns and diplomacy get employed to reconstitute Iomedae's Empire you wouldn't run to be its elected Emperor?"

"I'm not sure your elected officials can be titled Emperor. And - I don't know. I'd do that if it seemed likely to be the best way to build paradise in this world. And not otherwise."

"You know, among historians not in Lastwall, this is one of the great debates about the mortal Iomedae, whether she was an exceptionally virtuous and idealistic person or whether she was an exceptional propagandist who did approximately what any intelligent sufficiently ambitious person in her position would have done - become rich, accumulate a power base, win a war, declare independence, shore up the power base and ascend to godhood. And if a person is fully explained by their motivations, then virtue is hardly necessary to ascribe to them. We don't have to resort to virtue to explain why most men don't commit stabbings in cities in broad daylight."

"Historians in Lastwall don't debate this because - She's their god?"

"Well, that's probably part of it. But mostly because they are all people motivated by virtue, and so 'this person was not motivated by virtue' seems like the exceptional claim to them, and 'this person was motivated by virtue' the ordinary one."

"You're - very smart," Iomedae says, after a pause, "and very knowledgeable, and very - interested in learning what's really going on. How does a person like that end up working for Asmodeus?

"I'm not answering that. Next?"

"Is there something someone could've said to you on the radio, that would have made you defect sooner?"

"...not answering that either. Next?"

"Nefreti Clepati says that it will, for secret reasons, be good if I invite you to my wedding. I'm not in fact planning a wedding. Does this make any more sense to you than it makes to me?"

"What precisely did she say."

"I don't know."

"With Nefreti Clepati it really, really matters."

Cansellarion opens his notebook. "She said it might help if I could 'tell Lilia the whole strategic picture and invite her to Freedom and her partner's wedding.' And then that she wasn't sure if it would work or not but would be funny." He dismisses the guard. Nefreti seems to think things go better if they treat Lilia's information as good, and would presumably not have told him to tell her the strategic picture if she were still a Chelish spy. And most of it Lilia knows anyways.

"The strategic picture is what you told me, with the addition that Nefreti thinks she can defeat Lorthact with help from someone who has not made up their mind about whether to help us yet, and convincing them to help us was the reason to tell you this."

So Nefreti knows that Myrabelle is stil alive. And knows that Myrabelle would resent this fact being revealed particularly to Cansellarion, who she went to some lengths to conceal it from. And 'ask Lilia' is of course a suggestion that draws Cansellarion's mind towards Lilia's mother -

And Nefreti pretends to be a madwoman, so she navigated this difficulty with this elaborate layer of obfuscation which will hopefully leave Cansellarion utterly confused as to which piece of information and which act of conveying it caused him to get the help he needs. Lilia nods. "Well," she says to Freedom, "if the necessary bit is the invitation then I am not inclined to impose by actually attending but I appreciate your willingness to extend the invitation and I do expect that as a result Nefreti will get some help with fighting Lorthact." 

He is really feeling profoundly less grateful towards Clepati than he should be.

"...so this does make sense to you," says Iomedae, "and is - Clepati conveying something to you, through me?"

"I think so. I would apologize for her rudeness but I actually suspect she was being decidedly reasonable within her constraints. And I am glad we had the chance to meet," though that may well have been Nefreti arranging Lilia compensation for what is otherwise fairly obnoxious behavior. "I enjoyed our conversation. Your -" Cansellarion picked the word 'partner', a slightly strange one - "fiance is very fortunate."