"I forgive you but only because I'm going to trounce Codwin in the election in two years."

"- all right."

"And I will take the money."

"Yeah, that's very fair."

She returns to Cansellarion.

"Here is a copy of the rules and regulations of the order. You are expected to know them, though you're not required to be able to cite them or quote them verbatim. You are also to attend illegal orders training tomorrow, and to be fitted for a uniform afterward. You're not usually required to wear your uniform. When it's required and when it's forbidden are both covered in the regulations."

She takes the copy of the rules, glances at them. One of them requires her to report if she breaks any of the others, quite sensibly.  "Thank you, sir. - I think on a straightforward reading I broke the secrecy rule today, I didn't give the same answer I'd have given if it'd been a surprise." 

"What exactly did you say?"

"I said, "I don't know if I can answer that. I'm sorry. If you'd like I can check whether I can answer that.' But I think if it'd been false I would've said ‘no', and I think she could and did infer that, because I - was paying attention to - the secret rather than the actual underlying policy."

"I see - in the future, of course, an answer like that might be the one you should give, if you are in fact uncertain as to whether the answer to a question would be secret or not. But it does seem like in this case that was an answer that gave away secret information. Thank you for telling me. There will be no disciplinary action. Do you have any other questions?"

"I noticed I didn't know all the things I'd expected I'd need to know, you were very busy, I didn't want to bother you about it. Is there a …less busy person…I should've asked?"

"...Did Lastwall not assign you a secretary?"

"- we have one but I try not to assign him solving my personal problems on top of all of the project work!"

"I think 'I need a copy of the regulations of my paladin order' is not exactly a personal problem - and even if it is, it's pretty centrally part of a Lastwall secretary's skillset. And I suspect he was assigned to you to deal with your personal problems as well as project business, that is pretty standard for busy people whose time is valuable."

"Oh. That makes sense." And she has been asking Alfirin to sneak around and figure out what she's supposed to wear to things. She is an idiot. "...I have been reluctant to ask people for things unrelated to the project, especially Lastwall's people for things related to the broadcasts or the war. I notice that people are very indulgent of my incompetence and ignorance and rudeness and I worry it's because of the - family resemblance - or because the project's important, which really ought to be the opposite of an excuse for incompetence - and that they wouldn't tell me, if I'm asking for unreasonable things or - using their effort in a way they wish I wouldn't -."

"...Do you think that what went wrong after your broadcast today was mainly caused by your incompetence?"

"...yes?" Obviously?? "Arguably not because I didn't derive it, though it's - obvious enough I should have been able to - but certainly because I didn't ask anyone for a copy of the rules when I realized I needed them, or …think about the fact that of course she'd want to know, and what my answer would be - she could've asked on-air -"

"I think that it was centrally my error; as your commander it is my responsibility to ensure that you know what's expected of you. I failed to do that because I have been very busy with other things, and because I'm not in the habit of being in direct command of junior paladins, and really I should have assigned someone else to be your direct commander but failed to do so because everyone else in the order who is read-in on what the project is is also busy with other important things. Nonetheless, I should have found someone."

They're planning to go to war in a few months. If anyone has to spend time babysitting Iomedae this is obviously Iomedae's fault for needing babysitting, not theirs for having been busy. Iomedae is not going to argue this point because she does not in fact want to be difficult to manage. She struggles for a second to think of a truthful response, given that. "I understand, sir."

"Needing some amount of guidance is normal and expected for a junior paladin."

And that's why you don't have them running extremely large-scale important operations - "I do not think I'm unusually incompetent for my age, sir, but I obviously am unusually incompetent for my position."

"I didn't just mean your age, also - someone who comes to the order at thirty is often still unused to the ways we do things and needs guidance from those who are more experienced. I agree that we would not normally put someone with your level of experience in charge of a project this large and important, but - anyone coming from Earth with the knowledge you have would have been unfamiliar with the way we run operations here. And if your inexperience leaves you unequipped to handle something of this scale, all the more reason that I need to make sure you have adequate support."

"...I think the project - of course it'd be better with more resources but we ask for what we need, and it's going about as well as it could, and I can't think of personal failures that have made it worse that a mentor could have bailed me out of. I think the broadcast is relying on a lot of people I didn't know existed taking risks I can't quite forgive myself for making them take, and also I'm insufficiently skilled in - acting like nothing happened, giving convincing nonanswers - and also it's annoying my allies and I thought that was worth it at the outset but I was totally ignorant of how much they were risking for me and at this point I feel terrible about it. I'm not sure that's a mentorship shortcoming, though it does seem like an example of people maybe letting me get away with things either because of my name or because the project is important, when I did not intend to benefit by either of those things."

He sighs. "Do you think you are uniquely capable of evaluating those risks?"

"I don't think it's - just, to assure myself you've thought about it and so I can do whatever I want until someone tells me to stop - and I think in a sense you didn't get a fair chance to decide because I didn't ask in advance 'hey, I'm going to expose you to a lot of risk by insulting Abrogail as much as possible, is that worth it to you or just to me -"