This person would favor a change to assigning votes by property holdings, this one is trying to figure out how to leave all twelve children an inheritance without splitting the estate until it's worthless, this one has no heir - might free one of his kids - this little faction votes as a bloc, mostly for infrastructure in their region...

"Have you met the kid he might free, are they likely to retain sympathies -"

"I haven't, they're all the way up in Achaea."

"I imagine you already tried suggesting targets to Atyel..."

"We talked when she visited. I don't think they have that many degrees of freedom but the targets so far have been - not counterproductive, at least."

Nod.

More people! This one's straight-up bribeable but you'd better hope no one else offers her more money, this one's been losing votes as he slowly sells off slaves to cover gambling debts, this one's widowed and inherited the estate and vaguely disapproves of slavery but wants an inheritance for his daughter once she comes of age...

"How old's the daughter, what's her angle - if this is going to take twelve years -"

"Daughter's eight. I've been trying to convince the father to let the girl come live with us, we'll pay for her tutors. He said maybe when she's ten."

Nod. "Anything else like that, likely heirs - someone could get sick or something -"

"Yeah. This one's heir is his brother and very like-minded politically.This one plays her daughters off against each other, I favor Takat but not strongly - this woman's heir is a shallow young woman who I think means to find a husband and then retire - I was thinking about setting her up with Malare but then he picked up Rabka -"

"How inconsiderate of him. Why Takat?"

"Smarter. Not particularly liberal but I can work with pretty much anyone who has a good sense of their own interests and doesn't, like, love the slavery-based system for its own sake."

Nod.

And she goes through the rest of the prospective votes.

Aya has no staggeringly brilliant ideas, alas.

"It's a hard problem. We'll get it figured out."

"I still don't see why you're as confident as you are but I will be happy to help with that, ma'am."

"I have a good track record, and I haven't been at this for very long."

"What else have you done?"

"Tax restructuring, last year. Funding for the roads. Changing the tariffs to be slightly less ridiculous. The literacy thing."

Nod. "Any things you've tried that didn't work?"

"I wanted a bigger infrastructure thing, had to compromise. I haven't even tried having them not send the army after Atyel because I'd lose if I did."

"Can you walk me through how you know -"

"How I know I couldn't get that?"