"Yeah. Both things."

"So as a first pass you ask - which of these people benefit, which ones lose out, which ones won't be sure, which ones won't care. Stopping the terrorists out east is - everyone out east is vehemently in favor, most everyone else is also in favor because they're worried it'd spread, people without a plantation and with holdings that mean they'll be paying steeper taxes for it might be opposed but not all that strongly, those are mostly merchants and merchants like the rule of law. If it's arrayed like that, it's not going to happen. With the infrastructure bill I wanted the picture was a little better -" she goes down the chart of names - "forty people who'd benefit from it and plenty who weren't really sure if they'd come out ahead or behind. But two hundred votes belonging to people who definitely wouldn't gain from it, and that's an ugly starting point - you can bribe people, you can call in favors, but those work better if you call them in on issues someone's not sure about, it's expensive to get someone to go against their own interests.

If we came up with a scheme to tie political power to landowning with some historical contingencies for people who've done meritorious service or however I want to justify it, we could have a bill to divorce power from slaveholding that was not clearly against the interests of more than twenty people, forty-five votes. Everyone else'll still be opposed - it's weird and radical and they're not sure whether they come out ahead on it - but they'll be tractably opposed."

"How much could you address that by giving out your land?"

"I still need a way to afford the manumissions and to afford to support everyone until then, but that'll help."

"If something happens to you who's your heir, Malare?"

She looks at Ayabel assessingly for a little while. She sighs. "A copy of my will is in the locked drawer of that cabinet in the corner." She hands her the key.

"I'm not going to assassinate you, ma'am, twelve years is just a long time." She goes and looks at the will.

If the estate covers freeing them all, they're all free. If it doesn't, Ayabel is free and everything else is hers to work out, except Rabka stays Malare's.

"...how old is this version?"

"End of spring, can't get it notarized out in the middle of nowhere. Why?"

"Just wondering when you decided this."

"Once I was sure you'd be responsible."

"Well. Thank you."

"Still not too tempted to murder me?"

"I am not going to murder you."

"Good."

"For one thing that would probably invalidate the will."

"I imagine you could be subtle if so motivated."

"I do not want you dead."

"Thank you! Me neither. If I couldn't outlive Atyel it'd be so embarrassing."

"She's not going to cut and run at some point?"

"She said she would if I let everybody go but I don't know if she meant it. Otherwise - no. She's - it doesn't make much sense to me even though I can predict the outputs fine - not doing something just because she'll die feels like acknowledging the authority of whoever will kill her for it."

"...it's odd that you can predict the outputs without knowing the moving parts."

"She's fairly predictable and we grew up together. I think most people have that - more of an instinct for how someone will react than why -"

"Huh."