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remedial goodness for Chelish archdukes
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"I am worried about a great many things, that was just a particular highly visible one. Right now with you and Marguerida I am actually mostly worried about whether you are ready to be a father and whether she and you have thought about how you will handle it if your actions have the predictable consequence that she conceives a child."

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Guim does not know how to explain, without sounding completely ridiculous and pathetic, that it seems kind of insane to hold hostage him getting to be with Margarida, who doesn't even let him do that, and not, like, anything Alfonso-Ignasi does, when Alfonso-Ignasi has actually gotten people pregnant, just because they were previously concerned about Guim being in the same technical category as people who they were concerned about for completely different reasons. He's - actually kind of deeply upset about this, enough that it's kind of hard to think around and kind of hard to hide. 

 

"We haven't even done that," he hears himself say, which mostly makes the feeling immediately worse, because - it hurts, having to scrape and beg and admit to not having things in order to be allowed to have anything, when other people don't have to -

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"Because you do not think you are ready to be a father, or she does not think that she's ready to be a mother, and so you're waiting until you are ready?"

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"Because she doesn't want to." Probably that's sort of one of those things, but actually having this conversation is way harder than it was supposed to be. He can tell what the right answer is and can tell that he's supposed to repeat it, and he should obviously just do that and stop getting distracted by how -

It seems really, really unlikely that Margarida is going to want to have this conversation.

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"Good for her. Not because you're not a good man and worthy of her, but because it takes more than being a good man and a worthy man to do right by her, and she is wise to wait even if it is difficult for both of you. If we say you can go back to seeing each other, do you think she'll take that as the Church saying that she ought to sleep with you?"

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"...I don't know? I - " That actually sounds like maybe possibly they don't have to talk to her in order to tell the Archduke to lift the order on him, which seems like possibly the only way to go back to how things were. Focus.

"Margarida says no if she doesn't want to do something. Or she says she doesn't want to do it yet, if she wants to do something else first." He likes this about her. He hasn't decided whether that's ridiculous and embarrassing, but he does. "So, I can promise I'll tell her that you don't think she should do anything she doesn't want to?"

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"I think that's a good idea. And I am proud of you, that she knows she can tell you no, and that you listen when she does, and that you protect her. You're being a good boyfriend to her. 

If she decided she was ready to sleep with you, do you think you are ready to be a father?"

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"...yes." It's slightly awkward because Margarida doesn't live in the house, but it's not like she doesn't have a house, and if she didn't want to keep it there or she gave up or something he would just ask if he could raise it with the captures, and it would be fine.

It's at least a little bit soothing to hear that he's being a good boyfriend. It sounds like something you say to a kid, or something, but it doesn't specifically sound like something you say to a slave, and the burning awful feeling cools off just a little.

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"All right. I do want to talk to Margarida if she's comfortable talking to me but I will tell the Archduke that I do not think the two of you should be prevented from seeing each other." Though Margarida's father should really be preventing that. "Thank you for being willing to speak to me about it."

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Margarida's father is at the worldwound! "Thank you." He can make that one sound sincere. It is sincere. Even though they kind of caused the entire problem in the first place.

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The woman who sits with Carles and his children is also willing to talk to them.

"What do you want to know?"

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"Do you generally feel - safe and respected, in your relationship?"

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"If you were making laws about what kinds of relationships should be allowed or encouraged, what laws would you want to make?"

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" - I honestly haven't thought about it. I can think about what I'd hope for, for my children, but that isn't the same thing as a law."

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"What would you hope for for your children?"

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"At this point I hope that Marina marries someone who she doesn't need to fear, who will protect her. With a good contract, so he knows what he has and she doesn't need to beg for anything. The boys... I hope they earn positions and can support families if they want to, and then I hope they find girls who will respect them, and feel fortunate to have them. But I don't think one can ensure happiness with a law. You can guard against specific unhappinesses, with a good contract, but - the man matters much more than the rules he is held to, in the end."

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"I think one thing that rules do is - ensure that where a man might find himself tempted to carelessness the first time that will become terrible vice the tenth, he instead avoids it in the first place. But I know more of rules for soldiers than for marriages, and the aims are different."

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She should be careful, here, to avoid getting sidetracked from her goal. It's encouraged, she thinks, to give the impression that things were awful before, and it won't hurt her as long as Carles is unambiguously not part of the awfulness. 

"I don't think that most married men successfully memorize all of what they owe their spouses by contact, and avoid breaking its terms at any point. They can get very complicated, often too complicated for each spouse to successfully avoid triggering penalties. It matters, of course, what the law believes the spouses are entitled to. And it matters whether the terms of the contract make plain to each of them that their spouse is someone valuable and worthy of respect, not someone who can be dealt with like a servant. But a contract only goes so far, no matter how favorable. You will need to fight to see it respected, if it goes against the man's nature. It's better, if you can, to be worthy of respect, and to be with someone who can see that."

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"...sorry, how long is a, uh, typical marriage contract?" Who SIGNS A BINDING LIFETIME CONTRACT WHOSE TERMS ARE TOO LONG FOR THEM TO REMEMBER RELIABLY???

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"Varies enormously. Mine may have been sixty pages? But of course much of that concerned property and inheritance and alliance obligations, not treatment. It's not so long if there's no possibility of anyone inheriting an archduchy."

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"Do you have a version of it you would be comfortable sharing? I am worried that it's bad for people to be bound by codes of conduct that long...in Lastwall organizations try to have a code of conduct short enough that no one could reasonably forget something in it."

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"Oh, this was fifteen years ago, it's nothing to me now. I can dig up one of my copies if you'd like, but you might have an easier time looking through the house's archives."

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"I'll ask about those. Thank you!" Reading sixty pages of Asmodean legal documents sounds like one of the few things that might be more draining than talking to scared Asmodeans, but so it goes.

 

 


 

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Narikopolus discusses the situation in the north with Olegeur privately, when he returns. He thinks he impresses on him that Emihym's existing law enforcement should be presumed inadequate, and that he really does need someone up there who he can trust to fix the entire mess without oversight, while providing defense to the region during the fall. There are only a handful of laws. He should enforce them consistently, across the board, using boring and uncreative punishments. Narikopolus will see that additional guidance is sent on to him and to everyone else, as soon as he can determine what it is.

Narikopolus also has mail, which he figures he should share with his spiritual counsel.

"We have word on the specifics of the crime of rape. It is, specifically, a crime to have sex with a free woman against her will by force or threat of force. Slaves are excluded, and contracts which state explicitly that a woman may not refuse sex are to be upheld, for the moment. However, in the absence of an explicit contract term, all free women are to be assumed free to refuse, regardless of other terms."

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