Once she has - "your Majesty, I've been following the Knight-Commander since Kenabres. He's a Good man. I don't just mean that he's on our side, but he is on our side."

"He has no recorded history prior to his arrival in Kenabres, vast wealth, extraordinarily powerful magical items and the full resources of an adventuring party. He purports to be Lawful Good but no Good church or state has ever heard of him or his party. He has ordered the execution of three of the appointees I sent, as well as hundreds of Mendevian soldiers and one of his own companions." And Erastil confirms he is neither a celestial outsider nor a dragon, though of course the priest could have been secretly Dominated or another disguised cleric of Baphomet.

"- Camellia had killed people, she admitted it, to appease the spirits that gave her power. I don't like killing anyone but I'm not sure what you're supposed to do about that! Your Majesty."

"Did you Detect Magic during her testimony to see if she was Dominated?"

"...no. But when we found her in the caves, Aravashniel was dead at her feet, mauled something awful, and in her house we found all these horrible torture instruments. That's what got the Knight-Commander suspicious enough to look into it, I think..."

"Did he resurrect Aravashniel? If so, we could speak to him and ask him what he saw."

"No, your Majesty. We didn't have a priest who could raise the dead, this was back in Kenabres."

"But Aspex has a wizard who can teleport for him and considerable wealth of his own, and so if he had wished to resurrect Aravashniel he could do so. Had he done so, we could hear his testimony." Without that, he's a year too rotted to Speak to.

Seelah doesn't think this is a very reasonable argument but she hasn't got any business arguing with Queens and it's hardly going to be useful to just point out to the Queen of Mendev that you can't resurrect everybody even if you're very rich. "Well, I guess you should just ask him, but I'm sure he's got a good explanation for everything."

When he's not in the Abyss any longer Marit is - not less angry, not really - there's a lot to be angry about - but it's no longer an overriding white-hot anger such that every train of thought bends towards it, and while he's still exhausted and terrified it no longer feels quite as impossible to attempt to take some perspective on the whole situation. It is...very bad. The Crusade's probably over. He'll probably survive being executed but it'll be very expensive, most of his men won't, and he does not in fact trust Galfrey to try to obey his last will and testament with respect to the disposition of hundreds of thousands of solidi of magic items - 

- no, that's letting himself get bent back towards anger again. 

What does Galfrey believe about the world? What has she been observing, what have people been telling her - 

That her cousin, a claimant to her throne, is now sixth circle and the assurance he doesn't have political ambitions comes from an unknown quantity, a Knight-Commander who was conveniently in the right place at the right time to become an overnight hero, assume command of her army, and notice that a quarter of its command staff were demon cultists -

- oh. Well, when you look at it from that angle, he's been an idiot, hasn't he. 




He is under close guard. No one competent in a guard role at the Worldwound listens to anything that prisoners have to say, but - "If the Iomedean Inquisitor Liotr is in Nerosyan, or can be reached, he should be contacted as quickly as possible."

One of the guards will write something down without saying anything.

That's the first thing you train them to do, when some people around are succubi. Galfrey has as many as several flaws but she's not an idiot or she wouldn't have lived this long. He doesn't ask them for anything else. He does not possess the means to escape, at the moment, though Alfirin could get him out, if she decides it's necessary. She could also kill him. He doesn't think Galfrey possesses the means to make him betray her, but he's not sure and so she wouldn't be sure. 

Alfirin being free to figure this out is a comforting thought; she's better equipped to do it and so he doesn't need to. He just needs to figure out what to say, if the fashion in Nerosyan is the sort of trials where they let you talk. 

Galfrey will come to see him in the morning, after he's had time to sleep and eat. 

(What, Galfrey sleep and eat? No, she needs to learn that apparently her cousin Daeran is neither just a hedonistic libertine nor merely working for the demons, he's apparently the host of a nigh-divine undead spirit of mass murder! There's been calls made for his arrest and all of his lands and properties have been sequestered, but so far they haven't found him.)

"You are dismissed," she says, and the visible guards will file out. Then she'll turn her attention to Aspex.

These are not exactly good conditions for rest but eventually he convinced himself that what was the worst plausible outcome, a demon eating him? Which would speed his death by, what, twelve hours? 

At this he did manage to sleep, and eat since they took his Ring of Sustenance, and wash some of the blood and grime off himself with the water they gave him to drink. 

"Your Majesty."

"Aspex. If there is some defense that you wish to offer for your actions, now would be a good time to offer it."

"I'm not optimistic, actually. I can say, under a truth spell and without any particular quibbling over the phrasing, that I have to my knowledge never while in Mendev broken the laws of Mendev, nor those of the Crusade, nor acted contrary to her interests, nor collaborated in any way with any enemy of Mendev, nor plotted against you or yours, and so on, and so forth, but were I persuaded enough of a man's guilt this would convince me only that he had a way around truth spells. 

Did you get the chance to speak to Liotr?"

"I have."

"Can we speak in some language your guards don't speak? Celestial? Kelish?"

Galfrey raises an eyebrow. This is the Do You Assume That Just Because This Is One Of The Most Secure Places In The Country We Are Safe From Eavesdropping Baphomet Cultists eyebrow raise, not to be confused with the Do You Think I'm Crazy eyebrow raise, which in some respects it rather resembles.

There absolutely might be eavesdropping Baphomet cultists! They probably don't speak Kelish! "In that case I offer the obvious defense of my actions which I'm not going to say aloud," that with respect to Daeran I was following to the letter instructions from your Iomedaen inquisition.

An invisible miniature quasit with Comprehend Languages doesn't need to speak Kelish. "The conversation did not particularly enlighten me regarding your actions." He isn't on trial for failing to report to her, he's on trial for conspiring for her overthrow, executing her loyal men, et cetera, et cetera.

"...sorry, actually, let's back up. Which actions." He thought this was primarily about Daeran. If it's not - there is a pretty long list of things he genuinely did that you could interpret as suspicious were you so inclined, and an even longer list of things that a cultist could have reported to her as things he did.

"- You have spent the past year lying to me and my officers, executing your Mendevian advisors while promoting foreign adventurers, simultaneously stating under oath that you have no policy differences from Iomedae and stating that you consider her an enemy on the same level as Asmodeus." She already knows he can beat truth spells. "I can further add your support for Daeran Arendae, currently on the run with your second-in-command, though that is neither the sole nor primary reason for your arrest." Since he didn't go on the run until after the arrest took place.

"...I don't believe I've lied to you at any point, your Majesty. I brought in foreign adventurers because we need to win and the rest of the world has a stake in the outcome too and ought to be induced to spend their own blood and treasure on it. I executed a lot of people because they kept being traitors. On every occasion that a charge struck me as politically sensitive, I wrote Nerosyan about it, and delayed the execution in case you wished to send out your own team to investigate, request the prisoner be transferred to your custody, or otherwise intervene. If you were in doubt that any such trial was justly conducted or that the prisoner's guilt had been adequately established, I wish you would have spoken to them yourself; I can of course testify under a truth spell that I believe all of those trials to have been justly conducted, and believe everyone executed to have been guilty, and would have released them had I believed that they were not guilty of a capital crime.

If you wanted me to run a Crusade without executions - I don't really think it could have been done, but I would have tried if you'd asked. Nurah Dendiwhar tried to burn the camp down under cover of a night attack by demons. How did you want me to handle that?"

The charge wasn't bringing in foreign adventurers, it was promoting them. "Do you have any evidence of this other than that you Dominated her into saying so?"