Ashtani,

Your professed political aptitude may have blinded you to this, but
Shallam's goals in this war, and indeed its core beliefs and ideals,
remain unchanged. Indeed, to say this war has changed Shallam only
further shows the failings of your political education, or indeed the
limits of your own sense. When a city enters a war, it adapts. The
military takes greater focus, and citizens are likely to be more wary
and on edge. These are natural consequences of entering a state of war.

As to your own personal situation, and what prompted you to vent your
spleen on the public boards, the explanation is quite simple. Our cities
are at war. When you are slain by a group of soldiers, and are slain
again (and again and again) for continually provoking them by
resurrecting yourself in front of them and then renouncing the grace of
the gods, it has nothing to do with the soldiers putting aside their
ideals and crossing lines. Further, it is not the soldiers' restraint
that should be questioned - no; the only thing in question in that
situation is your own intelligence.

You need not worry, though; I have no pity for fools.


Sir Silas Aodh'Maynard
Sultan of Shallam


As an addendum: Ishai, when you refused to uphold your Oaths, you were
punished. When you continued to refuse, you were punished further. That
your immediate thought upon being punished was to turn to our enemies
only shows me that your stay in Shallam reached an appropriate
conclusion.

Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Mayan, in the year 462 AF.