Since this seems the core of your argument, I'll hack at it.
Why do you think Owen will think we don't have friends we could send him to? If I was Owen, I'd consider the possibility that Stone sent his claimant, should he exist, somewhere else and wouldn't limit my search (or else I'd have an advisor who would do so).
My argument does have a core, at least. Yours does not. If you intend to argue that Owen will find him in Percival's manor, then you are surely planning on Owen finding him here in ours...
Wrong. I anticipate Owen
looking for the claimant in Percival's land and ours. It would be easier to impede his attempts to find him if we were in the same place as Arthur, and if we had a good reason to turn away Owen's spies (as we would if we were in our town, due to suspicions of Owen planning to attack us).
That means you anticipate Owen knowing and rallying his supporters against us directly.
I never implied anything of the sort.
If we're clean, he has to keep looking, and he will have limited time and resources to do so. If we're dirty, the race stops there. Some of the potency of the unknown immediately evaporates, and we have the possibility of defnding against a direct assault, which is a blessedly boneheaded way of protecting Arthur, btw.
And what happens to Percival if he is found on his lands?
And what makes
you so certain he would be found in Feroshire?
But why doesn't he need protection?
Because he won't be found.
I'm not confident of that. I'd be MUCH more confident if we were able to react to changing problems, legitimately turn away Owen's investigations, and such.
And if he is, we still stand in the way of his capture by geography alone.
So we're on an ithsmus now? There's ways to get to Percival's lands that don't involve going down our Main Street, and frankly city walls don't help unless they attack Feroshire.
You have already admitted that you expect Owen to find him in Feroshire,
I never said that.so what I want to know now is how you plan to proceed with a delicate campaign of whispers and subterfuge after owen can shrug and pin it all on us,
If Arthur is found, that happens regardless. My point is that keeping Arthur in Feroshire makes it less likely and makes us more flexible.
and how you plan to prosecute the defense of Feroshire when Owen can openly rally his supporters against us while we are caught off-foot in a ludicrous mush of a plan where we're expecting to be discovered in the midst of a plan dependent on not being discovered.
I'm not sure what plan you're talking about so I can't respond.
No, I'm relying on keeping the reality of the claimant more secret, Feroshire's defenses, and so forth. And the fact that there's already suspicions that Owen will attack us, which gives us the ability to send back investigations into our land searching for the claimant much more justifiably than if we needed to keep the secret in someone else's lands.
Perception is reality. The perception that we're involved is dangerous, no matter how high our walls and impenetrable our security. I'd rather not have Arthur here and make of show of aiding the search here than remaining dark to his searches with or without Arthur inside our walls.
How can we destroy the perception if one of our close friends who has no particular reason to promote Arthur to the countship? Again, Owen isn't an idiot.
The simple issue is, Owen isn't the old Count; we can't assume he's a moron. If he's not, we can't assume he'll limit his search to Feroshire. If we stash him in Percival's land or somewhere, we can't keep an eye off him or justify sending the inevitable investigations away.
But you're assuming he will not find Arthur here,
STOP SAYING THAT. Please.
while for some reason easily finding him in a rural manor of no note.
Easily? No. More easily than in Feroshire? Probably.
Owen has no right to search for the claimant anyway. It's not an investigation.
Then how would he be found in Feroshire?
Even if we keep Arthur and we know that certain men are supporters of Owen asking around, what we would want to do then is welcome them openly and give them the entire town to search and hope Arthur stays hidden somehow. Perception that we might have him is the same as having him.
Two things.
1. In such an issue, we could respond by keeping Arthur moving, or even pretending to be a normal person. We can't do that if he's at Percival's.
2. How is any of that untrue if he's at Percival's, especially the bit about the idea we
might have the claimant being as important as actually having it.
At the very least, we need a role less conspicuous than our second squire and a relationship less notable than cousin if he stays here and rubs shoulders with our people for two months. I regret suggesting either of those.
Agreed. But we should keep him here, not send him somewhere else.
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Topic: Lordship: A Suggestion Game (Read 328963 times)