Talking to Tanya (Part 2)

"Ok, I'll explain what we are trying to accomplish with this newspaper. After my change of heart from reading your book and vowing to be a better person, Becca and I got married. One day, we sat down and talked about how we wanted our Duchy to be. I have almost complete legislative power here in the Duchy, so I can add life changing laws as I see fit. I empowered Becca to look deep in her heart and call out any discrimination she has faced in her life because of society. She emphasized how badly wives are treated and how women in general are looked down upon and not given the same rights as men.

This talk with Becca opened my eyes for a second time. At first, I wanted to only do right by my wife, but now I want to do right by all the marginalized people in our society. To go about making such changes, I'm going to enact several laws going forward that will give people more rights. However, to truly change a society, it can't be done completely by laws. Ruling with an iron fist without changing the people's minds would mean the laws we create will simply by removed once I am no longer in power. This I why I had the idea of creating a Duchy wide newspaper which publishes articles that will change the minds of the populace."

Tanya was still skeptical, "from the novel about your escapades, I directly saw you do a lot of suspect things…it's hard for me to believe that you have changed so much…"

This time, Becca came forward to speak up. "It is true, Tanya. Nick has been a great husband to me since we got married. We have already chosen two laws to implement. In the next week or two, they will be written out and then approved by the court. The first law is a law about making it so nobles will be charged for assault if they hit a commoner. This law will also apply to husbands hitting wives, so there should be a sharp drop off in domestic violence.

The second laws is a law which allows noble wives to have multiple husbands or concubines if their husband also has multiple wives or concubine. It also makes it so new noble couples will have to both approve of one of them getting multiple spouses or concubines. We both are fully committed to making a positive change for our people. I have great respect for you and believe you could be a great help to us. I hope you can join us on our journey."

Tanya was silent for a long time. We both let her process everything, since it was definitely a lot to handle at once. Eventually, she looked up at us and sighed.

"Even if I do want to work with you guys as a journalist…I won't be able to because my husband won't even let me be a journalist of his own newspaper."

Honestly, I actually thought this issue would be very easy to solve.

"Well, one of the laws I plan to implement in the future is a law saying husbands no longer have a say in if their wives want to work a job or not. Husbands don't have any such restrictions on working, so wives shouldn't either. I was thinking of waiting a little while for the first two laws to settle in, but we can speed it up if your husband is adamant about refusing. However, I actually have a different opinion than you in regards to your husband. I only talked to him for a short time, so I am definitely not certain, but I think we can convince him to let you follow your dreams and be a journalist.

The good thing is he clearly loves you and cares about your well being. He is just a worry wart. If we can convince him you are going to be careful and safe in all your investigations and that you will be sad if you can't follow your dreams, I think he will relent. The fact you came here with a knife and ready to quickly call the guards for help shows that you are resourceful and not just letting yourself be in danger. If he insists, I can have a personal Royal mage guard you while you do your research. I can understand him because I too get worried about the woman I love being in dangerous situations, but if you look closely, women usually are not as fragile as you would assume."

Tanya looked like she was contemplating. "You really think so? I guess I never explained to him how much it hurt to not be a journalist. I ended up compromising to be a novelist pretty quickly…"

"Also, when you talk to him about your new opportunity, see how much money it would take for us to buy out his newspaper. We would rebrand it to exclusively write about our cause. Having a whole set up newspaper would save us a lot of time and it would mean that you two would be working together again, so he can keep an eye on you and protect you if he is still worried."

"My husband's new newspaper has struggled to find traction, so he could be willing to agree since it would mean a stable income. Right now, we are mostly living off of my book sales..."

"Don't worry, if we do join together, I will pay you handsomely. I don't care if the newspaper profits. I just want to get the word out about our new vision any way possible."

"Ok, maybe it could really work out. I would love to write articles about the marginalized being given rights and showing off their true potential, which was neglecting all this time…"

"Good, go back and talk to your husband tonight to see what he thinks. If you end up agreeing to work with me, send a letter addressed to me and we can stop by your husbands newspaper office sometime to discuss the specifics."

"Thank you Nicolas, I will try my best to convince him."

"Even if he doesn't agree, let me know and I can fast track the law to let you make your own working decisions haha. Once you start working for a while and he sees that you are still safe, he will have to relax a little."

Tanya went back into the bookstore and left us alone in the alley. I was happy that it went so smoothly. Only time would tell if we would be able to get a whole newspaper on our side, but I believe in Tanya's persuasive powers. In my happiness, I pulled Becca into my embrace and put my chin on her shoulder.

"Now that we have gotten the business out of the way, where are we going next for our date?"

Becca released a small chuckle, "Wow, you switch gears fast. I'm starting to get hungry, so my plan was to take you to my favorite restaurant."

"Sounds great. Please lead the way."