Yeah, well, the time for Mathilde to spin it like that to Belegar mostly passed.Mathilde is an agent of what passes for the Empire's central government. She's one of the few assets that the Empire as an institution actually has that they could directly send. She may be given unusual latitude for a Magister of the Grey College, but her and the journeymanling's presence is the Empire's contribution, and it's a very substantial contribution so far.
She was not directly sent here. She pretty much said it to the Belegar's face. Mathilde's presence follows the general theme of manling forces, if anything, being here in spite of imperial central government's inability to stop bickering between its provinces and religious institutions for a moment and send a proper army to help their allies.
Belagar acknowledged it, talked about in private and publically disparaged Empire's failure to provide any help while praising human who came to help him anyway. Mathilde will get the credit. Colleges will get the credit. Knight of Ulric orders that came here (And renounced their ties with their provinces and their Church to come here, btw) will get the credit, and so will forces of former Stirland army. Finally, humans as a race will get the credit.
Empire's negative rep gain might get some mutigation, maybe even some minor net benefits as a result of most of the above being a part of the Empire on paper and if push comes to the shove, in practice, but Belegar will remember how he came to the Elector Counts and got a flat no. Not, uh... how they said no and then sneakily sent help anyway, or anything like that.
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