Editing Tales of Leo Attiel:Volume2 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 1===


There were two reasons why Leo Attiel had been in such a hurry to visit the nobles and vassal lords.

The first was the one Camus had pinpointed: he had to see the vassal lords before they returned to their own domains.

The second was Hayden.

The visits absolutely had to be finished before the messenger from Allion returned to his own country. During this time, when the situation had yet to become urgent, Leo had wanted to ascertain how the nobles thought and what they would do. Put differently, Leo was convinced that once Hayden returned home, the situation would begin to move in some way.

And Hayden Swift would be leaving the Principality of Atall on the fifth day after the banquet.

Hayden’s chest was filled with dark anger. In and of itself, the return journey should have been something for him to look forward to. Florrie Anglatt should have been sailing on the same air carrier, they should have been relaxing together in the spacious cabin, talking, laughing, and he should have had the chance to hear Florrie sing near him. Instead of which, he was wild and rough as they sailed back: he never parted from his alcohol, and he who was known for his elegance now spent his time shouting indiscriminately at pages and sailors alike.

As soon as they arrived in Allion’s royal capital, he requested an audience with the king. This was to ask him to raise an army to subjugate Atall; during the voyage, Hayden had thought of nothing else. Or better said, whenever he imagined Tiwana engulfed in flames while he personally severed Leo’s head, Hayden felt a seething anger, as hot as those same flames, that almost seemed about to burn him to death.

Unfortunately, however, the king was away from the capital. 

Three days earlier, he had apparently headed south with an army in tow, as a insurrection had broken out in a territory that lay in that direction. The king could have let the troop of two thousand deal with it, but once he heard about battle, he was completely unable to resist, and so he had left his throne and departed in person.

''That bad habit of his…''

Hayden clicked his tongue, which was equally unusual for him. Then again, speaking of unusual, Hayden’s current proactiveness and level of energy were rare for him. Previously, he had been bored and weary of everything, but now, as soon as he heard of the king’s absence, he had his retainers prepare horses, clothes and travel expenses, while he promptly left the capital for the south.

Another five days later, he had reached the place where King Hugh-Jarl of Allion had pitched his pavilion to rest along the way.

– This is a digression, but as a matter of fact, the king’s name was the very embodiment of bad taste. Both ‘Hugh’ and ‘Jarl’ were the names of kings who had ruled over Allion in the past, but Hugh was known as a lecher, said to have impregnated a thousand women, while Jarl’s repeated failures at government and warfare had led to the loss of large swathes of territory, and had earned him the nickname “King Landloss”. In other words, the name was an aggregation of terrible reputations.

“No future king would ever inherit this name, so I’ll claim it for myself,” the current king had declared on the day of his coronation. Even so, less than a few days later, he seemed to change his mind and decided that he no longer liked being called ‘Hugh-Jarl’. Still, it wouldn’t do to change his name immediately, so instead, he insisted on having even those closest to him refer to him simply as ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘King Jamil’.

Hayden hurried to “King Jamil’s” pavilion.

After he had been announced by a sentry, a naked white body came crawling out of the tent. This man, who was lazily stretching his neck and yawning sleepily was King Jamil. He was developing a bit of a paunch, but he was still a young man in his thirties, and his once chiselled body was yet robust.

“I seem to have disturbed you while you were resting, Your Majesty.”

“Oh, who do you think I am, Hayden? You’re having trouble with Atall, huh?” A flustered-looking page draped a gown over the king from behind The king did not appear to pay it any attention. “I’ve already received your report. So why are you here? Have you come to join the hunting? Although I’ve competed with you before on the number of beasts killed, we’ve never yet competed on the number of soldiers slaughtered.”

He laughed as he chewed a rather tough-looking twig of some medicinal plant that had received from the page.

Unfortunately, King Jamil loved the battlefield, and could never get enough of it. Rather than sit quietly on the throne and handle the petitions brought to him, he was always much happier when riding his horse through the fields of war, spear or gun in hand and armour clanging. Ever since he had taken the throne, the kingdom of Allion had constantly been at war.

According to whispered gossip, this was not so much because of a burning ambition for supremacy, but because, ''he simply loves war, so it’s inevitable.''

“No, I have to go to a different ground,” Hayden matched the king’s manner and smiled. Just as he had pictured on the journey back, he asked the king for permission to suppress Atall.

“They have halfway admitted to helping the temple. If we turn a blind eye to this, they’ll grow more and more arrogant, and might start scheming against us with the temple, or even with Shazarn again.”

Hayden fervently preached his piece, but the only thing about it that caught the king’s interest was the ardour which Hayden had been showing recently.

“You look like you’ve changed, Hayden. Haven’t you heard of how evil spirits bring grief when you sleep alone? If a good man isn’t always sleeping with a good woman, wicked spirits will encroach on him. You should get friendly with your wife in bed and pray for protection from benevolent spirits.”

“Y-Your Majesty…”

“I told you I’d received your report. Ignore Atall. They’ve been given enough of a warning.”

The king had always seemed indifferent to the issue of Atall sending reinforcements to the temple. He was currently busy stabilising his territory, which had expanded so rapidly, so, for now, he had his hands full. When he got tired of administering the country from his throne, he would go hunting; when he got tired of hunting, he took part in riding the warhorses to whatever skirmish had occurred in some part of his territory. As far as King Jamil was concerned, the current status quo was nothing but enjoyable, so he did not feel the need to go out of his way to embark on a foreign campaign.

What made it all the more bitter for Hayden was that it confirmed Leo’s words. “There’s no great cause worthy of sending troops to Atall,” he had said. 

For all the eloquence he could deploy, Hayden could not march on the principality all on his own. The report that had reached the king contained the facts that a banquet had been held with Hayden featuring as the guest of honour, and that as a messenger, his stay had been a smooth one. There wasn’t a single thing warranting suspicion. At this point in time, there was no reason for the king to take action, and there was certainly no just cause to back it up.

And Hayden certainly couldn’t say that he wanted war 'because Atall’s prince provoked me to my face'.

Hayden bit his lip. He was no fool, however; if it was not possible to raise a new army, then at the very least, he could not afford to lose his current military authority.

“Then I leave the matter of Atall for my king to decide,” he gave a laudable nod then changed the focus of his speech. “However, I heard some disturbing rumours in Atall. There are hints that Dytiann intends to take advantage of the matter of Conscon Temple for their own selfish ends.”

“Dytiann, is it?”

King Jamil rinsed his mouth and gargled with the contents of a wine cup, then spat out the alcohol at his feet. If the fearless king of Allion had one thing he worried about, it was Dytiann. He flatly denied the rumours whispered among his retainers of any ‘Great Eastern Campaign’ – which was speculation that he might soon lead Allion’s army to unify the whole of the eastern part of the continent – but any intervention from Dytiann would be a problem.

As already mentioned, the king was busy with consolidating his power base. If, by any chance, a large army came marching towards them, not even Allion would be able to avoid having to make concessions.

Seeing an opening, Hayden once again launched into a speech to persuade the king. The result was that they came to an agreement that “Conscon Temple must be seized without delay to prevent Dytiann from having an excuse to intervene”.

Hayden then deliberately declared that, “the troops currently at our stronghold are sufficient. Reinforcements are unnecessary.” This way, he underlined the fact that he still held military authority, and easily ensured that he would obtain the king’s authorisation.

As expected, the king nodded and said, “I’ll leave it to you then.”

At which point, Hayden witnessed an eerie sight. The pavilion’s entrance flap split open at the same time as gracefully slender white arms stretched out from it, and mercilessly twined themselves around the king’s neck from behind.

“Argh,” King Jamil pretended to be in distress. “Alas, is the king of Allion, renowned for his valour, to be slain at the hands of a villainous temptress? Hayden, seize thy sword and rescue thine liege.”

“This is what you call ‘getting your just deserts’. Since you are the king of Allion, please get out of this by yourself.”

“Honestly, what a retainer unworthy of affection. Oi, Sausha, knock it off, won’t you? I’m discussing important matters of state right now.”

“Your Majesty, it’s not good to keep a lady waiting this long,” the woman called Sausha placed her dainty chin on the king’s shoulder and cuddled up to him.

The king often brought his favourite mistress to the battlefield. Hayden was disgusted by those of his peers who lecherously prowled around after women, but although he saw this as a bad habit of his friend the king, he was naturally not going to say anything about it right now.

“Well then, Your Majesty, I take leave to retire from your presence.”

“Leaving already? You’re a restless bastard. I don’t care much about the rest, but try to keep Bishop Rogress alive if you can. He did once save Prince Kaseria, after all.”
“I understand.”

Even as he answered, Hayden had already started to think about something different.