Editing Tales of Leo Attiel:Volume3 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 1===

Having returned to Guinbar, Leo immediately sent out scouts. This wasn’t only because he was wary of Darren being in pursuit, but also because he wanted them to investigate the terrain around Olt Rose.

Their defeat stemmed from a lack of information. Just a single piece more might have allowed them to predict how Lance’s troops would move.

After that, the other problem had been the number of soldiers. After meeting with Savan Roux, the castle lord, Leo had informed him that, “Darren is scheming to capture Guinbar,” and had ordered him to hire a great many more troops. This was, of course, to defend Guinbar, but also so as to add part of them to his own attack corps.

In other words, Leo had not yet given up.

As long as his information and troops were complete, he would probably have ridden his horse the very next day after his defeat, to raise his sword a second time, while the walls of Olt Rose and their surroundings were filled with the stench of gunpowder smoke.

Leo chaffed with impatience.

''‘Speed’ is crucial.''

He had already thought so when they went to capture Olt Rose, but the meaning was not limited to tactics on the battlefield: it also concerned his strategy for what to do after having subjugated Darren.

''Darren plotted Lord Leo’s assassination, and was immediately cut down at Leo’s own hands'' – He wanted that to become a reality. With just that, he would be able to speed up the plan to unite Atall as one.

He could not afford to have trouble simply because of one man like Darren.

“We need airships,” Leo asserted to Percy and the others. “There’s nothing better to investigate the layout of a battlefield. They would be useful for messengers too. Is there any way to get five or six… no, even just three would be enough.”

However –

While they were still only halfway through the preparations for the second attack, envoys came from Tiwana, sent by the sovereign-prince. He demanded that both Darren and Leo explain the situation to him.

“Your Highness, you are requested to leave at once for Tiwana,” said the envoy.

“My life was targeted,” Leo answered however, “I will not stay in the same place as Darren.”

Thus, he refused to go to the capital

A second messenger soon came to see him, but Leo again turned him down. Once the prince was wedded to Florrie, he would have the duty of being a 'bridge-builder' with Allion. Leo's assessment was that since the sovereign-prince was aware of the importance of this, he would yield if his son remained firm.

But Leo's actions at Conscon Temple seemed to have worried his father more than Leo had anticipated. When yet a third envoy arrived, the message he carried was:

“If Second Prince Leo refuses the summons a third time, I will have a notice proclaimed that he is to be chased down and dragged before me.”

In front of the messenger, Leo's expression remained calm, but he was inwardly surprised. If he had received that letter when he was alone, he might even have started trembling uncontrollably.

First, there were the “summons” to explain himself before the sovereign-prince. They had been sent out as an official document, and were synonymous to declaring that, “you are simply a retainer, not a member of the princely house”.

And needless to say, the “proclamation that he is to be dragged before me” was essentially an order to “capture a fugitive criminal”.

''Did something happen to Father?'' Leo wondered, completely blind to his own faults.

Once the messenger had left the room, Leo kicked the wall as hard as he could.

''I knew 'speed' was important.''

If he could have captured Olt Rose, he could have branded Darren a 'criminal', and then the situation would never have turned out like this. But it was too late for regrets.

“What will you do?”

In response to Percy's question, Leo’s expression looked like he was about to burst into laughter at any moment.

“What can I do except go? I want to unite the country, so I can't be the one to divide it.” His eyes were filled with anger and self-mockery. Yet even so – “I swear by all that is holy that we did nothing wrong. I'll explain that in person to Father.”

He did not seem to be in despair. Percy understood that, and nodded carefully in response.

“I understand. Then we too...”

“No. The only guard I'm taking is Kuon. Percy, there's something I want you lot to do for me.”

After a short discussion, Leo prepared what he needed for the journey.



Some ten days later, Leo was gazing the northern meadows as he arrived at Tiwana, the capital city, which almost seemed to be binding together patches of countryside. Before he even had time to wash off the dirt from travelling, he and Darren were summoned together before the sovereign-prince.

It was already evening by then.

''Father must be absolutely furious'' – thought Leo. He remembered how, after he had wilfully gone to meet with the king of Allion, his father had called him to his personal chambers to yell at him.

Leo steeled himself for having angry roars flung at him as soon as he appeared, but the sovereign-prince's expression, as he sat on the throne, was stern, and his gaze was equally cold, whether he turned it towards his son or towards Darren.

Apart from a few Royal Guards, there was no one in the audience chamber, and no other retainers present. Given how things stood, he probably wanted to bring things to an end as discretely as possible.

“Let's hear what both of you have to say about the reasons for this ruckus,” at Magrid's words, Leo was the first to speak.

“It was because Darren turned his blade against me,” he explained.

After telling about how he had been targeted by a surprise attack to the holiday resort area, and how about how he had just barely managed to overcome it, he went on to talk about how they had captured and interrogated several soldiers, who had confessed that Darren was the mastermind.

“That's impossible,” Darren Actica vociferously interrupted.

“What's impossible?” Leo shot Darren a sidelong glare. “We arrested several soldiers, and I can have them brought here.”

“Even if the soldiers were fooled into believing that I was the mastermind, it is nothing but a trap set by someone who wishes for my downfall. Something similar happened not so long ago. Sir Savan called me to his castle on the grounds that the leader of the marauders who were causing havoc at Guinbar's quarry apparently looked like my son. Your Highness Leo, wasn't that misunderstanding supposed to have already been cleared up?”

Darren deliberately crossed that dangerous bridge. In bringing up that past quarrel, he was playing the card that “Lord Leo has already suspected me unfairly before this.”

Leo had captured Darren's son, Togo, but he had deliberately presented him as a 'stranger' with the intention of subsequently blocking any of Darren's manoeuvres by keeping Togo under guard at Guinbar Castle. The prince had wanted, if at all possible, to draw Darren's faction to his side, but the way he had dealt with things back then had provoked a bitter enmity.

While Leo stuttered, Darren instead continued speaking.
[[Image: Leo_Attiel_Den_v03_179.png|thumb]]
“Your Majesty, there must be some nefarious actor at work who wishes to drive a wedge between House Actica and the princely House. His Highness Leo, who is known for the heroic way that he saved the temple, is honest and upright. It is for that very reason, however, that his emotions are easily provoked, and I fear that His Highness might have been duped by vile rumours spread by that nefarious agent.”

''How dare he...'' Leo felt like punching Darren in the face.

Standing there, next to him, was the man who had unmistakably targeted his life. Yet Darren didn't breathe so much as a hint of that fact as he calmly proclaimed his innocence to the sovereign-prince. Was this what was called a devil in human skin?

''Or maybe humans, who are supposed to be fashioned in God's image, are actually closer in nature to the devil?'' Unbidden fury filled his heart.

Leo was unable to smash through the play that Darren was acting out. In which case, what he needed were the words and attitude capable of swaying the sovereign-prince's heart and influencing the judgement he would hand down, but this discussion was something that Darren himself had originally asked for, and the sovereign-prince was increasingly inclined to view his son as dangerous. The odds had been stacked against Leo from the start.

While Leo could not say half of what he was thinking, the sovereign-prince raised a hand and stopped the two of them.

“Fine, I understand what both of you are saying,” his decision was more or less exactly what Leo had been expecting. “At the moment, I do not have enough information. Until I have had it investigated, neither of you is to start a fight with the other. Whatever the circumstances may be, I fully intend to punish whoever made the first move.”

Leo had no choice but to obey, while Darren had no reason not to.



Leo did not even stay three days in Tiwana. During that short time, Florrie had asked to see him, but Leo refused on the grounds that “my health isn't great.”

''Please be sure to make things up to Miss Florrie'' – it wasn't that he had forgotten Percy's repeated reminders, but right now, and even if it was Florrie, he did not think that he would be able to talk normally to anyone.

His tactics had been aimed at strengthening the central power by forcing the vassal-lords to submit, even through sheer strength if necessary. Yet he had tripped over the very first stumbling block. Leo was furious over his own incompetence.

He could not deny that he had been careless on every single point. Yet simultaneously, and for the first time, he felt irritated by his father, the sovereign-prince – ''Father doesn't understand anything!''

''The ruling House has to strengthen its central power – at least as it is right now, with the vassal-lords not even falling in line with its policies, we won't be able to compete against Allion and Dytiann. Even though everything I've done is for Atall's sake, why doesn't he understand ?''

When he and Darren had been presenting their excuses, his father's attitude had been strange: it had been that of a ruler, coldly and emotionlessly staring down at those far beneath him. Whenever Leo recalled that gaze, he could not help but feel chilled to the core.

He requested several times to have a meeting alone with his father, but was turned down each time.

Stark Barsley, who was in Tiwana at the same time, came to see Leo. It was impossible for Stark to feel anything but flabbergasted at Leo's actions, but outwardly at least, he simply gave advice like an elder.

“For now, you need to stay quiet. You cannot expect our sovereign to tolerate fights within our borders. And all the less so when one of the parties involved is his own kin. If His Majesty appears to be dealing with you so strictly, it is only  to protect your House. Give it time, and His Majesty will be willing to listen to you.”

Leo, however, paid him no heed. In the end, angry, irritated and faintly uneasy, he returned to Guinbar three days after arriving in Tiwana.

Those at the head of Atall who gathered around the sovereign-prince only had an even worse impression of Leo because of it.

''His Highness does not understand His Majesty's heart, and will apparently only rely on Savan, who is loyal whom he knows to be loyal to him.''

''One of these days, he might come up with some other excuse and break into our territories.''

Darren, on the other hand, was gaining momentum He had lost his eldest son in a series of incidents, and his second son had been gravely wounded, but now he saw a chance to shift the blame, and started spreading all sorts of insinuations.

“It seems the prince bears a grudge against me for not having contributed to establishing his Personal Guards.”

Or else –

“It's doubtful whether that attack on the resort area even happened. Isn't it possible that he used marauders that he had to hand to try and stage his own little play?”

“As a faithful vassal to our ruling House, I stopped at merely sending the prince packing. However, while I am a tolerant man, if this happens again, then if the prince gets hit, it might not just be from a stray bullet. Let's hope he's learned his lesson.”

His words were vehement, but Leo, having returned to Guinbar, wasn't sitting idle either.

The Personal Guards had, for the time being, been garrisoned in Guinbar, but there was the risk that the sovereign-prince might soon declare that “until my judgement has been handed down, Leo is not to move any soldiers,” and then use that as a pretext for dissolving the unit. Before that could happen, Leo had his guards transferred beyond the sovereign-prince's reach – to Conscon Temple, which had a good relationship with.

The prince had already given Percy the order to take the Personal Guards away while he himself was in Tiwana. Since there needed to be at least some kind of official excuse for it, the explanation given was that they were going to perform large-scale joint drills. With Camus' help, the temple's bishop had written a letter to that effect to the sovereign-prince, and Savan would be shouldering the cost of having them stationed in one single place.

This was what Leo had been talking when, just before leaving Guinbar, he had said that there was something he wanted Percy and the others to do. Thanks to that, he had for now avoided having his troops confiscated, but it was no more than a temporary measure, and it did not change the fact that his military strength had been moved far from him .

Which meant that he would not be able to mobilise them quickly.

It was at around about that time that the target of the rumours actively being spread by Darren's side slowly shifted from Leo to Savan.

“From the time there was that banquet to welcome Hayden, Savan has blamed me for the attacks on his quarry.”

“That story didn't have a word of truth in it. Now that I think about it, it was from that time onwards that Lord Leo started getting closer to Savan. Could it be that Savan was planning from the start to trick the kind-hearted prince?”

“In that case, when the prince led his onslaught against our Dharam, Savan might have been the one pulling the strings from behind...”

Darren used people to circulate similar stories in Tiwana and in other castle towns. To Leo's mind, his goal was not only to criticise and checkmate the prince, but also to lay the groundwork for an attack on Guinbar. In the near future, he would definitely come up with some reason or another, then march on Savan's territory.

In a way, Darren's existence was emblematic of the vassal-lords. He had been pivotal to ousting the previous sovereign-prince, and he took great pride in his power, which all but allowed him to stand on the same level as the ruling House. If he captured Guinbar, then not only would his momentum increase, but Leo's ideal of “strengthening the central authority” would vanish completely, like a heap of sand in a child's sandpit kicked away by adults.

Stark had talked about “giving it time”, but if he just stood by with his arms folded, the situation would only head in a worse and worse direction.

''What do I do?'' Leo's impatience grew with every passing day.

Percy and Camus were both at the temple, so he did not have any advisors close by. He only had Kuon by his side to act as his guard. Currently, there was also Sarah, whom Camus had sent over “in case of communications with the temple,” but neither of those two were suited to complex talks about politics.

It had already been two months since he and Darren had stood before the sovereign-prince.

During that time, Savan had recruited a great many mercenaries, and had issued orders to the various keeps and fortresses within his domains. The principal keep lords and fortress commanders had gathered at Guinbar Castle, and in all, they managed to scrounge up two thousand soldiers. As was to be expected in a region that guarded the border, it was easier to find fighters here than in other areas. Their equipment, however, was old, and besides not having any airships, they only had a few guns and cannons.

Moreover, it proved impossible to keep that many men stationed at Guinbar Castle. Darren was gradually starting to bare his fangs.

He fell back on his old trick of using marauders to start skirmishes. Throughout all the villages in the area, groups of bandits, thieves and penniless mercenaries suddenly appeared, setting the houses on fire. They killed the men who resisted, kidnapped the women, and stole the crops and livestock.

The keep lords and commanders who had arrived in Guinbar Castle were forced to hurriedly go back to where they had come from and deal with the attackers. The castle's defences continued to be chipped away, and Leo's impatience turned into anger and irritation.

One day, unable to bear simply staying still, Leo dressed up as one of the people to go down to the castle town and take a look at the assembled mercenaries. In terms of numbers, there were quite a few of them but, just as had been the case at the temple, recruiting soldiers far and wide made it easy for the enemy to slip spies in among them.

''How many of them can I actually use?''

Among the soldiers were some who had been labourers, working on the church's construction until just the other day. Was it because they had decided that they far preferred wielding a spear to cutting and carrying stone, or was it perhaps because the church might be destroyed if the town was attacked, and so they had chosen to take a stance to defend their work?

That church was where Leo and Florrie were supposed to one day hold their wedding ceremony.

''If Guinbar is set alight, I'll lose my authority. Relations with Allion and the temple will become uneasy.''

It happened on the way back...

All of a sudden, among the people who were coming and going along the night-time streets, two men who were entangled together, came tumbling into view just in front of Leo. A fight had broken out between ruffians who had come to work as mercenaries in the tavern which doubled as their inn.

To the startled Leo, it felt for a second as though Darren's assassins had come to target his life. The story about how Darren's oldest son, Togo, had been killed with a single strike to his back flashed through the prince's mind.

Kuon was with him, acting as his guard, but since they were pretending to be part of the populace, neither of them carried a sword. Kuon quickly stepped in front of the prince.

“You taking that bastard's side!?” One of the brawlers misunderstood his action and thrust Kuon aside.

The boy dodged his arm and delivered a kick to the man's stomach.

The assailant was knocked backwards but the blow must have been a shallow one, since he immediately got back on his feet. He unsheathed the sword at his waist with a cutting motion.

Although he had intended for it to be a threat, Kuon instead drew right up to his opponent. While the man  panicked in his confusion, a fist struck him in the throat, and the sword was snatched from his hand.

“Kill him,” Leo ordered.

“Hiii,” the man shrieked, and sank to his knees.

Just in the instant when Kuon stepped up towards him –

“Wait,” Leo cried, changing his mind.

He was too late, however, and the blade whistled through the air.

Leo gasped and the flash of steel halted. The tip of the blade quivered right before the man's eyes. These promptly rolled until only the whites could be seen, and he fell in a dead faint. The people who had been coming and going along the street, as well as those who had come out from the tavern, broke out in chatter. Leo and Kuon hurriedly continued on their way back.

“Kuon,” after a while, the prince called out to his bodyguard, who was scanning their surroundings in every direction.
“What is it?”

The prince stared intently at the boy. Leo had held a sword; stopping a blade which had gathered momentum required a corresponding amount of strength and leg power. Yet Kuon had halted that sword without staggering even by a single step.

“You never actually intended to kill him, did you?”

“Sorta...”

“Hm?”

“I sort of thought that you wouldn't want to go through with it, Prince.”

“I wouldn't want to go through with it? Atall's Lord Leo isn't that soft-hearted. You saw how I cut away at Darren's soldiers, didn't you?”

“...”

“I told you to kill him. A soldier obeys orders.”

“But...”

“Enough,” Leo started to walk even faster. He realised himself that his nerves were on edge. Having a retainer ignore his orders out of concern for him was no good, so part of the reason for his irritation was anger at himself.

After taking a few more steps, however, he stopped. Sarah was in front of the castle's drawbridge. She was, as usual, dressed in her novice's robes.

When Leo waved his hand, Sarah looked relieved and came up to them. Kuon wrinkled his nose.

“Why're you here?”

“Because the two of you disappeared from the castle. I came rushing out because I was worried that something might have had happened.”

Everything about her speech and demeanour revealed that Sarah must have received a high level of education, yet whenever she was speaking to Kuon, her tone became oddly common.

“I'm with the prince.”

“Then that's even more reason for concern,” she stuck out her tongue, which irritated Kuon.

“My skills are trustworthy.”

“Your arm is, yes. But that's only if things are straightforward. If I was an assassin, I could think of a hundred ways to get you away from the prince. I could run after pretending to make a first attempt on his life, and lure you away; or else I could shout out 'over there, there's an enemy general you can kill to earn glory'; or I could win you over with the luscious skin and flesh of a sexy and scantily clad woman… ah, but that might be kind of a pain. Or even more simply, I'd just have someone jeer at you and say 'Kuon's an idiot, a fool, a stupid-face,' and you would immediately abandon the prince's side to go chase after that person.”

Leo's eyes opened wide. Sarah's tone and attitude were exactly the same as if she had said, 'Alright, my lad. Come at me from any angle.” Yet what was surprising was that she herself wasn't trying to provoke Kuon. What brought Leo to that realisation was that she got angry as Kuon became irate from her deliberately taunting him.

Even now, Kuon was yelling, “What's that, bratty girl?”

“Even if you call me a 'bratty girl', you're still younger than me, Kuon. Monkey boy, stray dog,” she barred her teeth and fought back.

Leo cleared his throat and Sarah put a hand in front of her mouth, her expression saying 'Oops'.

After a moment, Leo indicated one of the high-restaurants that could be found in the quiet side streets.

“Let's stop by there,”  he suggested to the other two.



From the staircase, the first and second floors were no different from those of other restaurants in the area, but the third floor was a series of private rooms for the use of honoured customers, and Leo entered one of them. The three of them sat at the fairly large table there.

Leo drank a mouthful of ale flavoured with ginger. It was certainly not high-quality alcohol, but right now, he wanted the stimulus.

“What’s going on?” Sarah asked Kuon in a low voice.

It was rare to see Leo drink, and it was equally unusual for him to eat out or to invite any of them to share a meal with him.

“Nothing. It’s nothing you need to know about,” replied Kuon, which was tacit admittance that ''there is something going on.''

Sarah frowned, bristling.

“What’s that? Do you think that while I was away at the temple, you got closer to the prince than anyone? My, what a great and distinguished gentleman you’ve become.”

She had spoken in a low voice but, since their surroundings were quiet, Leo had also been able to catch what she said.
Kuon looked irritated but, just then – “Ah!” Sarah suddenly exclaimed so loudly that both he and Leo were startled.

“What is it now?”

“You… Have you grown a bit taller? You definitely have. Are you going to just impertinently overtake me? Here, turn around.”

“Shut up. And stop touching me.”

Leo laughed at the exchange between the two of them, which remained the same as ever and which was continuing on from earlier. Thinking about it, these two had been like that ever since he first met them. Back when they had been fleeing through the mountains in the dead of night, not knowing when Allion’s army might find them, Kuon and Sarah had been bickering incessantly, like two small birds pecking at each other, and Percy had to keep telling them off.

Then there was also the time when the battles at Conscon Temple were over, and Leo had invited the two of them, along with Percy and Camus, to eat with him and Florrie, his fiancée, since she had been saying for some time that she really wanted to thank them. She had not seen them since they had met in Allion.

The conversation had flowed pleasantly. In front of Leo and Florrie, Sarah had adopted a meek and modest attitude.

“I need to apologise to you all. Back then, I had completely lost my calm, and far from thanking you, I even…” Florrie had started.

Kuon who, after fidgeting about uncomfortably for a bit, had been stuffing food into his mouth at a startling rate, piped up:

“Yeah, I was really surprised when you turned a sword towards us, Lady. You looked like you were stronger than any of Allion’s soldiers.”

It was rare for him to make a joke like that, and Florrie hunched her shoulders as though she wanted to disappear from sight. Sarah had furiously berated Kuon.

“Do you want me to sew that mouth shut for you right now? All you’ve got is a nasty tongue and no manners,” she shouted.

“Those two are like that every time they see each other. They must have a really bad affinity.”

Leo said, while Sarah had still been going on at Kuon, but for some reason, Florrie had smiled slightly.

“Hmm. Who knows?” She answered, tilting her head.

Leo had realised something at that point. Namely: that women were a mystery.

He drank another sip of ale. It felt like it had been a long time since he had thought about Florrie like that.

Having gotten worked up, Sarah seemed about to drag Kuon up from his chair and force him to stand, when her eyes met Leo’s and she sat back down, her face red.

“I beg your pardon, Your Highness. I was causing a fuss.”

“It’s fine. More importantly… I’m the one who needs to beg your pardon,” Leo said, looking at Kuon.

“Eh?” Not surprisingly, the boy looked surprised.

“Despite your achievements, I haven’t been able to give you a reward.”

“Ah, no… that’s…”

“If only I’d done a bit better. Around about now, the Personal Guards would be double the number and you might be a company commander with five platoons under you, Kuon. Actually, no – since you’re familiar with every weapon and every way of fighting, it might be better to put you in charge of a troop of mercenaries who’ve come from all over.”

“That would be nice. But it’s story for much later, when Kuon is twice the height that he is now, right?” Sarah joked. “With Kuon’s current size, the mercenaries would just make fun of him.”

Kuon gave her sidelong look, but he didn’t protest. Perhaps he was mindful of the prince, but t it was also that he had never been good at dealing with being the topic of conversation.

“I’m fine as is. As long as I can eat every day, that’s plenty.”

He tried to quickly bring the topic to a close, but Sarah wasn’t going to let him escape so easily.

“What a strange fellow you are. All you would do every day was look irritated and say, ‘I want to earn glory, I want to earn glory’. And big brother would always say, ‘You’re still immature. You need to patiently hone your skills. Those who rush out to meet tomorrow before anyone else are the ones who will lose their lives without ever seeing that tomorrow’.”

Sarah lifted her eyebrows with her fingers and spoke in a deep voice, imitating her brother. As was to be expected from a sibling, it was surprisingly like him and Leo almost laughed. This time, however, he stopped himself.

Sarah was still going on,

“Even though you never seem to listen to what anyone says, starting with my brother, have you given up now? And in the first place, why were you in such a hurry to earn glory? Is it for money, or because you want to go up in life? Do you need social standing because you’ve promised to marry a high-class young lady?”

Kuon looked towards Leo with a completely fed up expression. Normally, this was where Percy or Camus would bring a stop to things, but, just this one time, Leo was not going to let Kuon off either.

“I’m interested too.”

“P-Prince…”

“I don’t know how you feel about it, but for me – who doesn’t have many allies – you are a trustworthy retainer, and also an irreplaceable companion, and even a friend. I would be troubled if you were to think ‘I really can’t earn glory as long as I’m around that prince’ and leave; or if you got too impatient and ‘died without seeing tomorrow’. If you have circumstances or reasons, then I very much want to hear about them. Of course, I can’t tell you that I’ll arrange for a new war tomorrow, but I might be able to help you in other areas.”

“…”

For a moment, Kuon opened his eyes wide with surprise as he stared fixedly at Lord Leo. He then almost immediately turned them away, unable to bear Leo’s equally unwavering – and far more enthusiastic – gaze. In the end, however, he gave an answer.

“There’s nothing…. amazing about my circumstances… my Lord,” Kuon said heavily. “There’s just that one prediction about me – maybe if it comes true, everyone will be surprised… but that’s all.”

“Who was it who made a prediction?”

“Old Granny Mist. A priestess to the god of the mountain, Tei Tahra.”

Sarah was about to interrupt, but Leo sent her a glance over Kuon’s head to stop her. ''Let me handle this'', it said. He then adopted a deliberately nonchalant tone.

“A priestess? I’ve heard that in the religions of the mountain lands and other remote areas, priestesses aren’t just women priests, but that they can hear the voices of the gods, and that their role is to convey the divine will to the people of this world.”

When he mentioned that knowledge that he gleaned from books, Kuon agreed in a subdued voice.

“They are like that… my lord.”

“Then, what is the prediction about you”

As Leo asked his questions one-by-one, Kuon returned answers, bit-by-bit. It was as that point that Sarah noticed: Leo was using their conversation as a starting point to learn about the place of Kuon’s birth. The boy had occasionally let drop fragments of information, but he had never seemed to want to follow them up by confiding everything about his past.

Which was why Leo was pretending to make casual conversation, repeatedly asking questions one after another in a deliberately dispassionate voice, and at a relaxed pace, so as to not put Kuon on his guard. And Kuon was carried along by that pace, like someone rowing a small boat away from the shore and who, while enjoying the slow, rocking motion of the waves, didn’t realise that they were drifting away from the coast. And so, unusually for Kuon, he continued to tell his tale.

He was by no means a good talker, and he tended to confuse his listeners with the way he unconcernedly brought up names and knowledge about the mountains that they were unfamiliar with. Nevertheless, Leo listened without getting impatient. Even if there was information that he wanted, he never tried to jump straight to the answer he was looking for, and always advanced methodically, step-by-step.

Sarah was anything but patient, but although it was sometimes so irritating that she was almost shaking, she too gradually got an understanding of the full picture.