Editing Tales of Leo Attiel:Volume2 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 4===

Savan Roux returned to his territory, but not a single one of his retainers enquired about the result of his visit to Tiwana. They didn’t even need to see the expression on his face; it was enough to hear his angry footsteps.

The other vassal-lords had also visited the capital, but in Savan’s case, his reason for going had not been to criticise the sovereign-prince. 

''A ridiculous situation'' – Savan felt like laughing it to scorn. After all, he was the one who had the best right to denounce the sending of reinforcements to Conscon Temple.

He was the lord of the only territory which had been caught in Allion’s invasion seven years ago.

The battles had been fierce. Clad in his armour, Savan had personally lead his troops and had fought desperately.

Yet the sovereign-prince, who had guessed that Allion was not interested in extending their invasion any further than that, had only sent a few hundred in reinforcement, and those soldiers had merely remained stationed inside the castle. Rather than wage desperate war against Allion, it seemed that they were simply going to wait until their enemy had, so to speak, finished ‘teaching them their lesson’.

Allion’s aggression did not abate, and the dependent castles and fortresses leading to Savan’s main stronghold fell one after another. Reports reached him again and again of the deaths of his retainers – kinsmen or long-time companions all. Among the fallen were Savan’s two sons. His second son had been married less than a year. It seemed like so very long ago that Savan had leaped to his feet in joy upon learning that his daughter-in-law was pregnant.

In the end, even though they had made peace with Allion, that relationship had now once again turned dubious.

Savan felt like flying into a towering rage and screaming to the sovereign-prince’s face – ''What the hell did you even learn from the last war? Haven’t I sacrificed enough yet?''

Since a while ago, however, Savan had another problem in the form of his quarry being targeted.

Bandit-like men were frequently sighted, and they harassed the villages around the quarries, claiming to be “mercenaries in charge of defending the territory.” They seized provisions, demanded women, picked quarrels with the men working at the quarry, and when the rough stonemasons responded to the provocation, the bandits set fire to houses and tied up the workers in question before dragging them behind their horses, all in the name of “revenge”.

Naturally, having received the reports, Savan had sent out soldiers more times than he could count to send them away. Yet the raiders would quickly reappear and do the same thing all over again. Given that Savan was a domain lord with the country’s border to defend, he could not afford to move too many soldiers away from it.

It was obvious that this was Darren Actica’s doing. He had long had his eyes on the high-quality quarry in Savan’s territory, and had several times approached him with an offer of joint ownership of them. A few days earlier, a message had arrived from him, saying,

“It appears outlaws are running riot through your domains. Given that you bear the important duty of defending the country’s borders, Sir Savan, why not allow me to take over the task of subduing these shameful raiders?”

These ‘raiders’ were clearly actually marauders that Darren was directing. He planned to pretend to send soldiers to drive them away, then, under the vague pretext of ‘defending resources’, he would afterwards occupy the quarry.

Darren had wanted to build a new castle in his domain for a long time now. He would need a very large quantity of stone for that, but he begrudged having to pay the money to buy it from Savan.

In Atall as it was then, even though they belonged to the same country, it was by no means rare for fights over resources to break out between domain lords, starting with the vassal-lords. This was largely because the ruling princely house, which bound the country together, had lost much of its power – but I have already spoken of this several times.

Even among the vassal-lords, Darren’s political power was conspicuously strong. ''The other nobles can’t say anything, and the ruling family doesn’t have the strength to spare to intervene in my affairs'' – perhaps it was because he had made that evaluation that Darren, more than anyone, acted as he pleased.

“That damned villain.”

Savan bitterly resented Darren for the way that he had repeatedly turned down his appeals for reinforcements during the aforementioned war against Allion.

When he had learned that Darren and the other vassal-lords intended to visit Tiwana because of the matter of Conscon Temple, Savan had made firm his decision to go too. At this point, he had no choice but to appeal directly to the sovereign-prince in front of a crowd of nobles.

As for the result… the sight of Savan wandering aimlessly around his castle, his loud footsteps, and the fact that he had barely spoken to his retainers since his return all told their own tale.

The sovereign-prince had absolutely no inclination to listen to him. Besides wanting to keep any kind of trouble at a distance because of the pressure from Allion, that was undoubtedly also because he feared Darren, who had lead the movement which had pushed Magrid’s father from the throne. The fear that he might follow the same path if he carelessly antagonised his opponent had been clear on Magrid’s face.

''Darren is a villain, but the sovereign-prince is utterly unreliable as a ruler.  Savan wept from frustration. If he can’t even defend a retainer’s people and land, it would be better if relations with Allion grew worse and he was destroyed. I no longer have any reason to offer my life to the sovereign-prince. When the time comes, should I join Allion’s side and go take Darren’s castle first?''

He even went so far as to think those thoughts.

Sava stopped in a corner of the castle. The jars that he had collected as a hobby in his youth were lined up on either side of the corridor. One especially old and valuable wine jar had a large crack running through it. It had been caused when his sons, who had been very young at the time, had been swinging pieces of wood around, pretending it was sword practice. The two of them had apologised to their father in tears. At first, their attitude had been laudable, but that soon turned to a quarrel. 

“It was Big Brother’s fault.” 

“What, you’re the one who broke the jar! How can you trample all over my good intentions when I said we’d take the blame together!”

And with that, they had started scuffling again.

As he traced the crack with his finger, tears rolled down Savan’s cheeks.

– Not even a few days later, a messenger came to Savan from the sovereign-prince. Savan, understandably, frowned in suspicion. 

''What business does the sovereign-prince have with me at this point? If he wanted to talk, he could have done so in Tiwana.''

It was not just the timing which was strange, but also the line-up of messengers.

Leading them was an elderly man whom he had never seen before. He said his name was Bosc, and he seemed to be a priest of the Cross Faith. He had been born and raised in an area of what was now called the Dytiann Alliance, and had crossed over to Atall thirty years earlier. Since then, he had been scraping by and carrying out missionary work. He currently lived in a village southwest of Tiwana, in a small church which had been built there.

“But what business does an honoured priest have at my castle?” enquired Savan, whereupon a man who was accompanying the priest handed him a letter from the sovereign-prince. This man also appeared to be a monk, but his build was large and his eyes sharp. 

Growing increasingly suspicious, Savan opened the letter and read what was written.



The man accompanying Bosc – Camus, saw Lord Savan Roux’s expression change. The suspicion in his face turned to surprise as he turned his eyes down towards the letter, before he quickly cleared his throat, probably in an attempt to regain his composure, and read through the letter again.

The old man named Bosc was someone Camus had located. During his stay in Tiwana, he had mingled with the few members of the Cross Faith there, and had exchanged information with them. Since there was no church within the capital, a certain merchant had built a small chapel in the basement of his own home, and people gathered to worship there. When Camus heard from his fellow faithful that there was a priest who, unusually in Atall, was continuing to disseminate God’s teachings, he had gone to visit him in person.

When Camus had confided what his business was to Bosc, the old man had been no less surprised than Savan currently was. However, his small church had been harassed several times after Atall’s relations with Allion soured over the matter of Conscon Temple, 

“This is undoubtedly an excellent opportunity to dispel the people’s ill feelings and to spread our teachings throughout Atall,” he made up his mind to help.

Meanwhile, as the hands with which he was holding the letter trembled imperceptibly, Savan asked,

“Is this true?”

“It is true,” Camus answered instead of Bosc. “His Majesty Sovereign-Prince Magrid wishes to build a church for the Cross Faith – we ourselves do not call it that, but, for the sake of convenience… – here in his land.”

“B-But… why my territory?”

“As is written in the letter, a large-scale monastery will eventually be built, but for now, because there is need to hurry Lord Leo’s baptism, he believes that even for what will only be a simple church, it would be preferable to build it near the quarry.”

Savan’s eyes returned repeatedly to the letter. It was certainly in Sovereign-Prince Magrid’s handwriting. 

He gulped. The country would be buying vast quantities of stone from Savan’s domain. Furthermore, in order to build the church, scores of carpenters, masons and craftsmen would be converging on his castle town. 

The markets under Savan’s jurisdiction would naturally profit greatly. And once construction was complete, adherents would come every time there was a ceremony, and it was even possible to hope that a great many pilgrims would travel from afar to it.

But what Savan was most grateful for was not those long-term considerations, but that this meant that ''Darren won’t be able to interfere with my territory anymore.''

This was an edict from the ruler. No matter how much Darren might look down on the princely house, he would not oppose the ruler’s decision for no good reason.

“Since there is not yet any large church organisation in Atall, Father Bosc here will one day be installed as bishop and a single, large diocese will be established in this country. We hope to build monasteries and churches throughout Atall, starting in your domains, Lord Savan, while a church council, centred around Bishop Bosc, will preside over their establishment and the selection of abbots, and…”

Savan was barely half listening to the speech that Camus was smoothly reeling off. Thinking about how this would put Darren Actica’s nose out of joint, Savan decided that for the time being, he would extinguish the fires of treason which had been irresistibly raging in his heart only a short while earlier.



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