- Without the slightest trace of hesitation, the man began to talk in the presence of the emperor and empress.
Nowadays, we have no way of knowing what Leo Attiel looked like.
He did not like to have his portrait drawn. He forbade the commoners from making sketches of him and displaying them from the edges of the houses' eaves, and the only exception he made was when he allowed the sculptor Idias to create a bust of him to mark the joyous "Day of Red Usurpation".
For a while, Leo's complete bust proudly adorned a gallery within Atall's palace, but today, that bust is displayed in another castle, as a trophy of war, and is widely known to be missing its head. No one knows if it got swept up in the chaos of war, if someone deliberately destroyed it, or if, perhaps, one of Leo's few loyal retainers carried it away to prevent it from passing into enemy hands.
Well then, as Your Imperial Majesty knows, the man who was born the second son to the ruler of the Principality of Atall has many nicknames. "The Usurper", "the Venomous Serpent", "the Enemy of God", and the one which has spread the widest throughout the world… Indeed -
"The Headhunting Prince".
He is, of course, of ill-repute. There were a very great many who feared Leo Attiel. It is said that not only his opponents, but also the allies who fought beside him, the retainers, and even his own blood-related kin dreaded him above any other.
It is truly ironic that this "Headhunting Prince" should be missing his own head. Amused by this irony, in some areas, there are people who call him by a new nickname -
"The Headless Prince."
Well then, Your Majesty…
I am truly blessed to have been granted the opportunity to tell Your Majesty the tales of Leo Attiel.
I have long felt that there were a great many deficiencies in what is now know of his story. History is, after all, told by the victors, and the many who were buried in defeat cannot demand a fair evaluation.
I wish to spin here a new tale of Leo Attiel. Although having said that, I will not be overturning all evaluations of him and claiming that Leo was a saint.
It is a fact that he was an "Usurper", and everyone recognises that his historically real actions make it fitting to call him a "Venomous Serpent" and an "Enemy of God". As for the "Headhunting Prince", it is best not to speak of it.
Yet while I acknowledge that, I will assert this: Leo Attiel was undoubtedly a hero. A hero without precedent, be it now or in the past, in the east or in the west.
Ladies and gentlemen gathered in this hall, laugh now if you will.
I have acquired many documents and new testimonies, and many of those records come from the families of Claude Anglatt and Percy Leegan, who are today counted among Allion's heroes.
Hearing that, has your interest not been piqued, if only a little?
At the very least, he was not the one who brought the fires of war to Atall…
And so, I say once again that Leo Attiel was a hero.
The tale which I am about to tell is a truer biography of Leo Attiel than those that are currently known, and it will be told from a less biased point of view.
Our story first begins in the Kingdom of Allion, in a region near the eastern border…