Brestal Vale

Brestal Vale is the eastern lobe of the original Sevendor twin-vale fief. The smaller of the two vales but agriculturally richer, with better grain country than the main Sevendor Vale to the west. Brestal had been conquered by the Warbird Sire Gimbal of West Fleria in a private illegal war four years before Minalan's arrival, who had given it to his bastard son Sir Ganulan as a cadet fief.

The conquest

Sir Erantal of Old Sevendor had given only token resistance to Gimbal's attack — the Reeve, Railan the Steady, would later claim Erantal had been bribed. Half of Sevendor Village was burned, the village of Brestal itself was wiped out (a hundred and forty people died), and the survivors fled to the gates of Sevendor Castle, only to find the gatehouse locked against them. Gimbal's claim was thus a Riverlords private-war conquest with no Writ of Conquest filed with the Duchy.

The recovery

Minalan, on inheriting Sevendor as a magelord-baron, made Brestal's recovery an early priority. The twin-vale form had been canonical Sevendor demesne; Brestal's loss was illegal under Castali ducal law. With Sir Cei's legal preparation and Pentandra's court-side documentation, Minalan recovered Brestal Vale and the cadet caretaker (Sir Lanulan, Ganulan's mother's brother, similar in disposition to Erantal) was unseated.

The recovery directly precipitated the Siege of Sevendor — Gimbal's vengeance war — and through it the destruction of Gimbal's entire West Fleria.

Post-recovery

Brestal's village and tower were rebuilt under Sevendori administration. Brestal Tower became one of Sevendor's frontier defensive points; the vale's grain agriculture became a major contributor to the Sevendor demesne's self-sufficiency.