Cicatrice

Chapter XXXV

PRINCE EDGAR SEYFRIED 
1875

I stumble out of my room, dazed as I stay half asleep. With a loud ruckus happening in what I would say is a quiet palace- especially in the dead of night, It would be absurd for me not to be frightened. Holding a kerosine lamp in my left hand, I wander down the dim-lit hall, following the noise. 

To my dismay, the sounds of my mother and a man followed the ruckus of banging and clinking. With my heart dropping to my stomach, I already knew what this meant, without even seeing it for myself. It was not mother's first time. Father had always been out on trips, and it was mother's perfect opportunity to bring a man in for the night.

Altogether, I found it hard to bear to watch this happen in front of my very eyes. It all got too much for me, the burden held right on top of my shoulders. One day, something was bound to snap, and I feared that it could be me. 

I snapped. 

Silently strutting back to my suite, I quietly shut the door behind me, placing the kerosine lamp on the wooden nightstand. Outside falls blankets of white, horrifyingly cold snow, but I had to leave. I felt I had no choice but to start a new life for myself and get away from the toxic kingdom of England. 

I didn't care if mother thought I had been dead. I would rather be dead than face to tell the truth to father; his heart would break to a million pieces, and for what? A despicable woman who couldn't give a singular care in the world about him, her husband?

I find the nearest sachel I could find and began to stuff everything I could possibly could- clothes, a hanky, and most importantly, a blanket and loads of snacks to survive the blizzard. I wasn't sure where I was headed, but I knew for sure, that anywhere would be better than here. 

Giving a final look at the rusty palace gates and the trimmed, withered rose bushes, the wind flourishes through my short-cut hair before I turn around into freedom. I would leave without a trace. Mother didn't deserve to know where her son was, and neither did the people of England. 

Immediately after I had left I felt a huge burden being lifted off of my shoulders; as if everything that ever went down in the palace- and will continue, will be out of my control fully, and I shared no responsibility.

I was free. 

4 WEEKS LATER

Icy was the shack in which I had been staying for weeks. With its dockside view and icy ivy forming on the inside, all around, it wasn't too shabby for an abandoned shelter. With my hair growing exceptionally long, I could almost pass for a civilian. 

But being in England still was far too risky. They were searching for me. 

Hunting. 

I could see my breath for weeks. I was only surviving on bread, which had soon grown mouldy, and fish which I'd cook over the makeshift fireplace. I sparked myself by surprise once I learnt I could do all of this on my own, I wasn't some helpless, entitled prince after all. 

The fire would have to stay off at nighttime. I knew it would be absurd for me to risk somebody finding me in this abandoned dockside shack, but the nights were awfully painfully cold.

Waking me out of my uncomfortable slumber is a sound of a nearby horn blowing. With my heart dropping to my stomach, I thought that this was the end I'd be drafted back to the palace to sit and look pretty for my sleaze of a mother. 

I hold the knitted blanket around my freezing, blue body, gazing out of the foggy window, making out a ship in the distance, coming toward the shore. 

Was this how I'd be set free, for good?

I watch as the anchor falls down into the frosty ocean. Rushing outside with the very little energy I had, I waved vigorously, until I noticed a bunch of men being escorted onto the boat. 

"Sir, are you here for the departure to France?" a man sneaks up behind me.

 For a second, I expected him to recognise me as the prince of England. With my blonde, short hair and dazzling blue eyes, I thought somebody could see me from a mile away. But now, I had appeared differently. My eyes fell tired with dark circles around them. I was no longer clean-shaven. My hair had been scruffy and had not been washed for weeks. Of course, they wouldn't recognise me, they think I'm a slave!

"Why, yes-"

"Come on then, we don't have all day," the man with the grey moustache interjects, and I had been greeted by another white man.

"Name?" he asks, uninterested.

I pause. "Uh... it's Eddie," I say with a lipless smile as he lets me through onto the crowded ship.

I didn't know what would become of me after these next few weeks. Perhaps it would be for better, or for worse...