Chapter One. Escaping Imprisonment

Sixteen years of "captivity", I was bound to try to escape sometime...

Hello there my lovelies. I am Cedelle, Princess of France. In exactly one week, seven days, one hundred sixty-eight hours, ten thousand eight minutes and six hundred and four thousand eight hundred seconds, it will be my eighteenth birthday. Excited? I am not. As heiress to the throne, I can have whatever my heart so desires in the world. Yet the gold of the Americas, silk of Asia or diamonds of Africa does not hold my interest. From the eyes of my loyal subjects, I have all there is to have in this world, but I do not feel as if I do. The one thing I really want, I cannot ask Daddy for. The only thing my heart desires is him. And I do not know of his name.

 

 

Two Years Prior.

 

 

Unbeknownst to my father, King Nicholas, the night before my sixteenth birthday, my best friend, Aureliana, Princess of Spain and myself slipped out the palace in the dead of the night. To this day, I claim no part in the planning of the rebellious celebration of my sixteenth birthday…

 

When Aureliana came into town, though appearance-wise she hadn’t changed a bit; lightly tanned skin, long flowing dark brown, almost black hair pulled away from her face in an elegant up-do, contrasted beautifully with her light grey eyes. The only thing that changed about my best friend was her newly found obsession with… Pirates. When the raven-haired beauty burst through the doors to my gaudy bedroom, she would not stop speaking of these pirates.

Barely catching her breath she sputtered, “Did.. You.. See..?”

I smiled and attempted to hold in my laughter, “Did I see what love?”

She took a huge breath and began speaking at the speed of light, “Did you see all the pirate ships anchored in the docks?”

I was immediately confused, “Aurie? What on earth are you talking about?”

Aureliana rolled her eyes and said, “How could you have not seen them?”

I laughed, “Look out the window. I cannot see the docks from this blasted Palace”

She ran to the window, disappointed, “Don’t you ever leave?”

I smiled, “Have you met my father?”

She laughed, “Oh how could I have forgotten…”

“You can have all you want in the world right here button in the Palace of Versailles”, we imitated through fits of laughter.

I sighed, “The only time I leave this ole palace is when we are off traveling the world, yet even then, I am not allowed to leave wherever the location that we are staying”

Aureliana frowned a little, “He never used to be this unbearable. Only after the passing of your mother has he acted this way”

 

My mother, Queen Evangeline, was, in my opinion, the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. The dark, radiant tone of her skin, the natural loose curls in her hair falling below her waist on those rare occasions when she let her hair down in the palace, her light brown, sparkling eyes with a hint of green… my father was a lucky man. Six years ago, when I was barely ten years old, my mother left France, Daddy said something about expanding trade partners with other countries. At the time, that did not make any sense and when I think about it now, it still doesn’t make any sense. The Queen would never handle trade relations; shouldn’t Daddy’s advisor Christophe handle ambiguous matters as such?

 

Aureliana looked at me and apologized, “Oh Cedelle, I am terribly sorry for bringing up memories like that, we will simply abide by your father’s wishes”

I burst out laughing, “Really Aureliana?” I said trying to control my laughter, “You could never follow the rules even if you wanted to”

Aurie smiled, “You always seem to know when I am lying!”

I giggled, “Perhaps because I have known you since the day you were born”

Aurie stuck out her tongue, “Oh hush! We are only three days apart!”

“Yes, and a lovely 72 hours it was before you came along”, I teased

Aurie teased back, “Lovely? Not in the least bit. Western Europe was desolate until I graced this continent with my presence”

I laughed, “I love you to death Aurie!”

Aurie smiled, “I will love you beyond death Cedelle”

“Amidst this spontaneous outcry of love”, I continued, “I say we celebrate!”

Aurie played along with my silliness, “And how shall we celebrate oh love of my life?”

I looked at Aurie and said, “We shall escape!”

Aurie looked extremely confused, “We shall do what?!”

I smirked, “Escape. Escape this very palace that binds me to obedience. I will be sixteen in a fortnight, practically an adult, mature enough to go out on my own!”

Aurie was uncertain, “Cedelle we cannot do something so risqué! What if we get caught? It will break your father’s heart”

I pondered for a millisecond, “Then it is simple. We will not get caught! Aureliana, you do not realize, I have never explored the country of France, my nation. Someday I will rule this very state, but I have never seen it at all. How on earth can I become Queen when I have never seen or heard a complaint from a peasant? All I have seen of this beautiful world is palace after palace, ocean wave after ocean wave and maybe an occasional seagull if I am lucky! My life is halfway over and I have not lived!”

Aurie began jumping on my bed, “We are going to escape! We are going to escape!”

I smiled through my new feeling of nervousness, “We will implement my escape plan, the night before my birthday”

Aurie grinned from ear to ear, “Pinky swear?”

I held up my pinky in uncertain agreement, “Pinky swear.”

 

You all will be amazed just how fast a fortnight is. To me, it felt like the blink of an eye, not even a long blink at that. In the back of my mind, I had secretly hoped and prayed that Aureliana would completely fail to remember my impulsive, rash, rebellious celebration. But of course she did not. As every single day passed she would say something like, “Eight more days until our escape”. At first I was excited to finally disobey Daddy this one time, but when Aureliana whispered, “We escape tonight at the stroke of midnight”, my head raced for reasons to back out of this insane plan. The time on the grand clocks in the palace ticked slowly, but I knew that every second was one second closer to midnight. At 11 o’ clock I began freaking out and pacing frantically in my room.

Aureliana slipped into my room and laughed, “I knew you would not be able to go through with it, despite that lovely speech you gave a fortnight past”

I tried to stop hyperventilating, “I do not know if I can do it Aurie. How on earth do you get away with such things?”

Aurie thought for a moment and said, “Well truthfully, I was bending the truth a bit”

I stood up from the corner in my room, “You have never snuck out of the Royal Palace”

“NOPE!” Aurie grinned

I took a deep breath, “Let’s do this! We have been perfect, unblemished princesses for too long now; it is time to me mischievous and maybe a bit naughty.”

Aureliana began to clap, “There is the Cedelle I know and love”

 

I smiled and pulled Aureliana to my floor length mirror. Staring back at us were two beautiful princesses, I with a small braid across the top of my head with my hair held up by a white ribbon which complemented my wispy baby pink and lace gown and my white pearl necklace that I never take off. Aureliana dawned a similar up-do as me, except her hair was decorated with several small dark green bows, the same shade of green as her corseted gown.

Aureliana giggled, “There is no way we can go out looking like this!”

I frowned, “Well why not?”

Aureliana looked at me like I was crazy, “Do you want the entire province to know that the Princess of France and the Princess of Spain are out frolicking the countryside?”

“I understand, but how will we disguise ourselves?”, I wondered as Aureliana was busy ripping out all of the hair pins and ribbons intricately placed into her hair.

Aureliana laughed, “Why are you simply standing there? We have less than a half of an hour before the clock strikes”

I began let down my hair, “What will we be wearing? All I have are dresses similar to the one that I am wearing”

Aureliana was puzzled, “Goodness. I did not think about that, do you have any peasant clothes?”

My mouth dropped open, “Peasant wear? We are going to be peasants? I surely hope I lay down and die!”

Aureliana laughed, “Oh get yourself together. This is our once in a princess lifetime that we can do something like this!”

I smiled slipping out of my dress, “We could sneak down into the servant quarters and grab some of their clothes to wear”

Aureliana began to brush her hair, “Perfect! Excluding the fact that we are in our under garments, we look just like peasants!”

I laughed, grabbing the brush, “I truly believe we are by far the prettiest peasants!”

“Wait!” Aureliana cried out as she ran towards her belongings

I turned around quickly and waited for her to explain her outcry

Aureliana showed me a small container of red stuff, “Its rouge! My parents would not dare by me any, so I simply had to beg my servants to purchase some for me”

I was confused, “So, what does it do exactly?”

Aureliana smiled and applied some on my cheeks, “It brings out the redder tones in your skin” She turned me to the mirror, “see?”

I grinned and begged for more rouge but Aureliana put her hand over my mouth and whispered, “Let’s go.”

 

That first step into the night, with our “new” attire, was absolutely terrifying. The chilly fall air was setting in. We walked towards the currently inactive fountain outside of the entrance to the palace.

I smiled, “You can hardly recognize us!” I said wearing a long white linen dress with a loose black corseted fit that barely hit my knees.

Aureliana squealed, “This is going to be a night we will never forget!” as she began dancing in a pale blue frock that flowed with her every movement

I lightly hit Aureliana, “Could you keep it down? We have guards with artillery ready to shoot if they hear anything with a heartbeat!”

Aureliana laughed, “That’s why I say we leave at midnight. When the clock strikes twelve, it will ring twelve times, which exactly enough time for us to run from this fountain to the entrance of the palace”

My heart fluttered and performed a few backflips, “Once the clock strikes, we can never turn back”

 

Aureliana grabbed my hand and we took off as soon as the clock rang at the stroke of midnight in our finest boots, too fine for a peasant to even dream of. Running as fast as we could, we reached the Main Gate by the fourth ring of the Grand Clock Tower.

I shook the gate as hard as I could, “Its sealed shut! There is no possible way to open the gate without the strength of ten men!”

Aureliana smiled, “Then we will simply have to jump the fence”

I began to panic as the Grand Clock Tower rang the seventh time, “How on earth are we going to jump the fence, even the shallowest part is at least 10 feet tall”

Aureliana laughed, “I was kidding!” She began pushing all of the imprisoning bars of the fence, “Since we cannot jump over the fence, nor slither under the fence, we must go through the fence”

I watched her as she kept her focus on one bar on the far left of the enormous gate, “May I ask what you are doing?”

Aureliana called me over, “Look. This bar is the loosest one, if we can remove it, we can escape”

I was overjoyed at the growing prospect of our escape. At the tenth ring, we removed the faulty bar. At the eleventh ring, we held our breath and slid through the gates. At the twelfth ring, we placed the bar in its rightful place and ran off into the night.