Prompt from
Surria: ”After a violent thunderstorm, a man finds a rain-soaked diary among the debris in his yard.”
He looks at it for a moment before he picked it up. The red book was soaked but something in it called out to him anyway, asking him to open it and find out what secrets it held inside. Walking back to the house with it and into the kitchen, he ran his hand over it and took some mud away from the front of it while he didn’t care about his own expensive boots being soaked in mud, the mud stains on the floor was something the servants would tend to in the morning. The young man read the front of the book and the words “My deepest secrets” were stamped on it with golden letters.
He placed the diary on the kitchen sink and took a piece of paper to wipe it off a bit better. He slowly opened it and looked at the first page. It seemed to be the diary of his great great great grandmother, her deepest secrets of her life as a peasant being lifted to royal blood just by her looks. Apparently she had made the prince fall to his knees by her beauty, at least according to the hear-say which had gone through his family in what it seemed to be an eternity.
The man opened up the first soaked page and began to read the hand written lines of ink which seemed to be perfectly swirled to the letters the young woman had created with her hand.
“1365 October third, Sunday.
Today is the last day as a free woman. Tomorrow I will be forced to wed the prince who is anything but kind. He has a reputation among the people to be ruthless and he doesn’t stop until he gets what he wants. Somehow I caught his eye and I dread in horror for what the rest of my life may hold if I am forced to marry this man. What will happen to Oscar then? My beloved Oscar… Mother says I should take the chance to become royal so I can change things and make the situation with the peasants better, bring more food to the tables and less taxes. What worries me is that I’m not sure if I will be able to make the prince change such things, the king certainly won’t listen since he’s already upset that his son didn’t choose the noble ladies he sent for to wed him.”
The young man was horrified. She didn’t fall in love and marry him with joy at heart like the family stories had told so many generations before him? He took two steps back while holding the book. A chair which stood behind him soon supported his sitting body while the book fell to rest on the kitchen table. He shook his head and flicked a few pages forward in the diary.
“1366, February sixteenth, Wednesday.
What am I to do? The prince has become violent and refuses to speak to me after the forced wedding night. Apparently he didn’t expect me to become pregnant so quickly either and I have begun to fear for my baby and myself because the doctor has told us that we are not allowed to bed during this time and the prince clearly isn’t approving of this, he doesn’t care if the child dies or not. He has already forced himself upon me several times. If the Queen mother leaves I’m not sure I can be able to sleep without one eye open, she has truly been a friend through this marriage. Apparently she was taken to the royal chair the same way I did. Could I choose I would sleep alone and not with my forced husband. This diary will be hidden well and away from his eyes which makes be believe he is possessed by the devil himself. May I not give birth to his spawn if that is the case. God be with me.”
The man couldn’t believe his eyes. Had his great great grandfather been conceived via some kind of rape during the wedding night? He couldn’t breathe. The terror he felt in his heart as the truth sank in was numbing, it was like his lungs couldn’t provide any oxygen to his body no matter how desperately it needed it.
How could he move on with his royal title after these secrets had been revealed to him? How his relatives had been carrying this title with honor while hiding what had truly transpired behind their backs? Or didn’t his great great great grandmother tell them what really happened? … the questions were many and he had no one to ask but the red book with the golden letters which he held in his hands… the question was… did he want to know more?
_____________________________________
Amount of words (spaces not included) 797.