Chapter 128: Escape from home
It was cool all around him, a kind of coolness that was somehow making his surroundings lighter and more pleasant.
The night sky which was slowly preparing for dawn, flooding its darkening with a weak light and shades of blue, while maintaining the thousand golden little stars in its last moments.
The weak wind blew towards Rudolph, slowly and delicately carrying the salty and maritime smell of the sea to his nostrils.
The young lord could see the bubbling and soft waves descending on the beach, on the sand and getting lost in the damp ground.
Rudolph pulled more towards his face the hood of the black cloak that he wore on his precious jacket, pulled it further down, partially but delicately covering the numerous soft and puffy dark red hair.
It was hard to keep his face hidden when the wind, however faint it might be, kept pushing his hair against his forehead, on his face.
He took a lock of his hair, held it tightly between his fingers, they had grown in those times, he had never let his hair cut and in that moment they were growing until they reached his grey eyes.
Rudolph soon understood that it was appropriate to carry out that task for himself, once he had the opportunity to reach his home, his real home.
The boy waited, in those last hours of the night.
The noises of cicadas and owls were no longer to be heard.
The flaccid, white and weary plumage of the barn owl was no longer to be seen in the sky.
The young lord waited patiently for the ship, a means of transport which he himself had ordered to be procured by his attendants.
He had procured himself one-way ticket to Scotland with the money he had secretly stolen from the Dallas family.
Rudolph knew very well that stealing was not a good thing but he also knew the respect for priorities was essential.
He knew very well about the war that would begin in weeks and he knew his father, Baron Juniper Whiteblossom, would personally take part in that.
He felt the need to reach the fortress where he had grown up for one last time, to be able to see it again from the inside, to caress the walls that had always kept him safe and more than anything else to say goodbye to the person who had allowed the young man a good life.
Rudolph looked back, behind him, took a last look at the residence of his maternal family, the magnificent and majestic high hill, directly on the sea, the lights of the mansion were completely off, it was a good sign, this meant that no one at that moment had realised the boy was missing.
The young lord did not want to spread rumours about his disappearance, he did not want it, he knew within his heart that his grandparents and his aunt would certainly try to stop him.
But he could not allow anyone to find out about the "alleged" and spontaneous disappearance of him, he could not allow it at least until he was on a boat, off the sea.
Then he would have turned for the last time towards the residence that had welcomed him at that time, he would have seen how the thousand lights of the noble house had desperately turned on, he would have heard the voices of the attendants calling for their "young lord".
The prospect of having to disappoint his own family made him seemingly sad but by now the young man had almost reached the age of fifteen and in his head he had begun to develop quite evident thoughts.
He would have reached his goal at any cost and in that act he would have used all his commitment.
Rudolph was at that moment standing on the humid and golden sand of the beach, which, obscured by the still nocturnal sky, took on a blurred brown colour mixed with a mustard yellow tone.
His boots, the hard soles had partially sunk into the soft, grainy, moist ground.
The light hood of the precious cloak that the young lord wore on his shoulders soon fell from his head, thus leaving the young man's swollen and numerous red hair free to move slowly in the light wind.
He felt the salinity of the sea rising from his nostrils together with the strong and somehow sweetish smell of the many black and dark green algae that were sometimes dragged ashore by the foaming waves.
Rudolph bent slowly on his knees, on the other hand he had to somehow pass the time that separated him from his escape so he managed to reach with his fingers a stick, smelly and dampened by the wet and slowly began to push it back and forth on the sand, drawing shapes.
He was already thinking about what he would accomplish once there, he would act as it was his job to do, as it always had been, as the young man had been taught during his childhood.
He would finally be the young lord his father had always dreamed of, his worthy heir, a grown boy who had at a young age learned to put his feelings aside.
He would carry out the role of regent until his father returned from the war: Scotland needed a form of government and could not in any way let it be overwhelmed by anarchy.
Rudolph strangely and uncomfortably felt the touch of something really small and wet on his hand, he felt the air go out and enter it.
He slowly moved his hand, as his deep, large grey eyes rested cautiously and partially fearfully at his side, just where he had felt that sensation in some strange sense.
He turned his gaze and on the beach, directly beside his body, he could see the small, light, hairy body of a fox.
It had smelled his hand, what courage must that little being have? It was usually known to him that small predators did not dare to get so close to humans in any way.
That little fox seemed different from the other ones, it didn't seem to fear him, it didn't seem to care much about its own future, as knowledge and curiosity seemed to have taken hold of it for a few minutes.
Obviously when the young lord had moved his hand the little animal had immediately retreated a few steps but strangely it did not seem to want to leave him alone.
Yet it was strange to see a fox directly on the beach, above the sand, that was not their natural habitat, they belonged to the forest, in the wild, where the trees and the grass were but certainly not the sea.
That curious little predator with the majestic and puffy red fur seemed to keep moving its little black nose towards the boy, it seemed to smell something about him that particularly interested it.
Rudolph immediately noticed how on the side of the animal's belly the fur was remarkably flaccid and elongated, he imagined that that poor animal was nothing more than a mother who had come to him to beg for food for its little ones.
The boy placed one of his hands inside the pockets of his precious trousers, touched with his fingers one of the pieces of bread and dried meat that he had hidden there to keep it during the journey.
He took that, broke the crust and part of the crumb, putting it all next to a piece of dried meat, took it slowly inside his cold hands and without thinking twice pulled it slowly towards the animal.
As a first reaction the fox wanted to make sure that this was not a trap of the boy, it observed the food with its big green eyes, smelled it for a few seconds and slowly began to eat from it.
The young man smiled, he understood that that poor creature must be hungry and from a certain point of view he appreciated the courage that it had had in getting so close to him.
-Rudolph! Rudolph!- a worried voice soon reached the boy making him almost jump on his own body and nimbly making the small predator with the bright red fur flee with food, quickly into the darkness.
The young lord raised his face at the source of that noise, obviously he recognised it and on one side the knowledge saddened him, from the fact that he already knew his plan would soon be lost.
The woman reached the boy as quickly as possible, her warm arms were about to embrace the young lord, to give him a few last moments of warmth and familiarity before his departure.
Her hands soon dipped into his hair, caressed it, caressed his skin, gave the boy's swollen and wavy hair some sense of order and comfort.
Rudolph blushed, his face had been directly pushed next to the shoulder of the woman who was embracing him at that moment, he felt the woman's body in front of him and it gave him a common sense of discomfort.
-Rudolph, for God's sake, can you explain to me what jumped into your mind? To escape like this, in the middle of the night, suddenly...- he knew his aunt would never let her own nephew leave the house, not in those dangerous circumstances so the explanations were more difficult for the young lord.
The woman's hands clenched tightly and quickly to the boy's jacket, weakly pinched his own skin.
The young lord sensed she had seen the ship coming, he sensed she knew what this meant, she knew almost with certainty her nephew had something to do with all this she was sure.
-Rudolph...explain to me, what does all this mean?- Dorothea's voice soon took on a stammer, a mixture of anger, anxiety and fear that she could hardly express in words.
A second time the young man did not dare to open his mouth against the woman, he wondered why all this was happening in that moment.
Had he done some evil deed that the world had decided it was worth paying for or was it simply the universal rule that every action of him had an equally opposite reaction?
The soft and smooth hair of the woman lightly touched his face, it was a strange feeling, it was familiar and it was what the young man had never had the opportunity to feel in his life.
-Aunt, I am sorry to have to inform you in this way but I'm leaving, on a one-way trip to the baronage of Scotland-.
The woman was perplexed for a few moments, Rudolph understood that reaction, he understood everything was new to her and he also knew very well that it would be her reaction that hurt him most of all.
-Rudolph, you're kidding I hope- Dorothea begged, laughing slightly, almost hysterically -I can't let you, my nephew leave such a safe place to end your young life in such a way…-.
The boy turned to the woman, he had to go, leave, follow his destiny, all this was not right and he knew it but he had to resist temptation, he was young and stubborn, his goal was all he aspired to at that moment.
He felt the sand weakly break into a thousand other small grains under the soles of his own shoes, he turned his back to the woman, that was not home, at least not for him and he could not bear to lose another person he loved.
The woman's body opposed him, firmly grabbed the boy's wrists, pushed them upwards.
-Rudolph! What's wrong with you?- he heard the first tears in that voice, the first sobs, he gritted his teeth, why must everything have been so difficult for him?
-We have given you everything a young person of your age could wish for, you have had a home, food, education and you have always been loved by all of us, why only now do you have to behave like this?-.
Rudolph burst into his emotions at that point, he felt the woman's grip tighten more and more on his wrists, until it hurt.
-I can't live in a house that I can't call home, I tried but I've never been able to lie-.
-This place is calm, it is safe for you, young lord, what do you think your father might say if he saw you? -.
Rudolph lingered, his father, what would he have said when he saw him? Who would he blame? To himself, to the boy and to his guardian who hadn't carefully enough kept control over him.
-And what would my mother say if she could see me?- Rudolph ventured gritting his teeth together, looking down like a snarling dog protecting his own marked space from a possible contender.
At that statement he felt the grip of the woman's hands loosen on his wrists, finish the long pain, slide delicately along his arms, up to the elbows of the boy until it slipped.
He had brought Abigail into it and knew after her death, the subject of the deceased lady had never appealed to his own family, not so much when it was mixed up in a fight.
-You'd better not put with your mother in all this- his aunt warned him with caution.
-You are the reason why my mother died, you are always looking for peace and some remedy, yes, but you never find the solution somewhere! Peace and quiet does not protect you! It never will- the boy admitted thus releasing from his heart all the anger he had accumulated in those months of waiting.
He suddenly felt a burning sensation on his right cheek, it was unexpected, it stung, it was not pleasant physically or spiritually.
A slap was never pleasant, not so much because of the physical pain but because it was so full of negative emotional meanings, that it hit young Rudolph all of a sudden.
He knew immediately that he had not checked the words that came out of his mouth, not having examined the pain they carried inside them and that he had possibly brought to the woman.
Rudolph could hear her crying now, sobbing, he felt her tears falling on the sand, thus getting lost in the arrows and foaming waves of the sea.
He perceived the big and deep brown eyes of the woman lost in her hands, closed as a sign of protection, he should not have mentioned his mother, it was true, this mistake would have cost him to leave the island with a heart full of remorse and regrets. .
-You can leave if you want, get on that boat Rudolph and I'm sorry I failed my task as your guardian, I'm sorry I didn't make you happy, I'm sorry...-.
The young lord placed one of his cold hands on the woman's shoulders before finally leaving Dorothea alone in her despair, before setting sail and once and for all leaving his past behind himself.
-It's not your fault...- he admitted -sometimes in this world there are things that not even we ourselves are capable of explaining- these were the boy's last words.
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