Prince Mallory wanted to disappear, therefore it was no wonder that his path brought him to the depth of Cozy Forest. He was the prince of Castle Bartack, on the edge of Cozy Forest. His mother, Queen Gardenia, was of advancing age and not immune to diseases, small and big. While the castle’s mage cast spells, after spells to keep her on the throne, the ministers prepared for the future of Bartack. Up until recently, this future was heralded by Prince Dufferio, Mallory’s eldest brother. For a year now, villagers, merchants, soldiers, ministers and even Queen Gardenia, have been referring to Prince Dufferio as King Dufferio, but never in front of him - it would not have been proper. Only Prince Mallory called his brother King Dufferio to his face, and it was glad of it. Glad and proud. Dufferio was a good man, he would make a good king to reign over the one thousand subjects of Castle Bartack. Mallory would remain a prince, a good one; one who had the merchants’ ear, the tanners’ eye, the blacksmiths’ hand and the miller’s nose. Everyone in Castle Bartack liked Mallory and Mallory liked everyone.

Everything was fine until it wasn’t anymore. Mallory’s cozy and uneventful future went up in smoke, when prince Dufferio suddenly fell victim to consumption. A virus, a bad seed or a malevolent herb, no one knew for sure, had infected his body and turned his lungs into ash. The poor prince who was meant to be king could hardly breathe without the assistance of a powerful spell. It was not only a powerful but a very costly one; one the castle treasurer regretted to inform Queen Gardenia they would not be able to afford for very long. And so, involontarily and without malice, all eyes of the castle turned to the next in line: Prince Mallory.

The first time Prince Mallory felt the weight of the glances glued to his back, wherever he went, he knew: he would never be able to support it. He never had to vocalize it before, because it was never in question, but now that he felt the wind of change rising, it became obvious to Mallory that he never wanted to be king. He wasn’t born to rule and make difficult decisions for the sake of the realm his peers and people would not understand. Mallory was born to make people happy by giving them what they wanted, not what they needed. The distinction was what separated him from the throne. He didn’t want it, so he fled.

Saying goodbye to the Queen was too dangerous. Mallory could have gone to her chambers in the night to deposit a kiss on her cheeks, but he would have to make sure she was asleep and nothing was certain on that front. Queen Gardenia had always been a light sleeper. Her recent run of bad health had done nothing but making her sleep more erratic. If she saw him coming to her chambers, she would know, just by looking at him, what he was up to; and she would never allow it. She wouldn’t let Mallory leave Castle Bartack, even if she had to chain him to the throne. So Mallory gave up on visiting his mother for a last kiss. Instead, he put all his love and affection for the queen in a letter that he sealed and left at the foot of his bed. He wrote a letter for his brother too, not because he was afraid Prince Dufferio would retain him, but because Mallory simply couldn’t face seeing his brother is such a dilapidated state. Dufferio was a force of nature. A good man. A man born to rule, not to spit his lungs and breathe fire, his back arched like an old man when he was not even twenty, unable to run or lift anything heavy. No. Mallory would not keep this image of Dufferio for the rest of days. He will remember his brother as the strong man who would be king.

The only person Mallory visited on his way out of Castle Bartack was his sister: Princess Gardenia. She had been given her mother’s name.

“You will make a fine queen,” Mallory told her.

He had found her in her nightgown, writing at her desk under a single candlelight. She was fifteen but she had an old soul. She was wise, albeit quiet and on the weaker side physically. She often caught at least three colds every winter. Last winter had been no different. In fact, she was still barely recovering from her last illness. She welcomed Mallory without surprise. When he announced his departure from Castle Bartack forever, she neither expressed happiness nor misery. She let her brother kiss him on the forehead and she hugged him back. She did not say a word.

Mallory wasn’t particularly smart, but he was cunning, and he had a gift: he learned from his mistakes. Once, when he was a child, he had an urge to explore the world. So he snuck inside the cart of a cabinetmaker, hiding under a canvas in between two damaged wine barrels. He didn’t make it past the first relay point before getting caught; which, in itself, was not a problem. Mallory expected to get caught, at some point. But he also expected to be smooth enough to talk his way into either continuing the journey with the cabinetmaker, or simple being debarked and left on his own devices. What he did not expect was to get handcuffed and brought back to Castle Bartack faster than the wind could blow.

What had gone wrong there? It hadn’t been something Mallory had said; he was what he wore that day. In preparation for this journey to the unknown, little Prince Mallory had packed food, money and basic tools in the only bag he could find: a gold-strapped black leather satchel. And what did the prince wear that day? His best traveling apparel: shiny leather boots, his green cross-linen ensemble and his wolf coat to keep him warm. Nobody else than a king or the son of a king dressed like that.

The cabinetmaker, probably because he wanted to keep his business with the castle, had brought the little runaway child to his parents, and incidentally collected a fat reward for his good deed.

The next time I go on adventure, I will steal the butcher’s clothes. Not the butcher’s clothes but the butcher’s apprentice clothes.

This next time did not happen, until today, a fine night of spring. The butcher’s shop was closed by the time Mallory put his plan into action, but the luthier wasn’t. And it just happened that the master luthier had recently taken a new apprentice who, although he was three years younger than Mallory, was about the same built and size.

Mallory entered the luthier’s shop armed only with his optimism and his desire to relinquish his title and throne. He had no weapons to threaten the luthier’s apprentice, nor money to bribe his master with. So, finding himself face to face with both men, he simply said: “I need your clothes.”

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The apprentice was understandably surprised. “My Lord, my clothes? These clothes?” He pulled at the dusty rag he wore over his torso.

“Yes. Or… some clean ones, if you have.”

“Clean? My clothes are only ever clean when I leave the laundry. I don’t have any other clothes. But I’ve got plenty of aprons, if you need, my prince.”

“Aprons?”

The master luthier nodded.

“Do they cover the full body? Show me. Please,” he quickly added, because he did not want to be disrespectful.

The master luthier picked up one of the apron hanging on a wall by a hook and handed it to Mallory. The apron had been used. White chalk smeared the top. Mallory slipped it own and let out a “ah!” of excitation when he saw that the apron covered his legs up to the ankles.

“It’s perfect! Can I keep this?”

“Of course, my prince. Would you need anything else?”

Mallory patted his bare shoulder and his forehead. “How about a cape? Would you have something like this, that I could wear?”

Now the master looked less enclined to oblige. He hesitatingly reached for his own cape, resting on the back of his chair and offered it to the Prince. “You are welcome to borrow mine, for the night, if you please. It’s a warm night, I should be okay without it.”

“Yes, it’s going to be a warm year, I hear.” Mallory tied the cape around his neck, lowered the hood and made for the exit. “So long!”

He left behind two men flabbergasted, not knowing what to make of the Prince intrusion and requisition.

The rest of the evening was spent letter-writing and stripping all the gold and silver out of Mallory’s favorite satchel. Then Mallory packed up all the food he had in his chambers, mostly fruits and cooked carrots and parsnips on sticks, and dressed himself into the night. With the black cloak the luthier had lent him, and a black scarf he had, he had the perfect camouflage attire to scurry through the dark halls of the castle.

As inexperienced as Mallory was in infiltration and spy-like exit, he embraced the experience without fear or hesitation. He knew every room, every corridors, every spiral staircase of the castle like the back of his hand. And he also knew which part of the castle were guarded at night and which were not. Once he safely made his way down to the kitchen, he could make his way to the backyard where he would just have to wait for the next bread delivery to hop in at the back of the cart and let himself transported to whichever town or hamlet this baker would take him.

This was a sound plan. It would have been, if the kitchens had been empty. But as much as Prince Mallory knew about Castle Bartack and its people, he ignored that a castle’s kitchen never went to sleep. Even in the darkest hour of the night, three early risers, or late sleepers, were stirring giant pots of soup, cleaning up dishes and putting away crates of produce.

Mallory stumbled into the kitchen full of confidence, ignoring the light he’d seen from the corridor, thinking it came from outside, one of those torches that burned all night to guide the delivery carts. When he got inside, some spring in his step, and found himself face to face with a cook he’d never seen before, one with a large head and not a single hair, not even eyebrows, Mallory froze.

“Hello, my Lord.” The cook greeted Prince Mallory as if a late night intrusion was a daily occurrence. “Have you come for a late snack?” His eyes fell on the peach threatening to fall off from Mallory’s satchel. “I see you already have your share of fruits. Would you…” The cook looked around as if the rest of his question was written on the wall somewhere in this kitchen. His eyes locked on the giant marmite slow-cooking on the hearth. “Soup? Can I offer you some soup?”

“N-no, thank you. Thank you, my good, sir.”

“My lord?”

“I’m just out for a stroll, really. I could use a… is the breadman here already?”

“The baker?” By now the two other kitchen assistants had been alerted of Prince Mallory’s presence. They both came to respectfully and quietly greet their lord and potential future king. “No signs of the baker yet?” He asked his two colleagues.

One of the kitchen help was only a young woman, one Mallory had often seen around, during service, or laundry duties or other menial tasks. The presence of their prince in their own little sanctuary, at this hour, was so unexpected, it made her incredibly nervous. “The-huh-n-na-na-no, no, no, sir. S’rry my lord. I’m terribly s’rry.”

“What for?”

The hairless cook came to her rescue. “We’re not expecting the baker for another hour, sir. They’ve been coming in a bit later, lately.”

“Oh, that’s alright, then. I’ll… let see…” Quick. I need to find something to say. Let’s grab some food for them, anything to justify my coming here, and let’s get out here. Soup? Not practicable for transport. “Anything on a stick? Something, you know, cooked and… preferably delicious?”

“Sticks?” Again, the hairless cook scanned the room for the answer. “Got some chicken liver leftovers. I can put a few on a stick for you?”

“Chicken liver you say? I never heard of that. Didn’t know we serve any?”

The hairless cook facepalmed himself. The other two cowered as if they’d just insulted the king to be. The hairless cook lost himself in an apology that went way above Mallory’s head, who was focusing on only one thing: getting out of there. “No, we don’t, my Lord. I’m so sorry. It’s this late hour you see. I’m really not supposed to be here, but Frederick hasn’t shown up yet, and I really can’t let Livia or Jon watch over our pots. You understand, my Lord?”

“What were you saying about chicken liver?”

“We don’t serve kitchen liver. I mean: chicken liver. It’s just, you know, help’s rations. I would never make the affront of serving such a rudimentary dish to my Lord. Please forgive me.”

“No, actually, that’s sound ideal. Weird, but ideal. I’ll have some of that kitchen liver, help’s rations, whatever you call it. Put it on a stick, and I’ll be on my own. It’s getting early, or late, and I really must be going.”

“You heard the prince,” said the hairless cook and the two helpers rushed to prepare Mallory’s request. “Should I… I mean, if you wanted bread, should I have a small basket of fresh bread sent up to your chambers?”

Mallory hadn’t heard the hairless cook. His eyes were riveted on the odd red meat squares and triangles the girl named Livia was stacking on a metal stick. The spices from the chicken liver stick hit the prince’s nostrils from across the kitchens. What the hell is this thing? Who eats this? Is this even edible? As he picked up the meat stick from Livia’s dish she displayed the chicken liver stick on, Mallory watched with disgust the smooth skin of the main cook. It was completely devoid of any hair. Will this weird meat make me lose my hair and look like this man? Mallory pulled on his curly dark hair. No way. I’m out of here.

“Thank you.” He ran past Livia to exit the kitchen by the loading bays. “I must be going. Thanks for the stick, and please, you have not seen me. I’m not here. I never was here. I’m not even hungry.”

Mallory jumped off the loading bay platform and ran to the backyards gates, which were always left wide open. He ran, not like a man going on a midnight stroll, but like a thief chased by Castle Bartack’s hounds.

Once he crossed the backyard gates, he was officially out of the castle. The valley ahead was dark, and the forest nearby even darker. The only light came from the castle. Here and there a candle burned in a private chamber or a corridor. Loud chatter reached the prince’s ears all the way from the kitchen. He was cooked. Mallory knew it. He sensed it. These people were already waking up half of the castle to tell them about his escape. If I stick to the road, they’ll pick me up in no time. He looked east, at the tall trees of Cozy Forest calling up to him. The night wind softly rustled through the long and leafy branches of the countless trees. “Come, Mallory. Come to us,” they said. “We will hide you. We will make you disappear. Forever.”

Mallory ran to Cozy Forest.