Brotherly Love - 5. Chapter 5

Meat. There was no meat. He hadn’t been given any meat for a few months now, all because of those Saradominist priests and their beliefs that meat stirred up inappropriate thoughts and desires in men. Meat had been the cause of his defect and why imprisonment, along with beating and torturing, had not been as effective as they had hoped. What surprised Edward was that the old King believed those evil cultists. Desperate people would believe anything. Then the order came that he was not to be given any meat, and now he wanted it all the more.

It is funny what religion does to its followers. It allows them to shift the blame, responsibility and explanation to some higher being, and it gives them blind faith that the future would work out just right for them, as long as they believed. With their belief, they can commit atrocities in the name of their god without any conscience or regret, similar to that of a madman, totally convinced they are doing the right thing. They can do frightening things to people, in their god’s name, end lives, and at the end, feel nothing. They do it because their god tells them to and therefore it must be right. The religion stops them questioning their beliefs. Like a disease, the religions spread their beliefs like dark tentacles in the world, using their believers as puppets and instruments against other religions and non-believers. My god is real and yours is not. It is as if they waged war against the rest of humanity and they will not rest until the world is united under one banner, and everyone believes in the one religion, the one denomination. Until then they must keep faith and spread the word. Their goal for a better society is through the unification of all human minds.

Some religions survive this never-ending war, and some don’t. It depends on their teachings. As long as most of their beliefs and moral values ‘make sense’, people will believe them. The teachings need to tap at the morality already existed within the conscience of mankind. Why else at the heart of all religions is a sense of unity and compassion between its followers? And who will want to believe a religion that encourages killing and nastiness between its followers, unless enforced by fear, or that a relationship between a man and a woman is damned? All religions are just trying to survive, notably by pleasing the majority. The minority, like Edward, should be punished for thinking differently, and he must be broken.

There wasn’t much to do in the cell. Cold, hard concrete walls surrounded him on four sides, one of which had a steel gate where guards would come in twice a day and take him to the toilets, and it was through this gate that vegetarian dishes were delivered each day. It was a filthy cell that measured around ten metres by six, and he had it all to himself. He had long gotten used to the pungent smell coming from beneath (Edward presumed the sewer was leaking). On his side were a straw bed and a wooden stool. It was a very quiet cell. Here, at the very top of the prison tower, he could look down through a small opening onto the street and he saw people on the outside carry on without him. The children grew up on that street under his nose, but they never knew he was there watching them. His cell was surrounded by a magical barrier introduced by the priests a few years ago, so no sound could get out. Loneliness and exclusion from the world might help their cause too. All these – the lack of entertainment in the cell, the sound barrier, the meat-free diet and the filthy cell condition – were the priests’ attempts to break him until he confessed his love to a woman, any woman, and they had failed. It had been five years, and he could not be broken, not by them. He was determined to live.

Would Edward have escaped on his own if he wanted to? He could start by answering his father’s letters instead of tearing them, lie his way through, get out of prison, kiss a woman on the lips and later revert back to his old ways when his father was dead. Then he could have his delicious revenge on the priests. He would have to act very convincingly, and first, he would have to break his lover’s heart. Of course, the priests knew that if Edward was ever allowed to be released, their religion, all religions, would be banished from the kingdom as soon as he became king. They would be trying to keep him in. Besides, the King had always taught Edward to stay true to himself, and if there must be a battle, he should win it in an honourable manner. To take the easy way out would have conveyed that he could not endure the trial. He knew he had done nothing wrong and he needn’t apologise or lie to get out. He would be innocent until he ran away. He could sit here until guilt worked its magic. And, most of all, he thought he was enduring this all for Tyler.

At the sound of movement, his ears pricked up and a smile crept onto his face. He turned to face the corner just beneath the wooden stool where he believed the movement was and bent down to take a closer look. A rat, almost seven inches long, was moving cautiously towards a small piece of carrot Edward had placed there the night before. For a brief moment the rat’s eyes and Edward’s met. Without warning, the rat began to dash for the drain pipes. Edward threw himself forward, knocked over the wooden stool and went for the rat savagely. The rat dodged his fingers as though it knew what was coming. Both were lightning fast, but the rat was not fast enough. With his right hand, Edward trapped the rodent between his iron grip and yanked it away from the drain. The little animal squealed and bit his index finger, hard. Edward did not care. The frenzy of exercise numbed all kinds of pain. He could not be stopped now. He held the rat, gripped its flesh between his teeth, and in one savage swing tore it away from the animal. It was satisfying to hear the horrid scream that followed as his teeth once again tore through the rat’s skin, again biting into the back of the animal and again tasting blood. He felt the rat releasing his index finger, indicating it no longer wished to fight, but submit to its fate. This pleased Edward. It appeared that the rat was a she. Blood was spilt onto the floor and his white prison clothes. A sick satisfaction came over him as he realised he had just broken another’s will to live. As an act of kindness, he snapped her neck with his left hand and the rat was now still, and not breathing. It was a shame for the sport, his only entertainment in the cell, to come to an end. He sat down and drooled over the dead rat as the guards outside watched on with incredulity. Perhaps they didn’t realise that life had always been an ugly thing. To survive, all life must destroy other lives. It consumes itself. It was to destroy or be destroyed.

When he was done with the rat and eaten what was edible, he dropped the corpse onto the dinner tray which would soon be taken out by the guards and wiped his hands on the back of his trousers. Lunchtime was nearly over now. He walked over to the little opening in the wall and, although barred, it was his only contact with the outside world. If Tyler ever knew where they kept him, this was where they could meet. He would find a porch of grass to sit on and look up to the highest chamber in the tower, not saying a word. He would have to shout to have any chance of Edward catching what he said, but he wouldn’t want to draw unwanted attention. Edward knew that all letters addressed to him without the royal family stamp were confiscated and burnt, as ordered by the King, presumably to prevent Tyler sending in messages of encouragement. It would be romantic, Edward thought, if Tyler came every day, every lunchtime to sit on the grass, waiting for him. They would imagine what the other was saying, or thinking. It seemed almost pointless, for, how could they be sure that their imagination wasn’t clouded by self-serving thoughts and ideas? Edward could imagine Tyler saying, ‘I love you, always’. But that could be just wishful thinking and they were exactly the words he wanted to hear. What would Tyler have said, in reality, if he saw Edward killing that rat, and the man he loved had become a monster? Could he continue to love him still?

And, what happened to Tyler since that day? Maybe he kept his job, but it was more likely that he was fired and exiled too. Tyler would be trying to find him. But it had been five years. Edward was beginning to think that something terrible must have happened and he wasn’t there to protect Tyler from it.

But whose fault was it in the first place that saw him into this prison? His father’s for issuing that order, but most of all, Ronny’s, for telling his father something that was never in his place to disclose. He hated them all. He felt he had been too kind, too trusting, too lenient with his own family. When his mother suffered the brain injury he could have raised questions and challenged his father, denounced him publically, which he didn’t because he wanted to spare him his guilt. Everyone was silent at the time because Edward was silent, because Edward didn’t want to press the case. Ronny on the other hand was always so self-absorbed, even when Edward came to his rescue because other kids were picking on him, never did it occur to Ronny to say thank you. He was the kind of child who, when a present was given to him, would snatch and bag it as quickly as he could, uncertain if the offer had expired. A most ridiculous and selfish child. Ronny was always thinking about himself, always an expert when looking out for his own interests. He would never do anything for anyone but himself.

In that cell, without reading those letters from the King, it was impossible for Edward to know what happened to the palace since that day. He didn’t know that since his exile, the King was never seen smiling again, or that the Queen never recovered from the depression that followed, as she turned her back and gave her family the silent treatment, always waiting in her room, speaking to no one. Edward didn’t know that, never for a moment had Ronny been proud of what he had done. For five years, Ronny tormented himself, knowing he had committed a crime against his family, yet unable to confront the source, his brother, and unable to face up to the magnitude of his own stupidity. The palace was never the same again without Edward, and only Ronny knew that it was all his fault.

Discussing Edward’s disappearance, or at least the real cause of it, could face the death penalty. Edward was on a penguin expedition, the King claimed, and would not return until further notice. And the whole kingdom thought the frozen north was where their beloved heir to the throne went. For a year, everyone believed in the lie. But later, when dukes and duchesses began to withdraw their support, play absent in parties and events, the King slowly realised the lie was not so convincing after all. He would never reveal this secret or why he exiled Edward, as long as he still ruled. He hoped he would never have to. He became sick, his heart trapped by years of guilt, yet still too stubborn to admit he was wrong and revoke his decision. He sent letters to Edward, letters which Edward tore into pieces as soon as they came through. Why send letters when he could visit in person, if he truly cared? Nobody in the palace dared to confront the monster they made; nobody ever came for him, for five years. Nobody cared about him. To Edward, writing was for fools, and for cowards who want to evade the reality. Edward was not interested in what his father had to say in those letters. If he was truly sorry, he would come in person; if he was not, then he would not come. Since Edward never read those letters, nobody but the King knew of their contents. He might have pleaded Edward to change for the family and for the whole kingdom. Be the heir everyone wanted him to be. He might have asked if the solitude had made him rethink his life and past errors. He might have asked if he had done anything wrong to make Edward turn out the way he did.

But even if Edward had read those letters, his resolve would remain unchanged. He would rather burn in his hatred for those who put him inside, those who watched and did nothing as he fell. His hatred kept him alive all these years, so why should he stop now? And most of all, he made himself promise that he would never, ever forgive his brother’s mutiny. He wished he had snapped his brother’s neck in the same, easy way as he did to that rat, when he had the chance. His brother was the one who started it all. When Ronny was a child, Edward had loved him for all the wrong reasons. Then, he too was innocent, he too had so much to look forward to before Ronny ruined it all. There must have been one unfortunate occasion where Ronny had caught them together, behaving intimately. He was shocked, disgusted by the scene, or the concept of two boys kissing, and then went on to do the thing he did. Ronny was as bad as everyone else. And, just like everyone else, Ronny was a religious bigot, and unforgivable. No amount of words, spoken or written, would ever change his mind.