Chapter 4
1982 Words
The tires of the black SUV screeched against the gravel of the gas station, a jarring, metallic sound that shattered the fragile silence between the two brothers. Men in tactical gear, their faces obscured by the stern professionalism of the Royal Marechaussee, poured out of the vehicle before it had even fully stopped.
"Your Highness! Step away from the civilian!" the lead officer shouted, his hand hovering near his holster.
Floris didn't move. He remained anchored to the spot, his eyes locked on Teun’s. The air between them felt electric, thick with thirty years of unspoken history.
"Stand down!" Floris commanded, his voice ringing with a royal authority he rarely used. "He isn't a threat. He’s my brother."
The officers hesitated, their training clashing with the absurdity of the statement. To them, Teun was a giant in a flannel shirt, a rugged farmer who looked nothing like the polished Prince of Orange. But the resemblance in their eyes—that piercing, sapphire steel—was undeniable to anyone looking closely.
Teun, however, didn't feel like a Prince. He felt like an animal caught in a snare. The sight of the armed men, the black SUV, and the blonde stranger claiming to be his twin sent a wave of primal panic through him. Everything he knew—the farm, the "black gold" soil, the quiet nights in the keet—was being crushed under the weight of this royal circus.
"I don't know who you are," Teun rasped, his voice thick with the dialect of the Achterhoek. "And I don't care about your brother. Stay away from me."
"Teun, wait!" Aniek reached for his arm, but he pulled away.
"Get in the truck, Aniek," Teun commanded. He didn't look back. He scrambled into the driver's seat of his old pickup, the engine roaring to life with a defiant, smoky cough.
"Teun! Please!" Floris ran toward the truck, but the security detail intercepted him, physically holding him back.
"It’s for your safety, sir!"
Teun slammed the truck into gear, spraying gravel over the pristine black paint of the government SUV. He drove like a man possessed, tearing away from the station and disappearing into the maze of winding country roads. He needed to get home. He needed to find that box before Bram truly destroyed it. He needed to know if his entire life was a lie built by a man he called father.
Floris watched the dust settle, a devastating sense of loss washing over him. He had found him, and in the span of a minute, he had lost him again.
"Nice going, boys," Elisa snapped, crossing her arms as she stepped toward the officers. "You just scared off the most important person in Dutch history for 30 years. Hope you’re proud of your paperwork."
Noordeinde Palace
Back in The Hague, the palace was no longer a home; it was a command center. The disappearance of the Crown Prince had sent the monarchy into a tailspin.
King Willem Hendrik paced the length of the Private Study, the heels of his boots clicking sharply against the parquet floor. Every few seconds, he glanced at the wall of monitors where the security feeds were being scrutinized.
"How?" the King roared, turning to his head of security. "How does the future King of the Netherlands vanish from a palace guarded by the elite, in a car owned by a Duke’s daughter, without a single soul noticing until they were halfway to Gelderland?"
"They used the service tunnels, Sire," the officer replied, his face pale. "And Princess Elisa’s vehicle was not flagged in the automated gate system. It was... an oversight."
"An oversight is a missed comma in a decree!" the King bellowed. "This is a catastrophe!"
Queen Margriet sat in a high-backed chair by the fireplace, her hands trembling so violently that the tea in her porcelain cup was sloshing over the rim. Beside her, Saskia Van den Berg stood like a pillar of ice, her face a mask of composed fury.
"He’s gone to find him," Margriet whispered, her voice barely audible. "I felt it last night when he looked at that bootie. He wasn't looking at a relic, Willem. He was looking at a map."
"He’s being reckless," Saskia said, her voice clipped. "Floris has a responsibility to the State. To our engagement. He cannot simply chase ghosts into the countryside because of a drone and a waiter."
"It isn't a ghost, Saskia," the Queen said, finally looking up. Her eyes were red-rimmed. "It’s his brother. If there is even a shadow of a chance that Casper is alive, Floris would burn this palace to the ground to find him. Wouldn't you?"
Saskia didn't answer. Her loyalty was to the institution, to the crown she had been trained since birth to wear. The return of a lost twin—the older twin—wasn't a miracle to her; it was a constitutional nightmare.
The heavy oak doors swung open, and Princess Willemijn marched in. She didn't look worried; she looked exhilarated.
"The boy has spirit!" she announced, thumping her cane. "Finally, Floris has done something worth writing about. He’s gone to the Achterhoek. My sources say the Marechaussee just intercepted him at a gas station near Hummelo."
Willem Hendrik spun around. "Is he safe? Is he with them?"
"He’s safe," Willemijn said, her eyes glinting. "But he’s alone. Because the man he was talking to—the man who looked like your mirror image, Willem—fled the scene."
Margriet stood up so fast her chair tipped over. "He saw him? He actually saw him?"
"He saw a man the locals call Teun," Willemijn said. "A dairy farmer. A man who has lived thirty years in the dirt while we lived in the gold. And from what the officers reported... the resemblance is undeniable."
The King sank into his desk chair, the air leaving his lungs in a long, shaky sigh. The room went silent. The weight of twenty-nine years of grief, guilt, and unanswered questions seemed to settle on the King’s shoulders all at once.
"If it’s him," Willem Hendrik whispered, "if that farmer is Casper... then I have spent three decades allowing my son to be raised by someone else. I have failed as a King, and I have failed as a father."
"We don't know the truth yet," the King’s friend, Alexander Van den Berg, said as he entered the room, his face grim. "But my daughter is with him. Elisa is many things, but she is loyal. She’ll get Floris back."
"I don't want just Floris back," Margriet said, her voice gaining a sudden, fierce strength. "I want them both. Bring them both to the palace. Now."
The Farmhouse
Teun’s truck skidded into the farmyard, the tires throwing up clods of mud. He jumped out before the engine had even died and stormed into the house.
"Pa!" he yelled. "Bram! Where are you?"
He found Bram in the barn, standing by the robotic milker, staring blankly at the digital display. The old man looked smaller than he had this morning, as if the secret he was carrying was physically crushing his spine.
"The Prince was at the gas station, Pa," Teun said, walking right up to him. "He called me his brother. He had my face. Not exactly, but close enough to make my blood go cold. Tell me the truth. Now. No more stories about Grandma or taxes."
Bram didn't look at him. He kept his eyes on the cows. "I told you, Teun. You're a Van Buren."
"I’m going to the study," Teun said, turning on his heel. "I’m going to find that box. And if I find out you lied to me—if I find out you took me from a family that’s been looking for me for thirty years—I’m never coming back to this farm."
"Teun, wait!" Bram lunged for him, but his limp slowed him down.
Teun reached the study and began tearing through the drawers. He didn't care about order anymore. He threw ledgers and old receipts onto the floor until he saw it—a loose floorboard beneath the heavy oak desk. He pried it up with his bare fingers, the wood splintering under his nails.
There it was. The battered wooden box.
Teun pulled it out and flipped the lid.
Inside was a single, yellowed photograph. It wasn't of the Van Burens. It was a polaroid of a woman with dark hair and a kind, tired smile, holding a baby. On the back, in elegant, swirling script, were the words: For my dearest Casper. May you always know the way home.
Beneath the photo was a birth certificate. It didn't say Teun Van Buren. It said Casper Willem Hendrik of Orange-Nassau.
And at the very bottom, wrapped in a piece of faded silk, was a small, silver rattle engraved with the royal crest.
A shadow fell over the doorway. Bram was standing there, tears streaming down his face, his hands open in a gesture of pathetic plea.
"I didn't steal you, Teun," Bram sobbed. "I didn't. I was a guard. Thirty years ago, I was stationed at the palace. I saw the man taking you through the window. I chased him into the woods. I fought him. He... he didn't survive the fight."
Teun stood up, the box trembling in his hands. "Then why didn't you bring me back? Why didn't you give me to the King?"
"Because your mother had just lost our own baby!" Bram cried out. "Hendrika... she was out of her mind with grief. We had lost our son, our little Teun, only two days before. When I came home with you in my arms, covered in blood and dirt... she looked at you and she saw her own boy. She begged me, Teun. She begged me not to take you back to that cold palace. She said the Royals had everything, and we had nothing left."
Teun felt the world tilting. The man he had loved, the man who had taught him how to tend the land and respect the seasons, was a kidnapper by proxy.
"You let them mourn for thirty years," Teun whispered. "You let my brother grow up alone."
"I gave you a life!" Bram shouted, his voice desperate. "A real life! Not one behind glass and stone. You love this land, Teun. You are the best farmer in the Achterhoek. Would you have been happy as a Prince? Would you have been free?"
"I wasn't free," Teun said, his voice breaking. "I was a lie."
Outside, the sound of sirens began to wail, growing louder as they approached the farm. The Marechaussee hadn't stayed at the gas station. They had tracked the truck.
Teun looked at the silver rattle in the box, then looked out the window at the fields he had spent his life tilling. He saw the black SUVs turning into the driveway. He saw the flash of blue lights.
And in the lead car, he saw Floris, leaning out the window, his eyes searching for the brother he had finally found.
Teun looked at Bram one last time. There was no anger left, only a profound, hollow sadness. "Goodbye, Pa," he said quietly.
He walked out the front door, the wooden box tucked under his arm, stepping off the porch of the only home he had ever known to meet the family he had never met.
The farmer was gone. The Prince had returned.
- Writer
