Complete
Drama
Spoilers
for Fair Game
Set
c.1900-1905
FR-T
Violence, Rape
Disclaimers:
Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, The SciFi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is written purely for my own entertainment, and that of anyone else who may happen to read it. No infringement of copyright is intended. It is not intended and should never be used for commercial purposes.
The original characters, situations and ideas contained within this work are the property of the author.
Author's Notes:
While Tau'ri units of time are not used by the Jaffa, there are roughly analogous measures, usually based on the division of the day and night into either eight equal segments; four quarters of two hours each. A consequence of this system is that in the summertime, daylight hours are longer than those of the night, while the opposite is true in winter.
The week is one quarter of the month, that being one lunar cycle. On Elysia, where the lunar cycle lasts twenty four days, a week is therefore six days long.
Acknowledgements:
Sho! Sho! She's our girl! If she can't do it...um...we'll have to ask Merl? Or...not.
The Prophet, 18th March 2003
Elysia,
AD1900 (Tau'ri reckoning)
A Goa'uld System Lord enjoyed many advantages, but one of the least noted and most appreciated was the unparalleled freedom to make their home wherever they might choose. No world not claimed by another System Lord or by the Asgard was off limits to them, and having chosen a world and a continent and a country and a region in which to dwell, they possessed the power and resources to shape that place as they saw fit, to create a paradise suited to their own particular desires.
Such a paradise was Elysia, the home world of Cronus, for long centuries one of the mightiest of the System Lords. The planet was poor in industrial minerals, but that suited Cronus, for it was his dwelling place and not his foundry or his fortress. It had a pleasant climate, and the land in which he dwelt was graced with rolling green fields, great and beautiful forests, a plethora of babbling streams and majestic rivers, and an abundance of game to provide sport and to supplement the herds and crops of the fertile lands to the south.
Blessed were those servants of their God so favoured that they were allowed to serve in this place. Better loved was the lowest scullion of the royal palace on Elysia than the lord chamberlains of his lesser halls, but favoured above all was the First Prime of Cronus, who dwelt in a splendid residence in the shadow of the palace. The residence had dozens of rooms, and a staff of several hundred servants. It was a magnificent dwelling, for all that it was dwarfed by its neighbour, and there were no Jaffa in the galaxy whose lot compared with that of Cronus' warleader, Master of the Raven Guard and protector of the Royal Palace.
On this day, the residence echoed with the sound of screams, as Ry'auc, the wife of the First Prime, lay in her confinement. Her child was almost three weeks overdue, and the labour was long and arduous. Two servants hurried to-and-fro, fetching and carrying, and bringing boiling water from the kitchens, while a third a matronly Jaffa woman of a hundred and ten sat by Ry'auc's side. A priest and a priestess had been summoned from the temple to perform the necessary rituals of birth, but the midwife had ordered them in a tone that brooked no argument to keep back and not get in the way.
Finally, after many hours, Ry'auc's ordeal was complete, and before she allowed herself to lapse into an exhausted sleep, she insisted that the midwife place her child in her arms.
"It is a boy," the servant told her mistress.
"Yes, Tarc'nau," Ry'auc said. She held out her hand, and the baby caught her finger in an already powerful grip. "By the gods," she said. "This will be a mighty warrior."
"What shall he be named?" The priestess asked, stepping forward from the shadows. She was a young woman, probably a tok'ai a novice although she must show promise to have been assigned so prestigious a duty as attending the birth of the First Prime's child. She carried a leather satchel by her side, to carry the instruments of augury which would be used to read the portents of the child's birth and divine his future.
"Teal'c," Ry'auc answered at once.
"A good name," the priest agreed. "A warrior's name." He was an older man, and well-seasoned in his duties. While the tok'ai studied the portents, his part in this would be to perform the rites which bound the babe to the service of Cronus.
Ry'auc smiled down at her son. "You are Teal'c," she told him, and the child looked placidly up at her with his great, dark eyes and gurgled.
From start to finish, Ry'auc's labour had taken nearly sixty hours, and in all that time her husband had not set foot in the residence.
*
Tarc'nau, the midwife, strolled along the cloister, enjoying the cool night air after the suffocating heat of Ry'auc's birthing chamber. She stretched, feeling the aches and stresses of her body fade away as her prim'ta did its healing work, then settled herself on a bench to gaze up at the stars. It had been a hard labour indeed, and Tarc'nau was exhausted, yet too wound up to sleep. She was plagued with worry for her mistress, who was after all young to be bearing her first child few Jaffa women had children before the age of fifty or after eighty-five especially when that child was so large and powerful.
"Midwife."
Tarc'nau turned at the voice, and saw the young priestess, skulking once more in the shadows. "My work here is done," she told the girl, laughing. "You don't have to keep hiding."
The girl smiled, sheepishly, as she stepped toward Tarc'nau, but she still kept herself in the dark. "Master Bel'ac believes that I have returned to the temple," she whispered. "But I have...concerns."
"Why come to me with your troubles, priestess?" Tarc'nau asked. "Do not you superiors offer you aid with your moral quandaries? You should seek out your Master Bel'ac; is he not your kir'a?"
The priestess looked awkward. "He is indeed my teacher, but...I must not speak to him of this. You...you are Tarc'nau," she said. "I know you; you helped my mother through a difficult delivery. My brother, Marl'ac..."
"I remember," Tarc'nau replied. "I should have realised from your skin." Like most of Cronus' servants, Tarc'nau had olive-bronze skin and dark hair. Both Ron'ac and Ry'auc were of a darker race, but although such colouration was rare on Elysia, it was more common than Kal'rhe's; skin almost milk-white and hair like gold, with piercing blue eyes. "Before tonight I had never seen a child so unwilling to be born as your brother. As I recall, Marl'ac was reversed, and a latecomer, like Teal'c. Your mother began to fade, and we had to cut," she added, almost reluctantly. To perform a section birth required the skills of a surgeon, and to involve another in the birth was her failure.
"The surgeon..."
"A ham-handed incompetent; more butcher than surgeon." That was true of most Jaffa surgeons of course, as among the Jaffa with their perfect health, they received little practice.
The priestess nodded her agreement. "He slipped and breached my mother's pouch. It was an ill-omen, and the priests suggested that Marl'ac should be left to die, exposed on the hillside. They said that if he lived he would defy the rule of the Gods one day."
Tarc'nau snorted her distain for those holy men. "I have heard that augury more times than I care to remember," she said. "And the Gods still rule."
"Yes; you defied them," the girl finished. "You would not let them take my brother away, and now Marl'ac is a fine, strong youth; the leader of his company in the bash'ak."
"I am glad to have played my part in bringing such a man forth into the world. And what of you, Kal'rhe?"
Kal'rhe looked startled.
"Yes I know your name. I delivered you as well," Tarc'nau explained. "And I remember all of my children. You were not so well-starred yourself. Have you toppled any empires lately?"
"No!" Kal'rhe sounded appalled at the notion.
"Your auguries said that you would bring about the fall of Cronus by your actions. Don't take offence," she hastened to assure the priestess. "I give little account to auguries. A child shall become what it shall become, and if our history tells us anything it is that seeking to avoid our destiny can only bring it upon us the sooner." She patted the bench at her side. "Come, child; sit."
Kal'rhe lowered herself decorously onto the bench, perching erect beside the slouching figure of the midwife. The moonlight fell across the pale skin of her face, and Tarc'nau could see that she was terribly afraid.
"Tell me your trouble," Tarc'nau said, taking the priestess by the hand.
"I have done a terrible thing," Kal'rhe said, slightly breathless with fear. "I have lied to Bel'ac, and made a false recording of the auguries of this child's birth." She turned to face the midwife. "The signs foretell that the child will be a warrior of singular might and skill, but he will be...I can hardly speak the word," she said. "Yet I read it as clear as I have read anything."
"You read what?"
"I have never seen this sign before," Kal'rhe admitted. "Not outside of the temple scrolls, so I was not sure, but the auguries of Teal'c's birth foretell that he will be a...a Shalok-Gul."
"Shalok-Gul?" Tarc'nau turned the unfamiliar syllables over on her tongue, and her eyes widened in alarm. "A killer of gods?" She asked, with a shiver of fear in her voice. "I have never heard of such a thing."
"No one has," Kal'rhe replied. "Only those priests trained in augury even know of the term, and to speak it aloud is a death sentence. If we read that sign, we are supposed to act without hesitation, and I have betrayed my calling and my God by not snuffing out the life of that child as he lay at his mother's breast. But you spared my brother, and myself," the priestess explained. "I just could not..."
Tarc'nau smiled, gently. "And you have come to me for advice?" She asked.
Kal'rhe nodded.
"Say nothing to anyone of this to anyone but I; do not breathe a word, even to your own kin. Do not be afraid, child," she said, patting Kal'rhe's hand. "Either this augury is a lie, or it can not be avoided; either way, your actions are just. The child is but a babe, with neither malice nor kindness in his heart. He is innocent of his destiny, and he deserves his chance to grow strong and serve well. But remember, Kal'rhe," she added. "As you have spared this life, it is yours to guide now. You must be responsible for the boy's path, and set his feet on the road to righteousness and duty."
"I shall do so," Kal'rhe promised. She raised her head at a sudden sound. "But he is already strong," she noted.
"Yes, he is," Tarc'nau agreed, as the powerful cries of baby Teal'c echoed around the courtyard.
*
Ron'ac, First Prime of Cronus, was a man's man and a Jaffa's Jaffa. At seventy-seven years of age he was a warrior in his prime; strong, proud and highly skilled. Possessed of a ruthless cunning and relentless, brutal fury that served him well in the field of battle, he was also incredibly charismatic. He was a captain for whom warriors would die, knowing that he would use them well, guiding them to victory without undue loss of life. Since he had taken the mantle of First Prime from his predecessor, defeating and slaying the older warrior in savage hand-to-hand combat, the attrition rate in Cronus' army had fallen dramatically, and after ten years the force was now almost twice the size it had once been.
Ron'ac was a man of great passion. That same fervour that showed through when he addressed his troops, raising their bloodlust and affirming their devotion to their God, gave him a magnetic, dangerous appeal that drew women of a certain kind to him. He was not a man to reject such attention, and when he was not himself pursued, Ron'ac did not disdain to be the pursuer, nor would he shrink from the use of force to achieve his desire. Six years ago, he had threatened violence to an old man and his wife, to compel them to surrender their orphaned granddaughter to him in marriage. Despite his great desire for Ry'auc however, Ron'ac had never been faithful, and despite her great love for him, he was not a good husband.
Ry'auc accepted, as she had always done, that Ron'ac's duty as First Prime must come first, and that many times he must leave her side to make war on Cronus' enemies. She had even accepted, for her nature was perhaps unduly forgiving and patient, that on his campaigns he would dally with the sorts of women who followed the armies of the Goa'uld; either whores or those who found their pleasure in the violence of a battle-roused warrior. Yet even when he was on Elysia, Ron'ac would spend many hours in the barracks of the elite Raven Guard fraternising with his battalion commanders and associating with his harlots instead of at home with his wife. When he did return to the residence in body, Ry'auc often felt that he was absent in spirit, and he seemed always to yearn to be away again.
When his son was born, Ron'ac was present on Elysia, but not in his house, and a runner hurried from the residence to the great barracks of the Raven Guard.
"What do you want?" A sentry at the door demanded, staring at the human in distaste.
"I have a message for the First Prime," the runner replied.
"I will see that he receives it."
"I have instructions to deliver the message only to the First Prime, in person," the man insisted, swallowing his fear.
The sentry scowled at the runner, but eventually he called up one of the human slaves who served in the barracks, and sent him inside. After a long time, he emerged with a tall, powerful Jaffa warrior. The man wore the light-weight, day-to-day version of the Raven Guards' armour, and bore upon its collar the symbols of rank, but he was not Ron'ac. Rather, this was his second, Cal'ma, a man as brutal as his captain, but of less imposing presence.
"Give me your message, slave," he commanded. "It shall reach the ears of Ron'ac presently."
"My instructions..."
Cal'ma gave a signal, and the sentry drove his staff weapon into the runner's gut.
"Give me the message," Cal'ma said again.
The runner limped home, bloody and bruised. He had given the message to Cal'ma, then been beaten for his disobedience before the Jaffa warriors would allow him to leave. He reported his failure to Tarc'nau, as the midwife was tending to Ry'auc's affairs while she rested, and the old woman sent him to his bed with a kind word and a healing draught.
Nine hours later, Ron'ac returned to the residence in ebullient mood, to find his wife feeding their new child in her chamber, a young Jaffa woman at her side.
"Leave us, midwife," Ron'ac commanded.
The woman turned and bowed. "I thank you, First Prime," she said. "But I have no such art."
"My pardon, priestess," Ron'ac said, his hungry gaze running distractedly over Kal'rhe's trim figure. "I meant no offence."
"None was taken," she assured him. "My Lord," she bowed to him again, and then to Ry'auc. "My Lady." She left, and Ron'ac turned his eyes to the bed.
"My son," he said, sitting and lifting the boy from his mother's breast. "Shal'mac." The boy began to cry, struggling back towards the source of nourishment and comfort.
"Shal'mac?" Ry'auc asked.
"He shall have my father's name," Ron'ac declared, speaking slowly, as though to an idiot.
Ry'auc creased her brow in concern. "The child must be named in the hour of his birth," she reminded her husband. "As you had never made your wishes known to me, I have named him Teal'c."
Ron'ac's eyes flashed angrily. "His name is Shal'mac!" He insisted. "If the priests have recorded otherwise then they shall change their record."
"But husband..."
"Am I not First Prime?" Ron'ac demanded. "The priests may not gainsay me!"
Ry'auc bowed her head. "Of course not, husband. Your son shall be named Shal'mac."
"Quiet, Shal'mac," Ron'ac instructed, as the baby began to wail.
"Give him back to me, Ron'ac," Ry'auc said. "He is hungry."
Ron'ac willingly passed the squealing child back to his mother. "Yes," he said. "Quiet and feed him. Bring him to me when he stops that infernal noise," he added, turning for the door. "We should break him of that habit as early as possible; no son of mine should make such a din."
"He falls into tantrums when he is denied," Ry'auc whispered to Ron'ac's departing back. She cradled the baby to her bosom, letting him drink, and he grew quiet. "And is quiet when he is sated. Much like his father."
Ron'ac left, and Kal'rhe returned, bringing water for the new mother.
"I am grateful for your presence, but do you not have duties, priestess?" Ry'auc asked.
Kal'rhe shook her head. "I am to see to the child's religious education and spiritual well-being," she said. "The auguries predict great things for your Teal'c."
"My husband has named him Shal'mac," Ry'auc corrected her.
Kal'rhe frowned, and looked Ry'auc in the eyes. "Then he shall be called Shal'mac," she said. "But his name is Teal'c," she added.
Ry'auc smiled, but it was a bittersweet expression. "Yes," she agreed. "His name is Teal'c."
"What troubles you, My Lady?"
Ry'auc sighed. "My husband," she admitted. "He is glad to have a son, but...I had hoped that it might draw him close to me again, but he paid more attention to you than to I." Kal'rhe blushed, drawing another frown from Ry'auc. "Do not let him deceive you," she warned the priestess. "Surrender to him and he will use you ill."
Kal'rhe's blush deepened. "I would not..." She began. "I am a priestess; my body is sacrosanct."
"You would not be the first," Ry'auc assured her. "He can be very persuasive when he wants something badly enough. Believe me, I know."
The priestess took Ry'auc by the hand. "I am sorry for you," she said.
"Don't be," Ry'auc assured her. "I love him, for all his faults; and I have my son."
*
Four years later
"Who is the mightiest of the Gods?" Kal'rhe asked.
"Cronus," Shal'mac answered at once.
"Who is his Queen?"
"Rhea."
"Who is his enemy?"
"Apophis."
"Very good," Kal'rhe said, smiling.
Shal'mac beamed with pride. The young boy adored his teacher, and was delighted when he pleased her by learning his lessons well. He thought that she had the second most beautiful smile in the world after his mother although neither woman smiled very often.
"What are the three pillars of Cronus' might?" Kal'rhe asked.
Shal'mac looked blank, and ashamed of that ignorance.
"Come now, Teal'c," the priestess encouraged him. "This was in the book I gave you last week."
"I destroyed the book," Ron'ac announced, striding out into the courtyard, dressed in a light house robe, and carrying a wooden staff in his hand. "Scribbles and signs are no business of a warrior."
"Daddy!" Shal'mac ran forward, and his father swept him into his arms.
"My Lord," Kal'rhe greeted the First Prime.
Ron'ac set his son back on his feet. "Shal'mac; go inside and fetch your mashak. We shall train."
"With respect, First Prime," Kal'rhe said, as Shal'mac ran to the cloister. "The boy has not finished his lessons. It is important..."
Kal'rhe staggered as Ron'ac slapped her hard across the face. She tried to keep her feet, but slipped on the grass and sprawled indecorously at the First Prime's feet. "I heard you call him Teal'c as I approached," he spat. "How many times must I tell you, priestess? My son's name is Shal'mac."
"Forgive me, First Prime," Kal'rhe said, turning her eyes to the ground.
"Get up!" Ron'ac snapped. "If the prophet will not see fit to assign my son an instructor with a less fallible memory, my son shall not see his teacher sprawled on her back like a whore."
Kal'rhe's face flamed, but she rose awkwardly to her feet and dusted herself off as best she was able. The side of her face was already healing, but she knew that her fair skin was already marred by a purplish bruise. Ron'ac watched her as she struggled up, making no attempt to help her, and a small, predatory smile playing on his lips.
"Leave us, priestess," Ron'ac commanded, as Shal'mac came running back with his miniature training staff. "Battle is a man's business."
Your son is but a boy, Kal'rhe thought, but she did not dare to say as much.
"Kal'rhe!" Shal'mac cried, alarmed. "You are hurt!"
"I slipped," the priestess told him. "And I shall heal. You must train with your father now, Shal'mac. We shall continue your lessons at another time."
"Alright," Shal'mac agreed. "But the three pillars are the loyalty of his vassals, the honour of his Jaffa, and the majesty of his divine presence."
"Well done, Shal'mac," Kal'rhe said. "How did you learn that so fast?"
"I met Tarc'nau in the cloisters and she told me," Shal'mac replied, proudly. He was a child of independent mind, and very pleased with his ability to seek information and learn on his own. That was the whole reason why Kal'rhe had taught the boy to read, and paid her own money and not a little of it for the book that Ron'ac had destroyed. Ry'auc would reimburse her of course, but it was the principle of the thing that infuriated Kal'rhe; the father's determination to strangle his son's mind and spirit.
"Tarc'nau," Ron'ac muttered, as Kal'rhe left the courtyard. "That interfering old busy-body. What is she doing here?"
*
Knowing that Ron'ac would now monopolise his child for the rest of the day before retiring from his own home for another week Kal'rhe did not wait for Shal'mac to become free, but instead hurried through the cloisters until she caught up with Tarc'nau.
"Priestess," the midwife said, sounding pleasantly surprised.
"Mistress Tarc'nau," Kal'rhe greeted the old woman. "It has been too long since you were last here."
Tarc'nau snorted, angrily. "Ron'ac dislikes me. He believes that I give his wife ideas'."
Kal'rhe smiled, sympathetically. "He believes the same of me and his son. He would make the child a mere thug, without wisdom or learning," she spat, unable to restrain her fury.
"At least he has not managed to have you removed yet," Tarc'nau consoled the younger woman.
"He keeps trying," Kal'rhe said. "But Teal'c's auguries were most specific." She smiled, knowing that the auguries that kept her at the infant's side were wholly the product of her imagination. She had embroidered the basic signs that she had misreported to Bel'ac, weaving a tale of a Jaffa who would lead his master's armies to glory undreamed of, and then cooked up the set of portents which had led the high priests to deem that she and no other must instruct the boy in the religious life of the Jaffa. She was proud of her work, yet at the same time wracked with guilt for what should have been a truly unthinkable crime.
"I met the boy just now," Tarc'nau commented. "You have done well with him. His father is a pig and his mother too sweet-tempered to resist her husband, but the lad shows promise."
Kal'rhe flushed with pleasure at the midwife's praise. Over the last four years she had come to respect the old woman more than she did her superiors in the temple. "I have missed your counsel though," she admitted. "And your company."
Tarc'nau smiled her understanding. "The Gods say that two can keep a secret only if one is dead," she commented. "But it is not so. If no other knew of your sins, you would long to unburden yourself to someone."
The priestess nodded her agreement, pleased that the old woman understood. "And even knowing that you know, when I can not speak with you..."
"You wish for another confidant. But you must not tell a soul," Tarc'nau reminded her young friend.
"I know. Not even my own kin."
"Even if you trust them with your life," Tarc'nau added. "You will bring them into danger if you ask them to carry a part of this burden."
"I know," Kal'rhe repeated. "I shall carry the burden alone, so long as you are kept away."
"How is it with you?" Tarc'nau asked, kindly. "Is the burden too heavy?"
"I am well," the priestess assured her. "And however great the burden, I chose to carry it, and I shall do so."
Tarc'nau smiled her approval. "And Teal'c?"
"The boy is...he is incredible," Kal'rhe admitted. "He can be obstinate when he believes himself in the right, but he is a quick learner, and very observant. He has a good heart and a fine mind, although his father fills his head with talk of glory and battle, and considers reason and learning to be womanish'."
"He is of his kind," Tarc'nau said. "But he is a good enough man for all that."
Kal'rhe shook her head. "He is not," she insisted. "Maybe once, but he has grown ever more erratic since I first came here. He has become fey and violent, and hardly ever comes to his own house. He has no patience for Shal'mac's childish habits; the gods only know what he would say if he knew that the boy hides in his mother's closet sometimes for fear of the monsters in his own chambers."
Tarc'nau frowned. "This is troubling," she said. "He was once a man of honour, for all his passions. This news frightens me, Kal'rhe. I might fear that the First Prime had fallen ill, yet I have not heard it said that his prowess in battle has been in any way reduced."
"Surely such news would be hidden," Kal'rhe pointed out.
"Not from me," Tarc'nau replied. "I have delivered many children, and few doors are closed to me within fifty miles of here. I hear much that others do not."
"I worry that he might hurt the boy," Kal'rhe confided.
"I do not think you need be concerned about that," Tarc'nau assured her. "It is for his wife that I fear."
*
Ry'auc was sitting in the day room of their chambers when her husband burst in, evidently in a foul mood. She stood, swiftly, straightening her gown. She had heard Ron'ac return the night before although he had gone straight to his own chamber for kelno'reem, and this was the first time in two weeks that she had actually seen him and had worn a fine silk dress that flattered her figure.
"The slaves tell me that you summoned that old witch, Tarc'nau to attend you," Ron'ac said, without preamble, and with barely a glance at Ry'auc.
"I did," Ry'auc agreed. "What?" She asked, when Ron'ac turned and stared at her.
"A drink, woman!" Ron'ac snapped. "Are you an idiot? Did bearing my son damage your mind? I have been training Shal'mac to fight, and I am thirsty."
Ry'auc stifled an unhappy sigh, and rose to fetch her husband a drink, knowing that he would grow angrier if she defied him, or if she summoned a slave to attend him. As she mixed a mug of honeyed milk for her husband, he went on:
"And bring me my spare suit of light armour, I shall dine at the barracks tonight."
"Yes, My Lord," Ry'auc replied. She handed her husband the glass, and he took it with barely an acknowledgement. Ry'auc felt a sting of neglect in her heart.
"Why did you ask for that meddlesome baggage?" Ron'ac demanded. "You know I dislike having her around. She spoke to Shal'mac this morning; to my son, if you please. You know I do not like her near him. She is a dangerous woman, full of lies and spite."
"Yes, husband," Ry'auc dutifully agreed, unfastening his robe and easing it from his broad shoulders. "But she is also the finest midwife on Elysia." She pulled the armoured tunic around him, tracing her fingers gently along the muscles of his back as she fastened it. If he even noticed the tender, sensual touch, Ron'ac gave no sign.
He frowned. "What do you want a midwife for, woman. My son" never, in four years, had he called the boy our son' "is safely born and weaned, is he not; or will be when you women stop trying to make a priest and a scholar of him."
"Our first child is safely born, yes," Ry'auc agreed, in a tremulous voice. "But I..." She helped her husband with the buckles of his trousers as she gathered her courage. "I am with child again," she said.
"What?" Ron'ac demanded. "How?"
Ry'auc shrugged, trying to hide how much this response had hurt her. "In the usual fashion, I suppose; rare though the opportunities are these days."
"You mean it's mine?"
"Yes!" Ry'auc snapped, furiously. "Of course yours. I have known no other man, in all my life."
Ron'ac snorted, dubiously. "Well, that is a surprise."
"That's all you have to say?" Ry'auc asked.
Ron'ac thought for a moment as he buckled on his cloak. "Find another midwife," he said, then turned for the door. "And discipline Shal'mac," he added. "He shows more deference to his teacher than to his father, and must learn not to answer to the name Teal'c."
The door slammed closed.
"Yes, my husband," Ry'auc whispered, on the verge of tears. Despite her disappointment following Shal'mac's birth, she had hoped that news of her second pregnancy might have brought them together. She crossed slowly to the mirror and examined herself with a critical eye. Not yet thirty, she was as beautiful now as she had ever been; more so many said than when she had married Ron'ac, her face and figure having lost the last traces of girlishness. She was healthy and strong, filled with energy and fire. Yet, while sometimes her desire for Ron'ac, the need for his touch, drove her almost to distraction, but not only did he not respond, he barely seemed to notice. On the rare occasions when he even shared a bed with her, he spurned her embrace, and even on the night when this new child had been conceived, his attentions had been perfunctory at best.
The door opened behind Ry'auc, and she turned, her face flushing with joy, only to fall again when she saw that it was not Ron'ac returning to her.
"Mother?" Shal'mac asked, softly. "Father said that you wished to see me?"
"Yes, Shal'mac," Ry'auc said, mechanically, forcing down her thwarted desire, stamping it into a crowded corner of her soul, alongside her resentment, jealousy, bitterness and frustration. "Come here please." She did not flinch from punishing Shal'mac when it was necessary, but she hated the fact that Ron'ac made her chastise their son in his place. He wished his son to know only love for him, and so any reprimand must come from Ry'auc, to be confided by the weeping child to his sympathetic father.
"Have I been bad?" Shal'mac asked, recognising his mother's tone. "I did not mean to."
"Shal'mac," she said, kneeling before him. "I know that you love Kal'rhe, but you must not forget that your father is the one who commands your greatest regard. You should not dishonour him by...by doing what you did today," she finished, unsure precisely what Ron'ac felt his son deserved punishment for.
"Father says I shall be a mighty warrior, and that warriors do not need books," Shal'mac said. "But Kal'rhe says that knowledge is a weapon, and that a warrior should not spurn any weapon."
"You must honour your father, Teal'c," Ry'auc insisted. "I mean, Shal'mac," she corrected herself.
"But..." Shal'mac stopped and screwed up his lips.
"What?" Ry'auc asked her son.
"I love my father," Shal'mac promised her. "I do. But he's wrong."
Ry'auc slapped her son's cheek with her open hand. Shal'mac backed away from her. He looked shocked, and well he might. His mother had only once before raised a hand to him.
"Never say that," Ry'auc said, hating the woman she saw reflected in her son's baffled gaze. "Never show your father such disrespect."
"I'm sorry, mother," Shal'mac replied, hanging his head, tears in his eyes.
"Come here," Ry'auc whispered, choking on her own sorrows. She held out her arms, and after a moment of hesitation, Shal'mac flung himself into his mother's embrace. Ry'auc held her son tightly, whispering comforts. "Shh, darling. Everything is alright," she lied.
*
Ron'ac did not return to his own bed for seven days, finally staggering home one night in a state of great lethargy. In the passageway, he ran across the priestess, Kal'rhe, who was appalled by his condition. Gone was the powerful, charismatic warrior, to be replaced by a stumbling thing.
"First Prime," she gasped. "Are you...inebriated?" The notion was horrifying. Although the effects of alcohol on a Jaffa's physiology were short-lived, they could on occasion be extreme, as well as risking damage to their prim'ta's mind. More importantly however, wine and beer were sacred drinks, reserved for the gods and forbidden to mere mortals.
"You do not question me," Ron'ac growled, seizing Kal'rhe by the shoulder.
The priestess cried out in pain. "You are hurting me," she told him.
"Never noticed how much you look like her," he hissed, his breath stinking of stale wine. He held Kal'rhe pinned with one hand, and raised the other to stroke her cheek. "So fair. So pale."
"Let go of me," Kal'rhe said, fighting down her panic. "I am a priestess; a chantress of the temple. My body is consecrated to the gods, and my person is sacrosanct."
Ron'ac laughed out loud, giving Kal'rhe a great face-full of his stinking breath. "Sacrosanct. You have no idea..." He broke off. "But some things even I can not do. Not to her." His mouth curved into a vicious smile. "But you..." He gripped the neck of her robe tightly.
Kal'rhe screamed, as loud and as long as she could, and right into Ron'ac's ear. He recoiled, crying out in surprise and pain, and the priestess seized her chance to run. Her robe was torn and her shoulder ached, but she was otherwise unharmed, and she easily outpaced the drunken warrior. She ran as hard as she could, into the heart of the residence, and pounded on Ry'auc's door until it opened, and she pushed breathlessly past the mistress of the house, her words tripping over each other as she explained what had happened.
"Drunk?" Ry'auc asked, incredulously.
"I believe so," Kal'rhe affirmed.
"No," Ry'auc said. "Surely it can not be..."
"He was; I swear it."
Ry'auc smiled and laid a gentle hand on Kal'rhe's shoulder. "Hush, child," she said. Although the priestess was almost three years older than her, as a wife and a mother, Ry'auc had the right to call a tok'ai novice child', but she almost never did. Now however, Kal'rhe looked in need of a mother.
"He shall not harm you," Ry'auc promised. "Go to Teal'c's room and wait there with him. Ron'ac will no doubt either come here or go to his son next. If the latter, keep Teal'c quiet until his father goes away; you understand."
Kal'rhe nodded. Ry'auc gave her a reassuring hug, and she slipped away through the door to the private garden behind the family's quarters. Skirting the edge of the lawn, she made her way to Shal'mac's bed chamber, quietly opened the door and went in. There she crouched at Shal'mac's bedside, and made a move to wake him.
A cold shiver ran down Kal'rhe's spine as her hand touched the bare sheets. The bed was empty, the mattress cold: The child was already gone.
*
Ron'ac slammed the door of his wife's chambers open, startling Ry'auc, who was lighting candles.
"Good evening, husband," Ry'auc said, patiently. "I did not expect you back, and was preparing for kelno'reem.
"Where is she?" Ron'ac demanded.
"Who?" Ry'auc asked, innocently.
Ron'ac snarled, and grabbed his wife by the upper arms. "That bitch of a priestess?"
Ry'auc dropped her pretence. "Hiding," she told him, sternly, fighting against her fear. "Ron'ac; stop. Think of what you are doing. You are drunk, and you tried to violate a priestess. Such things are forbidden even to the First Prime; even to you."
"You do not know..."
"Do I not?" Ry'auc demanded, wrenching herself free of Ron'ac's grip. "I have known for years that there is another woman in your life. Not the sluts who hover around the barracks," she added. "I always knew of them, but a specific woman. But I never knew who it was until you told Kal'rhe that she looked like her'."
"Ry'auc..." Ron'ac cautioned, sobering.
"I still can not quite believe it," Ry'auc admitted. "But I suppose it makes sense. All those campaigns where you were left to defend Elysia instead of marching to war; your long absences. I suppose you had to conceal your true destination, did you not? You could not let anyone know in what role you served your Goddess!"
"Be silent!" Ron'ac snapped. "You will be the death of us all if you speak of such things."
"You will be the death of us for doing such things," his wife retorted, but in a lower voice. "Absence and strange assignments might pass unnoticed, but to come home inebriated? How could you be so careless? Does your family mean nothing to you?"
Ron'ac hung his head. "Shal'mac is the world to me, you know that," he insisted.
"And I?"
"No," Ron'ac replied. "You are nothing to me anymore, and you never shall do again."
Tears welled up in Ry'auc's eyes, and she choked on a sob. "That can not be true," she insisted. "There must be something...?"
"Nothing," he assured her, matter-of-factly.
"But you...you loved me," she pleaded. "That can not be forgotten."
"Not forgotten, but it is meaningless now. The love of a goddess leaves no room for any other."
Ry'auc sat down hard, weeping into her hands.
"I will understand," Ron'ac said, making no move to comfort her. "If you wish to seek satisfaction elsewhere."
"What?" Ry'auc asked, not following him.
"If you wish to take lovers to satisfy you," he explained. "Where I can not, I shall understand. I shall not stand in your way."
"Lovers?" She asked, standing and facing him, her eyes red and streaming with tears. "I do not want lovers, Ron'ac; I want my husband! But perhaps I can find another man to satisfy me in that," she added.
Now it was Ron'ac's turn to be baffled. "I do not understand," he said.
"I want a loving husband," Ry'auc explained. "If you can not give me that, I shall seek an annulment of our marriage and find a man who can."
"No!" Ron'ac commanded. "You shall not do that!"
"I am your wife; not your slave," Ry'auc reminded him.
"You will obey me woman; you swore to that!"
"And you swore to place me before all others!" Ry'auc answered.
"Before all other women," her husband corrected. "And I have done. She is no mere woman."
"I shall seek an annulment if I wish it," Ry'auc insisted. "You have only one duty to me, and you have not met it in three months."
"Shal'mac is only four," Ron'ac insisted. "He must be cared for by his mother. If you are granted an annulment..."
"You shall have no more part in his life, Ron'ac," Ry'auc agreed. "I am quite willing to accept that price."
"You shall not take my son!" Ron'ac roared, balling his fists. "Shal'mac belongs with me!"
Ry'auc exploded. "His name is Teal'c!" She bellowed, and all the rage and resentment of her life ignited against this man; the man who had taken her from her home, only to abandon her. She faced him down, her eyes blazing with ten years of mistreatment, and he flinched from her.
Enraged and embarrassed, Ron'ac lashed out, slamming his fist into the side of Ry'auc's torso. She gave a gasping cry, and dropped to her knees, wheezing and choking. She tried to crawl away from her husband, but he dragged her to her feet and pressed her face-forward against the wall, holding her head turned away from him so that she could not fix him with that fearsome glower again.
Pushing aside fear, secure in his strength, he leaned in close to her and whispered in her ear: "You will not take Shal'mac from me," he told her, his voice cold and deadly. "If you try, I will kill you. I shall put my hands around your pretty throat, and throttle the life out of you, I swear by all the gods, and I will kill you if you ever speak that name again. My son's name is Shal'mac."
Ron'ac tugged on Ry'auc's hair and sent her tumbling to the ground. He turned away, ignoring her utterly, and stalked out into the day room to return to his own chamber.
Ry'auc lay on the floor, eyes open and staring at nothing. Slowly, her gaze focused again, and she found herself looking at the curtain which covered her closet. She thought she could hear a quiet sound from behind the curtain, and when something moved just beneath the hem, she saw that it was a tiny foot.
"Gods, no," she whispered. "Teal'c?" She gathered herself up, and a stabbing pain pierced her side. She ached all through, and she wondered how much Ron'ac's punch had damaged. He was a powerful man, and had made no attempt to pull the blow.
Ry'auc tugged back the curtain, and Shal'mac gazed up at her with terrified, tear-filled eyes. He was squatting there, curled into a foetal position and shivering.
"Oh, no," Ry'auc whispered, falling to her knees beside her son. "Oh, baby; you should not have seen that." She reached out and touched his arm and he flinched. "It is alright now," she promised. "Come to mother."
Hesitantly, Shal'mac reached out, but a moment before he touched her, Ry'auc doubled over, clutching her abdomen and screaming in agony.
"Mother?" Shal'mac asked, in a quavering voice.
"Teal'c, darling," Ry'auc said, trying to keep her voice level and calm. "Go to your room; you will find Kal'rhe there. Tell her to come; please. I think..." She cried out again.
Shal'mac's eyes widened in alarm as a red stain began to spread across the skirt of his mother's robe. "Mother?"
"Please, Teal'c," Ry'auc gasped, feeling the hot blood flowing between her legs. "Be brave for me."
"Brave," Shal'mac repeated. "Yes. I can..." He scrambled to his feet, trying to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach as well as the shaking in his legs which would not go away. He took a few tottering steps, then a few more, and he was on the terrace beyond his mother's window. He scrambled over the rail, heedlessly trampling the flowers in the verge, then drawing strength from the cool night air he began to run across the courtyard to his own room.
*
Tarc'nau stroked Ry'auc's fevered brow. After a moment, her eyelids fluttered gently open.
"Tarc'nau?" She asked, dazed.
"You are going to be alright, My Lady," Tarc'nau assured her. "You were badly hurt, but the priestess called me in time. You will live and be hale."
"But..." Ry'auc's faced blanched. "The blood. There was so much blood."
"Lie still," Tarc'nau whispered. "You need to rest."
Ry'auc's eyes widened in fear. "Tarc'nau?"
"Ry'auc..."
"Tell me!" She snapped.
"Not now..."
"I am your mistress!" Ry'auc insisted. "And you will tell me!"
Tarc'nau sighed. "Your unborn child was killed," she confirmed. "You miscarried, but your symbiote has healed you completely; you will be able to bear other children."
"I shall never bear another child," Ry'auc replied.
Tarc'nau hung her head sadly. "I am sorry, My Lady," she said.
Unshed tears shimmered in Ry'auc's eyes. "So am I. My husband?" She asked.
"Had already returned to the barracks when I arrived," the midwife snarled. "More fortune to him."
"And what of my son?"
"He is..." Tarc'nau hesitated. "Whole. But greatly distressed."
*
While Tarc'nau tended Ry'auc, Kal'rhe sat with her son. Shal'mac was still shivering from shock and fear, but trying to put on a brave face for his teacher, while Kal'rhe put on a brave face for him. On top of Ron'ac's assault on her person, she had been shaken by the sight of Ry'auc, lying in a pool of her own blood.
"Are you alright, Teal'c?" Kal'rhe asked.
"Shal'mac," the boy whispered. "My name is Shal'mac."
"Teal'c..." Kal'rhe said, gently.
"Shal'mac!" The boy snapped. "He said he would...hurt her. That my name must be Shal'mac or he would hurt her."
Kal'rhe was appalled. "He did not!"
"He did," the boy assured her. "You must not call me Teal'c!"
"Then I shall call you Shal'mac," Kal'rhe said. But it is not your name, she thought to herself. "What did you hear?" She asked, gently. "Unless you don't want to talk about it."
"I do not know," Shal'mac said. "They argued. About me. About...She wanted to leave him, I think. He was so angry; about my name. I...I made him angry," he sobbed. "I made him hurt..."
"Oh!" Kal'rhe cried, wrapping her arms around him. "No! No, darling boy," she told him. "It's not your fault."
"I was not brave enough, and...I was not respectful to my father. I told mother that he was wrong to keep me from reading."
"Hush, child," the priestess breathed. "This is your father's fault, not yours."
"But they only ever argue about me," Shal'mac insisted.
"They...they only ever talk about you, Te...Shal'mac. Your father stopped speaking to Ry'auc about anything else long ago."
"It can not be right for him to treat her so," Shal'mac said. "Or...is it wrong of me to say that? Is it disrespectful?"
"It is not right," Kal'rhe agreed, sadly. "But Jaffa law condones it."
"But...The law was handed down to us by the gods," Shal'mac said. "How can it be wrong?"
"It just is," Kal'rhe replied. "The law was not made for every circumstance, and that which it does not forbid is deemed to be permitted, even in the face of all reason."
"Why do the gods not change the law then?"
"Because they do not care," Kal'rhe choked, bitterly. Immediately she realised what she had done, and she shivered in fear.
"Kal'rhe?"
The priestess was appalled at herself, but forced her voice to stay level. "I am sorry, Teal'c; I was upset and spoke in anger. Please, as you value both of our lives, do not repeat what I just said."
"Will Cronus not know?"
"Perhaps he will forgive," Kal'rhe suggested. Although in her heart she no longer felt that her god watched her every move, she had never given voice to that doubt, nor could she now. "But you must forget my foolish words, sweetheart. Forget them, or deliver me to the priests of the temple for judgement," she added, her voice trembling.
"Cronus knows all," Shal'mac said softly. "I shall not interfere with his judgement."
Kal'rhe kissed the top of the boy's head, great tears falling from her eyes into his hair. "Oh, bless you, Shal'mac," she wept. "Bless you, my darling boy."
*
It was two days before Tarc'nau deemed Ry'auc well enough in body and heart to see her child. Ron'ac had still not returned from the barracks, but had sent two of his soldiers to collect some clothes and his spare suits of armour, including his ceremonial breastplate and his full battle dress.
Kal'rhe brought the boy in, sat him by his mother's bedside and left. Ry'auc took him by the hand and smiled at him. She felt well enough, but somehow hollow inside, but she struggled to hide that emptiness from her son.
"Shal'mac," she said, softly.
"Mother," he replied. "I am sorry."
"Oh my dear, beautiful boy," she whispered, her eyes clouding with tears. "You must not shoulder this burden. It lies at your father's door."
"Is my father a bad man?"
"He is...Your father is a good and noble man, Shal'mac," she insisted. "A mighty warrior. You must honour him always, for you are his son and he deserves that of you."
"He hurt you," the boy said, confused. "If I had a wife, I would not hurt her."
Ry'auc stroked her son's cheek. "You are a good, kind boy," she said. "But it does not change the fact that you must show your father respect."
"Will he be angry if I do not? Will he hurt you again?"
"He may do," Ry'auc admitted.
"I will kill him!"
"No, Te...!" Ry'auc calmed herself. "No, Shal'mac," she said. "You shall obey him, and honour him, and you shall grow into a fine warrior. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, mother," the boy replied, grudgingly. "But why do you defend him?" He asked.
"Because I love him," she confessed. "But he does not love me. Not any more; perhaps not ever."
"I love you, mother," the boy promised, leaning his head on her breast.
"I know, Shal'mac," Ry'auc replied. "And I love you."
*
One year later
In the past year, Ron'ac had barely set foot in his house. Of the three-hundred and eighty-one days since his wife's miscarriage, he had spent three-hundred and sixty-two nights in the Raven Guard barracks or in the company of his Goddess, spending only a handful of daylight hours, every few days, teaching his son at the First Prime's residence. He pushed Shal'mac who had accepted this as his name now, with no one to call him otherwise hard, hoping to drive out all thoughts of books and learning with the relentless grind of combat drills and weapon forms. For all Ron'ac's efforts however, the boy retained his curiosity; he merely learned to hide it from his father.
In that year, Ron'ac had not seen his wife once. She had moved to new quarters in the east wing, and whenever he approached the house, she would shut herself away. Her servants had orders to deny him access to her rooms, and he made no attempt to overrule her, content to spend time with Shal'mac before returning to his home away from home. In only one way did Ron'ac show any response to this exclusion, and that was by instructing the guards on the doors of the house that the midwife Tarc'nau was not to be admitted under any circumstance. The priestess Kal'rhe, while free to dwell in the residence and instruct his son, was not to enter the east wing, nor to leave the house unless escorted under guard to the temple. Ry'auc felt despair grip her when her only friends were thus effectively barred from her presence, and even when her husband was on campaign, she could rarely be coaxed down from her room.
Shal'mac continued to learn from Kal'rhe, and as with his mother, he saw that the priestess smiled even less these days. At first, he continued to devoured every lesson that Kal'rhe could teach him, ever eager to better himself and to please his beloved tutor, but she was filled with a melancholy that he could not name. In time, her black mood began to infect Shal'mac, and he grew apathetic in his studies. Kal'rhe saw her bright young pupil losing his desire to learn, and this only deepened her depression.
"I am losing him," Kal'rhe confided in Tarc'nau one day. She had slipped away from the house in the garb of a serving girl to seek out the midwife, so desperate had she been to speak with her. "He will become his father's son, I know it."
"I do not believe it," Tarc'nau replied. "The boy loves you as a second mother."
"Then why can I no longer inspire his mind?"
"Perhaps because you yourself lack inspiration?" Tarc'nau suggested. "Poor Kal'rhe; you have borne this weight alone for over a year now, and it is wearing you out. You look tired, as I have never seen in a Jaffa before. Honestly, dear heart; you look almost as old as I." She put out her hand, and stroked Kal'rhe's face.
Kal'rhe's eyes filled with tears. "I have not been able to speak to you in a year," she sobbed. "I have hardly seen Ry'auc, my mother or my brother in as long."
"Hush, child," Tarc'nau cautioned, gently. "You are drawing attention. Listen; I thought that this might happen. My influence does not extend to open defiance of the First Prime's directives, but as I attended his wife during the birth of their son, the captain of the house guard has agreed to take your brother Marl'ac into his company as an apprentice."
Kal'rhe looked up, her eyes shining with tears but her first smile in almost a month on her lips. "Tarc'nau..." She began.
"There is no need to thank me, child," the midwife assured her. "You have been stronger than anyone could ask. A little company is the least that you have earned, my dear one," she said, stroking the young woman's hair. And I fear that it is all you shall ever receive, she thought, but did not say it aloud.
*
With her brother's arrival, Kal'rhe's dark mood lifted somewhat. Once more, Shal'mac was rewarded for success by her smiles now touched with sadness, but still beautiful and he began to attend more closely to her lessons. After she shared her fears and her secret burden with Marl'ac, the weight lifted further, and although she still feared for her friend, Ry'auc, she was almost herself again when the tragedy struck.
Ron'ac found them on the rear lawn, a great expanse of grass behind the residence, its openness as near as Kal'rhe was permitted to leaving the house. He was battered and dishevelled, a bloody cut healing on his brow and his battle dress armour dented and blood-soaked. His eyes darted here and there as though in search of enemies.
"Leave us, priestess," Ron'ac commanded. Kal'rhe hesitated, frightened by the First Prime's battle-stained appearance and feral, hunted gaze, but although she would believe almost any sin of this man, she did not think that he would be capable of hurting his own son.
"As you command," she acknowledged, with a deep bow.
"Come here, Shal'mac," Ron'ac called, sitting heavily on the grass. "I have shown you how a warrior's armour is secured; help me to release mine."
Shal'mac approached his father and helped him with the straps of his battle dress, releasing the armoured plates and helping to steady the heavy collar as Ron'ac lifted it over his head. The First Prime of Cronus drew a small knife and directed his son to slash through the laces of his chainmail and his padded undershirt, then shrugged them off and sat naked to the waist. His lean, powerful frame was caked in blood and stale sweat, and marred by half-healed wounds.
Ron'ac lay back on the grass with a weary groan. "Oh, Shal'mac; that was a battle, and no mistake. I barely escaped with half of my legion alive, although the outcome could have been far worse. I must gather more forces and make a plan to return to the field immediately, or Cronus shall punish my failure. I just wanted to see you before I went; whatever the outcome."
"Why did you lose?" Shal'mac asked. "Is not Cronus' army the greatest in the galaxy."
"It is," Ron'ac agreed. "But one legion of Cronus Jaffa can not match three of Bastet's warriors. We were outnumbered and our intelligence reports were inaccurate, leaving us poorly positioned. It was a battle that could not have been won. Yet I made Bastet's First Prime regret our exchange," he added, proudly. "Taking two lives for each one of my Jaffa hers killed."
"Her?" Shal'mac asked.
Ron'ac snorted, contemptuously. "Do you wonder that we fought so much better? Bastet allows women to fight in her army." He frowned. "But perhaps I should not have retreated," he said. "Surely Cronus will be angry with me. I must return to the barracks at once and muster all of the Raven Guard, save the palace regiment." He rose to his feet.
"But a leader has a duty to his men," Shal'mac said. "Cronus will not punish you for protecting them, will he."
"Listen to me, Shal'mac," Ron'ac said. "A Jaffa warrior serves but one master; he has but one duty: The duty to his God. No other commands his loyalty, or his obedience."
"Yet mother tells you where you may go in the house," Shal'mac said, innocently.
A strange look came into Ron'ac's eyes. "What did you say?" He asked.
Shal'mac shivered in fear. He did not want to repeat his words, but his mother had told him to respect and honour his father. "I said that mother tells you where you may go in the house, and you obey her," he said, in a shaking voice.
"She does not..." Ron'ac turned and marched towards the residence.
"Father?" Shal'mac called out. "Father!"
Ron'ac ignored him, and Shal'mac ran after him, but Ron'ac's long strides soon left his son behind as he turned for the east wing. Shal'mac tried to run faster, but a stitch tore at his muscles and he slowed to a stumbling walk, gasping with the pain as he tried to put it behind him, as his father had taught.
Finally, he found his way to the east wing, and the entrance to his mother's chambers. The door was barred, and outside Ry'auc's servants tended to the castellan, who seemed to have been grievously wounded in the head. Two other men were clutching injuries, and one of Ry'auc's handmaidens was nursing a broken arm and a gashed brow. The servants looked up as the young boy approached, but would not meet his eyes.
"Where are my parents?" Shal'mac demanded.
Before anyone could answer him, a sound from beyond the door chilled Shal'mac's blood; the sound of his mother's scream.
"No!" Shal'mac ran past the servants, and pounded his small fists against his mother's door. "Mother!" He screamed. "Father!" He beat at the door switch, but it was locked. "Bring the key!" He ordered one of the servants.
The girl shook her head. "He said no-one was to come in," she told the child, her voice shaking with fear. "He said he would kill anyone who tried."
Beyond the door, Ron'ac roared in pain. After a moment, Ry'auc gave a scream of terror, and her voice could be heard, pleading desperately. Shal'mac leaned against the door, trying to hear what was happening, but the servant girl in a display of almost insolent temerity took him by the shoulders and drew him away.
"Let go of me!" He snapped, kicking futilely at her shins.
"No," she replied. "You...You do not want to hear this, child." Her eyes were haunted, and somehow Shal'mac knew that she spoke from experience. Chilled by the hollow pain in her gaze, he turned and fled from the door, and the terrible, terrible sounds on the other side.
*
When he left his wife's chambers, Ron'ac looked as though he had been through a second battle. Many of his wounds were reopened, and his wife's nails and teeth had given him fresh scratches and bruises across his back, his shoulders and his face. Worst of all was the look in the First Prime's eyes; a look that showed the few servants who dared meet his gaze that the last shred of decency and honour in his soul had been consumed by the last in a long line of violent acts.
He stumbled towards the doors of the house, but was stopped abruptly when he came face-to-face with his a squad of Raven Guards, led by his second in command, Cal'ma.
"Ron'ac," Cal'ma began.
"You will address me as First Prime," Ron'ac hissed, through bruised lips.
Cal'ma averted his gaze. "Ron'ac of the Grey Mountain, by the command of Cronus you are to surrender yourself into my custody, and be escorted to the palace to face the judgement of your God. You have failed in your service, and been found unworthy to lead the armies of Cronus."
"What?" Ron'ac asked, uncomprehending. "Cal'ma...you know me..."
"Perhaps...Cronus may forgive you," Cal'ma suggested, without much conviction. "But I am ordered to bring you to him. You have been my mentor and my friend," he added. "I shall give you time to bathe and dress. You should not come before your god in such a fashion."
Shoulders bowed, Ron'ac turned towards the bath house. "Have someone bring me armour," he said.
"Yes, First Prime," Cal'ma said, sadly, obeying what he knew would be his captain's last command. He motioned for one Jaffa to bring armour, and for the rest of the squad to stay, as he walked alongside his broken commander.
"You shall most likely succeed me," Ron'ac said. "If that is so, I am sorry."
Cal'ma was baffled. "Why are you sorry?"
"Because one day this may happen to you."
*
In the future, Shal'mac could never say for certain how long he had remained hidden, curled up in the bottom of the closet in his mother's abandoned chambers, before Kal'rhe found him, and wrapped him in her arms as he wept tears of bitter confusion.
"Shal'mac," she whispered, once he had cried himself out. "You have to be brave now. Your mother needs you again."
"He hurt her because of me," Shal'mac said. "Because I said that she commanded his obedience."
Kal'rhe looked at the boy, a denial on the tip of her tongue, but could not force out the lie. "You did not know," she said. "But there is no time for that now. We must gather your things, for you must leave here now."
Shal'mac swallowed hard, choking on his tears, but nodded. "Tell my mother I am sorry," he said.
"What...?" She realised, and hugged him harder. "Oh, no, Shal'mac. You are not being sent away. But your father will be gone soon, and it will not be safe for you here."
"Where is father going?" Teal'c asked, alarmed. "Is it because of what I said?"
Kal'rhe shook her head. "No. He has failed his God, and will be punished, and so you and your mother must leave. Some day, you shall understand, but for now you must trust in me." She turned the frightened boy's head so that he faced her. "Do you trust me, Shal'mac?"
"Always," Shal'mac replied.
"Then come with me."
*
As Kal'rhe led him across the cloistered courtyard, Shal'mac saw his father striding towards the main doors, his head held high, surrounded by grim-faced Raven Guards. Somehow, his impending death had restored to the Jaffa a semblance of the great dignity he had lost, and however he had lived, he was determined to die well.
"Father!" Shal'mac called out. The former First Prime of Cronus turned his head to face his son, and smiled, sadly.
As Shal'mac started towards his father, Kal'rhe caught him by the shoulders. "Hush," she whispered. "Let him go, Shal'mac."
"What will happen to him?" Shal'mac asked.
"He will be...punished," Kal'rhe explained. "He will die."
Shal'mac choked in desperate sorrow.
"Be strong," Kal'rhe whispered. "Do not weep for him now, or you may destroy his courage." She shook her head, sombrely. "He was great once," she said. "Come now, Shal'mac; there is little time."
Kal'rhe led her young charge to the lawn behind the residence, where a Jaffa warrior waited with his mother and the midwife, Tarc'nau, beside a teltac.
"If you stay, it will be most expedient simply to kill you both," Tarc'nau was explaining. "But if you are already on your way, Cronus will be satisfied with banishment."
"Mother!"
Ry'auc turned to her son, and he gasped in horror. She was wrapped in a simple robe, which covered most of her body, but he could still see the bruises on her face, neck and wrists. "Shal'mac," she croaked, her voice hoarse. "Are you ready?"
Shal'mac nodded, dumbly. He carried a small bag, and Kal'rhe had a larger one.
"Is the ship ready, Marl'ac?" Kal'rhe asked the young warrior.
"It is," her brother replied. "You are certain that you do not wish me to accompany you," he added, turning to Ry'auc.
"I am sure," she said. "The fewer know where we go the better. You will not be in danger this way."
"Good fortune," Tarc'nau said. "I would say, may the Gods smile on you', but one at least will not."
Shal'mac turned to stare at the royal palace, looming over the only home he had ever known. "My father is to die," he said. "For losing a battle he could not have won."
"I...yes," Ry'auc agreed, not wanting to burden her son with her suspicions and her doubts. "Come, Shal'mac; we must go."
"He did that to you?" Shal'mac asked, looking at her battered face.
Ry'auc hung her head, her silence more of an answer than any words.
"Shal'mac," Kal'rhe said, softly.
"Teal'c," the boy replied. "My name is Teal'c. I will not use the name he gave me any more."
Tarc'nau nodded, approvingly. "Very well, Teal'c; but you must go."
"Thank you for your kindness," the boy said. "And you, Kal'rhe."
Impulsively, Kal'rhe knelt and embraced the child, her eyes full of tears. "Take care of your mother, Teal'c," she said. "And remember that I love you both."
"I love you, Kal'rhe," the boy replied. Kal'rhe released him, and he turned to go with his mother. At the hatch he turned and gazed at the palace once more. "I shall come back," he said, softly. "Cronus is an unjust god. I shall become the strongest Jaffa I can be, and I shall come back at the head of an army."
"Teal'c," Kal'rhe cautioned, softly.
"I shall show him that some battles can not be won." Teal'c turned, and the hatch closed behind him.
"What have we done?" Marl'ac asked, as the teltac rose into the air.
"What had to be done," Kal'rhe assured him.
Tarc'nau smiled, enigmatically, and said: "What was written."