Back to Part Three



"... and after that, I was trained by an ancient wise man in the woods for a while."

"Your life is very strange," Rodney said. He was lying down, his head pillowed on his arm. "And I'm starving," he added plaintively. "I'd almost like to see Kell again, as long as he brings food with him."

"Right, and then he'll cut off your fingers until I play assassin for him," John said in a strained voice.

Rodney sat up abruptly. "Did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"I thought I heard a clatter. Oh, God." Rodney pulled up his knees to his chest. "I don't do well with pain, John. I really, really don't do well with --"

"Rodney!" a voice hissed.

"That's Teylaval!" Rodney looked wildly around before a shape blocked the light coming in from their single small window. Dragging his chains, he approached as close as he could get, placing his hands against the slimy stones of the wall. "What are you doing? How did you get there?"

"I climbed," Teylaval whispered through the slit in the wall.

"You climbed?" Rodney repeated in disbelief. "You climbed the tower? You're clinging to the wall right now?"

"I am good at climbing," Teylaval said defensively. A small hand waved through the gap, carrying a bundle. "I brought you some food. I wasn't sure if Kell would be feeding you."

"Food," Rodney said reverently, stretching to take it. Their fingers brushed, and Teylaval's lingered just a bit, and oh, damn, John was right. "Teylaval?"

"Yes?" he -- or, perhaps, she -- said immediately. And, yes, that was a bit of a high-pitched voice for a boy, wasn't it?

"Are you a girl?" Rodney asked, and then winced. Nice going, Sir Tactful. John aimed a kick at him, a hard one this time, but was too far away to hit him.

There was a very long silence from outside the window. Finally Teylaval said, with disturbing formality, "What makes you say that, Sir Rodney?"

Oh, crap. Feeling one of the only friendly relationships in his life slipping away, Rodney floundered desperately in unfamiliar verbal waters and what blurted out was: "Because I, um, you -- you're very pretty and if you're not a girl, then I'm, I probably think there's a reason my father never married me off, beyond the fact that he hates me and thinks I'm useless, of course --"

His hands were still stretched above his head, resting against the wall, and a sudden brush of fingertips ghosted across his hand before Teylaval said quietly through the window-slit, "Yes, Rodney, I am a girl. Please do not tell anyone."

Something inside Rodney bent and snapped and relaxed, and he stretched as far as he could, reaching up so that her small, strong fingers could close around his bigger, colder ones. "Of course I won't tell anyone. Who else knows?"

"Guinevere has always known, and my grandmother, of course. And John, apparently, now, if he is in there with you," Teylaval added with a slightly sharper note in her voice.

"Hi," John said from somewhere near Rodney's knee.

"He already noticed," Rodney protested. "Really. No big deal. At least, I don't think it's a big deal. He's my brother; I can beat the crap out of him if he tells anyone."

This time John managed to connect with his shin, albeit glancingly. Rodney winced and shifted his lower body out of reach.

Teylaval's fingers still hadn't let go, and Rodney nerved himself enough to ask, "Is Teylaval your real name?"

She laughed softly, and squeezed his hand. "It is Teyla. Just Teyla."

"Oh. Teyla. Really? Um. That's --" Weird. Disconcerting. Kind of nice.

Teylaval -- Teyla -- gave his hand a gentle shake. "There is no time; I cannot stay long, so I must let you know what is happening. The Lady Elizabeth came to see Guinevere and myself today."

Rodney heard John's soft intake of breath at Elizabeth's name. "Yeah, about that, Teyla," John said from his position near the wall. "The Duke's plotting against the King. Don't know if anyone will listen, but Elizabeth and Guinevere might be a good place to start."

"I know about the Duke," Teyla said.

"Wait, what?" Rodney peered up, but couldn't see her face. "You know? How?"

"The Lady Elizabeth believes that the Duke was involved in the murder of the Pendragons." Rodney felt Teyla's grip shift as she sought a better position on the wall. "How do you know?"

"The Duke wants me to kill the King," John said. "Threatened Rodney to get my cooperation."

Now it was Teyla's turn to suck in a breath. "What did you tell him?"

"Didn't give him an answer. He's supposed to come back anytime."

"I will tell Lady Elizabeth. She and Guinevere are trying to intercede with the King on your behalf. They must know that this is a matter of urgency."

"Yeah," John said. "Rodney's not much to look at, but I kinda like him in one piece."

"Will you stop making jokes!" Rodney snapped over his shoulder. "We're in a little bit of trouble, if you hadn't noticed!"

John's eyes glittered at him in the dim cell. "Don't lecture me about danger, Rodney. I haven't exactly been having a picnic in the woods for the last five years, all right?"

"Rodney," Teyla whispered through the bars, giving his hands a sharp squeeze and drawing his attention back to her. "I should not stay much longer. Is there anything else I should know before I go?"

"No, no, just ... just be careful doing crazy things like climbing towers, okay?" The terrible urgency of his situation held him in its grasp; what could he say, not even knowing if he'd see her again? "Teyla," he said, just to test it out, just to say it and to have her hear him say it.

"Yes?"

And once again, words deserted him. "That's -- that's a pretty name."

"Do you really think so?" Her fingertips stroked across the top of his hand.

"Yes. Really. You've probably been around me enough by now to know how terrible I am at lying, right? And it's close enough to your, um, your boy name that I could kind of, maybe, slip and call you that in public sometimes and it wouldn't be a big deal, right? Okay, now I'm babbling. Sorry. I babble."

"Maybe sometimes, Rodney." Teyla stretched a little more, so that she could reach his thumb and run her own thumb over the base of it. Rodney dropped the bundle of food on the floor with a soft thud and reached his other hand up to curl over hers.

"Sometimes I babble, or sometimes I can call you Teyla?"

"Sometimes both," she said quietly, and for an eternal moment, they stayed that way -- Rodney stretched as far as he could, his hands curled around hers, slimed with mud and grime. He could feel the rough calluses on her fingertips and the stickiness of blood and mud from climbing the wall.

Leaning his forehead into the stones, he closed his eyes and held on.

Teyla was the one who pulled away first. "Rodney, I am sorry. I have to go before someone sees me here." He could feel the reluctance in the fingers brushing down his thumb, the back of his hand, his knuckles and fingertips. "I must go," Teyla said, so quietly he could barely hear her. "I wish I could do more to help."

"Thank you," Rodney said against the wall. "You did a lot. Please don't come back. Don't risk yourself." And strangely, terrifyingly, it was true -- he was more afraid for her, crouched on the wall, than for himself, in the prison cell and Duke Kell's power.

"I do not promise that I won't come back, but I will be careful." Small scuttling sounds marked her retreat. Rodney stayed flat against the wall, eyes closed, listening until she was out of earshot. Then, and only then, he slid down the wall and leaned against it to unwrap her package.

"Told you she was a girl," John said softly, nudging his ankle with a toe.

"Shut up."

The bundle contained not only food -- fresh crusty bread, apples, chicken -- but also a wad of soft, clean cloth that Rodney realized was meant to be used for bandages, and a wicked-looking, long-bladed knife.

"Quite a girlfriend you've got, Rodney," John said when Rodney held up the knife to show him.

"She's not my -- Look, just for that, I'm not giving you the knife."

"Right, because I'm sure you're excellent with hand-to-hand knife combat."

"Jerk." Rodney handed it over, and even remembered to do it hilt first.


* * * * * * * *


The first time Guinevere had found her way to the King's hidden sanctuary at the top of the fortress, she'd done it by accident. This time, she sought it on purpose, accompanied by her mother. By the time that she found the narrow stairs, the day was growing late; she and Elizabeth emerged onto the high balcony in the ruddy light of a low-lying sun. The King was nowhere in sight.

"There's a banquet tonight," Elizabeth said. "He is probably preparing for that."

"Banquet?" Guinevere echoed. "Why?"

Her mother's voice was calm and dry as she said, "May I recall you to yesterday's festivities? It's the second day of feasting in celebration of your impending marriage and the King's coronation.."

Oh, right -- the wedding! Guinevere tried to remember what it had felt like to have the betrothal as her biggest, her only concern. She couldn't even relate to that person anymore. She felt as if she'd aged a year in only one day.

"We can try at his quarters, then."

But the King was still refusing to take visitors, even when Guinevere tried to use what clout she possessed, as the prospective bride and one of the guests of honor. His Highness was tied up with important matters of state, they were told.

"Will you take him a message for me, then?" Guinevere asked. She was brought ink and paper, and there she hesitated, wondering what she could say about such sensitive matters in a missive that would no doubt pass through many hands. Finally she wrote, "Meet me tonight where the peasant girl came to you. It is important. -Guinevere of Kell."

Frustrated and dispirited, she and her mother returned to their rooms to dress for the banquet. Teyla was waiting for them, and Guinevere, who was watching her mother, saw Lady Elizabeth's calm demeanor drop away for a moment, revealing the naked worry underneath. "What word, Teyla?" Elizabeth asked, regaining control of herself.

"They are both still alive," Teyla said, and drawing a deep breath, "I believe your suspicions about your husband are correct. He is attempting to blackmail John into killing the King."

Guinevere's hand flew to her mouth.

"I see," Elizabeth said heavily, and she sank down onto the window seat. Her hands curled into fists atop the packet of papers in her lap.

"Now it's even more urgent that we talk to the King." Guinevere tugged on her mother's arm. "Mother, come. If we tell the guards that there's a threat to the King's life, we'll surely be believed."

Elizabeth stared at the floor for a moment, and when she raised her head to look at Guinevere, her face was composed and her eyes strangely blank. "Here," she said quietly, and held out the packet of papers. "You should do it. He already knows you, and I think that you have a fair chance of getting to him yourself."

Guinevere fumbled with the packet of letters. "But -- but, Mother, I don't know what to say. You're the one who has first-hand experience with my father's crimes. You're a witness. I can't --"

"You can," Elizabeth said harshly. "You are a woman, Guinevere, and the King's bride. If he won't listen to you, then he surely won't listen to me. Go, quickly. Warn him."

Guinevere started to run for the door, then turned back and looked over her shoulder. "But what are you going to do, Mother?"

"I must take care of some things that should have been done a long time ago," Lady Elizabeth said, and this time her voice was gentle. "Godspeed, daughter. Go warn the King."

As Guinevere ran from the room, she could not help looking back once more at her mother, sitting by the window as the last rays of the setting sun gave way to cold moonlight. Then she gave her feet wing, running down the halls.


* * * * * * * *


After Guinevere left, Elizabeth sat in silence for a few moments, staring out the window as the moon rose above the fortress. Her fingers worked back and forth across the small package that Charin had given her. Beneath the lacings of her dress, her heart beat out a steady rhythm: No time, no time, no time ... But still, she did not rise until Teyla spoke.

"Lady Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth jumped. She had forgotten that her sister's friend was still in the room. "Teyla," she said, and was surprised to find her voice steady, and her legs as well, when she stood up. "Teyla, do you think you could show me to the tower room where my husband has imprisoned John?"

"And Rodney," Teyla murmured. "Yes, my lady, I can."

"Very well." Elizabeth turned and looked out the window once more. Then she drew a deep, fortifying breath, and folded her fingers around the little twist of cloth in her hand. "Please, Teyla, let us make haste."


* * * * * * * *


"Well, hello," the King said as Guinevere stepped out onto the high balcony. He was standing by the edge, looking down at the river far below, his long hair whipped by the wind, silvered in the moonlight.

Guinevere had hoped, but didn't dare expect, that she'd find him here. Quickly she dropped into a deep curtsey.

"Get up, get up," the King said, crossing the space between them to pull Guinevere to her feet, gently, by her hands. "We're going to be married, aren't we? I hope you don't plan on doing this every time."

He'd changed out of the leathers (to Guinevere's secret disappointment) and back into more appropriate clothes for his station, finely tailored of beautiful cloth. A slim sword hung on his hip; Guinevere, having grown up around weapons, knew enough to recognize it as a ceremonial blade, but after seeing the King in action in the meadow, she had no doubt that he could wield it with deadly purpose.

"You're making me late for my own banquet," he added, leading her by the hand to the doorway into the hidden room.

"It's my banquet too," Guinevere found the nerve to point out.

"Hmm, good point." Ronon closed the door behind them. "I heard you were looking for me earlier. Sorry. I go away for a few hours and the place falls apart. Seems like someone's always got something I need to put my seal on, or an argument they just can't settle without me."

"It sounds difficult, being a king." A single candle burned on the table; Guinevere looked around for more, found a pile of tapers and lit a few. They would need light.

"Not exactly as glamorous as it's supposed to be." Ronon sat at the table, straddling a chair in a most un-kingly fashion. "What's that you've got there?"

"Something very important." Guinevere spread the papers on the table. A sudden, horrible thought occurred to her. "Uh, can you read?"

Ronon gave her an amused look. "Not much else to do in long winter evenings in the forest, and I did have a pretty good education when I was small. Later, when I was in town to sell firewood, I used to scour the market for books -- Latin, Greek, stuff like that."

"Oh! Have you read Hippocrates?" The urgency of Guinevere's mission was momentarily lost in her delight at finding a kindred soul. Most of the other young ladies at the Kell estate had no interest in studying long-dead scholars. Guinevere found them fascinating, particularly the medical books.

"Sure. It's a little dry. Homer, now, there's some good stuff."

"You must have many books here, in the palace."

"Lots," Ronon said, and his eyes warmed.

For just a moment, Guinevere fell into those eyes; then a rush of sorrow and regret pulled her out of them. When Ronon learned what her father had done, he might want nothing to do with her anymore.

No more than a day or two ago, she would have loved to have such an excuse to call off the engagement. Now the thought hurt her to the bottom of her soul.

"What's wrong?" Ronon asked.

You are a woman, her mother had said. And sometimes women had to do things they did not wish to do.

"Come here," Guinevere said quietly, as she unfolded the first letter. "You need to read these."


* * * * * * * *


The sunshine slanting through the small window of the prison cell had faded into bone-white moonlight. John had been sitting in a brooding silence for hours, while Rodney entertained himself by throwing leftover crumbs of bread to the lively population of rats. He was on the verge of naming a couple of the more amusing ones when the key once again clicked in the lock.

John rocked forward onto his knees and climbed to his feet. His injured arm was awkwardly tied against his side; the knife had been secreted away in the bandaging.

"You're planning something," Rodney hissed. "What are you doing?"

The door opened, shafting torchlight into the cell, then closed behind Kell's hulking figure. "I imagine you're getting a bit hungry by now, and water surely wouldn't go amiss," he said pleasantly. "Have you considered my offer?"

"Yes," John said immediately. "I'll do it."

"What?" burst out from Rodney.

"Well, that's very reasonable of you." Kell smiled unpleasantly at Rodney, toying with his sword. "I thought you might see it that way."

"Why not?" John said, his voice light and pleasant. "I don't owe the King anything. Now, I'm definitely going to want to get something out of it on my end, as well."

Kell snorted. "You're hardly in a position to be making demands."

"It's not a demand." John's voice remained light. "I'm merely suggesting that holding threats over a man's head only goes so far to retain his loyalty. If I'm to risk my neck for you, I'd like some compensation of the monetary sort."

Kell drew his sword and swept it through the air over Rodney's head in a contemplative sort of way. Rodney tried not to cower in too unmanly a fashion. "What, his safety isn't good enough motivation for you?" Kell inquired.

"Like I said," John said pleasantly. "Threats only take you so far. For a purse of money and the return of my horse -- and my brother's freedom, of course -- I'll do your dirty work."

Kell scowled. "I don't think so."

John rested his good hand against the wall in a casual kind of way. "Well, then, perhaps we won't have a deal after all. I'm not asking for much, considering the magnitude of what you want. I might be willing to forgo the 'Rodney's freedom' bit if you throw in more money, as well."

Rodney felt the sword whisper past his ear. "You don't care if I cut pieces off him?" Kell asked.

"Of course I do, but, to be blunt, I care about my own freedom more," John said shortly. "Naturally, I'd rather not see my brother harmed, but it seems that you're set on killing one or both of us, and given the choice, I'd rather it were him." Over Rodney's high-pitched protests, John went on, "Which brings us back to the whole 'threats are a lousy motivator' thing. Tell you what. You keep Rodney as a hostage against my good behavior, so long as I keep up my end of the bargain, and then perhaps we can renegotiate that part later. But I want the promise of money now. One gentleman to another." Taking his hand from the wall, he wiped off the slime on his ragged shirt and held it out.

"I see exile hasn't been good for your morality," Rodney said darkly.

Kell said nothing, just struck him across the jaw with one mailed fist, slamming him back into the wall. The cell went black for an instant and he came back to himself lying on his side, tasting blood.

"No reaction? You seemed a bit more worried about him back in the field," he heard Kell say above his head.

John's reply came back from a little farther away, in that same light, pleasant tone. "That was before I spent most of a day locked in a cell with him. It's definitely gone a long way to remind me why we never got along as children."

"Then you don't care if I kill him?" Kell asked, and Rodney felt a line of cold steel touch his neck. He might have whimpered a bit.

"Of course I'd prefer not to see him dead," John said sharply. "We are family, after all, regardless of whether I like him or not. But there's no need for it, and he's more useful alive anyway."

Kell laughed. "I don't think he has a useful bone in his body."

"Hey," Rodney managed weakly.

"Shut up -- men are talking," Kell said, and a boot drove into his stomach, leaving him sick and breathless.

John's voice sounded a bit strained. "Like I said ... keep him as a hostage against my good behavior. No point in throwing away a tool if you don't have to. After the King is dead, we can decide what to do with him."

There was a pause, interminable for Rodney, during which Kell's sword continued to rest against his neck. Then it drew away. "I thought we might be able to come to an agreement, you and I," Kell said.

"Indeed," John agreed. "Shake on it?"

Rodney lifted his head to see Kell reach out a hand, bringing him within reach of John, chains and all.

And John moved fast, fast as Rodney had ever seen. Teyla's dagger was in his good hand even as he spun around and hooked one of his shackled ankles behind Kell's boot, tangling the other man in his leg chains.

The dagger was aimed at Kell's throat, one of the few vulnerable spots not covered by chain mail. But Kell, with reflexes surprisingly fast for a man of his size, managed to strike John's arm and throw off his aim. The dagger's blade glanced along Kell's stubbled jaw, and John was extended, open, unable to recover before Kell drove a fist into his side. More blows drove him to the floor, gasping in pain and curling to protect his broken arm.

The bloodied dagger, forgotten by the combatants, had fallen to the floor under Kell's boots. Rodney went for it, though he was at the very limit of his chains, and slashed at Kell's back. The razor-sharp dagger ripped through his tunic and scraped along the mail beneath. Kell swung a backhand blow at Rodney, who managed to duck only to meet the pommel of Kell's sword, striking his cheekbone and sending him, half-dazed, to the floor.

John spat blood and uncurled enough to look up. "Rodney, you okay?"

"Oh, I'm great," Rodney mumbled. He could feel his eye swelling shut, joining the ache in his head and jaw and stomach and just about everywhere else. "Nice plan, genius!"

"What is it with the two of you?" Kell sneered, planting a boot on Rodney's chest. Rodney sucked in his breath and held very still, looking up, up, up the steely length of Kell's very long, very sharp-looking sword. "Have neither of you any common sense at all? I was perfectly willing to make a deal with you."

"I don't like your terms," John said, pushing himself up on his knees and his one good hand. "And I don't trust you an inch. There's no way you're letting us go no matter what deal we make, no matter what you promise us. We know too much about you."

The muscles clenched in Kell's jaw. "Then there's no reason for me not to kill him right now, is there?" He looked over his shoulder at John; Rodney, daring to twist his head to the side, could see John in half-turned profile, his face pale and furious.

"Don't," John said.

"Beg for it," Kell said softly. The sword point tickled Rodney's neck. "I want to hear you beg for his life ... if you value it that much."

John's face twisted with hate -- and anguish; the depth of it startled Rodney. "You're going to kill us both anyway; what's the point?"

"I suppose you don't value it much at all, then," Kell said, and the sword point dug into Rodney's neck. It hurt enough to shock a small cry from him, and then he shut his eyes, focusing on the darkness behind his eyelids.

"Please," John said. His voice was quiet and steady. "Please don't kill him."

Kell laughed. "That's more like it. Now let's try it on your knees."

Don't, Rodney thought, sick with fury and shame as well as pain. He heard the rattling of John's chains as John moved -- and, at the same time, the scrape of the door grating across the floor.

"Hello, my husband," a low, woman's voice said into the silence.

Rodney's eyes snapped open. He knew that voice. He saw naked shock on John's face before he rolled his eyes as far as he could without moving his head, to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth standing in the doorway.

When Kell spoke, he sounded wary -- as well he might, Rodney thought, seeing the look on Elizabeth's face. "Elizabeth," Kell said. "This is no suitable place for you."

"Really? I didn't think you were concerned with my comings and goings." Elizabeth strode into the fetid cell in a sweep of long skirts. She spared barely a glance for Rodney, and did not so much as look at John. Behind her, Teyla appeared in the doorway, dressed as her male persona.

The sword withdrew from Rodney's neck, and Kell stepped back, out of reach of the two chained men, to grip Elizabeth's arm without gentleness. "Leave. Now."

"I merely came to tell you that all are gathering for a banquet downstairs," Elizabeth said smoothly. "A squire let me know where I could find you."

"I'm busy, woman," Kell snapped.

"People will talk if you miss the festivities, my husband." Elizabeth had been holding her hands tucked together in front of her; now she raised one of them, and Rodney, watching from his awkward angle on the floor, thought he glimpsed something -- a square of cloth or leather, hidden in the cup of her palm where Kell couldn't see it. Elizabeth raised that hand to Kell's face -- the side of his face that John had cut with the dagger -- and laid her palm against his cheek, stroking it in apparent connubial affection. Rodney, however, was near enough to see the hard set of her jaw, the way the tendons stood out on the back of her hand.

Kell drew his face back, hissing. "Be careful!"

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth said. "How very careless of me." Her face was perfectly smooth and blank as she stepped backwards, away from him.

Kell took a step after her, putting his hand up to touch his face. "That burns! What did you do?" He took another step, but this time his leg buckled under him and he went down to one knee. He was breathing hard and fast, his face turning purple. "What did you do to me?" he gasped, staring at her.

"Something I should have done a long time ago," Elizabeth said, her voice as bitter as wormwood. "Had I only been able to find the courage."

Kell fell forward with a strangled cry, still reaching for her, his fingers curling into vicious claws. "You bitch, you've poisoned me!"

"This is for everyone that you've hurt," Elizabeth went on as he cursed her, his voice becoming slurred and unintelligible as hers remained clear. "This is for all the times that you threatened to kill our daughter to make me obey you, for all the people you've harmed and killed, all the servants you've beaten and the serving women you've raped. You deserve this a thousand times over, my husband."

But she raised her free hand to cover her mouth, and her eyes hurt to look at, as Kell went into convulsions at her feet. Finally he was still.

Rodney sat up slowly and shakily, touching his throat and feeling the tackiness of blood where the tip of the sword had pierced his skin.

"Wow," John said, his voice weary and hoarse. "Remind me not to make you mad."

Elizabeth looked up, and the brittle, emotionless mask cracked and broke and fell away. Suddenly she looked years younger. "John," she said, in a voice that brimmed with more emotion than Rodney had heard from her in all the years he'd served Kell. "John. It's true. You're alive."

She went to her knees on the floor of the cell, gathering John into her arms with exquisite care for his injuries, and Rodney had to look away from both of them. Luckily, there was Teyla to look at -- short and boyish with her hair tied back, kneeling swiftly and quietly at his side to probe his bruises with mercilessly efficient fingers.

"Ow!"

"Oh, you are a mess, aren't you, Sir Rodney?" she said gently, bracing her fingertips on his jaw and tilting his head to see his face in the torchlight streaming in from the corridor.

"I've been locked in a cell and beaten up. You wouldn't look that great either," Rodney muttered. "Ow! What are you doing? I don't need more bruises!" John, he saw over his shoulder, had Elizabeth fluttering gently all over him, kissing him with infinite tenderness -- whereas Rodney got to have Teyla mauling him like one of her horses. Life just wasn't fair. "Ow!"

"I need to make sure that you have no broken bones or internal injuries. Kindly stop complaining; you are not hurt that much. I have had much worse after being thrown from horseback." Her small hands gripped his own, spreading his fingers apart, checking each one with grave care. A few more bruises were discovered in the process.

"Gee, thanks for the sympathy. Ouch!"

Now she was checking over his torso with absolutely no sense of shame whatsoever. "You would not thank me if I overlooked an injury and you were to bleed to death in the night. I have seen it happen."

"To horses!"

"Humans are not that different." She checked him all the way down to his ankles -- okay, now he really felt like a horse -- and then returned her attention to his face.

"If you start looking at my teeth, I'm out of here. Well. As soon as I get out of these shackles."

"Are your teeth damaged, then?" She touched his lips with her fingertips, brushing lightly over them.

"I think every part of me is -- Ow. Stop it. Did I mention I was hit in the face? My nose will never be the same --"

"You were very brave today, Sir Rodney," Teyla said, and he stopped in mid-complaint.

"Really?"

"Yes," she said, "very," and kissed him, very lightly, on the unbruised corner of his mouth, shocking him into temporary silence.

"Oh," he said stupidly, when his mouth managed to recover, even if his brain still hadn't. "Oh, um, you too, what with the climbing walls and --"

Teyla's eyes went suddenly a bit wider and she jumped away, bending over one of Rodney's ankle shackles and looking very busy all of a sudden. Rodney's brain was still processing this when the cell door swung a little wider to admit the King himself, sword in hand.

The King stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene, his face unreadable. "Who did this?" he asked after a moment, nudging Kell's body with his toe.

"Me," John said promptly.

"Highness, no." Elizabeth stood, and curtseyed politely. "It was me. I poisoned him. I stand prepared to receive whatever sentence you feel is appropriate."

"Elizabeth!" John hissed.

Ronon studied Elizabeth for a moment, then cracked a wan grin. "I came up here for revenge, actually. Your daughter told me what your husband did. He killed my parents and my entire family." He looked a bit depressed. "I was hoping to stick a sword in him, at least."

"I'm very sorry, Your Highness, but I've been married to him for twenty years," Elizabeth said briskly. "I believe I have a bit of a claim in the revenge department."

"I devoted my whole life to killing him," Rodney pointed out, giving Elizabeth a pointed stare.

"You should have been faster about it, then," Elizabeth returned sharply. "Where is my daughter, by the way?"

"Downstairs. She wanted to come, but I didn't think it would be a good idea to bring her up here." Ronon looked down at the body again. "Just as well, I guess. Those unconscious guards out there -- who did that?"

Teyla looked up from her studious scrutiny of Rodney's ankle chain, a bit shyly. "That would be me."

"They were men in my husband's employ, guarding this tower," Elizabeth said. "Teyla ... val disabled them on our way up here."

"Resourceful," Ronon murmured. He unhooked a ring of keys from Kell's belt and tossed them to Elizabeth, who knelt and hunted through them for the key to John's shackles.

Rodney managed not to say anything until Elizabeth passed him the keys; then, as he unlocked his own chains, he asked of anyone who'd answer, "So, are we in trouble? Because it's really not the best situation, but you know, we do have a pretty good explanation for it. Well, most of it."

Ronon laughed softly. "No," he said. "You're not. At least not as far as I'm concerned. I would've killed him myself if I'd got to him first." He still looked a bit disapointed that he hadn't gotten the chance.

Elizabeth was helping John to his feet. Teyla offered Rodney a shoulder. He didn't really need it, but took it anyway, because hey, he was hurt, if not particularly badly, and she certainly didn't seem to mind having him lean on her.

Quite the contrary, actually.





Epilogue: Two Months Later


In the ruddy light of a sinking sun, the two Sheppard brothers rode along the line of hills marking the farthest extent of the Kell lands. Warstrider had been put out to pasture and Rodney, this time, had the pick of the horses in the stable; he'd chosen a quiet bay mare, and John had to rein in his frisky black stallion to hold him back to the placid mare's speed.

Still, they rode side by side, the mare stretching her legs and the stallion prancing under John's deft control. John was the one who halted his stallion on a point of land overlooking the rolling valley; Rodney rode on for a few strides longer, before noticing that he'd suddenly become the only one. With a sigh, he guided the mare around and went back to rejoin his brother.

"The royal wedding is next month, and Guinevere's dowry goes with it," John said after a moment. "All the land from there to there" -- he gestured with one gloved hand, describing a portion of the patchwork quilt spread out at their feet -- "will belong to the King."

Rodney was silent for a while before he said, "Probably more than that. At Elizabeth's age -- no offense here, but, seriously ... it's not likely that the two of you will produce an heir. Even if ...." and he trailed off, realizing that he might be overstepping the bounds of tact and decency. Considering the respective difference in John and Elizabeth's social stations, Elizabeth seemed likely to remain the Dowager Duchess of Kell for the foreseeable future, though John was now informally living in her chambers and the two of them seemed perfectly happy with that.

John didn't take offense, though. "I know. I'm not in it for that." He gazed thoughtfully down at the dusk creeping across the forests and fields of the Duchy of Kell. "Guinevere and Ronon's kids can have it. They'll do well. I'd like to see this place in their hands, anyway." Glancing over at his brother, he added with a sly, crooked grin, "How's Teyla?"

"Still wears pants and can best me at nearly every knightly pursuit," Rodney said, a bit gloomily. "The only thing I was better at was swordfighting, since she wasn't allowed to handle them, being a commoner and all. Now she's rapidly surpassing me at that, as well."

He could feel a blush heating his cheeks, though, and hastily found a distant tree to stare at with feigned interest. Teyla, still thoroughly ensconced in her role as a boy, was blossoming under her military training in a way that Rodney himself had never done. In her off time, however, she'd been more than happy to prove to him that she was not only a woman, but considerably older than he'd taken her for, what with her short stature and unboyishly rounded, beardless face. And as if that weren't enough, between the two of them, she and Rodney had already built a working model of the new grinding machinery for the mill.

It was starting to appear that neither of the two disgraced members of the Sheppard clan were likely to take a proper wife, being satisfied as they were with the decidedly non-traditional arrangements that fate had chosen to throw into their laps.

Something small and hard struck Rodney in the head, jolting him out of his reverie. Looking around wildly, he saw the missile bounce off his stirrup and drop to the path under his horse's hooves. John, the cad, had thrown a pine cone at him.

"Race you down to the river," John said cheerfully. "I want to see this new mill you and Teya are working on."

"On this trail? In the dark? We'll break our necks! You're mad!"

John's only answer was to lean over and slap Rodney's mare on her flank, jolting her forward. He kicked his own stallion and leaped forward, black on black, a flurry of tack and tail vanishing into the growing darkness.

Rodney almost succumbed to prudence, but another pine cone flew out of the dusk, sailing over the pricked ears of Rodney's mare and very nearly bouncing off his forehead. "Okay, that's it," he muttered, and nudged the placid animal into a canter, over the lip of the hill and down the reckless path to the river, chasing John's laughter through the summer dusk.



~fin~