Protector

Rayna cradled her baby in her arms as the crowd of women gathered around her. The women cooed at the infant and pat her head.
Marik leaned to Bakura. “That kid looks a lot like you.”
Bakura cocked his head to the side and shook it. “I can’t be her father.”
“Look at that white hair! How many people around Cairo have hair like yours?”
Rayna smiled at her infant swaddled in white satin. ‘My little Aria…my little princess.’
A knock on the door alarmed the women. Bakura opened the door and growled. “Khalfani. What makes you think I will let you in here?”
“Because I am what stands between Rayna and her child being fed or starved, housed or living in the streets with the murderers and thieves you associate with. You hit me again, Bakura, and I will throw both Rayna and her infant into the streets.”
Bakura snarled. “You do and Yami’s guards will find you hanging from the ceiling by your intestines. I do not care what Anubis or the Holier-Than-Thou Pharaoh has to say about it.”
“Let me in, Itemri.”
Bakura growled. “I do not trust you,” the thief said and proceeded to check Khalfani for weapons. When he was cleared for entrance, Khalfani stood by the bedside.
“Let me see the child.” Khalfani opened his arms. Rayna looked up at him in terror. The other women backed away in fear of their boss’ temper. “Give me the child. I must inspect it.”
Rayna swallowed hard. “Don’t hurt my child, sir.”
“As I told Bakura, whatever belongs to you is mine, Rayna! I must inspect my new property!”
Rayna saw the infant girl begin to fuss. She reluctantly handed the child to her master. The tall, fat man took the infant in his arms. He inspected her ears. “I don’t like her ears. They are too small. Once we pierce them, they won’t look so ugly.”
Bakura narrowed his eyes and growled.
Khalfani took the white satin covering the infant and threw the satin on the ground. “This child does not deserve satin! She is not of high status!”
The naked infant girl gave a whimper.
Khalfani took the girl’s right ankle and spread her legs. “You birthed me a female. At least you did something right, Rayna. She doesn’t appear to be deformed. A girl with a deformed womanhood is of no use to me.”
Aria began to cry in his arms. He held her at arms length and she tried to curl into a ball. “You will learn not to cry, my little money maker. No matter what men do to you in five years, you will learn not to cry. I’ll beat that out of you soon enough.”
Bakura raised the dagger and Khalfani held the child in the path of Bakura’s dagger. “You hit me and this little Slut-To-Be and her mother will be whoring themselves on the streets!”
Rayna cried out. “Bakura, don’t!”
The baby squealed and cried.
Bakura lowered his dagger as the baby wailed loudly in fear. “Give back my child.”
Khalfani returned the child to its mother. “Don’t bother clothing the little slut. She will have to run around as she is. She’ll spend the rest of her life naked anyway. It’s never too early to start. Now, eat, Rayna. A dead whore is no good to me. And if you can’t feed that kid, you’re even more useless to me than you are now.”
Khalfani left and Rayna held her daughter close to her.
“It’s okay, Aria. Shhhh….baby. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Rayna started to cry. “I don’t want that monster near my child.”
Bakura sighed and slipped beside Rayna. He held his girlfriend in his arms. “Everyone out. Rayna needs her rest.”
The women filed out of the room, along with Marik.
Bakura cuddled against Rayna and smiled down at the infant in Rayna’s arms. He stayed there, indulging in Rayna’s presence.
Sometime later, Rayna heard a disturbance downstairs. Nubia, one of Khalfani’s youngest prostitutes at ten years old, was crying. Khalfani’s angry roar sounded.
A moment later, Bakura heard the screams of the women below. “What in the name of Ra is happening?”
“KESI!” Marik cried out.
“Rayna, stay here.” Bakura grabbed his dagger and ran out of the room and looked down the steps where Kesi was laying dead at the foot of the steps.
Bakura picked Marik off of the ground. “Snap out of it, man! We have to get out of here!”
“Here I come, Bakura Itemri! Marik Ishtar!”
“Kesi!” Marik sobbed.
Bakura grabbed Marik’s arms tightly. “I hate to say this, but forget her, Marik! If we don’t find a way out of here, Yami will have our heads cut off by sunset!”
“Kesi…Why?”
Bakura pulled Marik into Rayna’s room and gasped when he saw the infant. ‘If Anubis sees that this kid is mine, he’ll kill the baby!’
Rayna held Aria out to her father. “Bakura, take her!”
“What?! What if I’m caught?”
“Take her, Bakura. If Anubis finds her, she won’t have a chance! She looks too much like you.”
The general banged on the door to the room.
“I’ll bring her back, Rayna.”
Marik took the infant. “What if Anubis comes in and kills Rayna? She has to come, too!”
Bakura looked down at the street and the soldiers below. “Marik, I can’t assure her safety.”
Anubis’ angry growl came from behind the door.
“Treat the baby with care, Ishtar.” Bakura helped Rayna out of bed and looked down.
His horse was gone.
He let out a high pitched whistle and the horse galloped though the soldiers waiting below.
The thief grabbed gold and tied two sheets together.
Bakura tied the rope to the foot of the bed and held onto Rayna. “I’ll meet you at the hideout, Marik.”
Rayna held onto Bakura tightly as they jumped out of the window together. They landed beside the horse and they rode off.
Marik watched the soldiers take off after Bakura. “Time for us to go, too, Aria.”
Marik held the baby as he slid down the sheets. He mounted his horse with the child and rode to the entrance of Cairo with the baby in his arms.
******************************
The High Priest walked through the gardens, nervously biting his lip. One of the women in his harem was giving birth….and he hoped it would be the heir that the pharaoh had desired.
He hated to hear the sound of his women in pain and the midwives told him that he should go for a walk. They had promised to care for the mother.
Seth watched as Anubis’ child ran around the gardens, frolicking. The child was dressed in linens and the best shoes money could buy.
‘I wonder how the other child is doing today,’ Seth thought as he walked towards Anubis’ home by the arena.
Outside the house, he saw the blond haired baby boy. His left ankle had been tied to a stake outside the door. The baby looked back sadly at the rope which bound him to the wood.
“Hello, Aten,” Seth said as he kneeled on the ground. “How are you doing today?”
The baby looked up at Seth and smiled.
“Are you a happy boy today?”
“Ahh! Da!” the baby squealed happily as it struggled to get to its hands and knees.
Seth watched the baby boy struggle to his hands and knees.
“Ahh Da!”
“Are you going to crawl to me?”
Seth watched the baby start to crawl slowly. “Come to me, Aten. Crawl to me.”
“Ah! Da! Se!”
The baby crawled to the High Priest with a smile on his face. Seth picked the baby up, but the rope tying him to the post, prevented him from standing up with the child.
“Curse this rope!” Seth growled as he removed his dagger.
With one slice, he cut the baby’s ankle free from the post. The baby smiled and squealed happily as it moved its leg freely. Seth carefully removed the rope from the baby’s ankle.
“Good job, Aten. Our boy is growing up.”
The baby smiled and reached up. It touched Seth’s face gently.
“Who’s a big boy?”
The baby squealed and laughed.
Anubis’ wife emerged from the house. “I thought I told you to stop laughing, you little
br-…..Oh…hello, High Priest.”
Seth narrowed his eyes. “Why did you tie this child to the post?”
“So he couldn’t crawl away, my lord.”
“He’s an infant! There is no need to tie him to the post!”
Anubis’ wife bowed before Seth. “It was my husband’s doing! He tied the child’s ankle!”
“You are no better than Anubis! I hardly think that this was an accident or a one-sided idea.”
The woman trembled with fear from the High Priest.
“This child will fight for the glory of Egypt when he becomes of age. An abused soldier will not fight half as well as a soldier who is well treated.”
“Yes, sir.”
Seth narrowed his eyes at her. “I will return the child when I’m ready.”
Seth walked away with Aten in his arms. The child rested his head on Seth’s shoulder and yawned contentedly. Seth rubbed the child’s back as he headed back into the palace.
Pharaoh Yami caught him in the hall. “What….What are you doing with THAT in your arms?”
“I found the child’s ankle tied to a post. I freed the child and decided to bring it into my harem for some breast milk.”
“Anubis feeds the little rat.”
The High Priest looked at the child. “He is a baby. I doubt he’s getting the nutrition he needs.” Seth pulled up the back of Aten’s tattered rags. “He’s skin and bones. He’ll die of malnutrition if I don’t get some milk into him.”
“That child does not deserve milk from your women.”
Seth rubbed the boy’s thin back. “Milk is milk. I won’t have this child starve to death because of social class. I refuse to watch him die because the child of a commoner is not worthy enough of breast milk from a woman of Noble birth! The hungry child does not care if the breast from which he suckles belongs to a Rich or poor woman.”
Yami looked at the thin child. “Such radical thinking hardly becomes a High Priest, Seth.”
“I don’t want this baby to die.”
“Your Lordship!” a woman called from the end of the hallway. “Come quickly!”
Seth gasped. “Hold on, Aten.”
The High Priest and the pharaoh ran down the hallway. They burst into the harem. The women in the room fell on their knees.
Seth ran to the woman laying on a bed, a hungry, bloody newborn clinging to her and suckling from her breast.
Sharifa smiled up at him. “Hello, my lord. Say hello to your new daughter.”
Yami narrowed his eyes. “SETH! This is an outrage! How dare you conceive a girl by this bitch of yours?!”
The woman cradled her baby in her arms and Aten started to cry.
“Sharifa is a good woman, my pharaoh. At least the child is alive.”
Yami growled. “Girls are of no use to me! My heir cannot be a female! I should have that infant tossed on an open flame!”
Aten let out a fearful shriek. Seth handed Aten to Sharifa.
“My apologies, my pharaoh.”
Yami grabbed Sabah, a fifteen year old girl, and threw her at Seth. “Take this one to bed with you tonight! Make sure you impregnate her! I don’t care if you have to pound into her all night! Make her pregnant!”
Yami left the harem angrily.
Seth sighed and turned back to Sharifa. “I’m sorry about that.”
Sharifa, his eighteen year old concubine, shrugged. “I understand, sire.”
Aten whimpered as he cringed at her breast.
“Are you hungry, Aten?” Sharifa asked, holding her breast by Aten’s mouth. The baby nursed quietly as little whimpers escaped him. “That’s a good boy.”
All of the women had nursed Aten at some point. And all of them had the opportunity to hold the infant close to them on chilly nights.
Seth stood beside Sharifa. “Our baby is beautiful, isn’t she?”
Sharifa smiled. “Yes, she is.”
Seth leaned down and kissed her. “You are very beautiful, you know that?”
She smiled. “Thank you, my lord.”
Seth stroked her cheek. “I’m sorry the pharaoh scared you and called you a dog.”
“I’ll be okay, sire.”
Seth stood up and looked at the shaken women. “Sorry, ladies. My apologies.”
The High Priest walked to a lounge seat and the women surrounded him. They smiled and giggled as they rubbed his chest and removed his sandals.
They washed his feet and his hands. His women covered his feet in oil and ran their hands over him.
Seto leaned back, enjoying the feel of his ladies touching him and enjoying his body.
‘This is the life,’ he thought as he relaxed.