PRESSURE.
Faraj clutched at the bedpost because hecould notclutch at his chest, or he would never again have a breath of freedom in the strangling grip of his devoted servants’ anxious, overbearing care. It wasn’t his heart, it wasn’t his?—
it wasn’thisat all?—
“—Your Highness!”Irfan and Kamil both had their arms around him, pushing and pulling in different directions. Kamil was much stronger, though, so his push to sit on the foot of the bed won out, and the strength of his concerned purring all but rattled Faraj’s teeth.
“Sorry,” he managed. What a scene to make in front of the guards’ avid eyes?—
“Don’t apologize, lie down! I’ll find a physician,” Irfan said, but he couldn’t seem to let go of Faraj’s hands. It was touching, and he would have thanked Irfan if he were not consumed bythe overwhelming pressure of Sahar’s efforts to bear a kitten. He couldn’t speak properly, and a groan would be even worse, and?—
Lynx-tufted ears and a big velvet paw dug through his thoughts without a moment’s consideration for his privacy. Then something like flicking whiskers tickled the inside of his mind, along with a very vivid image of?—
“My back,” Faraj gasped, clinging desperately to the excuse Kamil had offered when he’d recognized the overspill of Sahar’s body-sensations. “Not— not dangerous, just?—”
One of the guardians choked on a half-stifled laugh, and Faraj was miserably certain he was imagining too-athletic sex and some odd fetish for being railed under the bed rather than over it.
Very carefully controlled, Irfan said, “Your Highness, believe me, I understand the importance of keeping your sigil securely in your possession at all times. But the next time it slips from your finger,pleaselet one of us fetch it for you instead.”
His brief astonishment at Irfan’s offered shelter faded into the realization that of course the Chamberlain would steer the barracks gossip away from who could have had the audacity to roger their God-Emperor’s prophet under his bed.
(Faraj had worn that sigil-ring for so many years that he likely couldn’t have removed it without a jeweler’s saw… but the guardians probably didn’t know that.)
“Yes,” he managed, “yes, thank you?—”
The squeezing relented with a rush, and he tried not to let it showtooclearly.
“Thank you very much, Irfan,” he said, finding that he could breathe properly again. “And I am terribly sorry for all the fuss.”
Kamil?he asked, as soon as he could focus the direction of his thoughts suitably.Where is Sahar now?
You can’t see her? Or foresee her?
She is gray, and she’s found somewhere dark and safe, and I can’t see in the dark the way you can.
Kamil didn’t visibly sigh, but the tip of his tail flicked.Dark and safe is her best choice,he said.If even you don’t know where she is, then no one can make you reveal her location under oath.
I’d wanted to be with her,Faraj thought, wistful.
Better for you to protect her and distract her hunters than to draw attention at her most vulnerable,Kamil replied.And if she has difficulties, I’m sure she’ll let you know.
Faraj shut his eyes against the visions his worries conjured of Sahar having difficulties while he was giving testimony before the High Priest’s judgment in the Temple of Bastet.
Surely it will be more than troublesome enough if her kittens come perfectly smoothly while I am giving testimony beneath ShaiVishal’s judgment, he told himself.Surely that will be enough trouble for one day. Even for a cat who delights in mischief.
“Your Highness?” Irfan asked, concerned.
“Just a twinge,” he said, and kept to himself whether it was a twinge of his fictional backache or of his anxieties.
Once the guards had clomped their heavy-booted way out of the bedroom, Irfan saw to directing thekhadimunain a hastened, up-tempo variation on the usual morning dance of bathing and dressing and jewels and kohl and hairstyling, excruciatingly perfect about every detail. Irfan brushed aside Faraj’s attempts at apologizing for the rips in his night-clothes, sticking firmly to the importance of retrieving the dropped sigil-ring in the tales told in front of the gatheredkhadimuna.
He also found a walking-cane among the historic artifacts on display in Faraj’s study, and offered it to him on bent knee, with full respect.
Faraj took it gratefully, because he didn’t know if his knees would hold him without something to cling to when Sahar’s next kitten came, and because he needed the reminder of Kamil’s excuse. He usually had a difficult time keeping layers of falsehood straight among the might-bes and might-have-beens of his visions; he reminded himself that Irfan knew of Sahar, but not that his distress hadn’t been from a back injury.
Still, as thekhadimunabundled up their brushes and paints and an armful of torn silks, as he walked with Irfan toward the balcony where Shahin would fly them down to greet the priests and perform the morning prayers in honor of their holy visitors, he lowered his voice to ask about the matter that surprised him the most.
“I would have thought you would find it helpful to your case, should I appear a disheveled madman suffering through the infernal caprices of mischievous chaos incarnate.”
