Shai Vishal sipped at his chai for a longer moment than was necessary for drinking’s sake, most likely until he could be certain he would not chuckle. When he trusted his voice again, he said, “More pebbles, then, and more splashing about. Your Eminence, how many more stones do you intend to throw, and in whose direction?”
“How haveIbecome the target of your inquisition, your Reverence?”
“It’s not an inquisition,” Shai Vishal said. “A sin against your God-Emperor’s edicts is not a crime in Tel-Bastet, and it is not the place of Upaja’s High Priest to punish a crime. It is not even for me to task penance, unless one of you feels need of a corrective practice. You have asked me for my judgment in thematter of his Highness’s soul-binding to a cat-spirit who is at least as likely as any other cat to claim ownership of her person. In my judgment, we who have gathered here are five of the most notable powers in this city, and conflicts among the greater powers create disproportionate waves for those around us. So, in my judgment, we must find a way forward together that causes the least splashing-over upon the people, this city, and the many contrasting faiths within the Empire. And so: Your rocks, if you please, your Eminence.”
“If order is not enough, and the holy writ is not enough, and the threats against his Highness’ mind and soul and well-being are not enough, and you judge what is true and holy by the wagging tongues of alley-gossip, then I have nothing else to defend him with,” Irfan said raggedly. “But, Kamil, I had hoped you at least would understand.”
“I do understand. You want him safe just as badly as I do,” Kamil said. “That’s why I haven’t clawed your face off.”
Despite the Chamberlain’s diplomatic training, the tremor of his voice took a moment for him to control. “And you do not find the alteration in his Highness’ demeanor a matter for concern?”
“I find it understandable,” Kamil said. “Sometimes irritating, but understandable.”
“Because he has been bonded to a cat’s soul.”
“No, because for once he has seen the seedy and disreputable underside of the city for himself, without palanquins or guardians or ministers to intervene,” Kamil said dryly. “I don’t need to be a prophet to know what his kind heart would do with what he has seen of the differences between thehaveliand the Catsprowl.”
“Youtook himto a place likethat? Why?”
“I was born in a place like that,” Kamil reminded him, tail twitching in irritation. “And you both have a duty to all of his brother’s Empire, not just the parts of it that smell good.”
Faraj clasped his hands together under the table, because he had to hide the restlessness; he could keep his face bland from years in the courts, but his fretful hands gave him away, and Irfan knew him too well, and Kamil was walking the finest edge of truth, cat-careful with his words, but the gap betweenthe Catsprowland a slip that might bare Master Asharan’s name was so very narrow…
…oh. His rings reminded him — there was something he’d neglected, in all his fretting. At least this time his hand-fretting could be useful, he thought, wriggling a pearl and garnet ring loose from his index finger and hiding it in his palm.
Irfan’s face did something very complicated, diplomacy battling with frustration and with devotion. “You would not tell me more, Kamil, and I would not ask, because his Highness must trust your discretion even more absolutely than my own. But I don’t know how to endure the fear that I must now ask his Highness every time, about everything. Or that you may feel you must lie to me.”
“Whom will you say this to?” Shai Vishal asked him.
“No one outside this room.” Drawing himself straight, in a tattered dignity, the Chamberlain said, “Even if it is only a matter of time before the priests and the courtiers hear of this, I still would not hand further weapons to those who would use his vulnerability against him.”
“There,” Shai Vishal said, leaning forward. “There. That is a foundation of bedrock that we can agree to build upon, all of us. Your Eminence, I am grateful that you hold that devotion even more dear to your heart than your righteousness.”
“How could Inot?”
“Oh, quite easily, if you held your God-Emperor’s writ and your horror of soul-bonds to be more imperative than his brother’s heart, or his well-being,” Shai Vishal said. “Or the protective defiance the people of this community feel overevery cat and her kittens, let alone their ownshahzada’s. Or the theocratic power-struggles that would be provoked in the Greater Convocation if the God-Emperor’s prophet was judged unworthy to celebrate in Bastet’s Temple, because a cat-spirit who had entrusted her life to him came to harm under his protection. Do you see how those ripples spread beyond the court and the God-Emperor’s own priesthood?”
“…I’m not a priest.” Irfan’s voice shuddered as though the weight of his guilt had claws sharper than Kamil’s. “The Ministry of Orthodoxy would chide me for my sacrilege, but I cannot hold my faith as purely as a priest, in the end. That is my sin, my own weakness.”
“Weakness?”Najra said, incredulous. “I don’t have to threaten to undermine a whole theocracy for just anybody, you know. You’re formidable when you get your teeth in.”
“As are you,” Irfan said, not entirely graciously. “I remind myself that his Reverence nearly mistook our methods for each other. For that, I must apologize.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Faraj told him, venturing a gentle pat upon his shoulder. “Selfishly, I am grateful that all of you hold my heart and my well-being with such concern, to defend so fiercely.”
“Any of your brothers would have commanded me to hold my thoughts and my silence days ago.”
“Well, I never said thatIwasn’t weak,” Faraj admitted.
With a soft huff, Irfan shared a glance of commiseration with Kamil.
“Your brothers would have commanded my silence, your Highness, and I would not have been so shocked to learn of their defiant sins; I would, I assume, have become resigned by now. But I also would not have served your brothers with such devotion for years. And I would not have been so concerned for their hearts’ and souls’ protection. I have rarely met a soulas sincerely gentle as your own. It engenders a certain sharply clawed protectiveness in those of us who treasure you.”
“There’s another foundation-stone for you, Shai Vishal,” Kamil said. “All of us would claw someone’s face off for him.”
“Ohdear,” Faraj said, feeling a bit green at the entirely-too-plausible images.
“Agreed,” Shai Vishal said; and Faraj, feeling his face warm, didn’t quite dare to ask which of them he agreed with. “And so, what to build next?”
