“Then you should be making chai for them too! Unlike some people, I can’t just snap my fingers and boil the water!”
“Coming, coming.” Master Asharan tied his bathrobe more securely, then ran both hands through his hair. (Rahat thought it was monumentally unfair that he clearly woke up already looking that gorgeous.) But then he stroked his hands through Rahat’s hair too, more attentively, with a light in his eyes that spoke of how sincerely he was enjoying the chance to pet Rahat while also grooming him.
No wonder he established his bath-house in the Catsprowl,Rahat thought. For all that Master Asharan was clearly human, he shared some very catfolk-like tendencies around grooming and petting and cuddles.
“If you’d like to rest more, of course you’re welcome.”
“I’d rather come with you,” Rahat said, and bit his lip before he could ask anything more. Because Master Asharan sold a very diverse array of services, and he hadn’t allowed Rahat to offer him so much as a single coin, and it would be selfish to ask for more of his time. Even if Master Asharan had been so very careful not to ask his name, a prince knew that his wish was very often someone else’s command. And he didn’t want tocommandMaster Asharan in …whatever this was between them, new and fragile and carefully unnamed.
But Master Asharan grinned at him, brighter than the still-rising dawn: “You want to learn the secrets of my chai masala recipe, don’t you! Come on, then.”
Hira was already in the kitchen by the time the three of them arrived, taking apart a fish with her bare claws. She was a sable-pointed warm cream with vivid green eyes, and her whiskers flicked when she saw Kamil’s tall, striking figure behind Master Asharan and himself.
“Both of them? Now I’m jealous.”
Catfolk didn’t blush, but Kamil’s tail fluffed in startled embarrassment. “That’s not — I’m his—” He clearly stopped himself from sayinghis Highness’sby main force. “I’m his bodyguard.”
“You’re delicious, is what you are.” Hira held out the plate of fish she’d been deboning, and offered, “Share a treat?”
“I’m on duty, miss.”
“We’re still under my wards,” Master Asharan told him helpfully, taking a date from a bowl to chew while he filled an enormous cauldron with milk and water.
Hira started purring.
Looking a bit like a spooked rabbit unsure which way to dash, Kamil edged toward the kitchen door and put his back to the wall for either defense or support. Hira followed, hips and tail swaying in a definite slink.
While Master Asharan ground the spices and spooned the dried leaves and chopped the ginger and grated the lump of date-sugar — quite a lot of each, it was a large cauldron — Rahat watched his spice-work attentively, so that he wouldn’t embarrass Kamil as Hira fed him fish from her clawtips. Feeding each other had implications in the court, and other implications among the catfolk, and Rahat thought the politest thing he could do was to pretend not to notice whether Kamil found her offerings of interest.
And watching was easier than thinking of words that were notI’m the God-Emperor’s brother, I think I might love you, please come to the court with me, I could keep you in silks and jewels for the rest of your life, if you would only accept them.
“Doyou want my recipe?” Master Asharan asked, amused. With a grin at Hira, he made a pointedly showy performance of snapping his fingers to bring it to a sudden boil. Hira snorted her amusement while he stirred it with a long ladle. “It’s really not difficult. But I sometimes cheat a bit if?—”
From outside the kitchen window, three children and two kittens yowled, “Chameli-sahib!”
“—If the various young ones are impatient,” he finished, wry. “It’s still brewing, littles!”
“They call you Chameli-sahib? Should I?”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Master Asharan assured him. “I’m Asharan bir Chameli, but even aside from Mother’s name, I often give them little enchanted jasmine blossoms in the mornings with their chai. So that’s why I’m Chameli-sahib to the children. And you’re very welcome to call me Ashar.”
He looked at Rahat again, suddenly thoughtful. “You know, you do need eyes and ears of your own in this city. Kamil is of course wonderfully devoted, but… you are a trader, yes? Perhaps we should suggest some very small trades for some very small hands.”
His Imperial Highness Faraj was only a trader in that the Imperial Ministry of Finance oversaw the tax reports of the marketplaces in addition to the temples and the armies and the vassal city-states. But Master Asharan…Ashar, he thought, like a secret treasure, shyly warmed by it, thoughMaster Asharfelt a bit silly and Rahat intended to offer him every respect even in his thoughts. In any case, Master Asharan had suggested that his ‘Rahat’ was a trader.
Before Rahat could decide whether or not he should agree and whether or not he would be lying if he did, Master Asharan had taken a covered tray ofrahat al-hulqumand a jar of rose petals from a shelf. He spent a few minutes layering them into a silk pouch embroidered with roses while the chai brewed golden-brown and rich. The pouch looked rather too small for the number of rose petals and sweets he fit into it.
When the chai was ready, he handed the silk pouch to Rahat.
“As much as I wish I could afford to give them coins rather than chai and flowers,” Master Asharan said, “in the Catsprowl it would make both us and the children a target for too many thieves and burglars and bullies. But thieves have no interest in stealing cups of chai! And they’re not likely to take an interest in rose-sweets, either.” He ladled steaming milky-brown liquid into three large teapots, then set each of them on a tray stacked with cups and hoisted one of the trays to his shoulder.
Rahat lifted the second and found it was heavier than it looked; he watched his steps very carefully as he followed Master Asharan out the back door of the kitchen. Behind him, Kamil yowled frustration and scrambled past Hira to follow.
The space between half a dozen of the ramshackle buildings was crookedly part-overhung by built-on extensions and festooned with flapping ropes of laundry hung to dry and pickle-pots stacked in the shade to age. Rahat couldn’t really think of it as acourtyard,not in comparison with the courts he had known.
But still, a sturdy mahogany-dark woman with broad streaks of silver in her braid had decided she was holding her own form of court around two huge iron cauldrons of dal and millet porridge that she and her assistant ladled onto broad leaves for the swarm of children. Several of the kittens were covered in plucked pigeon feathers and threading the pigeons’ meat onto thin slivers of wood. The cook’s eyes were as sharp as Kamil’sfor anyone who tried to steal a bite while it was not only raw but also unseasoned (which she seemed to consider the far greater offense against culinary respectability).
“Good morning, Elder Sister,” Master Asharan called to her, setting his tray down on the end of a long bench.
