“I had thought it more customary for the friends and family to chase the unsuitable suitor away,” Rahat said, with a tremulous attempt at a smile. “It seems much more the tradition among the poets’ tales.”
“Hah. Poets are usually penniless and overdramatic and too often drunk,” Hira said, grinning at him. “You’re none of those, are you.”
“I do hope not, my lady.”
“Hi-ra.” She took the pouch from him, reached inside, and brought out a square ofrahat al-hulqumthat she offered to his lips. “They’re to be given away, yes? Here you go. My gift, and Ashar’s.”
Therahat al-hulqumthat Master Asharan had dreamed into being, that he had given to Rahat for a name he thought fitting — it tasted like bliss. Like sunlight on fragrant petals, rich and redolent, vivid, unmistakable. It tasted of the sweetness in Master Asharan’s smiles, and the delight in his kisses.
“Oh,” Rahat whispered, blinking at the dazzling rush of futures glimmering at the corners of his eyes.
“See? I told you so,” Hira said, entirely shameless; but then, she was catkin. “His magic’s always sweeter when he puts his heart in it.”
She poured two more cups of chai and set them on her tray and carried them over to Elder Sister and her pot-stirring apprentice, then came back with the tray supporting a broad leaf with scoops of dal and millet and a skewer of …he sincerely hoped that was still pigeon meat, anyway. Then she stuck her head into the kitchen again and yowled, “Ashaaaaaar! You have a guest you put straight to work who hasn’t even had his own breakfast!”
“Oh, sunfire, I’m sorry! I just need another minute!” he called back through one of the windows. “Sahar is very particular!”
“Of course she is, she’s queening!”
A few moments later, Master Asharan hurried out the kitchen door with his arms full of a basket and Sahar peering over the rim, the mistress of all she surveyed.
“Here,” he said a bit breathlessly, “she doesn’t seem to mind this one? And she’ll be more comfortable if she doesn’t have to walk all the way through town, both before and after the kittens. She seemed to want a particular ribbon, though, I’ll?—”
“You’ll sit down and eat,” Hira said firmly.
“…Yes. Good idea.” Sheepish, Master Asharan said, “I really am sorry, my jewel, I got rather carried away. Butkittens!”
Rahat looked at him — his eyes shining in the morning sun that caressed his dark curls with luminous bronze highlights, his bath-robe barely clinging to the crest of one golden shoulder yet again. And for all that Rahat should have felt guilty that he hadn’t thought of Sahar’s comfort himself… all he felt was a wordless, inarticulate yearning to stay. Here, with Master Asharan and his brilliant summer-smile, in this dawn-lit courtyard full of scampering kittens and souring pickle-pots and flapping laundry and the smoke of Elder Sister’s cooking fire.
Here, where no one served himzafrani phirnimade with saffron that cost three hundreddinarper pound in bowls made of porcelain so fine he could see the shadows of his fingers through it as he lifted the bowl and always,alwayslooked into it deeply enough to see whether this one was poisoned.
But some things were impossible, even if you were a prince and a prophet.
Some things were particularly impossible, when you were a prince and a prophet.
“Ya rahati?”Master Asharan said, hesitating with his fingertips poised above the leaf. “I hadn’t thought… we eat with our fingers here, but you come from so far away… are meals shared differently where you’re from?”
Rahat bit his lip for a moment, because telling Master Asharan about the protocols of the palace wouldn’t be kind. “Somewhat differently, yes,” he admitted. “Show me your ways?”
“Here,” Master Asharan said, scooping a bite of dal into three crooked fingers to offer him, but then Kamil hissed.
“Kamil,”Rahat said, startled. “They’ve fed half the neighborhood from this pot, there’s nothing wrong with it!”
He suspected that Kamil was giving Master Asharan a piece of his mind more literally than usual; Master Asharan flinched again, but he held his ground more stubbornly than Rahat would have expected.
“Meals are for sharing, here,” Master Asharan said. “Friends, family, lovers, guests, even the neighborhood children. You share your home and your welcome with your own hands and your own nourishment. We’d have had saj with our dal if Padma-auntie hadn’t been out drinking at the Den last night and gotten a late start with her bake-fires, and today is the green-market day, so tomorrow Venkat-uncle will bring a pot of some sort of delicious greens and cheese. I promise, I mean this as a welcome, not as an insult.”
“Aninsult?Oh, Kamil.”
Rahat wasn’t actually surprised to hear it. They made much of protocols in the God-Emperor’s court, and to feed another from your own hands wasn’t just an affectionate gesture; it was also a power play. The one making the offering should be of clearly higher rank, distributing largesse, and the food given should be expensive and symbolic of a benediction. Unless, of course, you were suggesting the recipient was a child, aweakling, or an invalid who needed to be hand-fed because of doddering infirmity. He was fairly certain he remembered a few such honor duels in the tax records of blood debts repaid.
And he’d always thought it utter foolishness.
It couldn’t be clearer that Master Asharan meant it as a gift, that the neighborhood shared all they had with each other, whether it was a ladle of dal on a leaf or those exquisitely enchanted rose-sweets.
With a growl thick in her throat, Hira said to Kamil, “Don’t make me tear shreds out of your hide for contempt of our hospitality. I’d lose, but you’d regret it.”
Grumbling, Kamil looked away, not-incidentally baring his throat to Master Asharan. It was as much of an apology as he’d give, but Master Asharan smiled as though the moon had unexpectedly shone through stormclouds.
