His Imperial Highness Faraj couldn’t stay. As powerful as the God-Emperor’s third brother might be, the power of the realm itself was greater still. He couldn’t discard his name and his title and his duties. He owed the people of his brother’s empire his best work, to see to it that the Ministry of Finance collected only the taxes that were owed, and to distribute that gathered wealth in ways that suited the needs of the people at least as often as the desires of the powerful. And it took regular, challenging, daily work to try to bend that curve, to stay on top of the paperwork-tangles and the bribes and the infighting with legalities in triplicate.
But Rahat had no such duties, or so he pretended, just for a little longer. Rahat bent his head and accepted the bite of dal from Master Asharan’s fingertips.
Just like Master Asharan’srahat al-hulqum, Elder Sister’s dal was unlike anything he’d ever tasted, too. There was nothing subtle or exquisite about it. Smoke and iron and a fistful of long pepper tasted like a battlefield, like the determination toget up and fight one more day, like the stubbornness not to lie down and yield when people needed your strength, blunt and unrefined and unshakable as stone.
But then, Elder Sister got up every day and put herself and her pots of dal and her own insistence on lessons between the children of the Catsprowl and the grindstones of poverty and desperation.
He wondered who she had been before she became Elder Sister, and which god’s service she had sworn herself to. And he scooped up three fingers of dal and offered it to Master Asharan… who kissed his fingers as he accepted.
“Oh, that’s not fair,” Rahat sighed. “How can I bear to leave you,ya majid?”
“Think of it as enticement to return,” Master Asharan said, not the least bit apologetic, offering him a bite of the millet next. “Remember that you’ve promised me kittens!”
“And a good trader always keeps his promises,” Hira said.
“Yes, of course,” Rahat said, and somehow found a smile for them.
Bite by bite, the leaf was emptied of its meal, and Hira took it and spread it in the sunny patch at the center of the courtyard to dry out for a future fire. Master Asharan put an arm around Rahat’s shoulders, seeming entirely content to sit with him and watch the sun rise.
But Faraj’s duties called. And it would be noted if he arrived too late at the scriptorium, let alone wearing yesterday’s wrinkled clothes — or, heavens forbid, a bathrobe marked with the symbols of a Catsprowl bath-house. There were powers enough in Tel-Bastet to overwhelm Master Asharan and the lady Hira, let alone the noble houses and jealous would-be heirs in the capital, many of whom had well-placed cousins in the Basteti branch of the ministry.
It would not be kind to let his distraction call unhappy attentions to this small courtyard and Elder Sister’s lessons to the neighborhood children and kittens.
He sincerely didn’t want to know what Elder Sister taught them about the history of Tel-Bastet’s resistance to the Empire and the rivalries between the different gods’ priesthoods and generations of Archmages’ refusal to bow their heads to the Imperial throne. Because if he didn’t know, then he wouldn’t have to report it to the Minister of Orthodoxy.
He could already hear how both his Chamberlain and his Archivist would shriek at him. In Archivist Najra’s defense, her shrieking would be delighted, but there would still be so much shrieking, and so much interrogating for details he truly wished to keep for his own, private treasure. And what the Chamberlain would say, or the Deputy Minister of Finance… his foresightsrarely came with foresound, but once in a while the shrieking was loud enough to carry through regardless.
“I should go,” he murmured.
“And I should scrub the baths,” Master Asharan agreed, rueful, “because Hira thinks water is an abomination until I make chai of it.”
“That’s because waterisan abomination until you make chai of it,” she huffed.
“But first let’s get you dressed,” Master Asharan said. “Kamil, if you go through Elder Sister’s kitchen and turn left, you’ll come out much closer to the marketplace.”
“I wantfewerpeople to watch us take a walk of shame, not more,” Kamil pointed out.
“Oh, I have ideas,” Master Asharan said lightly. “Come on, back to the bath.”
Cradling Sahar’s basket against his chest because he wanted something to cuddle, Rahat followed Master Asharan back to the room they’d shared and stared unhappily down at the pile ofhis princely silks. But with a flick of his fingers, Master Asharan had the cloth dancing through the air: steamed free of wrinkles, scented with a swirl of incense, neatly folded up…? And then he whisked the folded silks into a bag that he tucked into the bottom of Sahar’s basket. She prodded at it with a skeptical paw, then decided a silk-filled pillow might possibly be acceptable for her lounging.
Then he pushed aside a jingling curtain of bells and beads and blossoms to reach into a nook for an uncut bolt of towel-cloth, white with a blue stripe at the edge.
“Upaja has His priests and His mendicants too,” Master Asharan said, unrolling the bolt of cloth. “And children flocking to a mendicant priest of the fat god for flowers and little treats… the adults will smile and move on, and the cutpurses will roll their eyes and move on, because Upaja’s priests never carry coin. And a priest of Upaja would certainly have reason to bring blessings to Elder Sister’s cauldrons that feed hungry children, and laughter to her little classroom.”
As Master Asharan arranged a length of the fabric over Rahat’s head to shade his face like a cloak’s hood before draping the rest over his shoulders and around his hips, Rahat said, “One might think you’d arranged such diversions before,ya majid.”
Master Asharan laughed. “Of course I have,ya rahati.Any number of my guests prefer discretion. If you were both catfolk I might have suggested the path over the rooftops, but claws are very much needed to climb some of those walls.” He unfastened two of the bead strands from the nook and wrapped one of them around Rahat’s wrist, like prayer beads, and then offered Kamil the other. “Would you rather be a monk, or would you rather watch over him from your smaller cat-shape in Sahar’s basket?”
“I would rather none of this was necessary,” Kamil grumbled, taking the beads and wrapping them around his wrist. “Have you got another fabric bolt?”
“Oh, certainly. And if we had three more hours I could henna leopard spots all over your pelt!”
“Sekhmet’s furry ass.No.”
“But hennaed leopard spots are terribly popular among the young toms and mollies,” Master Asharan teased, with a sparkle in his eyes. “You have to sit entirely still for hours with mud-blobs soaking into your fur. It makes quite the statement about your endurance, your stealth-prowess in the hunt, your fashion sense…”
“I don’t need to make any statements to any half-grown kittens.”
