Kamil glared at him with incandescently golden eyes, then reached out to pat his belly with just the faintest prickle of his claws.
“Note how much I amnot eviscerating you, my idiot of asahib, which nearly any full-grown catfolk could do since you’re wearing nothing but a bath-towel wrap and now you’re inviting half the damn city to walk right up to you and touch?—”
“Yes, yes, point taken,” Rahat said, and handed Kamil a rose-sweet. And then he tried very hardnotto think of how the taste of it had reminded him of kissing Master Asharan, because the expression on Kamil’s face was most peculiar and he wasn’t sure if it would be more embarrassing to ask or not to ask and be left to wonder?—
Chewing with a furrow of dyspeptic concentration between his brows, Kamil finally said to Master Asharan, “Fine. I believe you care for him. I believe your heart is in this. But you’re still an overtrusting idiot.”
“And a terrible harlot with the table manners of an alley cat, yes, I do recall,” Master Asharan assured him, smiling. “Don’t forget your flower garland.”
The door was absolutely seething with fate-haunted shadows and danger-flares. And Rahat knew he had to walk through it armed only with a towel-wrap, a pair of grass-woven bath-sandals, and an enchanted bag ofrahat al-hulqum.
But then, he’d done far more foolish and desperate things in his life. Following a vision toward a man’s gentle hands tending a jasmine pot in the window of a Catsprowl bath-house had been one of his wilder moments… and he couldn’t regret a breath of it.
“One more kiss, for luck?” he asked.
“You don’t need luck, you need confidence,” Master Asharan said, and bent to kiss him. “One more kiss, for a promise of the future.”
“Yes,” Rahat agreed, wistful. “Yes, I’ve promised you kittens. And I am a man of my word.”
“I’ve never doubted it,ya rahati.”Master Asharan touched his cheek, gently. “I’ll not say goodbye. Instead… until we meet again, jewel of my heart: walk with joy, knowing that you are treasured.”
“I… I’m…” Rahat bit his tongue against the wild impulse to sayI’m afraid I might love you, I hope you don’t mind,orI’m a prince, we have several palaces, we have plenty of room, if you might join me,orI would keep you in indulgent luxuries for the rest of your life, if you loved wealth and luxury, but I’m wonderfully and fearfully certain that you don’t.
“I know,” Master Asharan murmured. “Don’t say goodbye. Say instead that wewillmeet again.”
“We will. I promise.” Blinking at the tear-blurred tangle of visions, Rahat said, “Her kittens will adore you nearly as much as I do.”
He took a deep breath, trying to remember it all: the scents of jasmine and incense and bath-oils, the softness of the pillows and blankets, the rush of delight when Sahar had first answered his summons, and always, always, the warmth of Master Asharan’s smile.
Then he stepped through the door, out from under Master Asharan’s protective wards and into the God-Emperor’s realm once more.
It wasn’t difficult to determine which door was Elder Sister’s, of course, between the great iron cauldrons and the sound of children reciting their verses. (Mercifully, the poem was a fable about a turtle and a rabbit, and nothing at all to do with the destiny of subjugated peoples, not unless one were inclined to stretch a metaphor well beyond all reason.)
Elder Sister looked up sharply the moment his shadow crossed her door, but then she softened into something that was not quite a smile.
“How do we greet an honored elder, class?”
“Rahat-sahib!” one of them exclaimed, and then the entire class ran to greet him and pat him and clamor for more sweets.
While he was handing out rose-sweets and jasmine blossoms from the garland, he noticed Kamil speaking quietly with Elder Sister, and handing her something that gleamed of gold.
Elder Sister was not the sort to bow herself to anyone, of course, perhaps least of all to a fat rich Imperial man and his looming predator of a bodyguard. But she nodded slightly, holding Kamil’s offering very carefully in both hands.
He could see future-glimmers in her hands that had nothing to do with gold: cream for their porridge and for making cheese, fresh vegetables and spices to enliven the dal, a larger piece of slate for writing their letters and numbers.
As they made their way through the tangle of built-on additions toward the western door that led to the alley to thebakery at the edge of the market, Rahat said to Kamil, “You are far more kind than you would ever admit.”
“I am far more clever thanyouwould ever admit,” Kamil said, and touched Rahat’s mind with the rest:You can’t spend Imperial gold minted with your brother’s face in this neighborhood, shahzada, for the same reason you ‘lose’ your rings at Bastet’s Temple. But I’m an alley cat who could have swiped your ring from you and lost it gambling in any back alley. And neither of us have paid your proud and stubborn enchanter a single blessed copper bit.
“Well done,” Rahat said, and then bit his lip. He really didn’t enjoy speaking thoughts-to-thoughts with anyone; he always had the uncomfortable feeling that he was revealing far more than he ought, even (and especially) to Kamil. But the hubbub of the marketplace was already loud enough that he didn’t think half-shouting sensitive questions would be wise either.
Kamil?
Yes, shahzada?
Is this a walk of shame?
(He couldn’t quite keep the tangle ofif I weren’t ashamed I should wear my own clothing, my own self,andshame or not, I can foresee too many threats when the court learns of thisandhe told me it was a walk of chanceandI want to believe himandI think I might love himandI think I might be a foolbehind his own eyes.)
