“All right,” Ashar said, twisting the smoke through his fingers for a distraction that wouldn’t lead to broken pottery the way cup-fidgets might. “What have I been not trustworthy enough to know? Because I’m a man, or human, or…”
“Because Padma is Chetan’s mother, and she’s the best baker in the neighborhood when she’s sober, and the baker outranks the bath-house companions in the neighborhood’s estimation. I have claws and fangs. You and Kalyani don’t. Kalyani would use claws and fangs if she had them, but you wouldn’t; you’re life-sworn. So neither of us wanted to trouble you.”
“Until now. When I’ve been seen with a man in public. As though being attracted to men means I can’t also be attracted to women?”
“You know the aunties. Being attracted to men means you need awife,not a woman you’re attracted to,” Hira said dryly.
“That’s… ah, sunfire, that sounds terrible, but I’m afraid you’re not wrong.” Ashar ran both hands over his face. “And they’re troubling her because Kalyani has no interest in being anyone’s wife?”
“What Kalyani wants isn’t something they care about,” Hira said. “Kalyani works here, with us. You know everyone thinks she slept with you to get her place. That’s why Chetan only got interested after she’d lost her eye.”
Ashar caught his breath. A tapestry he’d thought he’d understood was unweaving itself in his mind, and the new picture it formed was… less than welcome.
“I’d thought,” he said tentatively, “that Chetan was an overeager, clumsy puppy who didn’t understand how to explain that he cared for more than her face, and who didn’t know when to stop pushing. He’s… that’s… that’s not all, is it?”
“Oh, there’s that too,” Hira said. “We can leave it at that.”
“But that’s not all. And he has shown the rest to Kalyani, but not to me.”
Hira considered him for a minute, then leaned in to groom his hair. She did that sometimes when she wanted to comfort them both. “Will it bother you more to know, or not to know?”
“Please just tell me.”
“Randy young men often don’t handle rivalry well, or rejection,” Hira said. “Chetan had been hoping that you would already have rejected her for her scars. You are handsome as humans reckon it, and a scarred woman would have a harder time selling some particular services, and she reflects on our House.”
“But that wasmyfault, not hers!” Ashar protested, horrified. “It was my fault I couldn’t heal her well enough, it was my fault I didn’t have the skill or the strength, there wasn’t enough time to take her all the way across the river to the Temple of Serket?—”
Hira nipped his ear sharply. “It was notyourfault at all,” she said. “Blame the cutpurse who came at her with the knife.”
“Well, yes, obviously, but if?—”
Hira nipped him again. “Not. Your. Fault.”
“But—”
“Not the point, either,” Hira told him, ears laid back. “The point is that Chetan expected you would no longer want her, so he could have her instead.”
“That’s not how it works,” Ashar said, bewildered. “That’s not how any of it works.”
“You and Iunderstand that,” Hira told him. “Chetan is young, lustful, and not very thoughtful when his lust is involved. First he was too noticeably disappointed that you hadn’t cast her out. And then she dared to reject his advances again. So he told her that nobody else would make her a better offer. Not when she’s worked where she’s worked, when she’s visibly damaged goods.”
Ashar winced. “Twice my fault, then.”
“Not everything revolves around you. Not even faults.”
“The House of Jasmines, where her work is disrespected, is mine,” Ashar said. “The responsibility of that is mine. And if I could have healed her?—”
“This is exactly why she didn’t want to tell you,” Hira sighed, thumping his ankles with a flick of her tail. “Kalyani doesn’t blameyoufor Chetan being an idiot. She blamesChetanfor Chetan being an idiot. And I can smell he does still want her; whether or not that’s love is a human question. But you can see why she hasn’t wanted to give him the time of day ever since.”
“I can, yes. I should apologize to her–”
“No,” Hira said. “Because then you still aren’t listening when Kalyani and I both agree Chetan’s the problem, not you. Just keep him and Padma out of her hair whenever you can.”
“Padma too?”
“You’re a man without a wife or even bastards. I’m catfolk, so it doesn’t matter that I know the finances better than you do; everyone thinks I hate water too much to run a bath-house.”
“You do hate water,” Ashar admitted.
