“Oh, thank you,habibti,it’s lovely.” Bending toward the kitten so that the little tabby could tuck the flower behind his ear, Rahat tried not to wince as the next little boy chimed in.
“Rahat-sahib, who’s your friend? Can I pet him?”
“He’d prefer if you didn’t.”
“Awwww…”
“But you can pet me if you like,” Rahat assured him. “And perhaps Sahar in her basket, if you’re gentle?”
“I want a sweet too!”
“Of course, of course! Here you are…”
By the time the younglings had mostly finished petting him and petting Sahar and daring each other to try petting Kamil and scuffling over their dares, and sometimes tucking flowers into Rahat’s hair and beard, and sometimes braiding the fringe on the hem of his not-quite-priestly bath-towel drape, and asking for sweets throughout, the sun was quitethoroughly up. The kittens were fonder of it than the children; the kittens sprawled anywhere that was dry and didn’t smell too unpleasant, and the children retreated to the sun-shades of the friendlier merchants, or in some cases their parents called them back to their chores.
“I’m going to beso late,” Rahat sighed, tucking a meadowflower that had tumbled out of his beard back into place as they took an unexpectedly sharp turn into a narrow gap between buildings toward another alley. Neither the gap nor the street ahead seemed to head in the direction of thehaveli, but he trusted Kamil’s knowledge of the back alleys of the Catsprowl far more than his own.
“Worth it?”
“Oh, yes! Yes, I can’t remember a more delightful morning. But I can hear the third undersecretary of the ministry shouting already, and that doesn’t even take foresight.”
An anxious mew caught his attention, and Rahat looked up to see the shy little brindle kitten from earlier perched on a window ledge.
“Ya habibti!Come, come, I have sweets for you; I promised! Priye, yes?”
She mewed again, looking at Kamil with very wide eyes, then imitated glaring and finger shaking down at an imaginary smaller figure… though Rahat thought the figure would need to be very tiny indeed to be smaller than this kitten.
“Ah, don’t mind me, I’m just fretting,” Rahat told her, rueful. “And a few more minutes won’t really change how much the third undersecretary shouts. Here, darling.” He took a sweet from the pouch and offered it.
She scampered over to pat his belly with earnest affection and took the bite from his fingertips, with sleepy happy blinks suggesting kittens were just as susceptible to fragrant rose-scented nibbles of bliss as a certain besotted human prince. Then she tucked something round and soft into his hand.
Rahat peered at it. It looked like a little ball of yarn formed of dozens of brightly colored strands, possibly a weaver’s trimmed scraps, carefully knotted together and wound around itself.
This variegated ball of yarn scraps was almost certainly the most treasured toy this kitten owned.
“It’s wonderful,” he told her sincerely. “Look at all the lovely colors! But it must have taken you so long to make it; I couldn’t take such a treasure away from you.”
But she pointed toward Sahar’s basket, and made a dangling-and-batting gesture.
“Oh, for playing with Sahar and the kittens!”
She nodded eagerly.
“Well, perhaps we can share? I could use a piece about long enough to dangle enticingly.” He unspooled enough of the yarn to reach kitten-height, unknotted the nearest tie, and returned the rest of the ball to her. “Thank you. I’m sure they’ll love it. Look, Kamil, look at all the different colors!”
Kamil made a grumbling sound, informing him,You are an excruciating pain in my injured dignity.
Chewing on the tip of one of her claws, Priye looked up (a very long way up) at Kamil. Then she buried her face in Rahat’s bath-towel drape, trembling all over. Rahat stroked her soft little ears gently, concerned.
“Habibti,Kamil may look fierce, but I promise you, he would never hurt you.”
You are absolutely lethal to a tom’s reputation, shahzada,Kamil told him, ears flattened.
“Can you share what’s wrong?” Rahat murmured. “You don’t need words. Just help me understand?”
With a little mew, she tucked something else into Rahat’s hand, and huddled even smaller. She was so tiny it took himno effort at all to lift her into his arms. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and clung to him, kneading for comfort as though he were her mama, and her soft fur tickled his throat.
What she’d handed him was a bit of rock, pale gray, with a hole bored through one end of it.
