The temptation was overwhelming. He truly couldn’t help himself. (He had, possibly, spent too long around Hira’s very feline sense of mischief.)
“Why?” Ashar asked, blinking at them.
Geeta-auntie gasped.
Ishta-auntie proved yet again that she was the one to watch out for.
“Because if you marry one of my daughters,” she said promptly, “I’ll keep the rest of them from pestering you about their daughters for the next ten years.”
“Ishta!”Hamda-khala hissed through her teeth.
“After ten years I make no guarantees about pestering for grandchildren, of course,” Ishta-auntie said, because any haggled bargain was more tempting with a touch of honesty.
“Oh, obviously,” Ashar said, with his most wide-eyed expression; he knew he was not very good at feigninginnocent,but wide-eyed often covered for it. “But, Ishta-auntie, do you think Shai Madhur would consider my hand, if I were so bold as to offer?”
“Of course not,” Hamda-khala said firmly. “You are a fallen man of shamefully loose morals, and Shai Madhur ismuchtoo pure for you.”
“But then surely I have also fallen too far from grace for your daughters’ consideration.” With a hand pressed to his heart like one of the marketplace singers, Ashar said, “Alas, what a tragedy.”
Geeta-auntie, who was both desperate to steer the conversation away from her misstep about Shai Madhur and also sometimes too honest for anyone’s good, said, “Oh, that’s all right,beta. Hamda-khala says that Ishta-auntie’s girl Safaa has entertained half the Catsprowl already.”
Hamda-khala and Ishta-auntie both choked at the same moment.
Ashar realized he couldn’t possibly leave the three of them unsupervised in one of the baths, for fear one of them might try to wring the other’s neck and call it a slip in the water. If they got into an auntie catfightoutsidehis door, then it was someoneelse’s problem, butinside? Ashar didn’t want to have to answer questions from Imperial authorities under a truth-binding geas this morning in particular.
The beads and bells jangled again as Fathuna-khala, who probablyhadmade her dawn prayers to the God-Emperor before hurrying over to catch the gossip, elbowed her way into the entryway and kicked her street-shoes off with a clatter.
“What is this I hear about you and some fat old priest dandling kittens on his knee?” Fathuna-khala demanded, both hands on her hips. “You know none of Upaja’s keep a singledaniqto their names! You’ve always been more sensible than that, boy. What on earth did he promise you?”
Ashar couldn’t help smiling at the memory. “He promised me kittens.”
“Kittens,” Hamda-khala scoffed, dusting her hands together to brush the idea away. “Give me ten minutes and an old fish-head and I’ll bring youkittens.”
“We know all of Upaja’s priests who areproperlysworn at the Temple,beta,” Geeta-auntie said with great concern. “If this one isn’t a fraud, he’s amendicant.You can do better!”
“But not Shai Madhur, who is too pure for my sinful hands to stain,” Ashar said, counting on his fingertips, “and not Shai Vishal, who is too stern and somber to be swayed by my seductions. Although Shai Nanda has been both a mother and a caravanserai cook! And she makes the most marvelous cheese…”
“What is it with you and thesepriests,honestly?” Fathuna-khala groaned. “You need awife!”
“Shai Nanda is at least a woman?” Geeta-auntie pointed out.
“She’s much too old!” Hamda-khala protested. “You need afertile young wifelike my daughter Oma?—”
“But how do you know she is fertile if she’s not given you any grandchildren at all yet?” Ashar asked, with his chin propped inhis hand, so that he could hastily hide a grin if he lost control of his expression.
The shocked silence was so profound that the sound of the wanderingkarkadehseller’s sales-song drifted through thejalifrom two alleys away.
Then all the aunties exploded into clucking and flapping at once, like a flock of outraged pigeons.
Hira nudged his thoughts with a very felineDid you have to? Really? Did you really have to?
If they’re squawking at me, they’re not squawking at Kalyani,Ashar replied.Besides. Tell me you could have resisted that much mischief. I’ve seen you pounce.
She did walk into that one,Hira admitted, ears and whiskers twitching.But they’re so LOUD.
Kalyani cracked the door of the Camellia Room open, took in the ruckus, rolled her eye, and very firmly closed the door again. Ashar supposed he couldn’t blame her, but there was clearly no hope of rescue from that direction.
Now the aunties were getting into physical attributes like child-bearing hips and bountiful bosoms and whose daughters did or did not offer the necessary embodiments of fertility, combined with whether they were rumored to have tested out that fertility yet.
