“I don’t suggest you give away everything you own, swear off coin, and gain fifty pounds,” Shai Vishal sighed. “Not everyone is suited to Upaja’s priesthood. I acknowledge and honor your sincere devotion to our God and our service. But I think you would not find the cauldrons a joy in the way that you find your baths and your perfumes a joy.”
The young man flinched again. Shai Vishal shook his head, frustrated.
“That’snota criticism,” he said. “It’s an observation of the difference in our natures. I would be miserable facing the need to present myself as a charming, attractive, and vivacious personality. Just as you would be miserable calculating the donations in the storehouse against the daily usage and deciding how many pounds of which aging vegetables to cook before they cross the threshold into compost.”
“And that also seems a more worthy and valued endeavor,” Asharan murmured.
“Unto each their own calling,” Shai Vishal told him. “This city can be pungent enough even with your bath-house to offset the accumulating odors. I assure you that I do most sincerely appreciate your efforts on behalf of our nostrils. But, unfortunately, I also cannot recommend my own escape from the fortune-seekers to you. We will need to seek another path to your heart’s ease between what you cannot regret and what you feel obligated to regret.”
“I would truly welcome your advice,” Asharan said, rueful. “I couldn’t even haggle for my chai spices without being pursued this afternoon.”
“That, I fear, is not an experience I’ve ever shared,” Shai Vishal admitted, reflecting that even when he had been a wealthy Imperial heir he had never been pursued through a marketplace by young women or their mothers.
Be less stunningly gorgeouswas unfair and unworthy advice to give; it was hardly Asharan’s fault that he was an attractive man who had not sworn off coin, and who was currently known not to be occupied by any particular woman’s attentions. And Upaja’s priesthood considered curse-work to be anathema; as Upaja’s High Priest, Vishal had sworn never to invoke his gentle god’s wrath without grave need. (No matter how tempting the occasional curse might be when he opened another sack of donated grain and found it seething with weevils.)
…Upaja’spriesthood considered curse-work to be anathema.
But young Asharan was known to be enough of a mage to have claimed the title of master, and to have worn it without shame in other settings. Scurrilous rumors aside, Shai Vishal had seen enough of his mage-talents to know that his claim to mastery was notsolelyin the more prurient reaches of the body-arts.
“I have not studied the magical arts myself,” Shai Vishal admitted, “but is there any relief you might find in… well… the enchanter’s equivalent of a fly-swatter? We of Upaja do notcurse,but we alsodissuadethe flies and rats quite firmly, for the sake of our foods’ healthfulness.”
“If I were to sting the prying noses of every gossiping auntie and uncle with newfound designs upon grandchildren begotten of my loins, I would have no business left within a month,” Asharan sighed. “And I would still prefer their gossip focused upon me, rather than upon those dear to me. Which does bring me back to poor Shai Madhur and the patting and the treats. I had thought the morning’s treats would have kept the young ones distracted until the rest-hour, at least. The children have never pestered me so avidly for their morning chai.”
“Your chai is less intensely sweetened than yourrahat al-hulqum, I imagine.”
“True enough.” Asharan looked into his basket of sugared bites and silken pouches, and offered a fragile smile. “If it is not entirely too late, I would offer your priests succor and defense against the wheedling? Also if it is not terribly impious, because it is known that you do not keepcoinupon you, and these could be mistaken for coinpurses, couldn’t they? I fear that I wasnotthinking of the theology of it. I thought that Shai Madhur would be appreciated as he always should have been, and that you and your priesthood would benefit from the children joyfully appreciating your generosity everywhere they see you. But… saying that aloud in front of your eyes, your Reverence, and knowing that you are so reserved in yourself? I should have asked your permission first, shouldn’t I.NowI realize that.” He rubbed at his chest again, and said, “Shame isdreadful.And I don’t know how to mend it.”
“There are many worse rumors you could have chosen to spread of us,” Shai Vishal said. “If you had had it put about thatwe cook rats in the community cauldrons, or that we took treats from children, rather than giving the treats away. But why were we even in your thoughts to begin with?”
Asharan bit his lip.
Several pieces fell into place at once.
I will not kiss and tell, not even to the High Priest,Asharan had told him. And he had spent a night with a lover whom he had wished to claim as a lover and not a client before the eyes of the neighborhood. And then he had needed todisguisethat lover, before returning him to his home.
And he had chosen to disguise that lover as a mendicant priest of Upaja.
If nothing else, that suggested that Asharan’s chosen lover shared the ample figure that people expected priests of Upaja to share.
Andthatmade a terrible amount of sense out of the otherwise inexplicable notes Shai Vishal had received from both the God-Emperor’s brother and hishajib,Irfan al-Sadiq.
He hadn’t taken the time to read the notes in detail. They’d arrived just after the lunch rush had ebbed from a flood to a stream, so he’d been occupied with chopping and measuring and directing the new mendicants where to find which ingredients in the storerooms in order to replenish the cauldrons that Shai Madhur and Shai Nanda were busily stirring and ladling from. He’d skimmed just enough to understand that some matter of Imperial theology demanded his personal discretion but the city was not about to flood or burn. His Highness would surely have come in person, if his foresights had suggested the city were about to flood or burn.
And so, once Vishal had fed the Imperial courier a snack and finished the chopping and grinding and returned to his chamber to change his wrap from the spice-smudged one he’d worn inthe Temple kitchen, he had simply shoved the notes into his desk drawer to deal with after his shift.
Shai Vishal blinked, passed a hand over his beard, and thanked Upaja’s mercy for the dozenth time that his beard lent such concealment to his expressions when he could not afford to show that he was startled, or that he had realized something he could not be seen to have realized.
He could notpossiblylet it cross his face that he suspected the God-Emperor’s sweet, shy, kind, and notably fat brother had spent the night in a Catsprowl bath-house with a charming and impulsive courtesan who had done his best to send him safely home in the morning without being recognized asthe God-Emperor’s brotheralong the way.
Still, the diplomatically-worded hysteria in thehajib’smissive seemed to have had something to do not with bath-house intimacies but withcats?He would have to readmuchmore closely.
No wonder Asharan was overwhelmed, if he was surrounded by half the gossips of the Catsprowl and couldn’t let any of them notice his lover’s name, even while he needed to be clear in that lover’s welcome — and not only for his Highness’ uncertainties. It would have lent his Highness protection to be seen as a poor and mendicant priest with bonds both to a priesthood and a man of the neighborhood,notto be seen as the God-Emperor’s wealthy brother who could be seized and ransomed. And all of that was before the courtiers learned that Asharan?—
No. The courtiers could not bepermittedto learn that Asharan was the man intimately involved with the God-Emperor’s brother. Shai Vishal had never met someone with Asharan’s keeninterpersonalinstincts who also had such an utter lack ofpoliticalinstincts. That comparison of a charming cat taking a tumble from a window ledge and pretending that he’d entirely meant it seemed more and more apt.
Asharan had begun squirming in the face of Shai Vishal’s silence. But he held his own stillness stubbornly close. Even if it was not the same discretion that priests learned, courtesans also learned that a word never spoken could not be used against anyone.
Shai Vishal realized as well,I can’t tell him that I’ve guessed.
