“Yes, we hear those comments too. That is notyourfault,” Shai Vishal said. “But Shai Madhur is still so young that he feels their teasing barbs more sharply than those of us who are longer accustomed to it. For his sake alone I would bless your instincttoward a gossip that finds our priesthood worthy of desire without mockery.”
“Save for the mockery that I am a bath-house servant, and one without the business-sense to chase men who have two coins to their names. IknowShai Madhur is too pure for me, your Reverence,” Asharan murmured. “I am grateful that he honors me with his friendship, being as different as we are.”
In some disbelief, Shai Vishal pointed out, “You cannot always be this self-denigrating, or you would not have succeeded in your work as well as you have.”
“I am quite unaccustomed to shame,” he admitted. “I suppose it is ironically suited that I am shameless, given the nature of my work.”
“Not at all, young man. I have never known you to have cause for shame.”
“…Until now, of course.” His hands were knotted together, but not in the way of any god’s prayer.
Shai Vishal sighed, and reached out to set a fingertip under his chin, nudging his chin up as carefully as he disentangled kittens’ claws from his priest-cloth.
“Not even now,” he said, holding Asharan’s wide-eyed gaze steadily. “Perhaps least of all now. You chose as kindly as you could, in a hurried dilemma that needed both attention and discretion. Of course I would have preferred to be consulted, but I can guess at your rushed circumstances with a departing guest’s foot upon your doorstep.”
I can, in fact, guess at those rushed circumstances more keenly than you would ever wish for me to have guessed.
“But every time I stop to think, I think of something else I’ve overlooked,” Asharan said.
Shai Vishal couldnotsay to him,I would scarcely expect a Catsprowl bath-house companion to have properly plannedin advance forallof the layers of political and theological intrigues snarled around the God-Emperor’s own brother.
Instead, he said, “There is an irony in this as well, but I would advise you to stop thinking so intently. Much like Madhur, your strength is in your instinct for love and compassion, not your political calculus.”
Asharan laughed ruefully. “Ask Hira her opinion of my mathematics. And then cover your ears for the yowling. I am always the falling cat who absolutely meant to do that. But sometimes the water is too deep when I get in this far over my head.”
“You are allowed to ask for help,” Shai Vishal said, and put a hand over Asharan’s. “We who are priests of kind gods find our souls’ comfort in helping. Of course, I would not suggest asking a priest of a god like Mentu the Bloody. And Bastet and Sekhmet’s priestesses would not understand why anyone wouldnotproudly yowl your lover’s name in the streets so that all would know that you have claimed him for your own. But Banebdjetet of the Reckoning may aid with matters of soul-calculus, if my own efforts are not skilled enough to comfort your distress.”
“Notskilledenough? Your Reverence, you have already forgiven me far too much, and I haven’t even begun to understand the penance I owe.” He tilted his head like a shyly peering brush-sparrow. His eyelashes really were stunningly unfair. “Are you celibate? —Shai Nanda’s enthusiasms aside, of course?”
“I will not answer that, because neither answer will help you,” Shai Vishal sighed. “You do not need my forgiveness. You have not sinned against my God’s name or our priesthood. The forgiveness you need most is your own.”
“Do you…?” Asharan peered at him again. “You do believe that. But then I still don’t understand why my heart stings mewith greater pains every time an auntie stops me in the street to brag of her daughter’s child-bearing hips, when all that has changed is that they have learned I have found delight in a man’s arms.”
Because you can’t wear your lover’s name proudly upon your lips, and you can’t forgive yourself yet for not being able to embrace him under his own royal name in front of the world. And I can’t possibly tell you why I understand that.
What else can I tell you that would be just as true, but differently so…?
“No matter what you do, you will disappoint someone,” Shai Vishal said, because he was the High Priest of Upaja and he knew this truth to the marrow of his bones. “No matter how hard you try, someone will want more than you can give. And the nature of your service has enough in common with the nature of our priesthood’s service that you still feel their disappointment as keenly as young Madhur does. Perhaps even more so; we are secure in our shelter at the Temple, and you must try to please as many as you possibly can, because of the demands of selling cleansing and comfort and pleasure for your coin.”
Asharan gave a shuddering sigh and passed both hands over his face. “That is almost unbearably true, your Reverence.”
“I thought it might be. But I am old enough and weary enough to understand that it doesn’t matter whether they want little rose-sweets or the entire bath-house from you. If Shai Madhur has only prepared date-balls, it doesn’t matter that the kittens want rose-sweets instead. If you have only one bath-house to inherit, someone’s mother will be disappointed no matter how many daughters you might wed at once. There is a practical limit on the number of wives and children one person might support in a building of fixed size.” Considering his guest,he added, “That also leaves aside the question of whether you would wish to marry any women at all.”
“At this particular moment, it seems even less appealing than usual,” Asharan admitted. “Not that I mind women in general, just that I mind theexpectations.”
And if you think the women ofyourneighborhood come with expectations, then your instincts guided you very,verywell to keep his Highness’ name out of the gossip,Shai Vishal thought.
“Should I give your order my bath-house in penance, your Reverence?”
Only long years of training in deportment kept him from sputtering. “All the gods’ mercies, no. Don’t be absurd,” Shai Vishal said. “That penance would be entirely disproportionate, and none of us would be able to manage it on your behalf when people pay you in coin.”
“I suppose I could chargekatayefinstead?”
“Are you truly so desperate to free yourself from the aunties’ marriage-grasping?”
“I am truly so desperate to free myself from whatever it is that claws my heart so fiercely,” Asharan murmured. “But freeing myself from the marriage-gossip would be an extraordinary relief as well. I wouldn’t wish for him to hear… well… that he could be so swiftly replaced. In either my heart or my finances. I had told him that I would not accept his coin, you see.”
Shai Vishal did not say,He will not hear it so swiftly at all, given the circles he walks in.The immediate concern was Asharan’s own heart.
