“Oh, sweetest.” Anuket put her arms around him and kissed him; he clung to her as though he were drowning, as though her lips held his only hope of air. And then he broke away, shaking.
“I had promised not to indulge, for your own sake, and at scarcely a nudge I fall. Your Highness, I do apologize.”
“Extraordinary circumstances,” Anuket said, rubbing his huddled shoulders with a tender hand. “And if you could ever resist me, I would have to surrender my priesthood. I promise you, honey-love, that we are both well as can be.” With a mirthful glance at Faraj, she added, “In return for your suffering and your sacrifice this evening, O most passionately devoted, I swear I shall dedicate my greatest efforts to reward you both with a night in each other’s arms.”
It would be beyond cruel to protest at this particular moment, but Faraj hoped the heat of his glare conveyed itself to Anuket over Neferkamin’s bowed head.
She simply chuckled, and pressed a kiss into Neferkamin’s soft dark hair. “Come, your Highness, I know your kind heart. Do you not ache to comfort this man’s distress? This strikingly attractive and eagerly passionate man…?”
“Had you not sworn yourself to have mercy for this one night?” Faraj asked wearily.
“No, that was him,” Anuket reminded him, grinning like a jackal. “I know you have always been much too pure, devoted, and faithful to indulge in heresy, but heresy ispleasurable.”
Faraj bit his tongue before he could sayI have not found the accusations pleasurable at all.For as disarmingly delightful as they both could be, Anuket was not above taking any advantage she could.
“Reinforcements,” Neferkamin sighed, and kissed the back of Faraj’s hand in a tender gesture not entirely like fealty. “For mercy’s sake, your Highness, go and charm the room with your smiles before I pour out truly dreadful poetry at your feet. But for mercy’s sake, warn me when I must look away the next time, ere the strike that spares your throat lands its fangs in my stricken heart. I am notnadhir;I had not dreamed howdesperately I would mourn you until I saw the shadow of it flash against the stone.” His eyes were near as dark as the night, but a hint of tears glimmered like starlight in the wavering lamps. “Is this what you must always foresee? How can you bear it?”
If they were not in so public a place, before the judgmental eyes of priests and the gossiping eyes of servants and theqiyan, Faraj could have hugged Neferkamin, his heart-stricken friend. But the God-Emperor’s prophet could not show intimate favor to the High Priest of Menas before the Greater Convocation, not when the other priests could whisper of preferential treatment. Not when Faraj knew within a few hundreddinarthe size of the various betting pools on Menas’ High Priest’s sexual conquests, including speculation on when he would bend the God-Emperor’s brother over the arm of the throne and make him beg.
Faraj wished, desperately, that he could be as bold and fearless as Master Asharan, who had kissed a man he named his heart’s treasure in the warm light of dawn, before the eyes of all his neighborhood. But the man Master Asharan had kissed was named Rahat, and he had made certain never to hear any other name spoken.
Neferkamin’s left hand rested at the hollow of Anuket’s back, as he held her for comfort. It was all Faraj could dare to place a hand over his, hidden from the gathering.
“May your heart find its ease, for not every foresight is so terrible as that,” he murmured. “I foresee that Hathor’s pearl will be safely delivered, because her toddling daughter will run laughing through her Temple freed of such vexations as diapers while half a dozen priestesses make chase. And you may wish to elevate the lowest two shelves of papyrus in the storeroom until she is less enamored of biting and drooling and grasping with jam-sticky fingers.”
Anuket sighed, and Neferkamin managed a ragged chuckle.
“What trouble do you foresee in me, then? Surely not a failure at seduction, for I am flawless and peerless.”
Faraj bit his lip, because the sudden vision of Neferkamin and Master Asharan together was startlingly vivid and dreadfully distracting when he needed to keep his wits, and yet he could imagine how they would be with each other in exquisite, breathtaking detail.Toomuchdetail, because he could scarcely fathom how much trouble could come ofthat.
Anuket said pertly, “Of course he cannot foresee that; his Highness cannot bother to foresee so many petty humiliations.”
“You take thatback, you daughter of a cow.”
It was either the worst possible moment or the best possible moment for the shimmer of chimes to ring in the readiness of the fish course.
Faraj rapidly decided that it was the best possible moment, because for Neferkamin to begin pouting while his dark and limpid eyes were still glimmering with unshed tears at the thought of mourning him — yes, Faraj absolutelyneededan escape. (A warm cup of chai and Elder Sister’s scoop of dal on a broadleaf had all beenso much less complicated,even with half a dozen kittens clambering into his lap at the same time.)
He made certain to steady his steps to the drums’ pace, pretending that everything was in both physical and emotional order, accepting the vast bowl of artistically-arranged fish from Hadil and pretending that the shimmer of waves in the bowl had been intentional.
The different faiths held differences of opinion over whether the great river’s fish were edible or prohibited, and also whethercookedfish were cleansed by flame or an abomination against nature due to the antithetical natures of water and fire. So Esmat had come up with an exquisitely time-sensitive dish which Faraj could swiftly pray over at the brazier — with gratitude to the great river in particular, of course — and thenserve to the priests withouttoogreat an offense to any of their opinions on the matter.
She had threaded cleansed fish onto fine coconut slivers and arched them into either leaping or swimming shapes, and the leaping fish had been swiftly fried in a light sesame and flour batter that stayed crisp above the waves, while the raw swimming fish had lightly ‘cooked’ in the acid of the sharp, bright mint and fenneljaljathat filled the bowl. If it were not for the catfolk, Esmat might have prepared it as alaymuniyyaor anaranjiyya,but citrus was as much off the menu around catfolk as beef was off the menu around Hathor’s priestesses.
Under other circumstances, he would have asked the aid of one of thekhadimto carry the bowl while he offered servings to each of the guests. But amid the twilight’s deepening shadows, he couldn’t be fully certain that the Cobra-Priestess of Meretseger had had her fill of startling and frightening people. He balanced the bowl very carefully in one arm, so that he would make the most precarious target and she would find less temptation among the youngkhadimunain his wake who set out platters of saffron-golden, crisp-edgedmaqloubatopped with fried eggplant and sumac-brined olives and pistachios. All of it smelled amazing, between the herbs in the bowl and the onions and spices and the roast lamb cooked into the rice, and he fervently hoped everyone could keep a grip on their serving platters even if the Cobra-Priestess was not yet bored.
Beketmeret was pleased enough that she did not strike at the crisp-fried leaping fish he offered her from his fingertips. She even permitted him to ladle a brined bowl-fish into the High Priestess of Bastet’s bowl without interference. He didn’t trust his balance well enough to bow with a bowl of splashable and acidic sauce in his arms, but he bent his head to them both with his free hand to his heart before he moved to serve Elias, Sekhmet’s Priestess, and the formally arranged arch of thePriests of the Assessors that Pakhet’s Priestess had intruded upon.
When he had finished sharing this round of the God-Emperor’s bounty with the gathering, he settled beside Anuket and Neferkamin with a sigh of relief. The fish was the most sensitive dish to serve and the most spill-prone; the other courses would be easier to manage, and in the meantime themaqloubasmelled divine. He spooned up bowls for all three of them, topping each with a fried leaping-fish, and then he finally had a chance to take a bite for himself.
Even aside from the deliciousness of the crisp golden rice shell and the savory eggplant slices that had absorbed the flavor of the lamb and spices baked into it, Faraj thought keeping his mouth occupied with food was a wise notion. Because Anuket was right there, and she seemed still untroubled by her childing, except for the occasional wince. Neferkamin fretted over her like a high-strung mare, or like a poet; Neferkamin had always been so vividly expressive. But if Faraj kept his mouth busy, he couldn’t ask things the God-Emperor’s brother should never be heard to ask a priestess about women’s mysteries, such as childbirth. Or kitten-birth, as the case might be.
Faraj’s tutors had suspected his preferences while he was quite young, and so their lessons had firmly emphasized both the pleasures of children and the duties to the bloodline. His tutors had entirely skipped over any difficulties in childbirth, to the tune of “and then her ladyship gave birth to an heir and the realm rejoiced ever after.” But the poets had made much of the terrible dangers, with women dying whenever it seemed most dramatic for the poet’s tale; Faraj hadn’t known whose tales to believe.
He could not have asked akhadim, who would of course tell him whatever she thought he wished to hear because hiskhadimunawere kind to him — and also because courtiers withvested interest in the line of succession would pay a pretty price for such rumors.
He had occasionally caught foresight-glimpses of women who swore dire vows about what she would do to the lover who had gotten her into such a state, especially if she was a kitchen-servant who knew where the good knives were kept. But his foresights caught a few seconds at a time; he had no idea what proportion of the interval was spent in Anuket’s presently brief, shrugged-aside discomforts, or what proportion in swearing vengeance and threatening one’s lover’s manhood should he ever dare a second attempt.
