“Oh, we all know his brother wants to be ignored as much as we do,” Mreret said, with unassailable feline confidence. “You don’t take a gift of prophecy and hide it away in the Tel-Bastet Archives unless you’ve foreseen what a hissing, clawing dominance-spat you’d have to fight in the great palaces. The rats in thehavelimight be camel-sized but no one around here has bred them for venom.”
“I suppose one might call such hiding cowardice,” Sami murmured.
“I call that good sense,” Hoda-auntie said. “A prophet who warns our city of disasters would scarcely wish to call down a disaster like the God-Emperor’s fist upon us.”
“He’s dutiful, he’s obedient, he’s never troubled anyone’s daughters,” Geeta-auntie said. “I quite like him.”
“I believe I would quite like him too,” Ashar said, smiling.
“You have the morals of an alley cat,” Hoda-auntie sniffed, scrubbing a broadleaf rather too vigorously. “Leave all of these kind, well-mannered gentlemen in peace, you shameless rogue.”
“Ashar does not have the morals of an alley cat. He wouldn’t hunt his own meal if his life depended on it. Now,Ihave the morals of an alley cat and I consider them quite fashionable,” Mreret purred.
“I nearly have the morals of an alley cat,” Ashar protested, hands on his hips. “Hira sets the prices for every service we sell.”
“You haveborrowedthe morals of an alley cat,” Mreret told him loftily.
“Then I had fewer morals than an alley cat to begin with, to need to borrow them.”
“This isnot a GOOD thing,” Hoda-auntie huffed. “Sami,beta, if he is too free with his liberties, tell me and I will avenge your slighted honorimmediately.” She twisted the damp hand-towel into snapping shape, eyeing Ashar with a significant glare.
“How kind of you, Hoda-auntie, to lend your strong arm to protecting my modesty,” Sami said, with a diplomat’s earnest grace. “But I assure you I am most deeply flattered by Master Asharan’s attentions.”
“He wasattending toapriestnot three days ago!” Geeta-auntie protested. “A very nice priest who feeds kittens! I wanted to matchmake— uh, never mind?—”
“Geeta,”Basima-auntie groaned.
“And so…?” Sami asked.
Sputtering, Basima-auntie said, “What do you mean, ‘and so?’”
“I… I mean… why should it trouble me? What is between them is theirs to explore, and what might come to pass between us I have scarcely begun to consider, from a brush of hands in the Temple beneath the eyes of a High Priest,” Sami told her.
“But — but he — but you —”
“But we want our daughters to inherit his bath-house,” Geeta-auntie said, looking at Hoda-auntie and Basima-auntie for approval, because this time she had remembered the goals of the aunties’ coalition. Basima-auntie buried her face in both hands.
“Honored aunties, I am very sorry to disappoint you,” Sami told them. “But I have not the slightest concern over Master Asharan’s morals.”
“Truly?” Ashar asked, feeling his heart quicken again.
“You should be more concerned with mine,” his darling told him, and there, that was the delightful crinkle at the corner of his eyes that matched the dimpling of his cheeks when he truly smiled. “I have recently been introduced to a charmingly opinionated queen among cats, and she has already taught me so much about the delights of disobedience.”
“Verrrrrrrrrygood,” Mreret purred, licking her chops as though she smelled a tasty mouse to pounce upon.
“How scandalous! I may swoon,” Hoda-auntie declared, fanning herself with a broadleaf. As Basima fussed about laving Hoda-auntie’s wrists and brow, interspersed with incoherent sputterings of disapproval, Mreret’s ears and whiskers pricked forward.
“So, about the disobedience. Impress me, human.”
“Um.” Sami twisted a ring about his finger nervously, and left the God-Emperor’s sigil hidden between his fingers. “I have considered some unheard-of alterations to the tax structure?”
“Boring,”Mreret declared with a yawn. “Catfolk don’t pay taxes unless they’re too dim to go small and scamper off when the tax collector comes knocking.”
“Which leaves us poor women scraping together twice the taxes from whatever the uncles haven’t taken gambling and drinking,” Hoda-auntie sniffed. “And you’re not going to tell me you plan to lower the taxes, are you. No Imperial ever lowers the taxes.”
“Supposing we were,” Sami said, “which services should we reduce accordingly? The maintenance of the aqueducts and theqanatthat ensure clean and fresh water? The provisioning of the fire watch? The records of contracts that must be kept in triplicate, so as to verify which copy is true in the event of a dispute?”
“So you’re not planning to lower the taxes,” Basima-auntie said dryly, stabbing twigs to pin her bowl in shape with extra vehemence.
