Chapter 1 #2
Before Rahat could decide whether or not he should agree and whether or not he would be lying if he did, Master Asharan had taken a covered tray of rahat al-hulqum and a jar of rose petals from a shelf.
He spent a few minutes layering them into a silk pouch embroidered with roses while the chai brewed golden-brown and rich.
The pouch looked rather too small for the number of rose petals and sweets he fit into it.
When the chai was ready, he handed the silk pouch to Rahat.
“As much as I wish I could afford to give them coins rather than chai and flowers,” Master Asharan said, “in the Catsprowl it would make both us and the children a target for too many thieves and burglars and bullies. But thieves have no interest in stealing cups of chai! And they’re not likely to take an interest in rose-sweets, either.
” He ladled steaming milky-brown liquid into three large teapots, then set each of them on a tray stacked with cups and hoisted one of the trays to his shoulder.
Rahat lifted the second and found it was heavier than it looked; he watched his steps very carefully as he followed Master Asharan out the back door of the kitchen. Behind him, Kamil yowled frustration and scrambled past Hira to follow.
The space between half a dozen of the ramshackle buildings was crookedly part-overhung by built-on extensions and festooned with flapping ropes of laundry hung to dry and pickle-pots stacked in the shade to age.
Rahat couldn’t really think of it as a courtyard, not in comparison with the courts he had known.
But still, a sturdy mahogany-dark woman with broad streaks of silver in her braid had decided she was holding her own form of court around two huge iron cauldrons of dal and millet porridge that she and her assistant ladled onto broad leaves for the swarm of children.
Several of the kittens were covered in plucked pigeon feathers and threading the pigeons’ meat onto thin slivers of wood.
The cook’s eyes were as sharp as Kamil’s for anyone who tried to steal a bite while it was not only raw but also unseasoned (which she seemed to consider the far greater offense against culinary respectability).
“Good morning, Elder Sister,” Master Asharan called to her, setting his tray down on the end of a long bench.
“You’re late, boy.”
“But the sun hasn’t even cleared the roof. And I have had such marvelous company!”
Master Asharan took Rahat’s tray from him and set it at the other end of the bench, then settled both of them between the trays and began to pour cups of chai that he set out for the children.
Rahat followed his lead with the second pot and its cups, and suddenly found a little brown girl with a long black braid peering at him closely.
“Chameli-sahib, who’s your friend?”
“This is my sweet Rahat,” Master Asharan said, smiling.
“Is he magic too?”
Rahat opened his mouth to deny it, but Master Asharan told the girl blithely, “Yes he is! You know the statues in the temples that you offer your secret prayers to, and the temple folk give you a charm or a treat?”
“Like petting Bastet’s nose for mischief, and petting the fat god’s tummy for happiness?”
“Very like that. My Rahat’s special magic is that if you whisper a secret in his ear, he has rose-sweets to share—”
The little girl wasn’t listening to Master Asharan’s description of a traded secret, though. She reached out and rubbed Rahat’s belly happily, just like the temple statue of the fat god Upaja.
“May I have a sweet, Rahat-sahib?”
“Oh, I, um — yes? Here—” He fumbled with the tie of the rose-embroidered pouch and pulled out a sugar-dusted sweet to give her, and her eyes lit up.
“I want a sweet too!” a tabby-striped catfolk kitten yowled.
“Me too!”
The next thing he knew, Rahat was surrounded by children and kittens climbing all over each other and patting his belly.
Both fiercely embarrassed and oddly touched, Rahat handed out sweets and smiles and sometimes ear-rumples with abandon, while Kamil made grumbling noises and Master Asharan poured them all cups of chai as quickly as he could.
Somehow, the little pouch of sweets never quite emptied.
Not even when word spread along the alleys and more children and kittens, and even a few wary teenagers, came to see whether patting the fat man like a temple statue meant there was still another sweet to be found in that little rose-stitched pouch.
When the last lingering younglings had been rounded up and herded toward Elder Sister’s pots of food and associated lessons, Master Asharan sighed, brushing the back of his fingers over Rahat’s cheek, where he could still feel the heat of his blushes.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’d hoped for that suggestion to involve more secret-whispers and fewer uninvited touches.”
“I don’t mind,” Rahat said, hoping his blushes didn’t put too much of the lie to his words. “They’re adorable, both the children and the kittens.”
“Kamil will want my head on a platter if ‘dash up and pat my master for treats’ spreads too far, though.”
“You,” Kamil growled at the bottom of his range, “are absolutely correct about that, ya rafiq.”
“Truly, I don’t mind,” Rahat insisted to them both. “Thank you for allowing the little ones their curiosity, Kamil.” Looking down at himself, he sighed, “A figure like mine would be a notable peculiarity around here, wouldn’t it.”
“Oh, we’ve several round aunties and uncles in the neighborhood,” Master Asharan told him. “But very few of them are willing to be patted down in search of magical sweets. They’ve known the little scamps all their lives, after all.”
“Magical sweets? Is the pouch enchanted?”
“Just a bit,” Master Asharan admitted. “I’ll need to keep that jar of rose petals topped up, but you shouldn’t run out of sweets as long as there’s a petal left in the jar.
Petals store much more tidily, and roses do have quite an affinity for taking on magic.
It barely takes a nudge to suggest that their most alluring form is a sugared bit of delight. ”
“How absolutely marvelous, ya majid.” Rahat sighed. “I could never hope to approach your skill.”
“Of course you can! You learned to welcome Sahar into your heart on your very first try.”
“Really? But… that was your excellence in teaching…”
“And your willingness to open your heart in trust, and your kindness of spirit. And,” Master Asharan added, “I am entirely certain you have talents far beyond mine as well. If nothing else, a trader must know how to make the books balance properly!”
“But that’s only mathematics.”
“Jewel of my heart,” Master Asharan said, laughing, “believe me when I promise you that there is nothing ‘only’ about mathematics!”
Master Asharan had called him jewel of my heart, freely, openly, in front of the entire neighborhood; for a moment Rahat could barely breathe.
“B-but then if… if you’re in need of financial assistance…”
“Ah — no, no, that is not a request for coin. That is in fact a request not to offer me coin, because who knows where I would misplace it! No, I assure you, Hira keeps our books well in line.”
“And she despairs of you each time she does,” Hira called from the doorway, bringing another refilled pot of chai to set on the bench.
“Rahat-sahib, if you can explain to this math-mangler why double-entry bookkeeping is actually valuable, you will spare me tearing my fur out by the fistful in frustration at tax-season.”
“Oh! Oh, but of course double-entry bookkeeping is important! It’s the best way to catch entry errors on the first pass, and also one of the better protections against dishonest bank-assistants trying to skim a bit for themselves, which happens far more frequently than one would wish…”
Master Asharan was smiling at him again, this time with the politely attentive smile of a diplomat who was thinking I am not going to understand a word of this and possibly not care, but I should still look interested.
“I’m sorry,” Rahat said awkwardly, “I shouldn’t bore you, ya majid.” It didn’t take much skill with prophecy to foresee that much.
“You are not boring,” Master Asharan said. “But I have as little faith in my mathematics as you have in your charms, I’m afraid. We should practice with each other.”
“Of all the things we could do with the moments that remain to us before we must part,” Rahat murmured, “you would choose mathematics?”
“Oh, if you left the choice to me, I would most certainly choose to further persuade you of your charms,” Master Asharan said easily.
“All of your charms, in their rich and generous variety, many of which we have yet even to discover! But then we would play to my strengths and your uncertainties, which is neither fair nor comfortable for you.”
“I would prefer the charms, truly,” Rahat said, “since we might explore them together. And we have so little time…”
“But you have promised to visit me again when your Sahar bears her kittens!” With a sudden grin, he added, “I am certain even I can manage to count well enough to number her kittens, if I am allowed to use my fingers.”
“Yeah, still check his maths there,” Hira said wryly, with her arms crossed.
Rahat looked up at a scuffling sound, just in time to discover another kitten being pushed towards him by three of her giggling age-mates. The poor darling looked to be on the verge of tears of embarrassment, and he certainly understood that feeling.
“Go on,” one of the others hissed not quite as quietly as they thought. “Ask him, Priye!”
She made a tiny mew of distress.
“You have to ask him!” another one gloated. “Use your words.”
Rahat sighed, because bullies were bullies regardless of their size or species or courtly finery. “Would you like a sweet, my dear?”
She nodded a little, trembling.
“She has to ask,” the tallest of them declared, tailtip twitching.
“Well, that won’t be a problem! We have certainly established the now-traditional method,” Rahat reminded them, a bit rueful.