Chapter 1 #5
As Master Asharan arranged a length of the fabric over Rahat’s head to shade his face like a cloak’s hood before draping the rest over his shoulders and around his hips, Rahat said, “One might think you’d arranged such diversions before, ya majid.”
Master Asharan laughed. “Of course I have, ya rahati. Any number of my guests prefer discretion. If you were both catfolk I might have suggested the path over the rooftops, but claws are very much needed to climb some of those walls.” He unfastened two of the bead strands from the nook and wrapped one of them around Rahat’s wrist, like prayer beads, and then offered Kamil the other.
“Would you rather be a monk, or would you rather watch over him from your smaller cat-shape in Sahar’s basket? ”
“I would rather none of this was necessary,” Kamil grumbled, taking the beads and wrapping them around his wrist. “Have you got another fabric bolt?”
“Oh, certainly. And if we had three more hours I could henna leopard spots all over your pelt!”
“Sekhmet’s furry ass. No.”
“But hennaed leopard spots are terribly popular among the young toms and mollies,” Master Asharan teased, with a sparkle in his eyes.
“You have to sit entirely still for hours with mud-blobs soaking into your fur. It makes quite the statement about your endurance, your stealth-prowess in the hunt, your fashion sense…”
“I don’t need to make any statements to any half-grown kittens.”
Kamil shrugged out of his kurta and wrapped the fabric Master Asharan offered around his waist, throwing the end over his shoulder more like a conquering warrior than like a humble monk.
“Softly,” Master Asharan told him, laughing. “Gently. But you have never been meek in your life, have you, Kamil? You should carry Sahar’s basket, and a garland of flowers.”
“You are enjoying this far too much, ya rafiq.”
“Of course I am. You are a treasure of my heart as well, O grumbling one, with how fiercely and devotedly you protect our dear Rahat.”
Kamil’s tailtip twitched in embarrassment, but he couldn’t dignify the rest of that with a response.
Honestly, even the cat-basket and the garland of fragrant jasmine blossoms did very little to soften how much Kamil was clearly both a guardian and a predator.
But the shadows and flares dancing their warning puppet-plays at the edges of Rahat’s vision had no brighter paths to suggest than this one.
And the laughter he foresaw through the mists came from mischievous children, not scornful courtiers.
“Through Elder Sister’s classroom, out the western door, turn left, and the alley will take you out to the marketplace just south of Padma-auntie’s bakery,” Master Asharan told Kamil, adjusting the drape of his cloth to hide a bit more of his sleekly muscled arms.
Kamil heaved an enormous sigh, and then bowed to Master Asharan surprisingly deeply. “Thank you, by the way. I do thank you for this.”
“For what?”
“For his smiles,” Kamil murmured. “You’re still a kink in my tail, I did not need dozens of kittens mobbing him at a moment’s notice, but… thank you for his joy.”
“Oh!” Delighted, Master Asharan flung his arms around Kamil, who yowled his sputtering protests immediately.
“No hugs! Stop that! I’m on duty!”
“Still under my wards!” Master Asharan reminded him, but he let go and smoothed the rumpled cloth back into place.
“Rrrrrrrmph.” Kamil’s chin twitched as though he was desperately fighting the need to lick his shoulder to look around and see if anyone else had witnessed his indignity.
“Well, then. Are you prepared, my jewel?” Master Asharan said to Rahat. “Don’t worry, you’ll be splendid.”
“But this is a walk of shame,” Rahat said, in a small voice. “Isn’t it?”
“This,” Master Asharan told him firmly, “is a walk of chance. Planting little seeds for the future, letting them take root among the crevices in the paving-stones of the city streets, coming back later to see what wildflowers might have bloomed in the alleys from a rose petal and a smile and a breath of magic. Maybe nothing will come of it save a bit of kitten-petting and a taste for rosewater. But you have nothing at all to be ashamed of, ya rahati.”
Despite himself, Rahat glanced at Kamil, who had already called it a walk of shame earlier, and who was wearing his most inscrutable face.
“But… imitating a priest of another faith…?” He couldn’t say how impious that felt when he was his brother’s prophet, and when his personal history with Upaja’s Shai Vishal was so…
sensitive. As vast as the Empire was, it did not hold an abundance of God-Emperors with other fat human brothers for whom he might be plausibly mistaken.
And Master Asharan did not wish to know Rahat’s true name.
“If you were taking alms from the offering-box, that would be shameful, of course!” Master Asharan said. “But what possible harm is to be found in a gentle soul giving flowers and treats to children? It’s just like before, except that you’re wearing a priest’s cloth instead of a bathrobe.”
“You’re certain?”
“Here. Practice.” He knelt to be closer to a kitten’s height and reached up to pat Rahat’s belly, then cupped his hands together to ask, “May I have a treat, Rahat-sahib?”
Shyly, Rahat took one of the sweets from the enchanted pouch and held it to Master Asharan’s lips. He took a bite, and then his eyes startled wide and he put both hands over his mouth.
“Ya majid?”
“Oh,” he said, half laughing, still hiding his face behind both hands. “Oh, that’s so much more revealing than I’d thought.”
“If I shouldn’t—”
“You absolutely should,” Master Asharan insisted.
He took a deep breath to steady himself, smiling up at him with eyes as soft as willow leaves.
“This is nothing at all like a walk of shame, my jewel. And that means I have nothing to be ashamed of either, when anyone who takes a piece of rahat from your hand knows from the first taste how deeply you are treasured.”
Rahat had to kiss him for that. He couldn’t help it. Master Asharan smiled into the kiss, and yes, it was just as exquisite as any blushing roses.
“Hellfire,” Kamil growled, and held out his hand. “What are you telling half the city about him with these damn sweets?”
Rahat reached for the rose-pouch, and then paused. “You do know how the magic has settled itself, yes?”
Kamil glared at him with incandescently golden eyes, then reached out to pat his belly with just the faintest prickle of his claws.
“Note how much I am not eviscerating you, my idiot of a sahib, which nearly any full-grown catfolk could do since you’re wearing nothing but a bath-towel wrap and now you’re inviting half the damn city to walk right up to you and touch—”
“Yes, yes, point taken,” Rahat said, and handed Kamil a rose-sweet.
And then he tried very hard not to think of how the taste of it had reminded him of kissing Master Asharan, because the expression on Kamil’s face was most peculiar and he wasn’t sure if it would be more embarrassing to ask or not to ask and be left to wonder—
Chewing with a furrow of dyspeptic concentration between his brows, Kamil finally said to Master Asharan, “Fine. I believe you care for him. I believe your heart is in this. But you’re still an overtrusting idiot.”
“And a terrible harlot with the table manners of an alley cat, yes, I do recall,” Master Asharan assured him, smiling. “Don’t forget your flower garland.”
The door was absolutely seething with fate-haunted shadows and danger-flares. And Rahat knew he had to walk through it armed only with a towel-wrap, a pair of grass-woven bath-sandals, and an enchanted bag of rahat al-hulqum.
But then, he’d done far more foolish and desperate things in his life. Following a vision toward a man’s gentle hands tending a jasmine pot in the window of a Catsprowl bath-house had been one of his wilder moments… and he couldn’t regret a breath of it.
“One more kiss, for luck?” he asked.
“You don’t need luck, you need confidence,” Master Asharan said, and bent to kiss him. “One more kiss, for a promise of the future.”
“Yes,” Rahat agreed, wistful. “Yes, I’ve promised you kittens. And I am a man of my word.”
“I’ve never doubted it, ya rahati.” Master Asharan touched his cheek, gently. “I’ll not say goodbye. Instead… until we meet again, jewel of my heart: walk with joy, knowing that you are treasured.”
“I… I’m…” Rahat bit his tongue against the wild impulse to say I’m afraid I might love you, I hope you don’t mind, or I’m a prince, we have several palaces, we have plenty of room, if you might join me, or I would keep you in indulgent luxuries for the rest of your life, if you loved wealth and luxury, but I’m wonderfully and fearfully certain that you don’t.
“I know,” Master Asharan murmured. “Don’t say goodbye. Say instead that we will meet again.”
“We will. I promise.” Blinking at the tear-blurred tangle of visions, Rahat said, “Her kittens will adore you nearly as much as I do.”
He took a deep breath, trying to remember it all: the scents of jasmine and incense and bath-oils, the softness of the pillows and blankets, the rush of delight when Sahar had first answered his summons, and always, always, the warmth of Master Asharan’s smile.
Then he stepped through the door, out from under Master Asharan’s protective wards and into the God-Emperor’s realm once more.
It wasn’t difficult to determine which door was Elder Sister’s, of course, between the great iron cauldrons and the sound of children reciting their verses.
(Mercifully, the poem was a fable about a turtle and a rabbit, and nothing at all to do with the destiny of subjugated peoples, not unless one were inclined to stretch a metaphor well beyond all reason.)
Elder Sister looked up sharply the moment his shadow crossed her door, but then she softened into something that was not quite a smile.
“How do we greet an honored elder, class?”