Chapter 5 The Way Things are Done #2
“I have spent my entire life being cautious and careful and prudent and guarded,” Faraj said, stroking Sahar’s side gently.
“As far as challenging activities go, I should think that bringing home one very round and sedentary cat-familiar, here in the city of cats, is far from the greatest calamity I might create.”
“Tell that to Deputy Minister al-Faruq after one of the kittens has toppled an inkwell onto a five hundred page long and centuries old tax ledger,” Ahmed muttered. “Or to your guardians after someone has sent a cat-shaped assassin to smother you in your bed.”
“My dear Ahmed, you are as dedicated a foreseer of trouble as I am,” Faraj said.
“I may regret this after a great deal of scolding, but I would like to learn how much kitten mischief a prophet’s foresights might avert.
These kittens are mine, and I shall answer for their mischief however I must. But if we learn that their mischief can be reasonably managed, then perhaps young Hikmat’s — ah, I mean his cousin’s familiar could join him in the Archives on occasion as well. ”
Hikmat took a hasty step backwards when Ahmed and the guard both glared at him.
“I, er, I think Archivist Najra is calling, I should go…”
Faraj glanced toward the Archives, studying the looming of the shadow-flares. “Oh, she isn’t yet, but in about two minutes she will be,” he said. “Pardon me a moment, good gentlefolk. I’m certain the rest of you don’t deserve to be in the shouting range for this.”
“I bless your mercy, your Highness,” Ahmed sighed. “Is there any aid we might offer from, er, a more judicious distance?”
“Well. Um.” Blinking fiercely as he tried to foresee his way through the shadows and the shouting with the least collateral damage, Faraj said to Mistress Salimat, “I don’t suppose you could summon up three more kulhad…?”
The Deputy Minister of Finance Bashir bir Idris al-Faruq and the Chamberlain Irfan bir Enayat al-Sadiq were distantly Faraj’s kinsmen, in the way that many of the Imperial nobles were kin if one looked closely enough at a few generations of marriages.
Much of the time they bristled at each other over which of them had the greater claim upon Faraj’s schedule, person, and duties.
Faraj was more fond of the Chamberlain, because they had worked together in the diplomatic service of the court for nearly all their lives.
Irfan went to great lengths to see to it that the Imperial residences and the servants of the haveli were smoothly managed and never caused disastrous trouble to his foresights, not even with the Greater Convocation in mere weeks.
But Faraj’s sense of duty also called him to the Ministry of Finance. It was an incontrovertible fact that none of the rest of the secretaries could know that a record had been falsified simply by turning a certain page of the ledger and feeling the page’s lies sting his fingertips.
The Deputy Minister of Finance was rarely kind.
But he was ferociously incorruptible, because falsified records outraged his sense of the proper ordering of the world.
Faraj needed someone with that fierce sense of truth in that position.
And usually Bashir treated Faraj’s insights as evidence even more clear than ink, even when his insights were politically inconvenient.
Faraj really had hoped to be back before the two of them found common cause in raising the alarm over his unexplained, unauthorized absence.
He’d tried to walk quietly, hoping against hope that he might be able to sneak into his study, and Kamil always walked quietly unless he was yowling with outrage.
Unfortunately, both the Deputy Minister and the Chamberlain were glaring directly at his closed study door, and at the tiny but fierce woman barring their way.
It was unworthy to feel a moment’s relief that their glaring at the study door meant that they hadn’t yet noticed him walking up behind them.
He’d never before offended both of them at the same time.
…Though, to be scrupulously fair, right now Archivist Najra was doing a great deal of the offending on his behalf.
“No I will not admit either of you to his Highness’s private study,” she declared, arms folded over her chest. She’d freshened the henna reddening the silver streaks in her hair, and in the sunbeam that shone in through the glazed stonework, it looked as though her hair had caught fire with the heat of her indignation.
“That is why it is his Highness’s private study.
None of us call this ‘his Highness’s occasionally-private-but-easily-invaded, busybody-entertaining receiving room. ’”
“Listen, you jumped-up little witch,” the Deputy Minister snapped. “His Highness is missing. You were the last person to see him. And if you don’t get out of my way, I will have the guards take you to the magistrate and charge you with obstruction—”
Faraj took a breath to try to head off the stormclouds roiling in the corners of his eyes, but Najra held up a warning finger, even as she held the Deputy Minister’s furious gaze without even a flicker of a glance beyond his shoulder.
“You think we won’t?” the Deputy Minister demanded. “You think your power is inviolable because we stand in the Archives rather than his Highness’s chambers?”
“I do, actually,” Najra said, with a very sharp grin. “Unless the Chamberlain plans to let me invade his Highness’s bedroom the next time he’s held a book past due, I strongly suggest each of us should stay in our own domain.”
The Chamberlain heaved a sigh. “Archivist, for the sake of your long friendship with our beloved shahzada, please don’t force our hand like this. You know Kamil’s devotion as well as any of us! I should hate to tell him that you were the last to see his Highness before his disappearance.”
“Too late,” Najra said dryly. “You just did.”
“What?”
She made a small turn-around gesture with that raised fingertip.
From the incandescent golden glower in Kamil’s slitted eyes, Faraj suspected he was giving Najra a piece of his mind.
Najra didn’t so much as flinch. She was long accustomed to Kamil’s temper, and clearly taking too much enjoyment in the utterly flabbergasted look on the Deputy Minister and the Chamberlain’s faces.
“Where have you BEEN?” the Deputy Minister shrieked.
“Er. Fetching the morning’s chai?” Faraj offered, because it had been entirely true at one point, and he could swear to it even under a truth-binding. “Would you like a cup?”
“I’d be delighted, your Highness, you’re as darling as ever,” Najra said, taking one of the kulhad from him.
“Why would YOU— you have servants for that—”
The Chamberlain, who knew Faraj better, said, “Where else have you been, your Highness?”
“Fulfilling a vision I’ve foreseen for half my life,” Faraj said, because it was just as true, and he could swear to that too.
Najra had taken Kamil’s mental tongue-lashing without a flicker, but her eyes widened at that. “Really? We had the star-charts right after all?”
He couldn’t let himself blush, but the burning in his cheeks suggested desperate intentions alone had no effect on his body’s response to embarrassment. He had to hope the angle of the light through the intricately-carved jali was awkward enough for concealment.
“What star-charts?” the Deputy Minister demanded. “What have you told this book-witch that you’ve kept from your ministry and your master of household alike? Why under heaven did you run off in the night without even your bodyguard?”
“I was with him almost the entire night,” Kamil rumbled.
“Almost,” the Chamberlain said.
“Yes, almost,” Kamil said, whiskers twitching. “Surely you don’t expect a bodyguard catfolk to follow him into a bath. If you do, go get a human.”
Faraj felt almost light-headed with relief, even as the Chamberlain fussed.
He’d hoped Kamil might support him, but he hadn’t known for certain which way Kamil would decide until he said it.
And that was going to make the rest of the conversation more complex, because the Chamberlain thought of Kamil as his own ally, and the Deputy Minister—
“What have you foreseen for half your life, but couldn’t be bothered to inform us about one day before, so that we might expect you to be late for your shift instead of fearing you were kidnapped or worse?” the Deputy Minister demanded.
Faraj bit his lip. The worst part was, it was an entirely reasonable question, if you were the Deputy Minister and thought the foresight had something to do with tax returns.
If you were a prophet, and you had already foreseen how badly either “I made love with a charming bath-house companion in the back alleys of the Catsprowl” or “I brought home a cat” was going to be received…
(Honestly, “I brought home a cat” was going to be very badly received. He had foreseen that much already. But for the sake of Master Asharan’s safety and privacy, Faraj would make that choice a dozen times over.)
“Why do you think you have any more right to that answer than you do to his Highness’s reading history?” Najra snapped, glaring almost as fiercely as her hennaed hair blazed.
“When we were three minutes from arresting you and calling out the guard to scour the city—”
“How fortunate we have a prophet who has learned a musician’s sense of timing, then. Settle your quillfeathers, Deputy Minister. He’s home safe, he’s fine. Drink some chai. Sweeten your disposition.”
“But it is not at all like your Highness to be so discourteous,” the Chamberlain fretted. “Why could you not trust any of your loyal servants with this?”