Chapter 5 The Way Things are Done #6
But until today, a common weaver of the Catsprowl market had never personally approached his orbit. And he hadn’t realized how much trouble her new place among the moving constellations of power around him might cause for her.
“My lady Esha, I’m terribly sorry,” Faraj managed, trying not to wring his hands together in front of himself; behind his back was much less noticeable.
“I should have thought that many priests do not approve of respectable women in an unmarried man’s bedchamber.
Though surely between the Chamberlain’s propriety and the Archivist’s femininity we have the more common forms of chaperonage well covered?
But I should have asked after the strictures of your faith before making such a request, and I am very sorry for being so thoughtless. ”
“That’s really not a problem, your Highness,” Esha said, struggling to keep her expression tranquil.
“Bastet encourages both cat toys and the pursuit of many curiosities.” She bit her lip against a grin.
He suspected she didn’t feel comfortable laughing at his Imperial Highness Nur-ul-Shuruq Faraj al-Nadhir in the presence of his scandalized Chamberlain and all the trappings of their wealth and power.
“You’re quite certain…? If there is anything I can do to make you more comfortable here… a cup of chai, or…”
“If you feed us any more chai we’re going to float away,” Najra said wryly, already looking through his bookshelves with no discretion whatsoever. “Where did you get your hands on a revised edition of The Linguistic Heritage of Parhava? I didn’t know anyone was still updating that series!”
“It was, er, something of a personal favor.”
“Can I borrow it before the kittens gnaw holes in it? That binding is exquisite. And I’m thinking we need to commission you some mashrabiya-style screens for your bookshelves.
” She’d pulled a silverpoint-ended reed out of the knot of her hair-scarf and was already scratching some notes in a palm book; the fine, pale lines would oxidize darker on the page without the need to fuss with a pot of ink.
“Esha, Ahmed, what kitten-lures do you see dangling about that we should tuck in and tidy up for his Highness?”
“The quills, the ink, the parchment, the entire surface of the desk,” Ahmed began, counting points on his fingers. “Most likely the entire desk itself.”
“Most certainly the entire desk itself,” the Chamberlain said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“That is a pre-Imperial relic, your Highness. As are many of the pieces of furniture in your chambers here. Not to mention the five centuries of silk tapestries celebrating his Imperial Majesty’s ascension to the Sun Throne, which are entirely too tempting for creatures with claws whether or not they are actually demons made incarnate. ”
“Noted,” Faraj sighed, as Najra’s silverpoint kept scratching in her palm book.
“So, the antiques, anything made of fabric or wood or ceramic or paper, anything particularly gnawable or breakable, anything easily stained or torn or disarranged…” Looking around and running a hand through his hair, he admitted, “I could still make myself a pallet in the tack-room of the stables.”
“None of you have children, do you, your, er, your assorted honors and worships and so forth?” Esha asked. “May I suggest the notion of a nursery fitted out for kittens?”
“A place where they stay contained and no ink gets spilled and no one else sees them and no one knows they exist?” Ahmed asked, suddenly much happier. “I would gladly sign that requisition order myself.”
“I had been thinking more of a safe sunny place for them to nap and climb and play with toys that no one will shriek about,” Esha said, “but certainly, let’s sell it your way to the Deputy Minister.”
“You presume that they will not be judged to be the unholy spawn of demonkind,” the Chamberlain said.
“Well, no more than any other kittens are, I expect,” Najra said, still browsing the bookshelves. “You’ve been holding out on me, your Highness. Al-Tayir’s original swatch books?”
He’d intended to give her that set for a Sun-in-Triumph gift, because the longest day of the year came with the most hours of light to appreciate the colors.
Really, he hadn’t thought at all about the implications of inviting so many people into his personal chambers to consider their suitability for kittens.
And his foresight seemed to consider embarrassment his natural state of being, not something to particularly warn him for. He supposed he ought to consider that a mercy, because otherwise he would spend much of his life blinded by the warning-shadows.
The door creaked slightly as one of the khadim shouldered it open with his hands full of a tray of bed linens and vases of fresh flowers.
Faraj realized that the servants expected him to be safely away at the Ministry by this time of the morning.
By the time he’d taken a breath to warn the man, Kamil was already moving.
The khadim turned toward the room, realized it was still very occupied, and shrieked as he dropped the tray directly into Kamil’s hands.
Seeing Kamil lunge at you was cause enough for alarm by itself.
But Faraj bit his lip to keep from laughing as the poor man struggled over whether he ought to scream that the shahzada’s chambers had been invaded by a common woman, a notorious book-witch, and a prohibited housecat, while the hajib was standing right there to witness all of it.
Laughing wouldn’t be kind at all, but the hilarity tickled his throat like a cat’s whiskers as he watched the khadim try to decide which affront against propriety was the most imminently terrible.
“Y-your Highness, I’m so sorry, you — you have, er, there are— occupants— I didn’t realize — I’ll go—”
Faraj suddenly realized that a khadim even remotely familiar with the tales of his brothers’ exploits would assume that at least one of the women had been discovered in his bed at dawn by the still visibly upset Chamberlain.
And explaining that the cat had been the one in the bed he had been sharing with a companion at dawn wouldn’t really be an improvement.
“Thank you for your service,” he managed, with a mostly straight face. “If you happen to see one of the woodworkers, would you mind sending them up?”
“A woodworker, your Highness?”
“We are about to embark upon the construction of a kitten-nursery,” he explained, “and I should imagine wood would be more satisfying for tiny claws than stone? Maybe some ropes, some worn fabrics, a sandbox, that sort of thing…?”
“A kitten-nursery?” The khadim looked at the Chamberlain much more directly than he should have, when the God-Emperor’s brother had just made a request.
In that particular moment, in front of Esha and Ahmed and Najra, the impropriety of contradicting the shahzada’s personal request in front of those Outside the Household outweighed the impropriety of the cat-familiar whose fate still awaited an inquisition’s judgment.
The Chamberlain barely inclined his head, but it was enough for the khadim to bow deeply and hurry out.
“Thank you,” Faraj told him, sincerely, as Kamil set the tray of now-splashed linens and disarranged vases on a side table.
Sahar blinked up at the Chamberlain, licked her paw, and began to purr. The Chamberlain visibly stiffened and turned away.
Faraj couldn’t help reaching over to stroke her fur; as Najra had noted, it was an open question whether he ought to feel that rejection as personally as he did, and whether Sahar was a part of him as much as he felt she was.
Regardless of the theology and the philosophy, she was wonderfully soft, and petting her soothed an ache in his heart as well.
“You just can’t help that stick up your ass, can you?” Najra said to the Chamberlain.
“This is my domain,” he reminded her. “Take care with the barbs on your tongue.”
“This is his Highness’s domain, where he invited me as his guest.”
“Can we not?” Faraj asked wistfully. “It has been a difficult day and it’s not even noon.”
“My apologies, your Highness,” Najra said. “May I pet your beautiful cat?”
“She does have her own opinions, of course, but if she agrees…?”
Najra offered her fingertips for Sahar to consider, then laughed in delight when Sahar shoved her head and her ticklish whiskers into the palm of her hand.
“You are softer than velvet and far more enchanting. If I ask very nicely, will you consider leaving the books ungnawed for both your favorite person and me?”
Ahmed said in some disbelief, “Do you know how to ask anything nicely?”
“If you’re a cat, I do,” Najra said, scratching gently under Sahar’s chin and smiling at her soft purr.
“I am an unsanctified market-witch as well as an Archivist, and there is a marvelous seller of cat-toys standing right here.” With a sudden grin at Faraj, she added, “We should experiment with whether catnip tea and yarn balls will sweeten your own disposition toward courtiers. What an unfair negotiating tactic that would be! Which means we know that someone is going to try it.”
With a sound as though he’d just been punched, Ahmed sagged onto the nearest chair and buried his face in both hands. The Chamberlain looked like only the need to keep up appearances was preventing him from joining him.
“I’m almost kidding,” Najra said. “Not entirely, because it would be useful to investigate the answer.”
“It would be even more useful if the God-Emperor’s brilliant and prophetic brother’s mind were not disordered by bestial lusts, distracted by scribes’ feathers, and addled to hallucination by catnip!” the Chamberlain protested.
“Exactly,” Najra said. “Which is not why you dispense with his cat. It is why you brew him a catnip tisane, ask his bodyguard’s expert opinion on the most distracting dangles, and take notes.
Because if it works on him, it will likely work on other powerful familiar-summoners too, and then we’ve learned something the Archmage would never admit to the God-Emperor’s people.
And if it doesn’t work on him we’ve learned something different. ”
The Chamberlain passed both hands over his face, completely heedless of the carefully arranged ringlets in his beard.
It was possibly the most unguarded moment of sincere dismay Faraj had ever seen from him.
But then he said, “I have always acknowledged your wisdom, Archivist, even when I have not followed the sense in your algorithmic diagrams. This algorithm I do follow.”
Najra, Esha, the Chamberlain, and Ahmed all looked at Faraj with a certain scholarly speculation on their faces.
On the whole, Faraj was relieved they were soothing their interpersonal ruffles. But he wasn’t entirely looking forward to submitting himself to the sorts of empirical experiments they were about to start bonding over.
He hoped catnip tisane didn’t taste too dreadful.
Even more, he hoped it wouldn’t cause a human any more hallucinations; he had quite enough of hallucinations with his prophecies already.
Esha had never been a woman to overlook a sales opportunity. She fished a large jar of catnip out of her baskets and offered it with a deep bow: “With my compliments, your Highness.”
Kamil hadn’t moved a muscle, but some instincts were beyond even his impressive control. His pupils had blown wide and black as pools of pure ebony.
“Perhaps you might want to wait on the balcony while our friends experiment with my possibly altered feline drug tolerance?” Faraj suggested.
Kamil’s ears went flat back. “I am your bodyguard.”
“The balcony is close enough for your truly astonishing pouncing skills, even if my foresights do become unexpectedly impaired,” Faraj said.
“Kamil,” Najra said, “I would feel safer if you stepped out to the balcony. I know exactly how terrifying your reflexes are when you’re sober.
And since I am about to be taking notes with a twitchy scratchy cat-tempting twiddle-reed in this palm-book, I would prefer not to lose my hand at the wrist to an encounter with your reflexes when you are not sober. ”
With a lashing tail and a growl deep in his throat that no one could mistake for a purr, Kamil slunk out to the balcony.
“Thank you,” Faraj murmured. “I know how seriously he devotes himself to my safety.”
“Thank you,” Najra said, drawing a dividing line in her notes with the silverpoint and scratching the outlines of a dose-response table. “Because I was serious about his reflexes and my writing hand too.”