Chapter 6 Marketplace Mischief #3
One of Israa’s young scamps squalled indignantly, That’s not fair!
Tell me Israa wouldn’t have done the same if she’d thought of it first.
But your humans splash everything in water!
Which is how I keep all you little snoops off of my tail, Hira agreed smugly. Ashar and Camellia are convenient that way, aren’t they.
There’s something else tickling in your head, the kitten said suspiciously.
Hira thought very firmly about water splashing and suds everywhere and the horrible taste of Ashar’s flowery soap when she had to choose between drenching herself to rinse it away or licking it off her fur.
“Nyaowwwwwwwwrrrrrrrr!” The kitten bolted for the underside of the kebab stall as though a splash of grease had scorched its tail. A dozen more of them followed suit, all vying to be the fastest to take their yowling about cousin Hira back to cousin Israa.
“All settled, then?” Hira asked brightly, to distract the humans from staring after the yowling kittens and asking any inconvenient questions about what had scattered the pounce.
“You’re certain you want nothing but gossip?
” Shai Prahlad asked, with his mouth doing something complicatedly human-expressive.
“We cannot haul water and chop wood for your humans instead? Shai Rahim may have grown up amid that sort of whisper-trade, but I would feel less… muddied about the soul if I hauled water for your baths, or helped clean them.”
Hira carefully did not sigh as she scrambled for another pouncing-lure that might entice them.
Think like a human, she told herself hastily, think like Ashar, what would Ashar tell them?
Oh, that was easier to answer than she’d expected. She knew exactly what Ashar would say to his gently anxious priestly friend Shai Madhur.
“I don’t ask you for payment,” she said. “I ask you to let me repay a debt. Ashar and I have eaten at Upaja’s cauldrons during any number of lean months throughout our lives. It would be a shame upon our house if I asked Upaja’s priests to haul water and scrub tiles for us as well.”
They traded rueful glances among themselves.
“We ourselves are not the priests who have served you,” Shai Prahlad said.
She couldn’t say Stop being so noble, I need you to serve as mischief-pawns in my gossip management shell game while you’re feeding kittens out of silk pouches and being seen going in and out of our bath-house.
She couldn’t look desperate, either. No self-respecting catfolk would ever admit a situation was not entirely under her control. She groomed her shoulder for a cover for a few more seconds to think.
“Are you saying you don’t want our hot baths, then?” she purred.
“Oh, we do, we definitely do,” Bekele said, elbowing Shai Rahim firmly. “We have so much gossip.”
“We do?” Tarikku asked.
“So much gossip,” Shai Rahim agreed, trying not to wince.
One of the kittens yowled its vexation from under a nearby table. Gossip-thief, it told her. If your stupid human’s baths just weren’t so WET.
So wet, so slippery, so full of horrible-tasting soap, Hira agreed smugly. To Shai Prahlad, she said, “If you feel you absolutely must make a trade without gossip, my human is very fond of his depravities.”
“Excuse me, his what now?” Shai Rahim looked more startled by the word than Hira had expected, even accounting for some newness to the street-tongue.
“Depravities? Humans dunking your entire bodies in water and rubbing soap and oil on everything, and somehow not hating it?” Hira shuddered delicately.
“I will do many things for my human, but sharing his taste for depravity is beyond me. And you do have those clawless fingers that could rub shoulders with no one yowling.”
“We do,” Bekele agreed, grinning broadly. “And we call that bathing, not depravity.”
“And yet somehow I bathe myself perfectly well with no drenching or splashing or soap to lick out of my fur,” Hira said, primly feline. “So if you would not mind joining him in his slippery human depravity, I think we have an agreement, yes?”
“Pray lead on,” Shai Rahim said.
Gossip-thief! a kitten yowled into her head.
Get your own splashy, drippy, depraved, soap-frothing humans, Hira replied, unrepentant.
Nyaowwwwrrrrrr. Hssssssst.
Hira honestly couldn’t tell whether their difficulty in navigating the streets and alleys had more to do with Israa’s petulant watchers making nuisances of themselves because they’d been so cruelly and splashfully deprived of their chance at gossip, or whether the street-children’s gossip network was even more efficient than Israa’s when it came to sweet treats from generous priests who wouldn’t ask coin for the nibbles.
In any case, it took them about three times as long as she’d expected to maneuver their way back to the House of Jasmines, and Bekele lost several more hair-bells along the way.
Hira told herself that all of this was good, because quite a few of the young scamperlings called Shai Rahim Rahat-sahib, and he hadn’t bothered to correct them in his rush to hand out more rose-sweets for all the patting hands and hopeful beggings.
They’d run low enough on the fish-snacks that Hira had darted back to the market across the rooftops, stolen another larger sack, and dropped a fistful of silver at the bewildered fishmonger’s stall before he had even taken a breath to shout.
Then she’d dashed back over the roofs before Bekele could find himself entirely inundated by hair-bell-enraptured kittens.
They made it in the door somehow, and neither children nor kittens were inclined to casually walk into a place where an adult might drench them and scrub them behind the ears, not even for sweets. Not when they could wait outdoors for the next time the door opened.
While the priests took off their reed sandals and washed their hands in the basin (and murmured a few quiet prayers of gratitude for their respite), Hira blinked in surprise at seeing Ashar in the waiting room, unexpectedly disheveled and pouring several kulhad of chai with unsteady hands.
“Back already?”
“What do you mean, already?” Ashar asked. “That was the longest market-run of my life.” He pressed his hands together to steady them and bowed deeply to the priests. “Be welcome to the House of Jasmines. I bless your mercy, your Reverences, and I think I owe you so much penance.”
“If you do, it is hardly due to us,” Shai Prahlad said. “Ask your penance of those whom you have offended.”
“Have I not offended against your priesthood? At the very least, I owe you as many sacks of sweets as I can conjure,” Ashar said, “and I didn’t even make it to the confectioner’s before I turned tail and ran.” He ran both hands through his hair, looking around for anything else he could enchant.
“I brought more fish,” Hira said, holding up her sack. “But I can’t say I’d recommend sugaring fish.”
But Shai Prahlad looked delighted, rather than reproving. “If we might acquire the makings of sweets somehow, then perhaps I can repay a bath with confectionery rather than gossip? Then both of us will be well pleased.”
“Really?” Ashar asked, blinking. “But you have had a long journey, and unless I miss my guess you have been pestered every step of the way for the last half mile…”
“I would much rather cook than gossip,” Shai Prahlad said fervently.
Cupping his hands at his brow, Shai Rahim admitted, “I must beg pardon, eldest and wisest, but I would much rather gossip than cook right now.”
“To each your own,” Hira said. “I’ll go buy more jaggery. And some more jingle-free beads and a head scarf for Bekele’s braids.”
“Bless your mercy,” Bekele said. “May I join you, to thank the merchant who is about to spare my scalp a great deal of hair-pulling?”
May you join me under the gaze of the community and distribute even more attention-gathering gossip as we are mobbed by scamperlings on the way? Hira thought, purring to herself. Why yes, yes you may.
“That’s really not necessary,” Ashar said. “Wouldn’t you rather rest and recover? I am certain you will more than repay our community through your generous service at the Convocation.”
Hira tried not to lay her ears back. Ashar was her human, she had known him for years, and she should have seen that coming. He was clever, of course, but his form of cleverness was far too humane for most cats’ prey-playing taste.
“I do confess an ulterior motive,” Bekele admitted, and Hira blinked. She hadn’t thought Upaja’s priests even knew what ulterior motives were.
“If I accompany a well known pillar of the community such as the renowned Hira,” Bekele explained, “and if I observe which of the merchants she favors, I will be able to borrow the guidance of her experience when I return to the markets in need of more ingredients for our kitchens through the Convocation. So if you would not mind my shameless leaning upon your wisdom, O velvet-pawed knower of the innermost ways of Tel-Bastet?”
“Perrrrrrrrrrrrfect,” Hira purred.