Chapter 9 The High Priest’s Penance #5
Shai Vishal cupped his hands to his brow, head bent, and opened himself to the guidance of his god.
The wicks of the oil lamps flickered and leapt, and Asharan’s eyes startled wide; distantly, Vishal wondered what an enchanter might see in the way that a god’s touch upon the soul guided a High Priest’s hand.
Upaja rarely spoke to Shai Vishal in words, but sometimes He guided, gently. Dappled glimmers of light flickered in Vishal’s vision, like a god’s breath upon the lamps, or like reflections in a warm pool.
He saw himself stand, and so he stood. He saw himself settle beside the young man in the mashrabiya ledge. He felt his hand touch Asharan’s cheek with a father’s touch, or with a benediction. Asharan caught his breath and closed his eyes, head bowed as though it were a treasure.
Vishal took a breath, and let Upaja’s inspiration guide his voice.
“You have done what you have done with a generous heart, with love and kindness,” he said.
“You have celebrated your beloved and our priesthood alike. It may have been a precarious tumble, kitten, but you have landed lightly on your feet. In my judgment, you have meant no harm, and you have no cause for shame. If you still feel the need of penance—”
Shai Vishal stopped to question his heart for a moment, uncertain whether this was truly divine guidance or merely his own selfishness, his own weakness to beauty. But an amused flicker danced through his soul like a firefly’s illumination.
“If you still feel the need of penance, pose for me when I prepare the next page of The Devotions. You will have more than enough time to contemplate love and generosity. And sitting still, in one place, without serving, without flitting about to tend to others’ needs…”
He felt Asharan’s flinch at that, even before the young man started to chuckle.
“Yes, I would struggle. That lance of insight is keenly barbed, your Reverence.”
“We both know Shai Madhur. I have known him all his life,” Shai Vishal said, rueful.
“Over the years, I have witnessed a dozen of my own priesthood so driven to generosity, so driven to give all we have, that we struggle to rest. I do recognize the signs when I see them in you. And if you must have your penance, then let it be an informative penance.”
“Thank you, your Reverence.” Asharan looked up at him with a kitten’s mischief-glimmer in the shining jade of his eyes. “By your God’s abundant generosity, may I be so bold as to pray for a miracle of gossip-management?”
“Some forces are beyond even the gods’ own might,” Shai Vishal said, feelingly.
Asharan burst into peals of laughter.
Astonished by the sound of it, Shai Vishal thought, When was the last time someone laughed with me? Just with me? Nanda laughs with everyone, and our priests laugh with each other. No one else laughs into a dour High Priest’s face, unless it is for politics’ sake in the Council of the Divines.
But the last time someone laughed with me alone, for me alone—
He couldn’t remember it.
Still laughing as he rubbed tears from his cheeks, Asharan choked, “I’m s-sorry, I didn’t mean—!”
“Don’t apologize,” Shai Vishal said. “Please don’t ever apologize to me for your joy.”
“You would have me both impenitent and impertinent…?”
“Yes,” Shai Vishal admitted, “and gladly so.”
The utter heartfelt radiance in Asharan’s smile — the relief, the delight, the lingering glimmers of kitten-mischief —
The aching artist in Shai Vishal’s soul knew that even if he’d had chalk and ink immediately to hand, he could never have captured the spark of it on a dull flat page.
He wished that he could have stolen the time to try.
But the cauldrons called; the powers of the Empire grumbled so deep in the stone that nothing but a scattering of dust floated to the surface; Shai Nanda would tease him for time spent alone in his room after a beautiful young man’s visit, because she knew how he could be struck senseless by beauty…
…Shai Madhur would have laughed with him, Vishal realized much too late.
A charismatic priest would have known to smile, to join in the laughter, to wait to be struck senseless on his own time.
But Upaja’s High Priest could not apologize for his own awkwardness, just as he had never wished for this stunning young man to dim the luminous joy in his eyes through downcast apologies of his own.
“Tell me if I am being too impertinent,” Asharan said. “May I have a hug?”
Shai Vishal gaped at him.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t— I shouldn’t have— I’ll just—”
“No,” Shai Vishal said, a little hoarse. “No, it’s… people don’t ask me that. They ask Madhur, or Nanda.”
“I know,” Asharan said. “I’m s–”
“Please don’t apologize,” Shai Vishal said.
A High Priest couldn’t say to one of his own penitents, I wish I could be someone people felt comfortable with, or I wish I knew how to be welcoming, or I would like a hug too. It was unthinkable to say anything of the sort to someone who had come to him for wisdom and guidance and stability.
But if… without a too-revealing word… if he dared be such a hopeless old fool as to offer his hands…
Suddenly his arms were full and Asharan was hugging him fiercely, warm and surprisingly strong.
(He’d somehow expected mages would all be bookish, but then massage-work and tile-scrubbing likely took as much endurance as stirring the cauldrons.) Asharan’s hair smelled of his bath-fragrances, incense and smoke and spices and his signature jasmine.
Shai Vishal thought about how eagerly the children of the city ran to greet Madhur, and how eagerly they must also have run to greet his Imperial Highness Nur-ul-Shuruq Faraj al-Nadhir when the man had been dressed as simply as Upaja’s priests dressed.
It was hard not to envy the pair of them whatever welcoming nature they shared that he lacked, hard to admit that some things couldn’t simply be memorized like histories safely bound into books.
He held Asharan carefully, aware of the fragility of the gift, aware that he wasn’t skilled in knowing how to hold someone.
But if children began to ask him for little sweets too, then perhaps he might learn through practice rather than book-studies.
It was an unexpected blessing that Asharan hadn’t had the time to ask permission before he’d disguised the shahzada as a priest and given him a little pouch of treats to delight the children and kittens of the Catsprowl.
If he’d asked, Shai Vishal might have thought of propriety and dignity and healthful food and the difficulties of sourcing sweets when the donors brought practical dal and grain but not often luxuries like honey.
He might have said no. And that would have been one of the most pragmatic and well-thought-out errors of his life.
Shai Vishal was still not an enchanter, and he still could not magic up rose-sweets when a kitten complained that date balls stuck in her teeth. But he could make a new habit of carrying date balls, or almonds, or dried apricots.
When he needed to calculate grain by the ton a year in advance intersected with percentages lost to floods and locusts and weevils, when the harvests came once a year and the hungry needed fed every day, of course his calculating prudence was a benefit to the city that cat-dancing improvisation couldn’t replace.
But he could work harder at learning to improvise more grace-notes around the edges, like the flowering vines at the edges of his illuminations’ precise geometry.
…work harder, he thought, wearily, as a graceful young man in his arms took an unexpected comfort in his mere existence, in warmth shared and breath commingled and the strength of his heart’s rhythm against his cheek.
More hard work was not needed to simply be, to breathe, and to wonder that his embrace could be a comfort.
And yet how readily his thoughts turned to work harder, try harder, do more, be more, give more.
Shai Madhur was not the only member of their order who struggled to rest, and to let rest be enough.
“Thank you,” Asharan murmured, still clinging to him. “It helps to feel that you — you don’t mind. Who I am, what I do, what I’ve done.”
“You have never knowingly hurt anyone, have you?” Shai Vishal said. Asharan bit his lip, and so he waved a hand as though shooing vexing gnats of inconsequentiality: “Anyone who didn’t pay you for the privilege.”
“Your Reverence,” Asharan squeaked, hiding his face against Vishal’s chest.
“Are you not shameless?”
“I’d thought I wasn’t,” he admitted, laughing a bit helplessly. “What an illuminating day. And speaking of which: my penance? When should I… I mean, unless that was just to make the point? Do you truly wish for me to pose for you…?”
“You also have no need of false modesty.”
“What? No, I… I mean… would there not be concerns? If I were recognized. The books that you illuminate are holy.”
“Yes,” Shai Vishal said. “And so are you. And so are all who choose generous compassion. Of course, the High Priest of a war-god would say differently. But in my sight, your heart inclines you to Upaja’s faith whether or not you are ordained to it.
Are you not here seeking penance for the gifts you gave before your thoughts caught up with your generosity? ”
Asharan cupped his hands at his brow to honor the gift of Upaja’s blessing. “Thank you, your Reverence.”
“Thank you, child of faith,” Shai Vishal said. “For more than you know.”
Technically, he should have reckoned the knowledge to influence the future of the Empire most highly on that list of unwitting gifts.
But somewhere between the simple comfort of an unquestioning embrace, little pouches of gossip-ful treats sweetened with the notion that Upaja’s priests deserved to be loved without a hint of mockery, and a penance paid in beauty offered unto a work of holy art intended for centuries hence…
Somewhere amid all that, a lever to influence the path of the Empire seemed the least of the gifts he had received.