Chapter 10 A Gift of Respite
A Gift of Respite
FARAJ
When the God-Emperor’s brother had asked for architectural modifications to his chambers, and when both his Chamberlain and the Deputy Minister were motivated to support those modifications as quickly as possible, carpenters and craftsmen scooped up their tools and ran to the inner courtyard’s carpets to offer themselves in service.
Sahar’s new kitten-enclosing wooden nursery door had been installed in the frame of his study’s stone-latticed jharokha within the afternoon, along with a colorful assortment of silken pillows and feathered toys and dangling beaded curtains.
When he settled her carrying-basket into the sunniest corner, she bumped her head against his wrist and purred.
Although the Imperial patterns and the ministers’ expectations were swiftly enclosing him again, he couldn’t bear to leave her alone at night.
After the last of the khadimuna had extinguished the charmlights and bowed their way from the royal chambers, leaving the human guards outside the door, with Kamil sleeping the sleep of the watchfully exhausted, and the night guardian Kala prowling around his garden balcony, Faraj still waited for a few minutes more.
It was harder to hear the near-silent movements of a barefoot devotee of Pakhet the Night Huntress and harder to foresee in the dark, but he held his breath to listen carefully.
Once he was certain all was still, he gathered up a sheet and a pillow and unlatched the wooden mashrabiya lattice that had been hung and hinged to keep Sahar and her kittens within the enclosed balcony of the jharokha.
Faraj was as little accustomed to curling himself up in a jharokha to sleep beside a cat-familiar’s basket as he was to sleeping beside a terribly handsome enchanter.
But when he closed his eyes, the rumble of her purring so close to his cheek reminded him of the House of Jasmines, and the gentle rasp of her grooming his beard was an unexpectedly ticklish delight.
He slept more soundly than he had expected with a warm, soft, round, purring cat curled up on his chest, and occasionally batting his nose with a paw or thumping his wrist with her tail if his snoring disturbed her.
Far more disturbing was the shriek of the morning’s khadim, upon discovering his Imperial Highness curled up in the jharokha with one ankle dangling past the inner ledge and something thick and gray splayed across his chest and throat.
The poor khadim had been utterly terrified that his prince had been sorcerously murdered and left in the jharokha by the killers, until Faraj had also shrieked and sat up in his own startlement at the screaming.
And then Kamil and Kala and Sahar had all begun yowling their own furious indignation at the thought that anyone could have threatened their shahzada through their more-than-human vigilance.
And then Faraj had had his hands entirely full with the need to assure everyone that no one had died, no one had nearly died, no one had sleepwalked through the jali or off any balcony ledge, and no one should trouble the Chamberlain in any way about all this unexpected chaos.
Once he had been dressed for the day and performed the morning prayers and broken his fast, for better or for worse, he still had the previous day’s un-dealt-with paperwork piled on the desk in his study…
which meant he had the perfect excuse to stay in his chambers paging through documents and scanning for the shadow of falsehoods.
That perfect excuse also extended to making sure that Sahar was comfortable, well fed, petted whenever she wished, and that no one brought even a foresight-shadow of something sharp and silver with them.
Irfan spent most of the morning working with him on the arrangements for the evening’s diplomatic banquet with the early-arriving priests and priestesses who were gathering for the Greater Convocation.
When three to six months of travel separated Tel-Bastet from their homes at the eastern and western reaches of the Empire, some of them arrived earlier than others.
And, of course, the Priests of the Assessors of Maat began gathering as soon as they could spare essential members of their number, because there was always a certain rivalry between the order-loving priests of Maat, many mischief-loving cat-priestesses, and the chaos-loving jackal-headed priests of Set.
Each new diplomatic dinner was a newly wobbling balancing act, because Faraj didn’t foresee the arrival of new priests unless those priests planned something particularly troublesome.
That meant that he depended on the staff’s notice and Irfan’s skill to hastily rebalance the seating arrangements and the evening’s menu.
No one had reported a falcon-priest-sighting from the gates, mercifully.
The High Priest of Mentu the Bloody was a difficult individual in the best of times, and Faraj was glad to delay that particular balancing act a bit longer.
That left them with only — only, he thought wryly — six Priests of the Assessors of Maat, the cat-priestesses of Bastet, Sekhmet, and Pakhet, the High Priest of Menas, the High Priestess of Hathor, and the Cobra-Priestess of Meretseger to worry about.
(In addition to a handful of priests and priestesses who were much less worrisome, of course, but even the gentlest of them had a glimmer of trouble-shadows brewing.) Hathor’s High Priestess meant that Irfan had already struck beef from the menu, but now they were debating the eggs.
The Cobra-Priestess of Meretseger did eat hen eggs herself, and she often enjoyed them, but Irfan was rubbing his brow anyway.
“Your Highness,” he said, “pray consider the spectacles the High Priest of Menas may choose to create with a pair of soft-cooked eggs.”
The High Priest of Menas was difficult in a way entirely different from the High Priest of Mentu the Bloody. Mentu’s High Priest Khunsu shrieked like his falcon-headed god and swooped to pounce on the tiniest of details.
Menas was a human god of, er, well, masculine attributes: virility and fertility, quite noticeably. As a person, the High Priest of Menas, Neferkamin, was bright and warm and lasciviously playful, and more than happy to share his appreciation of every human figure.
Faraj had always known better than to take his flirtations personally, although his enticements were …
sometimes very difficult on Faraj’s self-control.
But of course the religious and theocratic implications meant he couldn’t possibly accept such public seductions from a priest of another god.
Still, he also felt an odd sort of relief to know that no mockery lay behind it; Neferkamin treated everyone he found appealing with that same avid appreciation.
Menas’s High Priest and Hathor’s High Priestess were both enthusiastic about their deities’ passions, and they shared the embrace of their faith with any who showed the slightest interest. Faraj had to admit it was one of the more pleasurable forms of proselytizing for one’s religion that he’d encountered.
If he were not his brother’s prophet, he would have been very tempted.
In any case, even without his foresight he could quite clearly imagine the sorts of suggestive enjoyment Menas’s High Priest and Hathor’s High Priestess could derive from a pair of soft-cooked eggs, or certain pastries, or a creamy, drippy serving of zafrani phirni.
“Hard cooked would not be much better, would it,” Faraj admitted, trying not to think too much about the symbolism that could be performed.
“The whole array of, well, round or rod-like things — kibbeh, taameya — some of them might drip less but the general, er, insinuation potential does remain? But I do need something to offer tidily from my fingers, for those who accept the offering more personally.”
One of the many political intricacies of these banquets involved the God-Emperor’s worship, reflected through Faraj’s body, serving in His place as His brother, His prophet.
Faraj would of course pray over each of the dishes, because that gave him time to foresee whether any purgatives or poisons had been slipped into the ingredients.
And even the most defiant of rival priesthoods did admit that the sun was involved in the growing of food, so prayers of gratitude toward the sun and the great river went over reasonably well in mixed-faith company.
For the same reason that Kamil had bristled at Master Asharan’s temerity in offering food to the God-Emperor’s brother from his hands, the God-Emperor’s brother needed to offer food from his own hands to those who attended the banquets, especially those of other faiths.
It emphasized the symbolism: that power and generosity came from the God-Emperor’s hands to all those within the Empire, and they would bow their heads to accept His generous offerings, trusting His prophet to nourish them safely.
(He tried not to let himself think too wistfully of the simplicity of Elder Sister’s cauldron of dal and the scampering children and kittens at play in the little courtyard. But he did miss it, very much.)
“Something distributed on flatbread, perhaps? Kamiliyyah or — well, no, you’d need to juggle the breads and the bowl and the serving.” Irfan rubbed his brow again. “And I don’t believe any of them are life-sworn, but we can’t rule out a late arrival.”
Perhaps because Faraj knew how Irfan’s headaches compounded themselves with tension, Sahar padded over to him and bumped her head against his arm, purring softly and deeply.
Irfan gave her a startled look, then pulled his hands away hastily when she put her paws on his chest and tucked her head under his chin.
“I’m so sorry, your Highness, I — you feel what the cat feels?
She is quite bold; but if she insists, I swear I don’t intend to — to lay impertinent hands upon your person—”