Chapter 10 A Gift of Respite #3
Between the awareness of how much paperwork had accumulated during his unexpected absence, the concern for Irfan’s headache and unsteady penmanship, and the need to offer both Shai Rahim’s gift and its overwhelmed courier their proper attention and care, Faraj went a bit overboard in his hosting rhapsodies.
He offered Elias bites from his fingers in ways that he hoped spoke more of the little neighborhood courtyard than the power of the Empire.
He wasn’t sure if he succeeded; Elias’ eyes grew very wide and startled each time he tried, and he couldn’t tell whether Irfan’s brow-furrowed winces owed more to his shahzada’s less-than-regal indignities or his own headache.
The third time Irfan shifted position so that the sun wouldn’t shine into his eyes even through the latticework of the jali, Faraj said, “Must I order you to go and lie down in a cool and shaded place, O most stubbornly dedicated of chamberlains? I can finish the menu and convey it to the kitchen staff.”
“I do apologize,” Irfan said, straightening his shoulders. “I assure you I am capable of service, and we are behind schedule.”
“The locusts will not rise up and devour the harvest if you rest and I send the revisions to the menu a few minutes later than the schedule.”
“If you’re so busy, your Tallness, I can go,” Elias said.
“Oh, please don’t,” Faraj blurted out, despite himself. If he couldn’t even soothe a common-born priest who’d had clear cause to come to the haveli… that wistful hope of Master Asharan finding a place to flourish in the marble-lined halls began to droop like an untended herb in a dry garden.
Elias ran both hands over his face. “I’m a simple man, your Tallness sir, and I’m sorry if this is too blunt for the fancy way things are done here.
I truly don’t know what the basket is hiding behind the high-culture veil.
Are you propositioning me? Or do you want me to proposition Shai Rahim on your behalf? ”
Irfan choked. In the presence of a guest, that said volumes about his headache.
“Merciful heavens,” Faraj said, half strangled by guilt.
“I’m so sorry, I would never — I only hoped — it is a tasteful gift filled with kindness, and I’d hoped to share it, to invite you to feel welcome.
That’s all. I swear. If I were Menas’s High Priest it would be different, but Menas’s High Priest is also, um, more explicit? ”
“Oh, yes, I’ve met him already,” Elias said, wry. “That’s why I wasn’t sure, because I figure courtly folks are more subtle than that. Thank you. But why me? And if you’re in a hurry…”
“Because you brought it to us,” Faraj told him, “and you felt uncertain of your welcome, and gifts like these are meant to be shared and savored. And there should be time for moments like these. Time for Irfan to rest his eyes. Time for you to settle yourself, after traveling from — by your voice I would guess the northeastern coast, near Saluqiyyah?”
“Yes, sir,” Elias said. “I’m accustomed to sitting around waiting for sheep, your Tallness.
My life doesn’t have so much rushing in it that time for a delicious treat and a collection of verse is difficult to come by.
But it sounds as though a slow moment with nothing else demanding your attention is a rare treasure for you, sir.
And so if I might share with you some of my patient time, that is a wealth I have to spare. ”
“I’ll complete the menu elsewhere, your Highness,” Irfan said, gathering his papers. Faraj reached out and placed a hand over his.
“Please stay,” he murmured. “Take the time. Take the peace. Close your eyes and hear the verses Shai Rahim has sent us, and be at ease.”
“This is not like you, your Highness,” Irfan said, not quite steadily, with his gaze straying toward Sahar in her basket.
“It has not been,” Faraj agreed. “But the world holds other ways to be. Both cats and shepherds have an appealing point about the comforts of relaxation, with or without sunbeams as you prefer.”
“We are held to a different standard than other men for a reason, you and I,” Irfan said, rubbing his brow again.
“Because the upward-turned gaze of the world expects a different standard from noblemen granted such wealth and power, and that world judges us more sharply if we falter in the steps of the dance.”
“That doesn’t seem fair, sir,” Elias said.
“Fair has very little to do with true,” Irfan told him wearily. “Power and privilege hold hands with duty and expectations. And the gathered powers will seize upon any flaw in our order.”
“Then close your eyes and refresh your strength to face the upcoming duels of protocol,” Faraj suggested. “I am sure we will all need it; the Cobra-Priestess of Meretseger intends quite a display tonight.”
That had become more clear in his foresight’s shadows the moment Elias had stepped into the room, with his shepherd’s devoted protection, and how readily she could use that.
But he couldn’t demand Elias should sit silently in a corner in order to avert the drama Faraj could foresee; he would never have demanded that of any priest of any faith…
not least because most of them would take great offense.
Elias might even have listened, but still…
he couldn’t bear to ask. When he had forced Sahar’s path into the haveli on the strength of nothing but his name and the guards’ bewilderment, he had become achingly sensitive to how easily he could misuse his own power, whether or not he had intended harm by it.
Kamil, who was still pretending to drowse, yawned and stretched and casually kicked another floor-pillow into Irfan’s elbow.
“Just for a few moments,” Irfan murmured.
He took a pair of pillows to the nook in the shadow of the nearest bookshelf, settling one of them behind his back as he leaned back and folded his hands and closed his eyes.
He would not permit himself to sprawl the way Kamil did, least of all in company; but he looked serenely composed, if not yet entirely relaxed.
Elias picked up the sheet of verses, tilting his head back and forth as he considered the elegant calligraphy of the court script. “May I ask what it says?”
Faraj softened his voice to a soothing murmur as he bent over the page with Elias.
“Let me pass over the formalities; Shai Rahim is quite practiced in them, but I am not in particular need of rhetorical flourishes of praise for myself. His verses on the treats he’s chosen for us are quite vivid, though.
The wealth I hold most dear is wrought not of cold metal, but a sweeter, life-warmed gold: The honey brewed by bright-winged bees kissing nectar from the throat of the dawn-petaled Nusaybin rose… ”
For Elias’ ease of understanding, he translated Shai Rahim’s verses about the warm eggs laughingly snatched from under outraged auntie-scolding hens, and the fragrances of fresh-plucked herbs that mingled on the fingertips.
Praise for a keen-edged blade that nourished rather than wounded, sharp and swift in the hands of men whose sworn foes were hunger and suffering, not other men.
The path of the sun through the sky, and the sun-bright quince ripening first upon its tree, then sweetening in its jar.
The sunrise and sunset mirrored in the embers beneath the cauldrons.
The soft blanket of bread wrapped around the cool barida fillings and tucked in for a nap in the gift-basket.
Elias understood patience in a way that Faraj had never mastered himself.
In his brother’s court, Faraj had learned the importance of the blandly smiling mask of politesse that revealed little of his inner thoughts, but it was always a studied performance, and his mind always swam through the undercurrents as swiftly as he could manage.
Elias listened in the way that a lake’s stillness listened, reflective and calm and with glimmers of mirth or curiosity flickering to the surface.
And he took care to speak softly, and to smile rather than to laugh, with occasional merry glances toward Irfan’s slowly softening posture.
The Chamberlain was not entirely asleep, but he had settled into the shady corner, his cheek resting against the more sternly upright bookshelf.
Kamil was nowhere near as close to sleep as he pretended to be, not with a stranger in the room; but he had twisted himself around in the sunbeam, stretched luxuriantly, and started purring so deeply it was nearer a thunderstorm, quite close to Irfan’s shoulder.
Faraj suspected that deep purr might play some part in Irfan’s drowsing as well, because purring catfolk could radiate astonishing waves of nap-inducing relaxation when they chose, and Irfan had always trusted beyond question that Kamil’s vigilance would keep them all safe.
Elias might not know the language or the ways of the Imperial court, but he clearly had experience with his fellow priests.
When Faraj mused about whether he ought to suggest something like Shai Rahim’s assortment of barida dishes to accompany the bread and table herbs, Elias pointed out the High Priestess of Sekhmet’s distaste for cooked meat.
“We hosted a Lesser Convocation a few years ago ourselves,” he explained, “and the catfolk priestesses adored the chance to hunt their own meals in the pasture, knowing all our dogs were leashed for the occasion.”
“We do have an abundance of pigeons here in town,” Faraj said, “but the potential for chaos with catfolk leaping and pouncing on their still-flying meals would surely not meet with the approval of the order-priests. Perhaps fresh-caught fish instead?”
“Seems prudent,” Elias agreed, and Faraj noted it down.
Along with his notes about the complications around fish; some faiths thought blessing fish with cleansing flame was essential, and others thought the cooking of fish an offense against water’s nature, and could Esmat be particularly brilliant this evening?
(He was confident that she could, but it seemed kinder to ask it as an inquiry. The thin line between his foresight’s confidence and a royal command could be hard on a cook with so many staff to manage and dishes to juggle.)
Faraj was almost saddened when the next rap at the study door startled Irfan into a quick catch of breath; he’d hoped to offer him a bit longer to relax before their duties called once more.
But since no one was throwing water into his face this time, Irfan put himself back together much more decorously than he had in the Archives.
The khadim at the door put her head in and asked, “Esmat was wondering about the evening’s menu, your Highness?”
“Right here,” Faraj said, offering her the neater copy of their notes.
He glanced at the angle of the sunbeam through the jali.
When the sun touched the first row of cut-stone garnet pomegranates inlaid into the marble floor, it was time for him to address the paperwork in need of foresight for the Ministry of Finance, and today he would need to hurry. But first…
“Hadil, may I introduce Elder Elias of the Shepherds? He has traveled a great distance for the Convocation, and I would be pleased to offer him any hospitality as the faithful gather for this evening’s celebration of faith.”
Hadil looked at the difference between Elias’ simple, travel-dusty kurta and the lavishly embroidered slippers, then put on her most polite face. “Be welcome, Elder Elias. A bath first, and then your choice of garments?”
“Bless your name, your Tallness,” Elias said, heartfelt. Hadil blinked, and he said hastily, “Bless your name as well, honored Hadil.”
“Oh, that wasn’t, er, of course we owe our thanks to his Highness—”
“You are both quite welcome,” Faraj said, letting himself smile. He was almost certain it was a question of the coastal accent, that Elias couldn’t hear the difference between the two styles of exaltation. “Irfan, may I hope that your respite was restorative as well?”
“You are most generous, your Highness,” Irfan said, with a hand to his heart. “If you will pardon me, I should speak with the musicians about the timing of the courses.”
Faraj hoped that that meant Irfan’s headache might have eased, rather than that he felt his time-pressure even more urgently after the delay of a royal whim.
But the sun gleamed in the garnets in the floor, and this was scarcely the day to further upset the Deputy Minister of Finance with tardiness in his examinations.
With a sigh, he turned toward the newest crates of tax filings whose questionable veracity needed an actual prophet’s touch to verify.