Chapter 13 What You Can Afford to Know
What You Can Afford to Know
ASHAR
The trouble with living in the city of the cats, Ashar thought, was that the humans had picked up entirely too many ideas about mischief and about sneaking up on unsuspecting prey.
When Geeta-auntie had shown up on his doorstep like a soggy kitten with big soft woeful eyes and a hopeful grip on her bath-brush, Ashar had crumbled like a flaky bite of feteer meshaltet, and he’d led her into the Lotus Room to wash while Hira was curled up napping in the Pillow Room.
In retrospect, that had been a mistake. Hira would have suspected the vintage-grade auntie-mischief Geeta-auntie was capable of, and even if she hadn’t, she held her grudges much more vigorously than Ashar did.
Ashar had plenty of time to reflect on the fallibility of human compassion.
Within the first five minutes of scrubbing her back and washing her hair, Geeta-auntie had begun commenting unsubtle things about how many of Upaja’s priests had been seen patronizing his business of late, and which of them did or did not resemble the other rumors bandied about the neighborhood.
He’d taken refuge in “I won’t answer that, Geeta-auntie” on perpetual repeat even before combing her hair and drying it and re-braiding it with rose and jasmine blossoms. And then she’d wanted henna to celebrate her newest granddaughter’s something or other.
By that point he’d fallen back to entirely non-committal hmm sounds as he concentrated on drawing the patterns on her hands.
She’d eventually gotten tired of his non-answers and flipped over to filling his ears with all the latest gossip from everywhere north of the haveli and east of the river.
(A bit guiltily, Ashar had to admit there were some valuable morsels of knowledge in there if he could get discreet confirmation from a more reliable source.)
He’d finally bundled her up with her hands wrapped to protect the patterns, a lidded jar of chai tucked into the corner of her wash-basket, and several sweets wrapped up in a square of parchment.
He’d smiled and bowed and told her several more times, “I won’t answer that, Geeta-auntie,” and eventually she’d given up and trundled out the door again.
Ashar closed the door behind her, slid down the inside of the door to land on the tiles with a thump, and said to the empty air, “I have to find a bribe Mistress Salimat will take to teach me illusion-work.”
From under the tea-table in the Pillow Room, Hira said, “Hssst.” She’d folded herself down into her smaller shape to lurk in the shadows, and Ashar blinked, because that was rare for her.
“If you have any better ideas, I would love to hear them.” Without cat-claws to climb the courtyard walls, he couldn’t think of another way to make his own well-known face and figure less noticeable walking in and out of the House of Jasmines.
He lacked an Upaja-priest’s generous curves, and that meant the priest-wrap’s disguise that had worked for Rahat would only attract skeptical attention and curiosity to himself.
His hooded djellaba was indigo blue and vividly patterned with white jasmines, because ordinarily he intended to make himself a walking advertisement for his services.
He could have enchanted his shoes, but flying was even more noticeable.
He couldn’t send Nehal to the haveli. And surely Sahar’s kittens had to be due at any moment.
He wanted to know she was well. He wanted to know his sweet, delightful prince was well. And he, a minor enchanter of a Catsprowl back-alley bath-house, had no possible excuse to seek out the God-Emperor’s brother of his own accord.
“Rrrrrrrrrr,” Hira said, slinking out into the waiting room with a lashing tail, and Ashar didn’t mistake it for a purr.
“I was not about to bar that poor woman from her baths until the gossip-storm has blown over,” Ashar said. “Are you too vexed for words right now, or may I go and see if Mistress Salimat is in?”
Hira shook herself vigorously, and unfolded herself into a much taller figure that could speak human words to let him have a piece of her mind. “Go on,” she said. “Clearly I’ll do a much more refined job of choosing our clients than you do.”
“Please don’t kick sand at the entire neighborhood,” Ashar said ruefully.
“Are they really going to walk seven whole blocks to Imari’s when the scandal is brewing right here? You of all people know the power of gossip.”
“I would prefer not to find out,” Ashar told her, exchanging his house slippers for the reed sandals he wore outside. “And I hold my power by keeping the intimate secrets I’ve been entrusted with. Once a secret is no longer secret, its power is scattered to the winds.”
Hira sighed, plucking a date from the bowl and batting it around the tabletop idly. “That might work for you, but it clearly doesn’t work that way for the aunties.”
“I can only live by what works for me,” Ashar said, opening the door again.
A large tabby cat stalked in and sat directly on his foot.
“Well,” Ashar said, blinking down at his visitor. “Hello there. To what do I owe the honor?”
Close the door, the cat told him firmly.
“I do need to move my foot,” Ashar pointed out.
Hrrmph. The cat barely shifted off his foot so that he could swing the door shut without bumping either of them, and then it sank its claws into his shalwar.
Private, it told him.
“More than this?”
That’s a cat, the cat told him, flicking an ear towards Hira. More private than this.
“Well, Hira, if you will pardon me in a different direction for a few minutes…?” He carefully eased his feet back out of his street sandals, trying not to either pull at the cat’s claws or sink them into his skin.
He suspected this was a catfolk in smaller shape, because while alley cats could also make their opinions quite clear, they didn’t tend to use as many human-shaped word-thoughts for it.
“Hsssssssst,” Hira told the cat, ears flat back, with a distinct air of that human is mine.
“Nyaoooowwwwr,” the tabby yowled back, tail bushing out.
“Oh, please, let’s not,” Ashar said, unhooking the tabby’s claws from his shalwar and scooping it into his arms. He hurried into the Pillow Room, because it had nothing resembling water in it and a strange cat could take badly to being carried into a room with a vast human water-pit in it.
Then he nudged the door closed with his hip, set the cat down, and raised the sound-wards for privacy.
“Now, how may I help you?”
Stay away from Mistress Salimat.
Ashar blinked. I beg your pardon?
She says she’s gotten snarled in the other end of your yarn-knot, and since she’s not a prophet, she can’t afford to have you bumbling around connecting threads that neither of you want to have connected. Does that make any sense to you?
Enough sense that I understand the message, Ashar said, but not as much sense as I hoped for. Whom can I ask for further lessons, then?
That’s your problem, not ours, the tabby said irritably. Who would you trust to unravel the knot and not take advantage of the knowing?
Ashar ran both hands down his face. No one who could teach me what I need to know, he admitted.
Because if he needed to study illusion-work, and someone who knew illusion-work well enough to teach him also followed the thread of thought-secrets back to — to that carefully hidden other name which he could not allow to cross his mind even now, not with a clever catfolk’s thoughts touching his — if he made that mistake, then he would have exposed his dear one to the whims of a powerful mage who could choose to look like anyone.
And that powerful mage would know to look like Ashar in particular.
Thank you for the warning, Ashar told the cat. Would you like some dahi for your trouble?
That would be acceptable, I suppose, the cat said primly, but the tone of its thoughts was much closer to YESSSSSSSSSS.
The last night’s curd had set up nicely by the banked warmth of his enchanted cauldron, so Ashar uncovered the pot and spooned out several dollops for the cat, then sat on his heels and petted it gently while it devoured its treat.
Licking its chops, the tabby told him, You’re decent for a human. Too bad you’re not a cat.
I will accept that great compliment in the generosity with which it was intended, Ashar told it, amused. Pray convey my regards to Mistress Salimat.
Gossip-storms or no, Ashar felt his obligation to Bastet and Upaja particularly keenly of late, and so he gathered up offerings for them both: catnip and a bundle of feathers for Bastet’s priestesses and their kittens to play with, a strand of jasmine blossoms and a full bowl of sweet confections for Upaja’s priests, whom he suspected were still being keenly pursued by the children and the kittens.
On impulse, he tucked a long indigo-patterned scarf over the contents of his basket before he headed out the door, because prying eyes would make much of anything they could.
Ashar wasn’t sure whether it was cowardice or wisdom to choose the hottest part of the afternoon, when many of the aunties would be napping the heat away.
He made his offering to Bastet first, of course, because it was Her Temple, and because it was always entertaining to watch the priestesses’ pupils go wide and black when he brought catnip and feathers.
When he approached Upaja’s shrine in the entrance, his steps slowed despite himself.
Shai Vishal and Shai Jyoti were stirring the cauldrons, as was usual this time of day, and a small flock of congregants were chattering while they wiped the travel dust off the broadleaves that would become first plates and bowls for the evening rush and then fuel for the fires after a few days’ drying.
A round man dressed almost as modestly as an Imperial maiden sat among them, with his hair and skin covered and his face veiled up to his eyes.
But what caught Ashar’s notice first was the absolute certainty that the clothes weren’t his own.