Chapter 13 What You Can Afford to Know #4
“Oh, no, no, I’m sorry, I meant much more the opposite!
” Sami stammered. “I meant — I — the shahzada foresees trouble. At the whole city’s scale, that means disasters.
And disasters are expensive to mend. Now, some things simply can’t be averted.
None of us control how far the river will rise.
But some things can be averted before they become disasters, if more of the mice that foul the grain are caught by cats, or if the collapsed gravel filter that clogged the intake of the qanat is cleared before the unfiltered debris blocks the water supply for a quarter of the city.
All of those averted difficulties become savings to us all.
They offset the expected losses with unexpected reductions in future expenses that will not occur.
And the shahzada could calculate the value of those savings, to your credit, if you brought him a bit of evidence for his foresights to focus from. ”
“He’s not a young man,” Hoda-auntie said. “What happens to the tax credits when, may it be years from now, but…”
“The God-Emperor always has His nadhir,” Sami said. “Another will be called in due time.”
“Years from now,” Geeta-auntie said firmly. “I like this one.”
“I shall convey the honor of your regard to his Highness,” Sami told her, warmly.
“Oh, my goodness, would you?” Geeta-auntie fluttered. “Ishta will choke on her teeth!”
“…Oh, dear.”
“I could be persuaded of the amusement in bringing a pile of dead rats to drop in a prince’s bed,” Mreret said, examining her claws.
“I imagine we should standardize the value of rats’ tails at a number which can be fairly reckoned by the tax collectors!” Sami told her hastily. “What a nuisance it would be to have your entire tax collected at once and then to be refunded a few daniq at a time!”
“If all we need are the tails, do we leave the rest of the rats in the linens? Or in the wine cellar? And where is the best sunbeam where we can overhear the screaming?”
“The Imperials who cast the cat-warding upon the haveli may have had reasonable cause to do so,” Shai Vishal observed.
“Did I mention the collars?” Sami asked, a bit desperate.
Ears laid back, Mreret hissed.
“We identify those who are trusted in sensitive areas such as the guards’ quarters and the Archives,” Sami explained.
“Humans carry identifying passes attesting to their good behavior in order to visit the Archives. They agree that they will behave in a civilized manner, a domesticated manner, around the irreplaceable historic creations for which we are still our grandchildren’s custodians.
Both catfolk and cats and even familiars could agree to good behavior as well, it seems to me, whether they came in a two-legged figure or a four-legged one.
And in any case, it would be necessary for everyone to have equitable access to the tax collectors of the Ministry of Finance, for their contributions to be justly recorded and justly rewarded. ”
“Bored again,” Mreret declared.
“I’m not,” Basima-auntie said. “Not if your Ministry is going to give us a fifth of our taxes back and I don’t have to tell my husband about it.”
“That would be between you and your husband, I fear.”
Mreret yawned extravagantly, dropping her latest broadleaf on Sami’s pile and curling up. “Wake me when the disobedience gets interesting again.”
“Well.” Sami fussed delicately with the folds of his latest bowl. “I expect that I am soon to be put to trial for heresy, and I would like to make it a usefully troublesome trial?”
“WHAT?” they all yowled at once, including Ashar.
He took a sharp breath, trying not to clutch at Sami too hard, scrambling for anything to say that wasn’t how can they accuse the God-Emperor’s own brother of heresy? Nothing that implied they had known each other before today, or so intimately, or—
Mreret scratched vigorously behind her ear and shook her head. “Not that much disobedience! We want the God-Emperor to ignore us ignoring him, not start throwing around heresy-trials!”
“Oh, no, it’s much more personal than that,” Sami assured her.
“That’s not better!” Basima-auntie howled, both hands knotted in her head-scarf to make sure her head was still attached. “Personally offending a god is not in any way better!”
“I have most personally offended his bureaucrats?”
“Is an accountant’s passion for mathematics truly that unholy?” Ashar managed, somehow keeping his voice light.
“His bureaucrats are right here,” Geeta-auntie moaned. “Oh, Sami, what have you done?”
“Um.” The bowl was crumpling in Sami’s fretful hands. “I have brought a cat-familiar home with me, to the haveli where cats are forbidden. She is about to have kittens, and those who oppose her believe she should be… should be banished…”
“WHAT?” they all yowled again.
“It is a very complicated matter of theology when the priestesses of the cat-goddesses maintain that the cat owns and commands the human, you see—”
“Oh, no,” Ashar breathed, utterly heart-sick. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”
He’d wanted to bring Rahat joy, not guilt and shame and accusations of heresy.
He’d never dreamed that inviting Rahat to share in Nehal’s summoning would lead to something like this.
He’d never wanted to entangle himself into the politics of the realm, or the rivalries between the gods.
Of course the God-Emperor’s prophet could not permit himself to be controlled by a summoned cat-spirit.
But if you asked any cat which of them made the demands, and which of them leapt to serve… and Tel-Bastet was full of catfolk who would yowl their delight in such upending of the balance of power.
The kind of gleeful mockery the street-poets could make of the God-Emperor’s prophet cleaning a mere housecat’s sandbox—
“Don’t you be sorry,” Hoda-auntie growled, retying her headscarf and winding up her hand-towel for battle. “THEY are about to be sorry. This is Bastet’s city, and those arrogant quill-twiddlers have no idea who they’ve set themselves against. Where is your little goddess now, Sami, beta?”
“Oh dear,” Sami said. His bowl had entirely crumpled into a wrinkly green blob. “She’s fine, she’s safe, I have left her with a trusted guardian— and to be fair, I’m almost certain she’s not a goddess—”
“You haven’t asked her that, have you,” Mreret sniffed. “Every cat is a goddess when you ask her. Why didn’t you tell us that, instead of your tax shell game?”
“Because I needed to hear the voice of common opinion,” Sami said, “and surely you would care most deeply about matters affecting more of the community, not merely myself?”
“Beta, no one gives half a fig for tax law around here,” Basima-auntie said.
“Cats are always more interesting,” Mreret agreed, tail lashing.
“Cats are very like royalty in that way,” Ashar told him, with a wry, unsteady smile.
I can’t look guilty. I can’t admit anything.
None of them should think I feel responsible for Sami the accountant’s heresy-accusations.
So, if I can’t look guilty, then I must keep diverting them all.
“Both cats and princes attract far more attention than one might expect from their size alone.”
“Evidently so,” Sami sighed, touching his veil to be certain his expression was well hidden. “I should advise the shahzada to learn to purr if he wishes for attention to be paid to our tax proposals.”
“Oh, I would love to hear that,” Ashar murmured, allowing himself a touch of a smolder.
His sweet shy darling squeaked again, and Ashar smiled to have his enticements appreciated.
Hoda-auntie snapped Ashar with the hand-towel. “Down, boy,” she said sternly. “Surely priests and heretics and bath-house gossips are enough to keep your wandering hands busy! Leave our poor shahzada alone. We don’t need any more scandals laid at your feet.”
“As you say, Hoda-auntie,” Ashar said, sighing. He had brought too much trouble already, without ever meaning a moment’s harm. He didn’t know how Hira and Mreret managed to pull off such feline insolence unscathed. …But then, neither of them had set their heart upon a prince of the realm.
Looking at the mess of the crumpled bowl in his hands, Sami stammered, “I’m sorry — I didn’t— I didn’t mean to cause trouble—”
“Says the heretical accountant?” Mreret purred.
“I didn’t mean to cause trouble here,” he said. “Only where it might be useful. Making changes are often quite troublesome in a bureaucracy this vast, and I hope to make the improving sort of trouble, not the destructive sort.” He brushed vainly at the crumpled leaf-bowl.
“You are not at all like a cat, are you,” Mreret sniffed.
“And that is perfectly fine, since you are a conscientious and compassionate human instead of catfolk,” Ashar told him. (Mreret made a noise like a hairball.)
Ashar picked up another leaf and set it into Sami’s hands, guiding him through the movements of folding and creasing and piercing and pinning. His darling’s hands were soft and plump and slightly ink-stained at the side of his index finger.
Ashar couldn’t rely on his usual diversions in the Temple, not amid a flock of priests and aunties.
If they’d been alone in the baths, he could have splashed those gentle hands with rosewater and dusted them with sugar and then kissed and licked them clean.
But here it would light a fire under the gossip, no matter how delightful a diversion it might be, or how much more pleasant to contemplate than words like heresy.
Still, he thought of Hira, and her soft-pawed ways of maneuvering a skittish soul into pouncing-range.
Ashar had learned from cats how to make himself part of his person’s space, and how to be charming about the nuisance he made of himself, and how to be just enough underfoot even while one’s feet were sitting down, to tempt a bit of petting and the type of sigh that came with a smile.