Chapter 13 What You Can Afford to Know #6
“If he fears that her mind and heart might be turned against me, that some great power’s will might override her own—”
“PFFFFFFFFFT,” Mreret said, and sneezed a burst of whisker-twitching giggles.
“Erm… I’m sorry, I don’t follow…?” Sami ventured.
“Sami, beta,” Hoda-auntie said, with her lips twitching to fight back too broad a grin. “If any sorcery were powerful enough to change a cat’s opinion? Well, then we’d all be doomed, because none of the rest of us would have a prayer either.”
Looking down at the roundly purring cat-loaf in his lap who presumably should have been a mile away under attentive guard in the Imperial haveli, Sami said, “I… er… well, yes, there is that.”
“Has he actually met a cat?” Basima-auntie asked.
“Yes, and I’m afraid that’s part of the problem,” Sami admitted.
“Well, that’s fair,” Hoda-auntie said.
“I don’t understand why you humans keep talking about fair,” Mreret said. “Not if you actually want to win.”
“There are some lines I do not wish to cross.”
“If you never cross a line, you never get to sit inside the perfect box,” Mreret said.
“I confess I also do not see the appeal of sitting in boxes,” Sami said.
Ears laid back, Mreret said in a tone of grudging almost-respect, “You are a heretic, aren’t you.”
“I’m sure the cat-priestesses of a dozen other faiths agree entirely,” Sami said, rubbing the bridge of his nose against a tension-ache.
“If you would pardon me, good gentlefolk, I should return in time to persuade my small goddess that her cushion-bedecked shrine is still to be preferred to many less pleasant alternatives.”
“But what about the blackmail? Or the fire-poker?” Basima-auntie said. “How are we going to help?”
“I am sincerely grateful for your care,” Sami assured her. “But in this particular case, neither the blackmail nor the fire-poker would be as helpful as your voices themselves.”
“Oh, we can yowl as loudly as you need, beta,” Hoda-auntie said. “Just point me at him.”
“Her and her fire-poker,” Mreret said. “You don’t have enough claws and fangs between you to yowl the way I would.”
“Truly, thank you. But your voices already have given me a very great gift.”
“You’re too gentle,” Basima-auntie said. “You’re going to say something innocent and sincere about carrying the prayers of the people to the heavens with the smoke of the Temple incense, aren’t you.”
“I am not entirely innocent, Basima-auntie.”
“Well, you won’t remain innocent for long if you let that shameless man have his way with you,” Hoda-auntie sniffed.
“But if you will not let us yowl in your zealot’s face, and you will not blackmail him, and you have turned down both Mreret’s claws and my fire-poker, then the rest of us need to step in on your poor sweet queen’s behalf. ”
“Have you not wailed of your fears that the God-Emperor might not overlook you in the wake of my notable offenses?” Stroking Sahar’s fur with a soothing hand, Sami said, “In matters of gods and heretics and soul-binding sorcery and even tax law, all of you have spoken for cats and kittens and the common folk of the city, here in the Temple of Bastet, where Her protection is well known. May your words carry to Her curious ears. May the zealots of the Ministry of Orthodoxy never note your own particular names and faces. And may we all be relieved by such an arrangement.”
“Tathaastu aur ‘amiin,” Shai Vishal murmured, cupping his hands to his brow in his reverence to Upaja’s generosity, before he stirred his cauldron again.
Ashar blinked, took a breath, and then bit his lip.
Because some thoughts he oughtn’t even finish thinking, let alone mention aloud in a cluster of aunties while he sat folding leaves with the God-Emperor’s brother beneath the attentive ears of not only Bastet but also the High Priest of Upaja, who still had the time-worn echoes of a noble Imperial accent in his voice despite his years in Tel-Bastet.
But aside from the subterfuge that Sami was just a minor accountant — if the God-Emperor’s brother was to be questioned for heresy, and the priests of hundreds of faiths were about to gather in Tel-Bastet?
Surely the God-Emperor would not approve of His brother being questioned in the presence of all those rivals.
Which meant that someone else would be sitting in judgment over the God-Emperor’s brother’s heresy, very soon, and that left Shai Vishal or…
No, no, stop right there, Ashar told himself.
This is why I don’t want to be tangled into the politics of the whole Empire!
“Oh, in that case,” Hoda-auntie said, considering. “In that case, yes, certainly. But if you find you have need of a good yowling…”
“If you have need of a good yowling,” Mreret said archly, “you come to me, not one of those clawless old women.”
“How dare—”
“If our Sami finds himself in need of a good yowling, I promise I will gather so many yowling cats and aunties,” Ashar hurried to say, both hands raised and empty. “None of you need fear yourselves neglected.”
“I am certain you all can yowl more yowling than I could ever have dreamed,” Sami said, and how he managed it without even a laugh-crinkle at the corner of his eyes — that must have been the result of years of deportment training.
“Will you take my velveted queen for a moment, Master Asharan? I have need of my knees, and she is quite attached.”
It took both of them and all four hands to gently but insistently unhook her claws from Sami’s shalwar despite her grumbling, and Ashar scooped her into his arms the moment Sami’s clothes were free.
With a sound of discomfort that suggested he was not accustomed to sitting on bare stone for quite that long, Sami leaned on the pillar to pry himself upright.
“Will you come again?” Ashar asked, focusing on petting Sahar’s ears and not quite daring to meet Sami’s eyes full-on, because there was too much his expression could give away.
“Of course,” Sami said, gently. “I must introduce the kittens to Bastet’s Temple, mustn’t I? To the Temple, and to those who gather here.”
A solidly-built tawny tomcat with golden eyes leapt down from Upaja’s statue’s knee with a thump, stalking toward the group of aunties.
Ashar hurriedly bent to playing pat-paws with Sahar, because he couldn’t let his face reveal that he recognized that particular cat’s build, or his lynx-tufted ears.
Sami bowed deeply toward the gathered aunties, and then turned to bow his reverences toward Bastet’s sanctuary and Upaja’s shrine as well.
“I do thank you, all of you, for the gift of your voices in community,”
“We’re here every afternoon, beta,” Hoda-auntie said, waving a hand. “The broadleaf bowls don’t fold themselves.”
“Come again,” Basima-auntie said. “And don’t forget that part about the tax-dodging. Unless my husband is here, of course.”
“I won’t forget about the tax-dodging, Basima-auntie. I am a heretical accountant, not a villainous accountant.” He loosened the scarf around his waist that had held the pleats of excess fabric in place, and looped it over Ashar’s shoulder.
“I would make of it a gift, if you would accept it,” Ashar murmured. “To remember me by.”
“We have prayed not to draw the zealots’ particular attention to anyone here present,” Sami said. “It is lovely, but it is too distinctive. And I assure you I will remember you most avidly, even without your scarf’s gentle embrace.”
Still, they lingered a bit over shifting Sahar into Sami’s arms, and lingered a bit more over loosening the claws she’d hooked stubbornly into Ashar’s sleeve.
Clearing her throat, Hoda-auntie said, “Where is your other hand, you scandalous rogue?”
Ashar turned a few inches and leaned back so that he could more visibly wiggle the fingers of the hand whose sleeve Sahar had sunk such proprietary claws into.
“Hrmph,” Hoda-auntie said.
The tawny tomcat made a much deeper-voiced grumble. Sahar glanced at him, thumped her tail irritably against them both, and retracted her claws.
“Well, then,” Ashar said, and stepped back before she could change her mind. He offered a careful smile. “Until the fulfillment of your promise.”
“And a good accountant, like a good trader, keeps his promises.” Sami bowed as well as he could with his arms full of Sahar, then took a step, and then managed to turn away.
Kamil did not immediately follow his person’s steps toward the Temple canal-side docks, but he waited less than a minute before slinking after them.
The moment that Sami’s generous figure passed through the gateway to the docks, though, Hoda-auntie snapped Ashar with her towel again.
“Hey!”
“I never thought you were cruel,” she said. “But to flaunt yourself at that sweet, innocent man?”
“How do you know that I was not overcome by his beauty?”
“He was covered to the eyes, boy.” Hoda wrung her towel out with extra vigor.
“All your life you have been discreet about questions of your own heart, until this sudden foolishness with Hamda and Ishta and their daughters. And now suddenly you will throw yourself at every large gentleman in sight for the sake of your gossip-spat? He knows nothing of our neighborhood gossip. To toy with his heart? To use him to score points in your personal quarrel with women he has never even met? He could have thought you truly meant your advances! You were always shameless, but you were never cruel. What has come over you?”
“I was still planning to matchmake you with your poor mendicant priest,” Geeta-auntie added wistfully. “Even if Ishta would have scolded me for it.”
Ashar opened his mouth, closed it again, and realized, I can’t explain, can I. There’s no way I can explain. Sami has to be a different man than my Rahat, and both of them must not be the God-Emperor’s brother.
He sighed, and knelt to touch Hoda-auntie’s feet. “I’m sorry not to have considered matters from that perspective,” he said. “And the next time he comes to fold bowls with us, I will clarify any misunderstandings we might have between us, and I will apologize if I have hurt him.”
All of it was true, even if he hoped that his sweet darling would smile at Hoda-auntie’s fierce defense of his heart.
“Well, good, then,” Hoda-auntie said, lifting him from his kneeling. “But what has come over you? If you felt so compelled to advertise your charms, Geeta and Basima and I are right here.”
Ashar couldn’t help a sigh. “Hoda-auntie, I am already squabbling with half the aunties of the neighborhood over whether I have the right to choose not to marry any particular daughter. I have no desire to add another squabble with every uncle over insupportably public liberties with their daughters and their wives!”
“That’s sensible,” Basima-auntie admitted. “But if you ever do want a squabble, some of us wouldn’t mind some attention.”
“Basima!” Hoda-auntie gasped.
“What?” Mreret yowled. “Everyone should feel as desirable as they want to feel. If her husband isn’t up to the job, why shouldn’t she ask around? And that one has very good brushing-hands.”
They all kept cutting and folding broadleaf bowls, even through the sputtering and the squawking and the yowling about the different notions of propriety and whose propriety should be heeded in a Temple that was, after all, Bastet’s.
Ashar kept his head down and his hands busy with folding and pinning.
He hoped that Shai Vishal would not judge him too sharply, or choose a pose for his penance that was particularly arranged for an uncomfortable reproof.
Because now he needed to ask Nehal to lurk about the Temple listening for any hint of an upcoming Imperial heresy-trial, or when and where it might be held, and if Nehal were caught in that act, Ashar would owe many more penances.
And catfolk did enjoy playing with their hapless prey.
Perhaps he should keep his belt-pouch full of catnip toys just in case. You weren’t often given warning when a cat-priestess summoned you, given their precepts of stalking and prowling and leaping from the shadows on whatever they wanted to seize.
So, he needed some way to cover Nehal’s prowling for trial-gossip, more treats for Upaja’s priests to give the children, and more catnip for appeasing cat-priestesses or at least distracting them.
And another month of dealing with Chetan so that Camellia would not need to.
Along with the purchase of a few more subtle garments that were not so clearly marked with the blossoms of the House of Jasmines, and also not known to belong to any of his patrons who had left a garment behind.
Plus some sort of distraction to cover when Sahar’s kittens had arrived…
oh, and some way of learning living illusions without entrusting a powerful mage with the knowledge that Asharan bir Chameli had particular interest in that skill.
Or a bookseller — not that a spellbook would have helped him anyway; even aside from how forbidden most of them were, spellbooks were usually written in the court script, without vowels, and encoded in poetical references Ashar himself didn’t have the expensive education to disentangle.
Every time he blinked, some new complication had wriggled its way into the mewling pile of attention-demanding gossip-kittens climbing his sleeves with pointy little claws. And that was even without mentioning that Rahat-sahib had such a well-known name behind the pseudonym.
The next time they met, Asharan would somehow have to ask his rahati for a bit of foresight’s guidance. Because foresight was clearly not his own strong suit.