The Moghul

India you must learn patience."
    Almost at that moment the drummers erupted with a dense rhythmic cycle and the sarangi took up a single repetitive phrase. Sangeeta looked directly at Hawksworth and called out a complex series of rhythmic syllables, in a melodic if slightly strident voice, all the while duplicating the exact pattern of sounds by slapping the henna-reddened soles of her feet against the carpet. Then she glided across the carpet in a series of syncopated foot movements, saluting each of the guests in turn and calling out strings of syllables, after which she would dance a sequence that replicated the rhythm exactly, her feet a precise percussion instrument.
    "The syllables she recites are called bols , Ambassador, which are the names of the many different strokes on the tabla drums. Drummers sometimes call out a sequence before they play it. She does the same, except she uses her feet almost as a drummer uses his hands."
    As Hawksworth watched, Sangeeta called strings of syllables that were increasingly longer and more complex. He could not understand the bols , or perceive the rhythms as she danced them, but the drunken men around him were smiling and swinging their heads from side to side in what he took to be appreciative approval. Suddenly Arangbar shouted something to her and pointed toward the first drummer. The drummer beamed, nodded, and as Sangeeta watched, called out a dense series of bols . Then she proceeded to dance the sequence with her feet. The room exploded with cries of appreciation when she finished the sequence, and Hawksworth assumed she had managed to capture the instructions the musician had called. Then Arangbar pointed to the other drummer and he also called out a string of bols , which again Sangeeta repeated. Finally the singer called a rhythm sequence, the most complex yet, and both dancer and drummer repeated them precisely together.
    As the tempo became wilder, Sangeeta began a series of lightning spins, still pounding the carpet with her reddened soles, and in time she seemed to transform into a whirling top, her pigtail loose now and singing through the air like a deadly whip. She had become a blur, and for a brief moment she appeared to have two heads. Hawksworth watched in wonder and sipped from his wine cup.
    "Now she'll begin the last part, Ambassador, the most demanding of all."
    The rhythm became almost a frenzy now. Then as suddenly as they had begun the whirls ended. Sangeeta struck a statuesque pose, arms extended in rigid curves, and began a display of intensely rhythmic footwork. Her body seemed frozen in space as nothing moved save her feet. The bells on her ankles became a continuous chime, increasing in tempo with the drum and the sarangi until the rhythmic phrase itself was nothing more than a dense blur of notes, Suddenly the drummer and instrumentalist fell silent, conceding the room to Sangeeta's whirring bells. She seemed, at the last, to be treading on pure air, her feet almost invisible. When the intensity of her rhythm became almost unbearable, the drummers and sarangi player reentered, urging the excitement to a crescendo. A final phrase was introduced, repeated with greater intensity, and then a third and final time, ending with a powerful crash on the large drum that seemed to explode the tension in the room. Several of the musicians cried out involuntarily, almost orgasmically, in exultation. In the spellbound silence that followed, the nobles around Hawksworth burst into cheers.
    Sangeeta seemed near collapse as she bowed to Arangbar. The Moghul smiled broadly, withdrew a velvet purse of coins from his cloak, and threw it at her feet. Moments later several others in the room followed suit. With a second bow she scooped the purses from the carpet and vanished through the curtains. The cheers followed her long after she was gone.
    "What do you think, Ambassador? You know half the men here would give a thousand gold mohurs to have her tonight." Nadir Sharif beamed mischievously. "The other half two thousand."
    "Come forward." Arangbar motioned to the singer sitting on the carpet. He was, Hawksworth now realized, an aging, portly man with short white hair and a painful limp. As he approached Arangbar's dais, he began removing the tiny cymbals attached to the fingers of one hand that he had used to keep time for the dancer.
    "He's her guru, her teacher." Nadir Sharif pointed to the man as he bowed obsequiously before the Moghul. "If His Majesty