Hawksworth shoved aside his plates of lamb and rice pilaf and watched as the servants began hastily clearing the carpet. In the quiet that followed he reached behind him to his chest, opened the latch, and took out his lute. Kamala watched with curiosity. "What instrument is that?" "Someone in Surat once called it an English sitar." Kamala laughed. "It's far too plain for that. But it does have a simple beauty. Will you play it for me?" "For you, and for me." Hawksworth strummed a chord. The white plaster walls echoed back the wave of notes, a choir of thin voices. "It brings back my sea legs when I'm ashore." "Now I do not understand you. But I will listen." He began a short, plaintive galliard. Suddenly his heart was in London, with honest English faces, clear English air. And he felt an overwhelming ache of separation. He played through to the end, then wistfully laid the lute aside. After a moment Kamala reached for his wineglass and held it for him, waiting. "The music of your English sitar is simple, young Ambassador. Like the instrument itself. But I think it moves you. Perhaps I felt something of your loneliness in the notes." She paused and studied him quietly. "But you yourself are not simple. Nothing about you comes easily. I sense you are filled with something you cannot express." She looked at him a moment longer, and then her voice came again, soft as the wine. "Why did you say what you did to Arangbar tonight? I was nothing to you. You violated my _dharma_. Perhaps it is true, as many tell me, that I have mastered the arts of _kama _more fully than any woman in Agra, but still there is less and less pleasure in my life. What will you do now? Perhaps you think I belong to you, like some courtesan you have bought. But you are wrong. I belong to no man." "You're here because someone wanted you here." Hawksworth glanced around them. The room was empty now save for Kamala's two musicians. "I don't know why, but I do know you're the first person I've met in a long time who was not afraid of Arangbar. The last one was a woman in Surat." Hawksworth paused suddenly. "I'm starting to wonder if you know her." "I don't know anyone in Surat." She swept him with her eyes. "But what does some woman in Surat have to do with me?' "Perhaps someone thought I should meet you." "Who? Someone in Surat? But why?" "Perhaps she thought I needed . . . I don't know exactly." "Then tell me what you mean by 'need'? That's an odd phrase, a _feringhi _expression. Perhaps you mean our meeting is part of your _dharma_?" "You mean like it's a Rajput's _dharma _to be a warrior and kill?" "_Dharma_ can be many things. It's what each of us must do, our purpose." "That's something I've heard before." "But do you know what your _dharma_ is?" "I'm still trying to find it. Maybe it's to be here . . ." "And then what?" "I'm . . . I guess I'm still working out the rest."