"Is our music a bit difficult for you to grasp, Ambassador?" Mukarrab Khan leaned back on his bolster with an easy smile. "Pity, for there's truly little else in this backwater port worth the bother. The cuisine is abominable, the classical dancers despicable. In desperation I've even had to train my own musicians, although I did manage to steal one Ustad, a grand master, away from Agra." He impulsively reached for the water pipe and absorbed a deep draw, his eyes misting. "I confess I do find it hard to follow." Hawksworth took a draft of wine from the fresh cup that had been placed beside him on the carpet. "It demands a connoisseur's taste, Ambassador, not unlike an appreciation of fine wine." The room grew ominously still for a moment, and then the drums suddenly exploded in a torrent of rhythm, wild and exciting yet unmistakably disciplined by some rigorous underlying structure. The rhythm soared in a cycle, returning again and again, after each elaborate interlocking of time and its divisions, back to a forceful crescendo. Hawksworth watched Mukarrab Khan in fascination as he leaned back and closed his eyes in wistful anticipation. And at that moment the instrumentalist began a lightning-fast ascent of the scale, quavering each note in erotic suggestiveness for the fraction of a second it was fingered. The governor seemed absorbed in some intuitive communication with the sound, a reaction to music Hawksworth had never before witnessed. His entire body would perceptibly tense as the drummer began a cycle, then it would pulse and relax the instant the cycle thudded to a resolution. Hawksworth was struck by the sensuality inherent in the music, the almost sexual sense of tension and release. Then he noticed two eunuchs leading a young boy into the room. The youth appeared to be hovering at the age of puberty, with still no trace of a beard. He wore a small but elaborately tied pastel turban, pearl earrings, and a large sapphire on a chain around his pale throat. His elaborate ensemble included a transparent blouse through which his delicate skin glistened in the lamplight, a long quilted sash at his waist, and tight-fitting trousers beneath light gauze pajamas that clung to his thighs as he moved. His lips were lightly red, and his perfume a mixture of flowers and musk. The boy reached for a ball of spiced opium and settled back against a quilted gold bolster next to Mukarrab Khan. The governor studied him momentarily and then returned to the music. And his thoughts. He reflected again on Abul Hasan's blundering "accident" on the _chaugan_ field, and what it must signify. If it were true the _qazi_ had been bought by the Shahbandar, as some whispered, then it meant Mirza Nuruddin must be alarmed to the point of imprudence. Fearful of what could happen if the English were detained long enough for the Portuguese warships to prepare. Which meant that somewhere behind it all lay the hand of Prince Jadar.