Ten mares, twenty camels, and her height in silver pieces!"

The cry from the Foudhi sheik seemed to go unnoticed. The beautiful, platinum-haired dancer continued to writhe sensuously in the golden light of a score of smoking lamps ringing the stage. Her skin glistened from a film of perfumed oil and perspiration, for the place was hot and her exertions strenuous despite the seeming ease with which she performed. The men in the audience gave forth quick intakes of breath, in unison, as without apparent effort she removed another of her transparent garments. It floated to the marble floor of the stage upon which her little feet moved rhythmically and her shapely body moved in complex and suggestive patterns of incredible grace and muscular control. The three-piece ensemble of musicians twittered on, playing the oddly structured melody to which she danced as the gorgeous woman kept time with finger-held cymbals of polished silver.

The crowd murmured and gasped again, almost as one. Such a response spoke far more eloquently of her performance than any words of praise could have. It was a tribute to the dancer's beauty and skill from men who had seen as many as a thousand such dances performed by an equal number of lovely females. Yet this audience of hard-bitten warriors and jaded aristocrats watched this beauty's every move and voiced their appreciation as they never had before. Gathered together this night in the wine house known as the Dar Peshdwar, one of the most popular such establishments in the city of Hlupallu, were men of both East and West. Mercenaries and merchants from Perrenland, Bissel, and Veluna rubbed elbows with soldiers and traders of Ket. Sprinkled among them were veiled and head-dressed nomads from the Bayomen Plains, turbaned nobles from Jakif, Tusmit, and distant Ekbir, and dark-eyed Baklunish and gray-eyed hillmen from a dozen unknown tribes. All of these men combined to fill the large, brightly tiled, and high-ceilinged place to capacity. Nobles and their servants, ordinary men, and soldiers and guards alike seemed unable to take their rapt gazes from the woman who danced in the center of the crowded court.