When time stood still and she thought she would never be rescued from the awkward waiting, a feeling of nakedness overwhelmed her. She resented being on display like a slave whose teeth were being counted in a bazaar. She wrapped her arms around her chest and came down on the carpet, hugging her knees. She would rather seem arrogant than be transformed into a helpless girl stripped naked by invisible eyes.

“Stand up and turn.”

His voice was like thunder. She rose and spun on her toes. She twirled until the walls, drapes, and his throne rotated around her. When would he ask her to stop? She felt dizzy, was about to fall. She slowed down. Stood still in the center of the hall and tried to keep her balance. She settled back on the carpet and folded into herself.

“Impudent!” The word bounced off every corner.

She sprang to her feet and whirled around, searching for the origin of his voice. His laughter pounced at her from the many archways, magnifying her humiliation. Controlling the urge to press her palms to her ears, she gazed straight ahead as her mother had taught her. And without waiting to be dismissed, she walked toward the door.

“To learn obedience!” The Shah’s voice reverberated. “You will serve us.”

Every dawn, Gold Dust examined the absent Shah’s schedule, set the appropriate attire on the dressing stand, fanned the coals in the brazier, and brewed tea and rosewater for his midmorning libation. The rest of the day she spent with the Mistress of Dancing.

She watched the mistress conquer the hall with painstaking accuracy, every motion calculated. Gold Dust set out to create her own version, more fluid, uninhibited, even reckless. She demonstrated what she had mastered.

The mistress stepped back in amazement. “Where did you learn to dance like this?”

“From you, my lady,” Gold Dust replied.

The mistress was at a loss. The girl’s style had not been taught in books, nor observed in the past. Oblivious to the world, she abandoned herself to her passions, flying around the hall like an untamed dervish, her hair wild, her toes hardly touching the carpet.

“Gold Dust,” the Mistress of Dancing announced, “you’re a born dancer. I’ll never forgive myself if I restrain your natural freedom.”

At sundown the Shah invited Gold Dust.

She wore a skirt of lavender damask, brocaded with silver flowers; a wide-sleeved smock hugged her bosom and closed at the neck with a clasp of rubies. She entered the hall with a breeze of perfumes and the exhilaration of being invited back. The hall was heavy with the king’s scent.

She glided close to the walls, stroking with dancing fingers, performing for the king, but secretly searching for a crack, a door, a partition from where he might be watching. Her heart raced at the possibility of his emergence.