A few hours later, the moon was well up, and the suitors had been well fed. While most of the noblewomen ambled back to their accommodations, talking of the swayamvar to be held on the morrow, the suitors moved to the riverside to commence the night’s drinking in earnest. There were many who were not present, however. Karna had retreated to his tent, with Sudama. Jarasandh, Kalyavan and Bhagadatt were nowhere to be seen either. Drupad did not appear, but his son and Heir Apparent, Prince Satrajit, and Draupadi’s brother, Prince Dhrishtadyumna, were present to play host. Shakuni rocked back and forth, hissing between his teeth, trying to get the cramps out of his legs. He was glad of the opportunity to walk again, painful though it was. Too much sitting around was as deadly as too much walking.

The air smelled of some exotic spice. Six monstrous barrels of ale were rolled in. Tables and benches had been raised, piled with bowls of strawberries, fresh baked bread and sweet-grass. An old woman played a cheerful air on the pipes. Dancers swayed seductively around a bonfire, swatting at the hands that groped them as they passed. There were sturdy broad-cheekboned, almond-eyed women from Pragjyotisha, slight green-eyed Balkhan girls with skin the colour of sapphires, and voluptuous women from the South, eyes rimmed with kohl. They dressed in flowing silks cinched at the waist with beaded belts.

Shakuni felt an old stirring in his groin that he could do little about. On his left, Duryodhan stood stiff like a stone, as if he were watching a funeral procession. If only he knew what he was passing up on. Duryodhan could have learnt something from his uncles. On a cushioned divan, a drunken Bhurishravas dandled a buxom dancer on his knee. He had unlaced her bodice to lap the thin trickle of wine he had poured over her breasts.

Shakuni’s expression must have been one of longing-for one of the dancers, a woman in black flowing silks, found her way to him. She wore a chain of pink flowers in her honeyed hair. A half-mask covered the left side of her face, though in the darkness of night the rest was barely visible. Shakuni had to force himself to look away from her toned breasts, the shadow between them drawing his eye like a bee to a sunflower’s mound. ‘Er…you are slithering up the wrong tree, love,’ he said, pointing to his cane.

‘Well, you can always sit, can’t you, while I do the rest?’ Her voice was flowing honey, liquid with the accent of the distant Golden Islands. Her painted lips twisted up at one corner, part smile, part sneer.