Hervey smiled with the recollection of the first time he’d seen the nautch, here in this very place, and in the Ranee’s company. He sat back in honest delight.

‘From Maharashtra, as I recall, Highness.’

‘Indeed they are.’

He wondered: had she brought them specially? The rajah had arranged the nautch for the delight of the Nizam, though little good it did him. Had she even remembered that first time? But he could hardly ask; and besides, he could hardly expect a truthful answer.

What did it matter, though? It would avail Chintal naught, even if Suneyla had brought them here for his amusement. The die was cast. Nor was it worth his regrets. He might as well enjoy what was laid before him.

The nautch girls swayed and swirled, silently – no singing – their eyes everywhere and nowhere, the movement continuous like an eddying stream: graceful, leisurely in gesture, mistresses of time. On and on it went, a full quarter of an hour; perhaps even more.

Captivating, enchanting, just as that first time. The years fell away …

Then suddenly the spell was broken – the frantic raga, the climax: spinning and shaking, extravagant motions; and then swift prostration.

And then loud applause. Even the dewan.

The nautch girls rose and stood quite still, hands together, and then, as one, bowed low – namaskar. That still they didn’t smile, even at this ovation, only added to their allure. For they didn’t dance for approval; they danced because it was their karma, the sum of their being in this and their previous life, and which would decide their fate in the next. Or so it was said.

Yet their fate was subject to temporal power too. They looked to the Ranee for their congé.

They got it – but an expressionless nod of the head, curt even.

Hervey wondered what displeased her (for so it seemed). What could compel her to crush a dozen Maharashtran beauties so? Was this, indeed, the root of her uneven rule, her Lapse – the pleasure in casual cruelty?

He remained silent – warily silent – as the nautch girls glided from the floor.

And then all refinement was gone in an instant. An outrageous chorus – shrieks, shrill voices, cymbals, bells, kanjiras and tambourines in hideous cacophony – gaudy sarees, extravagant bangles, beads and baubles. ‘Girls’ as thin as laths, tall, and some of riper years. Their singing – if such it could be called – was incomprehensible, their husky voices rhythmically repeating words that Hervey sensed had little meaning. This was sackcloth to the nautch’s silk. They didn’t dance; they cavorted. Cavorted for a full five minutes, gestures increasingly coarse – lewd, even – until the Ranee, smiling indulgently, clapped her hands to shoo them away, at which they besieged the audience with little begging bowls, and made hissing noises if they thought the contributions mean, before scuttling out with squeals as loud as when they’d entered.

Hijdas: ‘neither one thing nor the other’ – neither male nor female; ‘he-she’s’, as they’d called them in Bengal. There were many bands of them in India, but none so far in Madras that he’d seen. They appeared from nowhere at birthdays, weddings, even funerals, and danced about and made a great deal of noise till given money to go away. To dismiss them without silver risked ill luck, especially near harvest. It could risk injury, too, for they were not without physical strength, nor the will to use it.