The meal lasted the entire afternoon, until the warriors lost count of the courses. At the right hand of the prince, who sat at the head of the long, low, serving board, three dancers wove their way through an intricate pattern, finger cymbals clicking, faces bearing the proper expressions for the proper moments of the dance, as four veiled musicians played the traditional music of the hours. The table was covered with a richly woven tapestry of blue, brown, yellow, red and green, wherein was worked a series of hunting and battle scenes: riders mounted on slizzard and horse met with lance and bow the charges of feather-panda, fire-rooster and jewel-podded command plant; green apes wrestled in the tops of trees; the Garuda Bird clutched a sky demon in its talons, assailing it with beak and pinions; from the depths of the sea crawled an army of horned fish, clutching spikes of pink coral in their jointed fins, facing a row of kirtled and helmeted men who bore lances and torches to oppose their way upon the land.
The prince ate but sparingly. He toyed with his food, listened to the music, laughed occasionally at the jesting of one of his men. He sipped a sherbet, his rings clicking against the sides of the glass.
Hawkana appeared beside him. “Goes all well with you, Lord?” he inquired.
“Yes, good Hawkana, all is well,” he replied.
“You do not eat as do your men. Does the meal displease you?”
“It is not the food, which is excellent, nor its preparation, which is faultless, worthy Hawkana. Rather, it is my appetite, which has not been high of late.”
“Ah!” said Hawkana, knowingly. “I have the thing, the very thing! Only one such as yourself may truly appreciate it. Long has it rested upon the special shelf of my cellar. The god Krishna had somehow preserved it against the ages. He gave it to me many years ago because the accommodations here did not displease him. I shall fetch it for you.”
He bowed then, and backed from the hall.
When he returned he bore a bottle. Before he saw the paper upon its side, the prince recognized the shape of that bottle.
“Burgundy!” he exclaimed.
“Just so,” said Hawkana. “Brought from vanished Uratha, long ago.”
He sniffed at it and smiled. Then he poured a small quantity into a pear-shaped goblet and set it before his guest.
The prince raised it and inhaled of its bouquet. He took a slow sip. He closed his eyes.
There was a silence in the room, in respect of his pleasure.
Then he lowered the glass, and Hawkana poured into it once again the product of the pinot noir grape, which could not be cultivated in this land.
The prince did not touch the glass. Instead, he turned to Hawkana, saying, “Who is the oldest musician in this house?”
“Mankara, here,” said his host, gesturing toward the white-haired man who took his rest at the serving table in the comer.
“Old not in body, but in years,” said the prince.
“Oh, that would be Dele,” said Hawkana, “if he is to be counted as a musician at all. He says that once he was such a one.”
“Dele?”
“The boy who keeps the stables.”
“Ah, I see. . .. Send for him.” Hawkana clapped his hands and ordered the servant who appeared to go into the stables, make the horse-boy presentable and fetch him with dispatch into the presence of the diners.
“Pray, do not bother making him presentable, but simply bring him here,” said the prince.
He leaned back and waited then, his eyes closed.
When the horse-boy stood before him, he asked:
“Tell me. Dele, what music do you play?”
“That which no longer finds favor in the hearing of Brahmins,” said the boy.
“What was your instrument?”
“Piano,” said Dele.
“Can you play upon any of these?” He gestured at those instruments that stood, unused now, upon the small platform beside the wall.
The boy cocked his head at them. “I suppose I could manage on the flute, if I had to.”
“Do you know any waltzes?”
“Yes.”
“Will you play me ‘The Blue Danube’?”