Hypnotic music, with a beat of its own, came to life from some unseen corner of the banquet hall as a group of dancers, whose fluid movements were even more hypnotic than the music, came down the stairs of the stage to the center floor of the banquet hall.
The food before me, the war, even my captivity was all forgotten. I stared as if in a trance at the woman before me. She wasn't the only woman performing the moves of the dance on the floor, but it was as if she and I were the only ones in the room.
I acknowledged, in some deep recess of my mind that could still perform cognitive thought, that as a whole I had completely lost it. Never before in life had I witnessed any woman who could compare with the lead dancer of the group, whom it seemed to me was performing just for me.
She wasn't shy about it and yet she wasn't overt about it either. Watching her watch me, I beheld a confusing mix of feminine curiosity and bold confidence. She spun and twirled and moved fluidly with the dance, but her eyes always came back to mine.
It felt to me that she had even assumed control of my heartbeat so complete was her erotic entrapment of me and my senses. I blinked and tried to look away, but it was impossible.
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever met and she was looking at me and performing before me, as if she was in the presence of her King. My mouth dry and my eyes in rapt focus upon every smooth curved line of her form, I watched until the dance at long last was over.
She gazed up at me over the tops of her folded hands, poised in the final move of the dance with such a look of confident pride in the achievement of her enslavement of me that I felt at a loss as to what to do. She turned then and glided away with the grace and dignity of a Queen to the heavy applause of all those within the room.
The curtain closed after her and I knew a moment of swift depression the likes of which I had never known. It was as if I'd been drugged and then had the source of my contentment ripped from me. I felt embarrassed by it all and glancing to the side I caught Artaxis watching me closely.
Thickly I said, "They were very good. I doubt they have their equal anywhere else in the world."
Artaxis smiled knowingly and said with obvious implication, "Yes, she is very good. Finish your meal and then I wish for you to tell me the entire story of how a boy born in the least of all the seven kingdoms rises to be the right hand man of the strongest King of the seven."