Soek smiled languidly. "You are so typical an old-lander—worried, frowning, dynamic. You should relax, cultivate napaû, enjoy life as we do here in Singhalût."
"What's napaû?"
"It's our philosophy, where we find meaning and life and beauty in every aspect of the world."
"That sjambak in the cage could do with a little less napaû right now."
"No doubt he is unhappy," she agreed.
"Unhappy! He's being tortured!"
"He broke the Sultan's law. His life is no longer his own. It belongs to Singhalût. If the Sultan wishes to use it to warn other wrongdoers, the fact that the man suffers is of small interest."
"If they all wear that metal ornament, how can they hope to hide out?" He glanced at her own bare bosom.
"They appear by night—slip through the streets like ghosts...." She looked in turn at Murphy's loose shirt. "You will notice persons brushing up against you, feeling you," she laid her hand along his breast, "and when this happens you will know they are agents of the Sultan, because only strangers and the House may wear shirts. But now, let me sing to you—a song from the Old Land, old Java. You will not understand the tongue, but no other words so join the voice of the gamelan."