The mess hall where the riders gathered for their daily meals was in furor. Many of the long wooden tables had been pushed aside with their benches to either side of the room. Those still eating had their elbows continually jostled by people trying to stand on top of the tables and benches to look over the crowd that circled the space that had been cleared away. In the midst of the din, the sound of a thin reed instrument mingled with the sound of a small drum. Only those closest to the inside of the circle could actually hear the clinking of the coins sewn into the dancer's clothes, as the woman's whirling sent them in glinting in the air. 

Every once in a while the clamor renewed itself as hands went into the air to snatch at scraps of gauze that were sent floating overhead. Evidently, the dancer was slowly unwinding the many layers. Her hands went behind the back of her neck and pushed back the length of her long black hair as she dipper her body to the ground. Somewhere along the way, one of her hands had taken hold of another layer that came free with a gentle tug. Lightly, she sprang to her feet again and snapped the fabric at the closest person. Bangles clattered on her wrist and a veil covered the bottom half of her face, but the point wasn't to conceal her identity: only the newer recruits wouldn't know that it was Siham putting on a rare show for the sake of being the center of attention. 

Without looking, because that was the fun of the game, she suddenly turned towards the audience and wrapped the scarf around someone's neck, pulling at either end to draw the captive towards the center of the impromptu stage on the dirt floor.