Inside, Abu stood in the dark next to his huge bay window, looking out over the city. Rain fell in sheets against the glass, and it was as if he were standing in a dark aquarium looking into an enormous tank, for the weather had filled the room with shadows, while all outside the world was turbulent and wet and full of water, and the thunderclouds were dark as rocks, and colored scraps of cloud flew everywhere like fish, high up above the colored rooftops, and in the farthest distance a huge rainbow leapt against the afternoon. The sun was burning in the tempest’s eye. A rainbow spanned the hills.

The prince didn’t move or turn. He was in his bathrobe. “Look, Cousin,” he cried out, and his voice was full of childish delight. Thanakar looked from where he was.

The room was padded like a child’s room, the walls and ceiling hung with tapestries—pictures from Starbridge nursery rhymes or children’s tales from holy scripture: innocent pastels of holy love, and Angkhdt himself still had his trousers on. The floor was thick with carpets and the room was dark, because the prince never burned electric lights. He preferred candles.

Thanakar looked around. The great four-poster bed was a tumult of soft quilts, and there was an uneaten avocado on a silver tray and undrunk liquor in a jar. The place stank sweetly of decadence and self-indulgence, because Thanakar had decided to forgive nothing this afternoon, and every little thing annoyed him more—the silver pillbox, the open book of poetry, the knife. The knife most of all. It lay on the bedstead on a silken pillow, and it angered him most because it was just a pose, like so much else, or so he thought until he saw his friend turn towards him, and saw the silken bandages all down his wrists and on his hands.

“Oh, Abu,” he said wearily. “What is this? What the hell is this?”

“No biting, Cousin. Please, Cousin.” The prince smiled at him. “Come look at the rainbow.”

“Oh, Abu,” repeated Thanakar. He reached out to put his arms around his friend, to comfort him, he thought, though it was he who was shaking, and the prince seemed perfectly calm, and smiled at him, and rubbed him clumsily across the back.

“Hush, Cousin,” said Abu. “It’s not what you think.”

“Not what I think? Look at you. You’re not fit to be left alone,” and he pulled the prince down to the bed and sat beside him, so that he could unwrap his hands. The prince was laughing. “Ow,” he said, “that really hurts,” because the bandages were rough, just torn from some shirts and soaked in oil, and they stuck to his scabs. His palms and wrists were a mass of cuts. Whole pieces of flesh had been cut away.

“Let me see it in the light,” said Thanakar. He stood up and walked to the door to the lightswitch, but Abu told him there were no bulbs, and then tried to light a candle, and laughed because the movement hurt his hands, until the doctor came and lit it for him.