“I wasn’t going to show you,” said the prince. “Not until they healed better.”

“My God, look at you,” said Thanakar, examining the cuts. “What have you done to yourself?”

“It’s not what you think,” said the prince again. “I was stupid, I know. But I wanted to see if I could cut them out. Cut them away.”

“What?”

“The tattoos.”

“Oh my God.”

“I couldn’t,” said the prince sadly. “They go all the way in. Down to the bone. How can you be something you’re not? Every layer, there’s another layer. The image just gets clearer and clearer the deeper you go, as if it were underneath and you were cutting towards it. The golden sun.” He closed his hand, and winced at the pain.

Thanakar leaned to smell his breath. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “Are you drunk?”

Abu laughed. “Not very. But I’ve got some really good hash. Charity put it on my tray for breakfast. I mean, the commissar got it from some priest, but he doesn’t like it much.”

“From a priest?”

“Some priest in his department. Those bastards always have the best drugs.”

“You’ve seen Charity?”

“She’s been cooking my meals.”

“Charity?”

“Sure. She puts hash in everything. I couldn’t even finish the guacamole.” He reached for a silver pipe by his bedside, but his hands were still too clumsy to use. Thanakar fixed it for him and lit it, and the prince sucked in a lot of smoke. “Do you want some?” he squeaked, still inhaling.

“No thanks,” said Thanakar, nursing the match. “It makes me feel as if everybody hated me.”

The prince laughed until he choked and started to cough. “What’s so funny about that?” asked Thanakar.

In the end, Thanakar forgot about the bracelet. Instead, he smoked hashish, and when in late afternoon he staggered down to his car, the rain was still pouring. “Not good, this,” remarked his driver as they idled at a crossroad where a cart was stuck in the mud, the porters striving and shouting as the rain burst along their backs. “Rain’s early.”

“It’s not sugar rain.”

“No, Sir. It’ll come. My great-great-grandfather moved away south at the first drop last year, and didn’t come home till the third July that summer, when the prince was born. Your grandfather, sir. He was an old man then.”

“Who?”

“My great-great-grandfather. My father told me.”

Thanakar was finding this hard to follow. “So you’ll go too?” he asked.

“Not now, sir. Too old. Besides, the prince used to have property down there. Your grandfather, sir.

Your father too.”

“Don’t rub it in.” Thanakar stared glumly out the window. The car could go no further. Imported, like all engines, from across the seas, it was feeling its age. It was a relic from the previous year, from before the winter snow had blocked the port. Thanakar felt its cylinders misfiring gently; the gunpowder was damp.

Ahead, the way was blocked by skinny vagrants in their yellow clothes, shrieking and cursing and weeping at the rain.