Abu was looking down where the man had run. “He never saw her again,” he said. “That girl with yellow hair. You know that, don’t you?”

“Hush now. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid. It’s just that it’s so sad. I mean the girl that he loved. Woman, now. Isn’t that sad? He never saw her again after that night. In the snow. He doesn’t know if she’s alive or dead.”

“Hush, now. Enough. Let’s go.” Thanakar bent down to caress the back of his neck.

“No,” said the prince, speaking without stammering or whimpers. He sat up straight, and his face put on a small defiant smile. When the man was threatening him with the gun, he had started to feel stronger. He feared so many things, but death wasn’t one of them.

“No,” he said again. “I don’t want to. I want to stay.”

Abu’s hair was thin on top, long in the back. Thanakar reached down to take a handful of it underneath his collar. “Come,” he said. “You can make it. I’ll help you.”

Abu tried to pull way. “Cousin, you’re hurting me,” he said. “I can stay if I want.”

“No you can’t. It’s not safe here.”

“I am not afraid,” said the prince. And then pleading: “Don’t you see, if I go now, they’ll never let me come back. It’s like choosing sides. Believe me, I’ll be safer here. They won’t hurt me.”

The white-haired antinomial had listened to this conversation without seeming to understand it. Now he reached his finger out again to touch the prince’s cheek. Abu pulled away.

“Don’t touch me,” he complained. “Why does everyone keep touching me? Just go. Go get the police.

Find my brother-in-law. Tell him I’m in danger here.”

They listened to the rattle of the guns. “He won’t come,” said the doctor. “He won’t do anything. What can he do?”

The antinomial had not withdrawn his hand. “Micum Starbridge,” he said.

“Yes,” said Abu. “He’s my brother-in-law. He’ll come stop this. I know he will. Please, Cousin. Please go.”

“I can’t leave you here. You know that.”

“Yes you can. Please, Cousin, it is my w-w-w-wish. I’m sorry, but it is. It is my wish.” He held up his palm and spread his fingers out apologetically, so that Thanakar could see the golden sun tattoo.

The doctor stepped back, and his head snapped back as if he had been slapped. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“Oh Thanakar, not like that. I’m sorry. Just go, please. I’ll be all right. I’m not afraid.” He smiled ruefully.

“Courage is an obligation of our class.”

When the doctor went, the antinomial went with him with the lantern, lighting his way. Abu sat alone, leaning back against the boxcar, drinking, watching the fire along the barricade. In the center of the railway yard, the night held him in its empty cup. For a long time he sat. He had hardly dared hope that he could be alone; just a few of the right words and everybody had left, and he was free to drink a little in the dark. Others could run away when they wanted to be alone, but he was fat and weak, and it was hard for him to run. Instead, so often, events seemed to combine around him in a spinning circle, and it was a relief to know that there was always something you could say to make the circle widen and recede out of sight. He watched the line of flames, and then behind him, the fire at the bridge. So often, it was enough just to raise your hand, he thought. It was the first time he had used that power on his cousin, however, and it made him sad, for Thanakar would take it to heart. He would take it so to heart, and the more bitterly because he didn’t believe, intellectually, in the power of the tattoo. But physically he was helpless to resist, slave to . . . what? The mythology that had sunk so deep inside their bones that minds and opinions could mean nothing.