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heir,” the Rajah said. “You will be betrothed to a princess of the royal house of Maharastra, a politically suitable alliance. We are now negotiating the dowry.”
    “Sire, I will not be betrothed,” Mym sang.
    The Rajah gazed at him, nodding. “So it is true. The wench taught you another mode of speech. This is an improvement, though still not ideal.”
    “The wench,” Mym sang between his teeth, “is the only one I will marry.”
    The Rajah considered. “Do your duty by the princess, and in due course you may recover the wench as a concubine.”
    Mym turned his head and spat.
    The courtiers jumped, and a royal guard went so far as to touch his sword, but the Rajah did not react. After a moment he made a tiny gesture with one hand, dismissing his son.
    Mym bowed and backed away, departing the Presence. It had not been a very positive encounter.
    He was put under house arrest at an attractive palace on the outskirts of Ahmadabad. Naturally he was not tortured or imprisoned or coerced by magical means; he was the Heir. But neither was he given his freedom. He knew he would be freed the moment he gave his word to cooperate, but he would not give that word. The word of a sovereign was inviolate and never given insincerely. So he languished in total comfort, provided with gourmet meals, phenomenal entertainment, and expert instruction in any art that might interest him.
    Two weeks into his confinement, he tried to escape. He was unsuccessful, as he had known he would be; he was merely testing the defenses. In the past, his father had not cared about his whereabouts; now the Rajah did care, and that made all the difference. Mym could not escape.
    After the first month, an ambassador from the Rajah came to pose the question: would he now consent to thebetrothal? Mym turned his head again and spat, and the ambassador departed.
    But the Rajah’s wish was not lightly scorned. Two days later a beautiful concubine was ushered into the palace. Her hair was lustrous midnight, and gems sparkled in it like stars. “The Rajah bids one be yours,” she said.
    “You will never be mine,” Mym sang curtly
    Her lovely face stiffened. The palace guards hustled her away.
    One hour later the chief of the palace guards approached. “Prince Heir, the Rajah bids you witness what we have done.”
    Curious, Mym accompanied the man to the front gate of the palace. There, mounted on a tall spike, was the head of the concubine. The gems still sparkled in her hair.
    A month later another concubine arrived. This one was a creature of the northlands, with bright blue eyes and hair like finely wrought silver, bound about by threads of gold. “The Rajah bids me be yours,” she said.
    Mym hesitated. He realized that this was a game in which his father’s resources of persuasion dwarfed his own powers of rejection. At best, his adamance could lead to a chain of lovely heads upon the spikes of the front gate; at worst, the Rajah would obtain and present Orb herself in this manner.
    “Remain,” he told her curtly. “I will summon you at need.”
    That sufficed for the moment. But when the week expired, and he had not made use of her, this woman’s head abruptly appeared beside the first, on the gate.
    The third month another concubine arrived. Her hair was the color of burnished copper and buckled in place by combs of fine green jadeite, and her eyes mirrored the jadeite in hue.
    Mym closed his eyes.
Forgive me, Orb
! he prayed.
I can not be the murderer of these lovely women. They are too much like you
.
    Then he took the hand of the concubine, and brought her to his bed, and dispatched her maidenhead that hour.
    In this manner did the Rajah slowly bend his son to his will. But still Mym refused to agree to the betrothal. Hisbody was captive, but his heart remained his own, pledged to Orb.
    Two years later the Rajah himself came to the palace. The ravages of his illness had intensified, but his will had not abated. “If you care not for your