I think the Lady Om, too, had her will with me, wanting me for her heart's desire.

Yet in this she was well met, for it was not long ere she was my heart's desire, and such was the immediacy of my will that not her will, nor Hendrik Hamel's, nor Yunsan's, could hold back my arms from about her.
In the meantime, however, I was caught up in a palace intrigue I could not fathom.

I could catch the drift of it, no more, against Chong Mong- ju, the princely cousin of the Lady Om.

Beyond my guessing there were cliques and cliques within cliques that made a labyrinth of the palace and extended to all the Seven Coasts.

But I did not worry.