As the royal prince, little was expected of him today as he sat quietly beside his father, surrounded by a sea of people, his grandfather's corpse laid bare before him. It had not been covered. His grandfather simply lay there, face intact, unchanged, everything as it had always been, and Ajab found himself wondering why the man would not simply stand up. No matter how he looked at it, the body appeared to be sleeping—except it did not share the air they breathed. As though the man were too elevated to make use of such small, common air. Perhaps he had his own, for he certainly was not using theirs.
He was still—far too still.
There was nothing remarkable about the sending-off, nor the wake. To Ajab, it was simply a torment: staring at a lifeless body, surrounded by officials frozen in solemn stillness, while officiating eunuchs passed incense. It was a wonder no one choked. Yet ceremony named it what it was. This was mourning.
