Rajkumar is a boy when the British force the Burmese royal family into exile He is rescued by a Chinese merchant, and with him builds up a logging business But haunted by the Royal Family, he journeys to the obscure town in India where they have been exiled The story follows the fortunes - rubber estates in Malaya, businesses in Singapore, estates in Burma - which Rajkumar builds up - from 1870 through the Second World War to the scattering of the extended family to New York and Thailand, London and Hong Kong in the post-war years