Am I ready?

Shaurya had decided to go for a stroll to distract his mind from Mriga and her lure when he ran into his boss outside the washroom.

Standing outside Mriga's house, he shoved all the distracting thoughts away, and singularly focused on his task ahead. He climbed the farm's barbed wire and reached the back door. As Prithvi had predicted, it wasn't tough to get her attention. Bela had probably woken up with the creak in the door and was waiting for him to enter the room.

Her curious eyes met his in the weakly lit room. The rising sun's rays hadn't penetrated properly in the room yet. They stepped out of the house through the same door. After listening to his account, she rummaged in her head, thinking of a suitable rendezvous point at this hour.

"Pick up a pair of bows and enough arrows. We are going back to the training hill," she told Shaurya.

Not only was that area usually deserted, it also had enough crevices inside for them to sit in without any danger of being spotted. She didn't turn around to see if Prithvi was already here or not. She trusted his abilities enough to know that he would be able to follow them undetected.

When he finally came in, Bela was taken aback at Prithvi's appearance. She had seen him only few days ago. The gauntness of his cheekbones and the bleakness in his eyes were stark additions to his face. But she recovered quickly and motioned him to sit down on the cold floor. Unfortunately, there was no furniture or any sort of comfort in this place.

Thankfully, ever since Mriga had started training here, she had insisted on keeping some sort of nourishment for herself.

"Go look in the basement. There should be some dry fruit and maybe something else left behind by Mriga, since last time," she told Shaurya.

While they waited for him to come back, Prithvi filled her in on what was happening around. After this trip, he realised that the situation was a lot direr than what he had originally thought and right now he needed people whom he could trust more than ever before.

"I am afraid I will have to ask you to go active in the field. Also, our initial plan will need a radical revamp. I am going to go to the capital from here and will not be able to step out again, anytime soon. So, the execution will completely depend upon the two of you," he said.

Bela nodded distractedly while in deep thought.

When Shaurya returned, he saw the two elders sitting in a pensive mood. Placing the food items in front of them, he kneeled and waited. Till now, Bela had only given him a rough idea of what he needed to do. Since his identity had been revealed, they wanted him to go in as a disgruntle spy and defect to the neighbouring country. Either he would be accepted and be able to pass on information or he would be killed instantly on suspicions of being an infiltrator.

To him, it seemed like the best solution to his current situation because in this way, he would be able to serve his country even more effectively.

"Shaurya and Charulata didi, our goal and hence the targets have changed," in his intense concentration upon the mission's details, he didn't even realise that he had spoken out Bela's real name.

But neither of them pointed it out to him. Bela prodded him to eat something while he outlined the new plan. For the next two hours, both Bela and Prithvi thrashed out various permutations and combinations to the problem in front of them. Shaurya found himself in awe of the two minds. It suddenly occurred to him that he had not even managed to start exploring his mind while both the gurus in front of him had scaled dizzying heights when it came to game plans. By the end of the meeting, all three of them had turned grave.

Capital

Prithvi went straight to a near empty Gurukul and met Ramanujam, who had been waiting for him since morning.

"I was delayed due to an unforeseen problem. Send this letter to the palace, asap. After that, bring Saraswati here and start sanitizing the place. I will see you later at night post my meeting with the Queen," before Ramanujam could ask or say something, Prithvi had left again.

He reached home and shut the door behind him. With a small groan, he slid to the ground and covered his face with his hands.

"Am I ready for this?" he asked himself, sitting on the dusty floor of his silent house.

He sat there for a long time before compelling his tired body to get up. There were many things to be done and time was of essence again.

Thinking back to the conversation with Bela and Shaurya, he gave a wry smile. The way his senior took control of the meeting, it felt that time had turned back. Her ability to read the situation and offer radical solutions had not been affected by her dismissal from the spy team. If anything, she was sharper than before.

He had lingered on after the meeting for a bit to survey the 'hill' which she had modified. It was an understatement that he came away impressed.

Soon it was time and he made his way to the brothel which had served the country for over a century now.

Rani Samyukta was clad in a muslin saree and stood still in the unlit room. but her thoughts were chaotic, in fact, they had been so ever since the last meeting with Prithvi.