Ruler's Intuition

Capital, Chandragarh

"The prince of Himprayag has sent the request to visit us in the coming week. He wishes to visit as a peaceful representative of the king and has a proposal to make," the foreign minister addressed Rani Samyukta in the royal court.

"Do we know of his intentions? What kind of proposal?" she asked.

"We don't have many details except that he is coming here from Vayuprastha instead of Himprayag. Apparently, he had gone To Vayuprastha with a business proposition as well," the minister said.

The queen arched her eyebrow and asked, "Then, before bringing this request to me, should you not have sent out people to find out about that proposal?"

The minister bowed and replied, "We have our foreign officers already looking into this matter. But I am yet to hear back from them."

The queen nodded and instructed, "Send out a reply, accepting the prince's request."

She turned to the finance minister and instructed, "I want to see our trade records for the past five years with Himprayag. Give me a break-up in terms of how much have we spent on buying their goods versus them buying ours. I need this by tonight. Send it to my chambers, alongwith someone who can explain those numbers to me, preferably the person who would be collating all that data."

The minister smiled awkwardly and bowed his head in acceptance.

Half hour later

"Can't you be a little politer? Such bad people skills, sigh! If becoming the queen would have required people's opinion poll, you would have failed again and again," Indrani tut-tutted as she made her way back to the Queen's private chambers with her.

Rani Samyukta stopped and asked in surprise, "What did I do this time round? Wasn't I nice to everyone?"

Rolling her eyes at her obtuse friend cum superior, Indrani said, "You basically told the finance minister that he was incapable and that too in front of everyone. Couldn't you have said something like – bring along the person who would be able to help explain the minute details or something like that?"

Samyukta thought about it for a minute and then replied seriously, "We are in the royal court for only a few hours of the day. During that time, the first priority of all those present in the room is to get maximum work done keeping our people's welfare as the top priority. I don't think that any of us should be worried or even bother about stepping on each other's fragile egos in there. When I am seeking an explanation, am I not also admitting to the fact that I need someone to explain it to me, too."

Indrani shook her head and gave up arguing over the matter.

"Oh, before I forget. Reach out to Prithvi and ask him to find out from his spy network based in Vayuprastha about the deal which has taken place between Prince Mithilesh and Raja Shaligram. If details aren't possible to access, at least find out about the nature of the deal. The deadline is four days. I won't need that information when the prince is already here," Rani Samyukta instructed.

Indrani bowed and left from there, immediately. It would be easy to send the message to the man, once she managed to find his whereabouts. That was the biggest task of all!

Saptsindhu

Raja Amrendra was lost in thought. He was getting old and hoped that he would be able to do the right thing in his life for once in order for him to be able to show his face to his ancestors when he meets them!

"Prince Mahendra is seeking an audience, your highness!" the attendant came in and announced.

The king nodded abstractedly.

"Tell me!" he said as his son came in and paid his respects.

"This maybe nothing, but I... thought that I needed to notify you of the same," Mahendra started on a hesitant note.

"Why do you hesitate everytime before speaking? Stop wasting time and get to the point. Are you that free to dither over things like a stupid, young maiden?" the king lost his patience.

Red color bloomed on Mahendra's face and he fought for composure. Even though he had immense respect for his father, he hated it when the king showed the same rudeness towards him as towards any common peasant.

Swallowing his pride, he said, "Few days ago, a spy from Chandragarh came to us with the intention to defect. He had recently been thrown out by the administration there and was probably sour about it."

The king frowned and said, "So, what is the problem? This is not the first time for it to happen. Don't we have enough of them on our payroll already?"

The prince hesitated yet again before saying, "Though the guy came to us voluntarily, he died in a skirmish with our men. Apparently, he was one of their best spies and had been headed for bigger things before his cover was blown by one of ours."

The king looked at his son in surprise. None of this was a big deal so why was Mahendra behaving so nervously?

"Is the upcoming task making you see shadows when there are none?" Raja Amrendra asked.

"That's not it, father. The handler had no qualms about situation and shut the matter. But the ex-senior of that dead spy is working for us as a double agent. He insisted on seeing me today and making a separate report about it. As per him, the whole episode seemed staged, like a ploy aimed at distraction. He doesn't have any concrete proof but claims that he knew the defector well and the guy had been a zealous soldier of his motherland. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a non-issue but the timing of the episode is making me wonder about it," he finally said it all.