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Life in Nawanagar’s palace was the best break.

Except, Ava wasn’t with him. She had left for a vacation to the Netherlands with her family.

From there, they would travel to Denmark and then up north if they didn’t spot the Northern Lights.

Her mother was big on showing them. And even though Samarth was excited for her to see it all, he was slightly miffed that the time difference, her traveling schedule and fatigue of long days would mean fewer conversations.

Not that he had a lot of time on hand here.

He spent his mornings at the stables, tending and grooming the horses, learning more about them from his Papa’s stable master.

At mid-day, he would get ready in a white kurta-pyjama and sit at his Papa’s court.

Not on any of the main council seats but on one designated for him behind them — as an observer.

He had done this last year too, but at that time he hadn't understood as much as he understood now.

From the fisherfolk’s petition against the proposed coastal highway to the textile traders’ pleas to get the Textile Ministry of Gujarat to reconsider tariffs, Samarth began to understand how business operated inside their kingdom.

He also saw how his Papa dealt with feuding seths, how he mollified one without offending the other, how his own council of ministers too weren’t an easy bunch to handle.

Samarth noted how Ajatshatru Kaka and his Papa were one tight team.

Good cop, bad cop, bad cop, good cop, and then, if they had to — a duo of gangsters.

The Rawal and his Prime Minister.

“You will also need the right Prime Minister by your side when you become Rawal,” Papa told him when he voiced his observation out loud while they were alone in his office.

“Ajatshatru Kaka is so amazing, how can I let him go?”

“A new king means a new council. Not all at once, but slowly and steadily, you must replace those that do not align with your vision. Their loyalties will first be to me, not to you. Yes, if you find that some of them are beneficial to Nawanagar, then go ahead, keep them. But ideally in the first year of a new Rawal’s rule, the council also undergoes a change,” his Papa signed some papers and pushed back from his chair, bending down below his table to pull open the secret flap in the floor under it.

Samarth was among the handful few in Nawanagar who knew of its existence.

It had been their ancestors’ safe and held the seal, deeds and scriptures of Nawanagar’s throne.

Its possessor had the first claim to the throne.

“When you become Rawal,” Papa went on, turning the key in the safe and using his thumbprint in the detector that he had installed after his takeover, “Make sure to change the passwords and prints. Wipe out all history from here.”

“That will be yours only…”

“Might not be,” Papa grabbed the Raj Sinh Mohar — the seal of Nawanagar from the depths of the safe and stood to his feet.

This seal was rarely used on documents, if ever.

It was only meant for highly significant changes or tax declarations.

Papa had just signed one. He dipped the seal in melted wax and stamped it below his signature.

“You don’t know who I might have shared this password with. So the first order of business would be to lock out anybody else but yourself from accessing this safe.”

“You also did it?”

“I did. Dada Sarkar hadn’t told me everything and he was ill, so Dadi Sarkar asked me to take these steps immediately. That is why I am informing you. At the moment of transition of power, these are essential steps. They must be taken.”

“It’s a long time away, Papa… at least 50-60 years.”

Papa laughed, sealing the documents and getting back down to stow away the seal. He locked the safe and stood back up, his larger-than-life frame in his simple white kurta-pyjama suddenly looking a little… wilted.

“Are you feeling sick, Papa?”

“Not at all. Why do you ask?”

“Just. For the last few weeks you are only going to court and then back to the chambers. You don’t go to the club also…”

“I am going today,” Papa was quick in answering. Samarth saw through that. His father never justified himself to anybody. Not even to him.

“Come with me today,” Papa rounded the table, grabbed his neck and shook it. “And stop creating conspiracy theories in your head.”

“Dada Sarkar also asked you if you were ok and you said it’s the weather. It’s not even hot yet…”

Papa chuckled, the sound grating — “Stop conspiring with Dada Sarkar. Between you and him, if I even breathe wrong I will be ill!”

“Are you sure there is nothing, Papa? I want you to tell me like I tell you everything…”

Papa stopped at the closed door of his office, holding him back by both shoulders.

“Kunwar, I am well. Just a lot going on, with the Ministry and the kingdom. Nothing you need to worry about right now. Alright?”

Why did he not believe that?

“Samarth?” Papa’s brow went up.

“Yes, Papa,” he parroted, not even half-convinced that the Ministry and kingdom were making him look like this.

He laughed but did not trail to an end with a wheeze like usual.

He stopped abruptly. He worked all day every day when earlier, he had always escaped to play cricket or coach their team every evening.

He spent time with him at the stables or in his bedchambers, talked about everything as usual.

But his Papa did not ever bring up that conversation from that night — what he had started to ask him and then never did.

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“Save Me From Papa Club, anybody in?” Samarth whispered dramatically, knocking on his grandfather’s door.

“Nobody in. Clear,” came his frail voice.

Samarth pushed open the door and closed it behind him — “Papa is teaching me about Forest Reserve Laws today, Dada Sarkar.”

His grandfather’s already twisted face winced. “Hide, hide.”

Samarth came up behind him, took his wheelchair handles and pushed it to the end of the chamber, where the wall was made of clear glass and opened into a faux forest with a lake that his Papa had created.

His Dada Sarkar had been fond of swimming.

He had swum in the Club until the day before his stroke.

Now though, he could only look at this lake and reminisce old times.

Samarth parked the wheelchair right at the window and sat down in front of his grandfather, with his back to the window.

His Papa always sat like that whenever he came to consult Dada Sarkar on something or give him news.

Sometimes he sat like that when Dada Sarkar was sleeping, scrolling his phone in a corner.

“Liar Kunwar,” Dada Sarkar chided. “You want something from me.”

“No!” Samarth’s eyes widened.

“I am your Papa’s Papa. Stop lying.”

Samarth swallowed. Was it so obvious?

“Papa is really teaching me Forest Reserve Laws…”

“When?” Dada Sarkar asked point blank.

“Tomorrow,” Samarth confessed. How did he know not only that he was lying but what he was lying about? Dada Sarkar’s good side pulled up in a smirk.

“Cough up, Kunwar.”

“Dada Sarkar?”

“Hmm?”

“You also think something is wrong with Papa, right?”

A pause. Then — “Hmm.”

“What do you think?”

"Why are you asking this?”

“Just,” he shrugged.

Dada Sarkar’s old eyes, hooded under the folds of wrinkles, smiled. “Don’t worry, Samarth. Papa is a grown man. He can handle himself.”

“But he shouldn’t! I am here now, no? I am also grown up.”

“You are, beta. But that is your father, an adult. He will deal with it.”

Samarth scratched the back of his neck. This wasn’t working the straight way.

“What if I can help him?” He wondered aloud.

“Then he will ask you,” Dada Sarkar retorted.

Samarth let out a snort.

“What if…” he thought out loud. “What if… he never deals with it?”

Dada Sarkar did not have an answer to that. Samarth caught it and attacked.

“What if Papa always remains like this? He has never been like this…”

“Nothing in life is permanent.”

“But change happens, no? You only told me that change happens and then you can’t go back to the past, or what was in the past. You have to accept it.”

“Then Papa will accept it.”

“But I can’t! Papa is not being happy. He is only looking happy.”

“Samarth…”

“Tell me how to help him, Dada Sarkar. Tell me what to do! Do you know what happened? Why he became like this? Suddenly he is talking to me about becoming Rawal. Come on! He has told me things here and there all my life… but now he is obsessed with teaching me everything in one go.”

“What kind of a teenager are you, beta?” Dada Sarkar chuckled. “Children your age don’t think so much.”

He pursed his mouth. He never knew another way of living. Thinking was ingrained into him. Thinking about his Papa, his Dada Sarkar, Nawanagar. Thinking about Ava. His mind had never known rest.

“Something is wrong,” Samarth shook his head. “Something happened, Dada Sarkar. You are not telling me…”

“Because I myself don’t know.”

Samarth couldn’t argue anymore. If his grandfather was lying to him, he couldn’t call him out on his face. He was the Bade Rawal, moreover, his grandfather.

“I know what you are thinking, Samarth. But I don’t know… Maybe,” he cued, “somebody might know something. Somebody who shadows Rawal. But why are we talking about all this? Tonight, let’s eat vanilla ice cream with blueberries. The Chef sent a message that he has imported fresh blueberries…”

Samarth’s numb head began to tingle. He looked up at his Dada Sarkar, aware of his tactics to go on a tangent. He had given away a clue, the strongest of them all. And now wanted nothing to do with it.

“How about I ask Chef to make a blueberry sauce?” Samarth played along, his eyes glinting just as bright as his grandfather’s were.

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