Page 181 of A King's Oath

“You eat poha with sev? Since when?”

“Your unnamed sources are failing, Rajmata,” he cocked his head.

“I’ll have to tighten them up.”

“I want sev too!” Sharan demanded.

“It comes with poha,” Samarth announced.

“Bhaiii!” He began to reach around his plate but Samarth blocked him.

“With poha or none at all.”

“Mummy!” He whined.

“Don’t come to me. You and Bhai sort it out.”

“One spoon sev and one piece poha,” the little trickster bargained.

Samarth filled his spoon with poha and placed one tiny piece of sev atop it. Sharan scowled, making him mix it back into his plate and fill his spoon with a generous amount of sev and a little poha. If this is how he started, it was a good start.

“Open your mouth.”

Sharan eyed the spoon like it was poison. His lips parted just a smidge, ready to spit out like a little baby. Samarth just stuffed the bite in and held the spoon over his mouth to keep it in, making Rajmata chuckle. Sharan chewed, swallowing it down without any protest.

“How was it?”

“Ok,” he shrugged. Samarth shared a look with Rajmata, then nodded at one of the servers laughing silently in a corner. She came around the table, picked up the pot of poha and set a small serving on Sharan’s plate. He did not pay it any heed.

Then Samarth placed the bowl of sev between them and they resumed eating. A few minutes later, a small hand reached inside the bowl and took a fistful of sev, heaped it over his poha and spooned tiny bites out of the mix.

“You are both converts,” Rajmata shook her head. Samarth swallowed. He reached forward to continue eating when he realised he was sitting on Papa’s chair. He glanced at Rajmata and suddenly saw through her veneer of cheer. She was eating, smiling, laughing, even joking. But not chewing. She was still swallowing morsels like every day that had gone by. A ball of saliva lodged in his throat, but Samarth chewed his food. One step at a time. One day at a time. Rajmata will also one day soon begin to chew her food.

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He wasn’t used to the weight of the crown. Not the literal one. The invisible one — the one that came with files thicker than an encyclopaedia and the room full of men who had stopped speaking to his eyes and had started speaking to his title.

Across from him sat the Managing Director of Jaisal Resources, the oil drilling partner that worked just outside the borders of Nawanagar. He was a smooth-talking man in a linen blazer and dark sunglasses. His assistant had brought an iPad. Samarth had brought a battered leather folder that still smelled like his father’s cologne.

“How much of the revenue is reinvested into the land rehabilitation?” Samarth asked, tapping the page with a pen. He hadn’t expected to catch it, but it leapt out — barely three percent.

The MD offered a patient smile.“Rawal, the lease agreement allows for a reinvestment cap at—”

“I’m aware of what the lease says,” Samarth cut in.“I read it. I also read the soil report. And the complaints from the farmers in the adjacent district.”

A pause. The MD shifted in his seat.

Samarth continued,“My father may have signed this agreement. But I intend to run this court differently. I’m not here to shadow decisions anymore.”

One of the bureaucrats near him — the agriculture officer — coughed lightly, trying to offer a lifeline.“We can, of course, propose a revised clause for environmental obligations…”

“No need to propose,” Samarth said calmly.“We’ll renegotiate. Effective immediately…”

“Rawal?” Ajatshatru Kaka knocked and stepped inside the office. He was still the Prime Minister. Samarth wasn’t ready to start an overhaul of the council yet, least of all Ajatshatru Kaka.

“Yes?”

“It is from South America. Urgent.”

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