Page 58 of A King's Oath

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.

————————————————————

“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 madeof 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 isreallyteaching 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.

---