The capital smelled of dust and cooking fires, and it thrummed with a single, electric feeling someone was coming. Voices rose and fell like a tide through the narrow lanes. Women paused in doorways, children climbed low walls, and vendors abandoned their stalls to strain toward the main road. Everyone moved as if pulled by one bright thread.
At the far end of the boulevard, banners fluttered. A column of men approached armored, mud-streaked, led by a man on a broad horse. He rode with the easy authority of someone used to being obeyed. When he swung down from his mount, the crowd's roar broke into a cheer that swallowed the afternoon.
"Long live the Senapati!" people shouted. "Hail Pushyamitra!"
Soldiers cleared a path to the palace gates, and Pushyamitra walked through like a man heading home. His men fell in behind in disciplined ranks. Faces in the crowd were alight with relief and pride; he had returned from the border with victory and spoils. Children ran to brush his boots. Old men lifted their hands to the air as if to bless him.
Inside the royal court, the mood was not the same. Ministers hovered in tight groups, talking low and sharp. Satya sat on the throne with his hands folded on his lap, watching the procession through the open doors. There was a line of thought that had been growing inside him all day not from malice, but from an instinct sharpening into worry.
Because, Satya had learned that the Pushyamitra Is loved by the people, his image among the people is that of a good and honest man whom the people respect a lot. The news Satya had gathered only deepened the worry the Senapati's reputation among the common folk was not accidental. It had been built, piece by piece. If the general ever chose to turn that devotion toward himself, what would happen to a young king who had already been treated like a puppet?
Satya was lost in his thoughts while thinking all this, when it is announced that
Pushyamitra entered in the hall.