𑁍 Chronicle Note: Year & Age 𑁍
Year (roughly): 1823 CE
Era: Kaliyuga, late Company rule, post-Napoleonic Europe
Current age:23 years
By now he has:
secretly been anointed Dakshina Samrakshaka Raja in Nallamala's caves,
welded Rayalaseema, parts of Andhra, Bellary (Karnataka side), and Tamil belts under the Dakshina Mandala,
signed the Madurai Pact,
secured the Siege of Bellary and key trade routes.
The British still believe they are facing scattered rebellions.
Today, that illusion begins to crack.
I. A New Name for an Old City
Kurnool had always been a crossroads.
The Tungabhadra not far away.
Caravan routes from Hyderabad, Bellary, and the coast brushing past its outskirts.
A history of small rulers, local strongmen, Company officers setting up their bungalows on the edge.
Now, under Mandala hands, it was becoming something else.
In the Map Room weeks earlier, Venkanna had traced a circle.
"Kurnool sits where our roads kiss," he said, tapping the spot. "Rayalaseema fields feed it. Bellary's rock guards its flank. Trade from coast and interior graze its markets. If the south is a body, this is near its beating heart."
Sri nodded.
"And from a logistical standpoint," she said, "it's easier to defend than some coastal city. Less chance of a sudden British naval surprise."
Ayyappa leaned back, arms folded.
"So," he said, "this dusty town becomes the headseat of your headache."
Narasimha sighed.
"Wonderful," he said. "Another crown, this one made of bricks and drains."
Raja Pandiyan, visiting from the Tamil side, chuckled.
"At least you have the chance to shape it," he said. "Most kings inherit capital cities and spend their lives fixing other people's mistakes. You get to create new ones."
The debate turned, inevitably, to what to call it.
"Kurnool," Jagannatha Setty said, "is fine as a trade town name. But if we are declaring this the capital of Dakshina Rajya, it needs a title that carries weight across tongues."
"It should speak of your symbol," Sri said. "Not you by name. The idea you carry."
Venkanna's old eyes smiled.
"Lion," he said simply. "He dreamed of Narasimha Swami as a boy. The people already call him 'Simha Dora'. Our scribes mark letters with a little lion head."
The Kakinada accountant, who had just arrived with a stack of ledgers, looked up.
"Call it something that even a drunk sepoy in Bellary can say without twisting his tongue," she suggested. "We are not writing poetry, we are writing addresses."
In the end, the name emerged like a stone from a riverbed:
Kesarinagara – City of the Lion with the Mane.
"Kesharinagara?" Ayyappa tested.
"Kesarinagara," Sri corrected. "Lion. Not hair oil."
"A capital that remembers it is lion, not comb," Venkanna said, amused.
Narasimha groaned.
"I suppose this makes me the lion whose mane everyone will pull whenever they have a problem," he muttered.
"Exactly," Sri said sweetly.
II. Kesarinagara Awakens
In the months before the public coronation, Kurnool began to shed its skin.
Not into marble palaces and gold-plated nonsense.
Into function.
Under Narasimha's and Sri's directives:
Old mud lanes were widened and tamped, turning into more reliable streets able to bear carts and cavalry together.
A central square was cleared—old tumble-down sheds removed, trees transplanted—to create a vast open maidan where thousands could gather.
A Sabha Mandapa—a pillared hall—rose on one side of the square, its architecture a blend:
Rayalaseema stone solidity,
Chola-inspired carved pillars (Tamil masons smiled at the chance),
Bellary's rugged practicality.
New buildings:
a Dakshina Sabha House for Mandala councils,
a simple but efficient war office,
storehouses for grain and arms,
quarters for Trinetra's more "visible" clerks, leaving the invisible ones to their shadows.
Near the river, plans were drawn for a ship-building yard for rivercraft and, eventually, ocean-going escorts to strengthen the Mandala's covert navy.
Even the drains were rethought.
"I refuse," Narasimha said, stabbing at a sketch, "to be remembered as the king whose capital flooded every monsoon because he was too busy making flowery speeches to dig proper channels."
The city changed not with fanfare, but with hammers, chisels, shouted orders.
People noticed.
"Kurnool is growing," they said.
"Kesarinagara," others corrected, practising the new name like a mantra.
In lanes, children played mock war, shouting, "I am Kesarinagara's guard! You be the British!" and chasing each other with sticks.
The city was still rough, still carrying its old dust.
But a new center was taking shape.
And at its heart, the central square was being prepared for something it had never seen:
A public coronation that the British would not be invited to and could not stop.
III. Weaving the Lion Banner
If a realm has a king, and a capital, it needs a symbol.
The Mandala had used many:
discreet sigils on Trinetra messages,
clan banners of Rayalaseema and Bellary,
temple flags.
But none served yet as a single standard for the Dakshina Rajya.
In a shaded courtyard of the Kesarinagara palace, under Venkanna's oversight, artisans gathered.
Painters, weavers, metalworkers.
On a low table, several design sketches lay:
one with a traditional rearing lion,
one with a Narasimha head only,
one with a circular mandala around a stylised lion-paw print.
Narasimha walked past, glanced, and winced.
"Why does that one make me look like I'm constipated?" he asked, pointing at a sketch of an over-muscular lion roaring.
The painter flushed.
"It is meant to be fierce, Dora," he said.
"It looks like it just swallowed a rock," Narasimha said. "No."
Sri rubbed her forehead.
"We need something that speaks to everyone," she said. "Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, coastal, tribal. Not just a caricature of your jawline."
Venkanna picked up a different sketch.
This one showed:
a lion's face, calm but intense,
not open-mouthed roaring, but eyes forward,
around it, a circle divided into radiating segments—each segment etched with:
a sheaf of grain,
a temple gopuram,
a wheel,
a sword,
a ship,
a book.
Below, in simple script:
Dakshina Rajya – Simha Raksha Mandalam
The Southern Realm – Lion's Protective Circle.
"This," Venkanna said, "looks like a protector, not a drunk festival statue."
Narasimha studied it.
The lion's expression held both stillness and threat.
A guardian.
"I like that the mouth is closed," he said slowly. "Not always shouting. The real roar comes when needed."
Ayyappa nodded.
"And the circle," he added. "Everyone sees their own symbol in it. Farmer. Merchant. Priest. Soldier."
"Good," Sri decided. "Make this our Lion Banner."
The artisans set to work.
In the weeks that followed:
a great banner was woven in deep saffron-gold,
the lion's face embroidered in subtle shades of brown and black,
the mandala ring picked out in muted colours, each icon distinct but not gaudy.
The banner's pole would be:
a single length of seasoned teak from the western forests,
shod in iron from Bellary,
topped with a small Narasimha finial.
When Narasimha first saw the completed banner unfurled in the palace yard, even he fell silent.
The lion seemed to look back at him.
"Well," he murmured, "at least when they burn this in effigy someday, it will look dignified."
Sri smacked his arm lightly.
"Stop cursing your own future," she said. "We went to a lot of trouble to make this symbol."
IV. The Day the South Came to Kesarinagara
The coronation day dawned under a sky that had spent the night holding back rain, as if it too wanted a clear view.
By sunrise, Kesarinagara was a living river of people.
They came from:
Rayalaseema villages—men in simple white, women with jasmine in their hair, children riding on shoulders.
Bellary and Karnataka—taller men with distinctive turbans, some carrying gifts of iron and cloth.
Tamil belts—delegations from Madurai, Tirunelveli, and small Nadu chiefs, bringing garlands, silk, and the sharp-sweet cadence of Tamil speech.
Coastal towns—merchants in fine but practical clothes, ledgers secretly tucked aside for a day, minds reluctantly turned to ceremony instead of profit.
Tribal communities from Nallamala and Srisailam, some with bows still strung, wary but curious.
Kesarinagara's central maidan filled.
Temporary stands ringed the main square for:
Mandala chiefs,
temple representatives,
foreign-friendly observers (a few careful French and Arab merchants, eyes sharp).
At the far end, a raised platform stood:
pillared canopy,
steps up from the front,
on it, a simple stone-like lion seat—not overly ornate, carved from a single massive block with lion motifs at its feet.
Behind it, on a separate mast, the Lion Banner hung furled, waiting.
Priests from:
Srisailam,
Tirupati,
Meenakshi's temple,
and local Rayalaseema shrines
stood beside:
siddhars from Tamil hills,
Venkanna,
and a few other mystics.
Trinetra agents melted into the crowd, watching, ensuring no Company spy-crews tried anything foolish.
From the crowd, murmurs rose like waves:
"He really brought them all together…"
"Look, that's Raja Pandiyan from the south, standing proudly, not as prisoner."
"That bearded fellow from Bellary is here too… they say he's almost unbeatable on rocky ground."
"Our Rayalaseema Dora… becoming Raja. Who would've thought?"
On a balcony overlooking the square, Sri watched the flow, tablet in hand.
Ayyappa whistled.
"You've done it," he said. "You've turned a conspiracy into a festival."
Sri exhaled.
"Let's hope it stays festival," she said. "If the British somehow manage to send a surprise cannon today, I'll never forgive them."
"Relax," Ayyappa replied. "We have scouts on every road. The only sudden thing likely today is someone fainting in the heat before this is over."
V. The Lion Walks Out
When the drums began, the crowd quieted.
They were not war drums.
They were temple drums—mridangams, nagaswaram, bells.
From the palace side, a procession emerged.
First:
standard-bearers of different regions:
Rayalaseema spears with small flags,
Bellary's rocky emblem,
Tamil fish and bow motifs,
coastal waves and ship wheels.
Then:
representatives of guilds and villages carrying:
sheaves of grain,
tools of their trades,
pots of water.
Then:
Venkanna and the mystics, chanting softly.
Finally, between Venkanna and Ayyappa, Narasimha.
He wore:
a deep maroon and gold angavastram over a finely woven white dhoti,
armour pieces on his forearms and shoulders—functional, not ceremonial,
a simple sword at his waist,
the iron circlet under a slightly more decorated turban (Sri had insisted on at least a nod to aesthetics),
the Madurai fish talisman hidden but present.
The crowd drew breath.
He did not look like a jeweled, distant emperor.
He looked like what he was:
a warrior who had seen battle,
a chieftain used to court halls,
a man who laughed easily and frowned harder,
now carrying something heavier in the line of his shoulders.
As he walked through the central aisle, villagers reached out.
Some hands brushed his fingers briefly.
"Raja!" someone cried.
He smiled and shook his head.
"First your Dora, then your Raja," he called back. "Don't promote me too fast; my head will spin."
Laughter burst in pockets.
The tension eased.
On the platform, he climbed the steps and stood facing the ocean of faces.
From this vantage, the sheer size of what had gathered hit him:
men and women packed tightly,
from hill, coast, city, village,
banners of so many lineages and shrines.
He swallowed.
"Amma," he thought briefly, sending the word skyward toward Meenakshi, Srisailam's Mallikarjuna, Tirupati Venkateswara, and beyond, "if you want to stop this, now is the time. A lightning bolt, a sudden eclipse, a giant hand from the sky—any of those are acceptable."
Nothing dramatic happened.
A breeze picked up.
Of course.
"Fine," he thought. "You had your chance."
VI. Blessings of Siddhars and Saints
The ritual began.
This time, it was public.
Priests from multiple temples approached, each carrying:
kalashas of water from different rivers,
garlands,
sacred ashes and sandal.
A Srisailam priest intoned:
"From the hills of Sri Parvata, where Shiva is worshipped as Mallikarjuna, we bring blessing. May this Rajya be steadfast like a mountain and fluid like the river that winds around it."
He sprinkled water over Narasimha's head.
A Tirupati archaka stepped forward.
"From Venkateswara of the Seven Hills," he said, "we bring blessing. May prosperity flow into and through this Rajya, and may its king remember his duty to give back when fortunes rise."
Water from Tirupati mingled with Srisailam's.
From Madurai's side, the priest representing Meenakshi smiled gently.
"From Meenakshi-Sundareswarar of Madurai," he said, "we bring blessing. May this lion remember that even in war, there is place for beauty, music, and the dance of gods. A realm without joy is already half dead."
He placed around Narasimha's neck a garland that had touched Meenakshi's threshold.
Then the siddhars stepped forward.
Ash-smeared, simple cloth around waist and shoulder, eyes bright in lean faces.
One of them, who had not spoken a word since arriving in Kesarinagara, finally did.
His voice was like dry leaves and river pebbles.
"In this age," he said, "kingship often rots quickly. Too much power, too little introspection. But sometimes, a soul forged strangely cuts through the pattern."
He looked directly at Narasimha.
"You have been given:
life that stretches beyond normal measure,
a body that will heal wounds others die of,
a mind exposed to more than one world's stories.
If you think these are rewards, you are a fool. They are tools."
The crowd murmured, not fully understanding, but feeling the weight.
The siddhar touched Narasimha's forehead with three fingers, leaving a faint ash mark.
"May your Asura moments be directed outward, never inward," he said. "May your Bhishma-like boon of choosing your death never become an excuse to run away from life."
He leaned closer.
"And when new ages come," he whispered, voice barely audible even to Narasimha, "with men in metal suits, hammers from other worlds, shields that never break, and portals in the sky—remember this square. Remember whose eyes you first stood before as king."
Narasimha blinked.
"Metal suits? Hammers? Portals?" he thought.
Aloud, he only said, "I will… try," very, very softly.
The siddhars stepped back.
The crowd, seeing ash and water and garlands, saw what they needed to see:
The southern gods had acknowledged this kingship.
VII. The Lion Banner Rises
It was time.
Sri signalled the standard-bearers.
Attendants unfurled the great Lion Banner behind the platform, its fabric catching the morning light.
At first, only those closest could see the full design.
Then, as the mast was hauled upright and the banner climbed, it came into view for thousands.
Gasps rippled.
The lion's face—calm, watchful, not screaming—looked out over the sea of heads.
Around it, the mandala ring showed its icons:
grain,
temple,
wheel,
sword,
ship,
book.
A Rayalaseema farmer pointed.
"That," he said, "is our crops."
A Bellary smith nodded at the sword and wheel.
"That is us," he said.
A Tamil priest smiled faintly at the temple symbol.
"I see her gopuram there," he whispered.
A coastal trader's eyes flicked to the ship.
"And there we are," he said.
Narasimha turned slightly to look.
The banner snapped once in a passing gust, as if clearing its throat.
He felt something in his chest align with it.
Venkanna's voice came behind him, low.
"Once this flies," he murmured, "there is no pretending you are just 'a clever chieftain' anymore. You are the one whose fall will be cheered by tyrants and mourned by honest men."
Narasimha's jaw set.
"Then I'll try not to give tyrants any reason to cheer too early," he said.
Ayyappa leaned in from the other side.
"Give them reasons to choke instead," he advised.
The Lion Banner reached the top of the mast.
For a heartbeat, it hung limp.
Then wind filled it.
The first time the Lion Banner of the Dakshina Rajya fully opened over Kesarinagara, thousands of throats shouted as if on some shared instinct:
"Jai! Jai Kesari Simha! Jai Dakshina Rajya!"
The sound rolled like a physical force.
Some wept.
Some laughed.
Some simply stood stunned, realising:
"We are part of something bigger than our village's fear."
VIII. The King's Speech
When the clamour dimmed, Narasimha stepped forward to the front of the platform.
He did not use flowery titles.
He did not let a herald speak for him.
He just raised one hand.
The square slowly quieted.
"People of Rayalaseema, Andhra, Ballari, Tamil Nadu, and the coasts," he began, voice carrying clearly, "you know me as Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy. Some of you call me Dora. Some call me lion. Behind my back, a few of you probably call me an idiot. All of these are true on different days."
Laughter burst, breaking tension.
He smiled briefly, then his face hardened.
"Today," he said, "I stand here because you have made something that did not exist before.
Not I.
You.
When British sahibs first drew their maps of this land, they saw:
Madras Presidency,
Bombay Presidency,
Bengal.
Lines convenient for them.
But those lines ignored:
our temples,
our languages,
our ways of living and dying.
They took tax from a farmer in Kurnool and used it to pay soldiers in Burma. They squeezed Bellary and sent the grain to some London table where a man who cannot even pronounce 'Bellary' washed it down with wine.
You all know this.
You have lived it.
You have sweated for this land, bled for this land.
Who are they to tell us this soil belongs more to their papers than to our dead buried under it?"
The crowd murmured agreement.
He pointed outwards, beyond the city.
"The rain that falls here," he said, "does not ask for tax before it wets our fields.
The earth that sprouts our crops does not say, 'You owe me half your harvest, plus interest.'
The sun does not write receipts for the light it gives us.
Only men who sit far away, with ink instead of sweat on their hands, think like that.
I say to them, as I have said before:
Why should we pay you tax? The rain wouldn't ask for it, the land wouldn't ask for it, the crop wouldn't ask for it. So who are you to ask us to pay tax? We were born on this land, and we will mix with this soil. Why should we pay you tax?"
Applause and shouts roared up.
He let it crest, then raised his hand again.
"Until now," he continued, "they could tell themselves:
'These Rayalaseema fellows are just bandits.'
'Those Bellary raids are local trouble.'
'Madurai's priests are stubborn.'
They could comfort themselves that each fire was separate.
Today, under this banner, in this city we now call Kesarinagara, in this Dakshina Rajya, I tell you:
We are not separate fires anymore.
We are one flame with many tongues.
Rayalaseema stands not alone, but with Bellary.
Bellary stands with Madurai.
The coast stands with the hills.
When one of us is struck, the others feel it.
Today, before gods and men, I accept what many of you have already forced upon me in practice:
I stand as Dakshina Samrakshaka Raja—King-Protector of this Southern Realm.
King not to stand above you and feast.
Protector to stand between you and whatever storms come."
He paused.
"And storms will come," he said softly. "From Madras. From Calcutta. From London. From beyond even their reach. This crown is not metal. It is nights spent awake, weighing which village must suffer so another can live. It is days spent signing orders while my heart would rather be on the front, sword in hand."
His voice thickened for a moment.
"But," he said, steadying, "if any of you thought I loved power, let me correct you: I hate it.
I hate paperwork.
I hate court formalities.
I would rather be at your harvest festivals, eating hot rice and pickle, than sitting in a sabha arguing about grain quotas."
Laughter again, softer, fond.
"But I love," he went on, "this land.
I love watching a well fill after a new irrigation channel is opened.
I love seeing a temple roof repaired instead of leaking over a deity's head.
I love hearing that a child in Madurai is learning Tamil stories instead of only British dates.
So I accept this weight.
For that.
Not for golden chairs."
He drew his sword, slowly.
Not a flourish.
A statement.
He held it point-down, then knelt slightly and planted its tip in a small stone set into the platform.
"Before all of you," he said, "I swear:
As long as I live, this sword will be drawn first against those who exploit you, not those who merely hurt my pride.
I will not sell this Rajya piece by piece for foreign titles or comforts.
If ever I become a king who cares more for his own name than for your children's futures, may these gods you have called here take back their blessings and this life they have stretched for me."
He looked up.
"If you find me failing," he said, "drag me down. You have my permission. This Rajya does not exist for me. I exist for it."
The silence after was not emptiness.
It was the sound of thousands absorbing a promise they knew was dangerous—for him and for them.
Then, like monsoon rain breaking, the roar came:
"Raja Simha! Samrakshaka! Jai! Jai!"
Narasimha rose, sword still embedded in stone.
For the first time, he truly felt like the king his allies had already named him.
Not because of the shouting.
Because he had just given them the weapon to end him, if he betrayed them.
IX. Ripples to Madras, Calcutta, and London
News flies faster than horses when carried by fear.
Within days of the coronation, despite Trinetra's best efforts to manage what leaked and how, intelligence about Kesarinagara's grand gathering reached Madras.
In the Governor's council room, Harwood stood stiff-backed as a clerk read the latest "native reports."
"…and according to multiple informants," the clerk said, voice wavering slightly, "a large assembly took place in Kurnool—now being referred to as 'Kesarinagara.' Chiefs from various districts, including Bellary, Kadapa, and certain Tamil regions, were present. A new banner was raised, showing a lion's face within some sort of circular emblem. The native leader Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy was… publicly acclaimed as king."
The word hung.
"King," repeated the Governor, slowly.
His face went from pale to mottled.
"Of what precisely?" he demanded.
The clerk swallowed.
"Local accounts use phrases like 'Dakshina Rajya'… 'Southern Realm'…" he said. "It appears to be a confederation of rebels and chiefs across Company jurisdictions."
Harwood spread a map on the table.
He had been updating his own secret version with troubling diligence.
He circled:
Rayalaseema,
Bellary,
parts of Tamil country,
coastal nodes.
"This," he said quietly, "is not a bandit with a local following. This is an emerging kingdom. One we have failed to recognise because we preferred to label everything 'isolated trouble'."
The Governor slammed his fist onto the map.
"Half the damned Presidency," he snapped, "behaving as if Company authority is optional! How did we let it become this bad?"
Harwood did not say: Because you kept telling me I was overreacting.
Another council member, older, coughed.
"With respect, sir," he said, "the total area under this so-called 'Dakshina Rajya' is not yet half the Presidency. But its symbolic weight…"
He trailed off.
They all knew.
If peasants from Madurai to Bellary began to think of themselves as subjects of a native king rather than taxpayers of an invisible Company board in London, the ground beneath British rule shifted.
Messages shot eastward to Calcutta, where the Governor-General's staff read them with pinched expressions.
More letters crossed the sea to London, to the East India Company's Court of Directors and to the Board of Control.
In smoky rooms, men with powdered wigs and monocles argued over maps of a land none of them had touched.
"So," one Director said, "post-Napoleon, just as we stabilise on the continent, we now have some brown upstart styling himself 'King of the South'?"
"Not merely styling himself," a more informed official replied. "Our own reports confirm:
he has defeated Company troops on the field,
taken strategic forts like Bellary,
secured local alliances,
and now performed a public… coronation or something like it."
A member of the Board, who prided himself on military "insight", snorted.
"Send more troops," he said. "We broke the Marathas; we can break some lion cub in Rayalaseema."
Another, more cautious, frowned.
"Troops cost money," he said. "After the Napoleonic Wars, we are not exactly swimming in surplus. Every regiment we send south is one we cannot send to Burma or to protect interests elsewhere."
Reports also drifted to other European powers:
The French, still smarting from their losses in India decades earlier, read with fascination about "un lion du sud" causing trouble for the British.
Some in Paris murmured about discreetly reaching out to this Dakshina Rajya for trade, maybe more.
The Dutch, eyeing their Southeast Asian holdings, watched with commercial interest.
Even some American newspapers, always hungry for stories that embarrassed Britain, picked up whispers:
"Reports from the East indicate a native confederation in Southern India challenging British authority. A 'Lion King' (as some papers have styled him) has been proclaimed by local chiefs. The British, fresh from their triumphs against French forces, may find they have underestimated the spirit of independence elsewhere…"
In a Boston tavern, a young man reading that line raised his brows.
"Another revolution somewhere," he mused. "Seems the world is catching up."
He raised his mug.
"To the lion, then," he said.
Nobody in Kesarinagara heard that toast.
But the world had begun to notice that the south was no longer just a quiet backdrop to Company ledgers.
X. Madras Plots Counterattack
Back in Madras, the tone shifted from complacent dismissal to brittle anger.
In a tense meeting, officers, administrators, and Company men argued.
"We must strike now," one colonel said. "Concentrate forces, march on this 'Kesarinagara', tear down his banner in front of his own people."
"And where," another snapped, "do we assemble such a force? We are stretched thin already. Plus, thanks to his meddling with trade routes, our supply lines are nowhere near as dependable in that region as they used to be."
Harwood, uncharacteristically blunt, cut in.
"If we march blind," he said, "he will bleed us with the same tactics he used at Rayalaseema Plains, Kadapa, Bellary. Guerrilla strikes, poisoned wells, bridges vanished overnight. We will arrive with half our men and no powder."
The Governor glared.
"Are you suggesting we do nothing?" he demanded.
"No," Harwood said, jaw tight. "I am suggesting we:
stop underestimating him,
reinforce loyal local rulers who oppose his influence,
infiltrate his so-called Mandala and find fault lines,
cut his trade where we can,
and, when we strike, do so after understanding his network, not stumbling into his traps."
"Intelligence, then," one administrator said. "More spies. Native informers. Bounties."
"Already in motion," another replied. "We are compiling lists of chiefs who might resent his rise. Not everyone will be pleased about a new 'king' overshadowing them."
Harwood looked back at the map, at the circle he'd drawn.
He felt the oddest sensation—part fear, part reluctant admiration.
"A hidden king has stepped into the light," he thought. "If we break him, his legend might still outlive us. If we fail… the map of India that our children inherit will not be the one we intended."
He did not say that aloud.
In the game of empires, acknowledging admiration for the enemy was bad form.
But somewhere deep, a part of him knew:
"History will remember Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy. Whether as rebel or liberator—time will decide. But he is no mere footnote."
XI. After the Roar
That night, after the crowds had dispersed, after the drums had quieted and the priests returned to their lodgings, Kesarinagara's central square was almost empty.
Almost.
On the platform, Narasimha sat on the edge of the lion seat, circlet slightly askew, angavastram loosened.
His feet were bare, swinging like a boy's.
The Lion Banner still fluttered above, now illuminated by braziers.
Sri approached with a small stack of… of course… documents.
He groaned.
"Already?" he asked. "We just shouted, we didn't even let the echo die, and you bring me—"
"Welcome to being a public king instead of a secret one," she said. "You promised councils, legal charters, trade terms. The scribes heard you. They wrote things. Someone has to sign."
Ayyappa strolled up, still chewing a sugarcane stick.
"Look on the bright side," he said. "At least you won't have time to think about the British planning our doom. You'll be too busy arguing over grain storage."
Narasimha rubbed his face.
"It's official," he muttered. "My greatest battle is against the army of palm leaves and ink."
He looked up at the banner.
"And against whatever is coming, beyond the British," he added quietly.
Sri sat beside him.
"Do you really think there's more?" she asked. "Beyond them?"
He thought of the siddhar's cryptic words.
Of hammers, metal suits, portals.
"Yes," he said simply.
"Good," Ayyappa said. "Then this crown is not just for one fight. It's practice. When those future storms arrive, this Lion City, this Rajya, this ridiculous banner—they'll be anchors."
Narasimha smirked.
"Remind me of that," he said, "when I'm up at midnight debating the proper tax on imported pepper so our merchants don't throttle me."
Sri raised the topmost document.
"First order of Kesarinagara as capital," she said. "Formal declaration:
'From this day, Kurnool shall be known in all Mandala records as Kesarinagara, capital of the Dakshina Rajya.'
Sign?"
He took the stylus.
Paused.
"Goodbye, Kurnool," he murmured. "You were a nice sleepy headache."
He signed.
The stroke felt heavier than any signature before.
"Welcome, Kesarinagara," he added. "May you not eat me alive."
Above them, the Lion Banner snapped in the wind, as if amused.
In the heavens, the gods watched their almost-Manu, now fully king in the eyes of his people.
Lakshmi's eyes glowed with pride.
Parvati's with a mother's worry.
Saraswati's with curiosity.
Vishnu and Maheshwara exchanged a glance.
"This," Vishnu said, "is going to be interesting."
Maheshwara smiled faintly.
"Kaliyuga needed an anchor in the south," he said. "Now it has one—with a lion's mane and a stack of paperwork."
Somewhere, centuries in the future, an Avenger would one day look at an old, faded banner in a secret underground archive in India and ask:
"Whose symbol is this lion?"
But that was another story.
Tonight, in 1823, in Kesarinagara, a new chapter had begun:
The public reign of the Deathless Lion.
The British were rattled.
Europe was watching.
And the south, for the first time in centuries, looked up at a banner and saw itself.
✦ End of Chapter 41 – "Coronation of the Hidden King" ✦