Page 200 of A King's Oath

Rajmata sighed — “You have to take more liquids, Samarth. More Thums Up?”

“No,” he winced.

“Then what do you want? Limca?”

“That is a good idea…”

Another knock on the door and Harsh entered, pushing a trolley of food in.

“Enjoying a change of scenery, Harsh?” He grinned. Harsh scowled, deposited the trolley in front of him and began gesturing.

Hearts has turned Hitler.

Samarth laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Rajmata asked, trying to decipher his gestures. She understood her name —star. But this was a new sign Harsh had started using recently. Hearts, the short form for Queen of Hearts as had become the running joke in their palace after Giriraj Hukum had gone around rechristening Rajmata.

“Why are there two plates?” Samarth changed the topic.

“Eat both and you can go to the office.”

His face fell. Harsh guffawed, waving a ‘good luck’ and leaving his chambers.

“Please, Rajmata, let me go. I’ll go crazy here…”

“Fine,” she sat down beside him and began to position the plates on the coffee table — one in front of him and the other in front of her.

“Aren’t you going down to eat with Papa and Sharan?”

“Look at the time. They must have already finished.”

He glanced at the clock. It wasn’t that late.

“Still…”

“Eat, they will come up soon.”

“I’ll just take this,” he kept one bowl of curd close and began to pick out the rest of the bowls to set out of his plate.

“Curd and rice is not enough. Have this dal,” she picked up the bowl of dal and placed it back onto his plate.

“I can’t handle the spice…”

“It’s not spicy,” she poured it over his rice, then poured curd over the heap. She mixed it with her fingers, crushed hard and fast until his rice looked like a light, lemon-yellow porridge. “Try it now.”

Without thinking what it would taste like, he used his fingers to make a morsel and closed his mouth around it. It wasn’t spicy. The curd mellowed it all. Like fuel had hit his stomach, he reached down for more and kept eating, finishing the mixed portion off before he knew what he was doing. Rajmata’s hand came again with more rice and more dal. She mixed the curd in and recreated the same lemon yellow heap for him, the rice again pulverised to porridge. Samarth kept eating.

When he came up for air, he realised he had eaten the rice in his own plate as well as hers.

“You haven’t even started eating?”

“I’ll eat. How do you feel?”

“Full.”

“Good. I’ll order some ice cream in a while so that these medicines don’t burn your stomach.”

He sat back and stared at her. She hadn’t slept well all night, hadn’t bathed, had changed his bedsheets, mixed his food, was hungry for who knew how long, and was still planning his next meal. With a palace full of staff, she was here, as if moving away would make him disappear. The food he had eaten had tasted contending. Now it settled in a cooling heap at the base of his stomach.

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