It did not take long for the news to spread that Acharya Rudradhir had arrived in the town. A stream of visitors, friends and relatives headed towards the palace. During the festivities attendant on his arrival, he started to enquire about the developments and the changes that had taken place during his exile. In no time the Acharya sized up the situation.

The ordinary people, however, had not noticed any great change in Madra or in Sagal. The horizon was clear of any threat of foreign invasion. The feuds, wrangles and jealousies among the nobles, that had been so common a feature during the Council’s sessions, had also diminished. Trade and commerce were flourishing and there was prosperity all around. People were spending more time and money in the pursuit of pleasure. The inhabitants of Madra appeared to be happy, content and carefree.

One might say that in the garden of Sagal, while the small plants, vines and shrubs flourished, the tall trees—the nobility and the high families—stood silent and terrified. Mithrodus, the aged President and Commander-in-Chief of Sagal, was bedridden after a stroke. Acharya Pravardhan, heartbroken by the separation from his son, and thwarted by the machinations of Prestha, had died two years earlier after a prolonged stomach ailment. After his death the Republican Council had not been convened even once.

The President continued to hold the special rights and privileges with which he had been invested during the period of war emergency. While he lay helpless in his sickbed, the state seal was entrusted to his chief confidant, Prestha, the magnate. At the time of Kendras’s invasion, there was not sufficient money for raising a strong army, even after the wealth of the nobles had been added to the state treasury. Prestha had advised the President to throw open the membership of the Council to the wealthier members of the community, on the condition that each candidate raised, equipped and maintained 100, 200 or 500 soldiers. Consequently, the membership of the Republican Council had almost doubled. Ten such members, enjoying the patronage of Prestha, were already members of the Council.

During the emergency, thanks to the manoeuvring of Prestha, wealth rather than caste, status or lineage had become the basis for the membership of the Council. Wealth keeps increasing and decreasing; it is the fruit of man’s labour. Family and caste status, on the other hand, are bestowed by Heaven and, therefore, are unassailable. Now the low-born but wealthy people could also aspire and compete for the privileges that were exclusively enjoyed in the past by the nobles and the high-born. The prestige of the family began to wane. Filled with aversion at this denigration of lineage and caste, members of the nobility and high-caste dignitaries had begun to absent themselves from the meetings of the Council.

The effect of this indifference to the Council and the administration was that the President, in a state of failing health and senility, appointed Prestha, the magnate, to the office of the Chairman of the Council.