CHAPTER 26 - The Royal Advisory Council.

1538, Capital city, Dharanikota Kingdom.

"All rise for his majesty, King Rudra Deva!!" yelled the announcer as he opened the door to a large conference room. Hearing that, the people inside the room quickly stood up, to show their respect to the newly crowned king.

The room itself exuded luxury, adorned with plush, opulent carpets that beckoned with every step. Artistic decorations made of Ivory and gold hung on the walls. Delicate curtains blocked the large windows on the walls and helped in regulating the lighting in the room.

A long rectangular table was placed in the middle of the room, surrounded by a total of eight chairs, four on each side. A larger, more opulent chair was placed at the head of the table, indicating that it was the king. Smaller seats were also in the room for the supporting staff.

As the King entered the room, only two of his guards followed him in, and they proceeded to close the door behind them. One stood guard at the door, while the other, more bigger guard, followed the king in.

As Rudra Deva, came to the head of the table, he looked around the room and sighed to himself internally. All the people he required were present there, but his issue was the room itself. It was too grand for his liking. He preferred a simpler and less costly approach to room decoration, but alas, he is a king now, and it comes with maintaining status.

"Please, sit down everyone." he conveyed to the people in the room, who were staring at him, waiting for him to make the next move. It was a simple court etiquette to wait for the king to have a seat first.

"I am thankful that everyone has arrived at this meeting at my request. I know that the regular court proceedings have come to a halt in the last three months, due to some unfortunate circumstances," he said, referring to the absolute bloodshed that had happened.

"It also doesn't help that most of the members of the previous court sided with the wrong king. But I am sure you all are a wonderful bunch, and nothing like that will happen again." Rudra heard himself say with a smile, to the tense gathering before him.

Being reminded of those memories again, a few members shuddered. They had not been the subject of it, but they had heard the tales. Seeing the people who held such influence getting wiped off the face of the earth was a chilling feeling.

"Of course, your majesty. We are your most loyal followers," replied Vasudhana, a middle-aged man, with a balding head, and a portly body. 

"Of course, Vasudhana, as expected you gave a diplomatic answer. Well, we don't want to waste any time now, shall we? I have already met with each one of you, and we have discussed your upcoming roles. I am sure you also know most of your colleagues in this Royal Advisory Council." Rudra said as looked around each member of the eight-person council. 

The court writers had begun to write down everything that was being said in the meeting, to have a record to fall back on. Rudra implemented it after he got to know that, he lost a lot of information about the matters of the kingdom, by killing the members of the previous court. 

There were only a few written records that were available on what was happening, and Rudra didn't intend for it to happen again. Having typewriters would easily solve this problem, but he had to make do with people manually writing things down on Palm leaves for now.

"Vasudhana, let's start with yourself, you are one of the faces people don't get to see that often," he said to the older man, who had spoken previously. Despite his less-than-fortunate appearance, Vasudhana was a sharp individual, who knew how to use people.

"Greetings everyone. Greetings your Majesty. As I'm sure most of you are aware, I served as the main ambassador to the Vijayanagara Empire from our Kingdom. His Majesty had recalled me last month, in light of the.. change of personnel here at the capital." Vasudhana said to the other people gathered in the room.

"He will be serving me as the chief advisor of foreign affairs. I'm sure some things will be different from now on, now that I'm in charge, and Vasudhana's job is to make sure things are going smoothly with our neighbors and other foreign actors." Rudra added and prompted the next council member to continue.

"My name is Kubhera varma. I do not have any experience working for the previous king, but I managed all of our family's accounts." replied a young man named Kubhera. 

Kubhera was the nephew of the former minister of treasury. Although the younger man doesn't have much love for his uncle, he is blessed with the same amazing skill in managing money. It's a pity, he was kicked out of receiving any inheritance from the wealth of the former treasury minister.

Although Rudra will never openly admit that he had the former Treasury minister murdered, he had a suspicion that Kubhera knows. It was never the intention to keep it a secret anyway. Nobody is dumb enough to believe the Banana peel story. 

"It was quite an unfortunate event, what happened to the previous treasury minister. Kubhera here was trained by the previous minister himself. He will be serving me as the chief advisor of treasury and tax. " Rudra explained.

"It's a pity indeed, your majesty. I don't why the old man wanted to eat a banana of all things while climbing that tower. But he always had a habit of getting into things he was not to be involved in, and I have no desire to repeat his mistakes." Kubhera answered back, subtly hinting at the old treasury minister's cause of death.

"I'll have to trust you on that, Kubhera." He replied to the man. Kubhera was the Royal Council's youngest member, only a few years older than Rudra Himself.

"I am sure most of you know this man. Gyaanapetha Acharya was the one who taught me all of my childhood. He is an excellent educator, and that is the reason why, I appointed him the chief Advisor of Education and Schooling." Rudra introduced the council to their colleague and his old teacher.

Acharya looked keenly at everyone in the room, and after being especially critical of the new trade advisor, he joined hands and gave a namaste to everyone. Arrogance was visible in every step he performed.

The man was going to bring problems to him in the future and Rudra just knew it. Guru Sakshat Parabrahma- Guru, the teacher is Parbrahma, the Supreme God, that is what his religion had taught him. And even though Rudra was agnostic, his beliefs still stemmed from that. 

Even though Acharya was very problematic, he was also competent. He sees everyone as beneath him, and he only listens to him because he is a king. Not to mention the misogynistic and casteist remarks he made toward Montra, Selvappan, and others previously.

If not for his capability or Rudra's begrudging respect for him, he would have taken care of the old man in the last purge. The only reason he hired him now, was because normal teachers were too focused on their creed to navigate the world of politics. Acharya meanwhile, excelled in that.

"And this is Nyayapala, the man who will be assisting me in the matters of law. You all may have heard of him in the past few months. He is the one who held a trial for the Machilipatnam overlords and then executed them. He believes that those who throw judgment must also raise the axe that kills." Rudra said, introducing a buff man who was sitting on one of the chairs on his right side.

The man wore black leather, a rare material to make clothes out of, in this area, and sitting in the chair, while menacingly observing everyone. His eyes cast silent judgment on everyone, including Rudra himself.

Rudra then mentioned a tall but thin man, whose skin was extremely tanned, from all the hard work he had done under the sun. " Krushaka used to be a bounded laborer, working the land under my father, but he proved his ability and rose to be the main administrator of the farms under the Royal name. With his invaluable experience in agriculture, he will be advising me on that." 

Krushaka stood up and deeply bowed to everyone, a past habit from when he was a bound laborer and addressed everyone. "I am looking forward to working with all of you. I am not as educated as you, and most of my knowledge is on farm work. So, we will all have to work closely, to ensure maximum productivity."

"A man who is not even educated, and not even from a good caste, but trying to be my equal. Oh, Parameshwara! What have I gotten myself into!" Gyaanapetha Acharya muttered to himself, loud enough that everyone heard it, but silent enough that he could still deflect it.

"If lord shiva was here himself, he would be ashamed of what you said. Aren't you supposed to be an educator? Why can't you teach the poor man yourself, instead of deriding him for that? Or is it that he is a lower caste member than you?" questioned the last unintroduced council member, the outburst pointed at Acharya for his remarks.

The man was Narasimha Chari, the head priest of the Kalika temple, which lay in the capital city of Dharanikota. The man had a full beard, with hints of grey and wore an all-black outfit, made for his priestly duties.

"You are the one to say? Are you even a Brahmin like me? We are the closest things to the gods, and you equate yourself to this barbarian? Not to mention that a woman is sitting at the table, holding a position of equal value as us. If not for me indulging his majesty, I would have never allowed myself to be humiliated like this." Acharya suddenly directed his pent-up anger towards Narasimha, who only defended Krushaka.

The sudden outburst alerted the guards in the room, who began to reach for their weapons, and court writers stopped writing to look at the drama that was about to unfold. Not everyone has the guts to question the king's judgment like that, and anything that was about to happen will be sure to spread like wildfire by the day's end.

"ENOUGH! I will not be undermined in my court. If you have any issues with each other, deal with it later. All of you are in equal positions, and I would not appreciate any such outbursts from either of you. Especially you, Acharya. You had promised me that you will be more accepting, of other advisors, and will not bring your biases here!" Rudra stated loudly at the gathered advisors.

He could have the man killed for such a thing, but what kind of king would he be, if his solution to every problem was the punishment of death? These people all contain their biases, and judging them from a 21st-century POV was not fair to any of them.

He needs to learn how to use his words to deal with such situations. It was already established that he did not avert from any unnecessary bloodshed. Now he can just use the threat of that to control his subjects.

"Now that you have all settled down, I will quickly introduce you to the last three. Narasimha is the cultural advisor, Selvappan is the infrastructure advisor, and the trade advisor is Lady Montra," Rudra said after the room cooled down. 

He knew that it was not fair to the last three, as they did not get proper introductions, but the whole process was just a ceremonial one and all of them knew about each other after they got introduced over the last month.

"Now that, the introductions are over, I will not be going over your job descriptions. I am once again reminding you that you are here to assist me rule more efficiently, and you are not the court ministers like your predecessors." the king instructed them one last time.

"As you may have already noticed, you are only advisors. Your job is to advise me on your respective fields, and while I delegate my responsibilities to you, you will do that to your subordinates. I hope that introductions with your people have gone better than this meeting. You will be closely working with them over the next few years, more than you work with the people in this room." Rudra reminded them of the departments they are in charge of.

While some like Kadhumalla only acted like a coordinator between the military and the government, who was not here as he made sure to keep both of them separate, people like Lady Montra and Nyayapala had whole departments under them. 

"While your job is to maintain the smooth running of the department, you will all be called to discuss any major changes I will be implementing. And I plan on bringing some major changes soon." He said that and let the message sink into the minds of the Royal advisors.

"You are all dismissed for now, but we will continue this in the afternoon. We need to discuss some issues which are heading our way." Rudra concluded and got up and left the room, as the council members stood up.