Chapter Four: The Art of Losing
Attention arrived quietly.
Not in the form of questions, nor orders, nor letters marked urgent—but as presence. British officials visited the palace more often now. They stayed longer. Their conversations lingered near windows and doorways, never quite directed at the prince, yet never far from him either.
Aryavardhan noticed.
He always did.
They watched how he spoke to clerks.
How he read reports without notes.
How his eyes paused on figures others skimmed past.
None of it was enough to accuse him of anything.
But it was enough to remember him.
That, Aryavardhan understood, was dangerous.
His first investment failed.
Publicly.
It was a modest venture—shares in a shipping auxiliary firm operating near the western coast. The kind of business that seemed safe, obvious, and slightly dull. The numbers suggested caution. The pattern whispered restraint.
Aryavardhan ignored it.
He signed.
Within weeks, freight delays, contract disputes, and rising insurance costs swallowed the capital. Nothing dramatic. Nothing suspicious.
Just loss.
A few officials smiled politely when the news circulated. A few merchants shrugged. His father merely nodded, unsurprised.
"You are young," Rudradev Varma said gently. "Loss teaches more than profit."
Aryavardhan bowed his head.
Inside, he exhaled.
The watching eased.
Not completely—but enough.
The prince was clever, they decided. Educated. Curious. But still human. Still learning. Still capable of mistakes.
Exactly as he wanted.
After that, he moved carefully.
Smaller sums. Short durations. No patterns visible to anyone but himself.
Cotton futures, timed just before seasonal shifts.
Warehouse leases in ports that would soon grow busier.
Short-term supply contracts tied to quiet military procurement.
He did not chase profit.
He followed direction.
The sensation returned—not as strongly as before, but clearly enough. Lines forming where none should exist. Movements aligning across unrelated markets. The world nudging itself forward, step by step.
He listened.
Three months later, the numbers settled.
The initial capital—just over one lakh rupees—had grown. Slowly. Unremarkably. On paper, nothing worth attention.
But when the accounts were finalized, the profit stood quietly at just under five lakh.
Aryavardhan stared at the figure for a long time.
Not in disbelief.
In caution.
That night, he closed every ledger and extinguished the lamp early.
This power—whatever it was—was not a weapon.
Weapons invited challenges.
This was something far more delicate.
If anyone understood what he could truly see—how he sensed the shape of things before they moved—fear would follow. And fear, in empires, always demanded control.
Or destruction.
Standing by the window, listening to the distant rhythm of the sea, Aryavardhan made a decision.
He would never move too fast.
He would never grow too large too soon.
And he would never let the world realize that it was being read.
History was still fragile.
And so was he.