Cittaja || Indian Historical Romance

67.

The idea of disguising as the princes seemed to be more difficult than Mayurakshi had planned. None of them were prepared to catch the accurate mannerisms. While Mayurakshi succeeded on more levels than the others, it was increasingly hard to keep the guise. She had to maintain distance so as not to get caught as a woman. One of the soldiers actually started asking why he smelled feminine perfume. Mayurakshi had to make up an excuse about him being with a girl. It almost sent her into panic mode. Almost all the men in the place were drunk.

Mayurakshi almost cursed them all for their weakness in alcohol and their inability to stay sober. Even Manas was out cold and drunk. Although she and Manas have a lot of problems with each other, Mayurakshi had him sent to a safe place by Karma, who found her while she was trying to exit Rang Bhavan as Shakra. She caught her instantly and then laughed, saying, "I know him for so long that I know he would care less about a victory party when he arrived inside Rang Bhavan looking hungry enough to devour the woman in his arms," and she blushed hard.

It helped that Karma quickly corrected any differences she could easily notice on the outside. Karma brought along some more soldiers into the place to look through the party. Kamal had also returned with some soldiers he trusted closely. To make sure that they weren't alarmed, the number of people who entered was tiny but enough to help them out. Being Shakra's loyal aide, Karma took on the job of keeping most people slightly away from Mayurakshi. It wasn't very hard for her to do that.

The pig skin that she used was making her sweaty and irritable on the inside. Suddenly wearing an upper garment would raise a huge doubt in people's minds, so they went for a bandage around her chest and a pig skin covering to disguise a man's chest. Karma had so many things handy that she almost thanked the gods for having Karma by her side.

It was even harder for Saahiti to disguise himself as a 26-year-old prince. Her personality was hard to hide. She was a woman with a tongue that could easily offend. Even if she knew Abhijit closely, she barely succeeded in disguising himself as him in personality. Veer was surprisingly brilliant at disguising himself as a man.

Four of them were in different spots. Mayurakshi is taking one spot. Saahiti took the second, just a little away from Mayurakshi. Veer took the third spot, almost on the opposite end of Mayurakshi, and the last spot was caught by Kamal. They sat on guard to look for any traces of the invaders.

Saahiti had suggested playing a few traditional sports. The invaders wouldn't know how to play them and would stand out. Kalari was a sport specific to Aryavarta. Parashurama's sport was taught as a lineage sport from guru to shishya in an undisturbed manner. No invader can match up to it. A few of the techniques were almost impossible to enact. Even though drunk, the soldiers were tuned to be able to move the sword in the right way. Adrenaline would shoot up, and they would all have that fight or flight response. The fight response was stronger than the flight one.

That brilliant idea made Karma notice a few of the soldiers going out. No Rajput would ever turn down a challenge. They saw it as an insult to turn down a challenge. Karma caught them quickly. They were captured and kept in Shakra's dilapidated torture building. The ones that didn't leave and had their sights on their prize, the princes, began to get noticeable. They didn't try to volunteer to show their skills, while the others did.

Mayurakshi realized she had to lure them away. She took a break from out there. One of the men started to follow them. Mayurakshi could sense him following.

"Don't you know that it isn't smart to follow Yuvraj Shakrajit alone, even if he's drunk?" Mayurakshi questioned, her tone sounding feminine, making the man doubt.

He turned around to notice soldiers had surrounded him. Karma captured him, put a jute bag around his face, and tied it. Karma had begun to number the bags as she caught them so that they could be reported and known even if someone escaped. But it wasn't as necessary because she started knocking all of them out with a large wooden stick.