283 Who is the Fool?

Himprayag

Wasn't Rudradev touted to be Prince Mithilesh's man? Then, why hadn't he acted on behalf of the prince till now? From day one, he had extended a helping hand towards Bela and him, who were with the enemy camp. If nothing else, he should have at least asked the prince to hurry back to Himprayag instead of wasting his time in Chandragarh. Was he a closeted Chandragarh patriot? Were things as simple as that?

Shaurya realized that all his doubts were starting and ending with the same person. Coincidence?

With a troubled mind, he decided to spend the night at the lodge instead of heading back to the palace.

Prithvi's house, Chandragarh

It had been more than sixty minutes since Bela began her 'work' on Suryakant. Initially, the guy had managed to hold in the pain bravely but Bela kept slicing off the meat off his stomach, methodically, centimetre by centimetre, with that blunt, now thickly coated with blood, knife. Since it had a thick edge to begin with and now had an extra coating on it, it was becoming tougher to get the skin off. As a result, each place needed to be slashed more than one time.

After a while, Suryakant's blood curdling screams began to challenge the sound proofing of that shed. Not that it made any difference to Bela. Neither was she distracted by his screams nor by his taunts.

Taking a break after a while, Bela stood up and stretched her muscles, roaming her eyes on the masterpiece in progress. Suryakant was in a spread eagle position and his limbs were tightly tied in all four corner, respectively. There wasn't a lot of blood on the floor yet because Bela had only sliced off the first layer of his skin. Suddenly, the guy who had been groaning in pain, started to laugh.

There was an eerie quality to his laughter, making him look like a maniac.

"You made me lose my bet, woman. I am so disappointed in you," Suryakant said after a moment.

Bela gave him a cursory glance before reaching for the various jars and vessels kept on the shelves in the room. She had never been to Prithvi's house before and was really curious to explore every inch of the place. Unfortunately, she was short on time.

Suryakant waited a beat for her to ask him about his cryptic remark but she didn't seem interested. Had it not been for the absolute quiet in the room, he would have assumed that she didn't hear him.

"You can try and remain high and mighty for a bit longer. Once, the poison starts spreading across your limbs, you won't be able to lift even your finger, forget trying to torture me. I hadn't thought that it would be this easy to trick you, second time round. Did you really not learn anything during the past twenty years," after dropping the bombshell, he kept mocking her.

Seeing Bela still not respond, he frowned and said, "What? Do you think that I am lying? Let me tell you – I was the one who planned that scuffle. My men had been keeping an eye on you and your movements during this time. While you were busy 'saving me', I managed to prick you with a special poison. In fact, I am surprised that you have managed to stay upright till now. I guess the dose administered was a little less. Guess it's my folly. I had placed a bet on you not falling for my trap like a ripe apple but you... not only did you not realise the trap, you also brought me into the..."

Both of them moved their eyes towards the door since there was the sound of the door opening. Prithvi came in with a hurried step and looked at his senior critically.

"How are you feeling?" he sounded like a worried mother hen, clucking over her chick.

He was soaked in sweat even in this cold weather but Bela was calm and nodded her head to assure him.

"Did you manage to get it?" she asked him finally.

Prithvi was already moving towards the mortar and pestle which was kept on the right hand side shelf. He brought out the wrapped packet from his kurta's pocket and started to grind it.

His actions gave her the answer but Suryakant's face lost it's earlier bravado. Before he could ask, Bela finally turned to look at him.

"Congratulations, you won the bet! And for the record, you didn't outsmart me that night. It's just that it's easier to kill a snake than a cowardly rat! As for tonight, I may not have sensed the truth at the beginning of the juvenile skit which you prepared for me by the roadside but I became aware of it when you fell conveniently on my shoulder and inserted the poison into me," she said in a lazy voice.

Even though she was showing a casual attitude in front of him, her body had started to feel the effect of the poison some time ago. She had been keeping herself distracted by peeling his skin all this while as she waited for Prithvi to figure out the antidote to the poison.

When she had slipped out of the room to talk to Prithvi, she had sliced the skin along with a bit of her blood from the area where she had been pricked. Finding a cure to her situation was one of the counter measure which Prithvi had referred to. Also, she couldn't have afforded to let the official document which she was carrying, to fall in the wrong pair of hands, and needed to hand it over to her current boss, incase something happened to her.

Prithvi grinned at Suryakant's befuddled expression and gave the crushed herbs to Bela, "Just because of you, I got scolded by the Vaidya. He was not very happy to be woken up at this hour. Anyways, he has sent the message that you will be feeling better within a day or so. He sounded fairly confident. It was smart of you to send your poisoned blood sample along, didi."

Suryakant's gaze oscillated between the two of them with growing horror.