In the morning, royal soldiers riding on the horse were knocking at the doors of the houses. They had been tasked to inform every single person in the capital to come to the central square in the afternoon. The soldiers moved through each street and alley, not leaving a single house in the city, uninformed.
After the guards left, the people started discussing among themselves, "What do you think today is? Why would prince all us at the square?" the old man asked a person, who was in the royal service.
The person tried thinking hard "umm… today is no festival, neither some special occasion. I think it must be some important announcements the prince want to make. Except that I can't think any other reason."
Another person joined them, "Hmm, I too think its some announcement, anyway, who is coming with me to check on that palace early"
Some curious individuals joined the third person and they left for the central square.
When they reached the central square, their eyes wide open as they gazed at the square. They can't recognize it anymore. "Hey when you have last seen the square"
"I saw it yesterday morning while going to the palace it was perfectly normal at that time." replied the official
"This means they built the three raised platforms in half a day" another man commented.
"No, I think they must have worked whole night or how could you create three platforms"
"But, what is the purpose of these? if there was one platform that would be for the prince but the other two, who are those for?"
A soldier passing them heard them, he turned to face them and said "today is a very special program and many dignitaries of the kingdom would take part and it would be a memorable event. Now leave this place, let us do our work and come back later"
Soldier got back to work only after making sure that the group of people had left.
…
Eric followed by his bodyguard group left the palace. He wanted to reach their early and check the arrangement for his very first public meeting.
Noon was still an hour later, In the blazing sun, people started filling the square. Their faces were full of excitement about what was to come. They had heard that it would be very entertaining and many important guests will arrive.
They observed a carriage trimmed with the golden and silver lines stopped a few paces away from the leftmost platform. Some of them had seen the carriage earlier and made others aware about it. It was the carriage of the prince.
The bodyguards of the prince came behind the carriage on their horses. Eric got down the carriage and climbed on the wooden platform. A satisfied smile formed on his face, "You were right Evans they really made it within a day. Eric then inspected the crowd, there was time for the main event but the square was already half-filled.
He hadn't expected this many people and there was one more hour for the event, many more people would come and then there would not be any more space. It was too late to move it from here to another place.
He gazed at Evans, Evans was counting the number of people like a child, "Eric I think people took your announcement very seriously. In previous events usually, the square area was just half filled. But today it looks like roads had to be blocked."
Eric nodded in agreement, "Evans send someone to chief Kipler for more soldiers. Controlling the crowd with just a hundred soldiers would be impossible." Evans nodded and signaled his assistant.
The inflow if people never stopped and within an hour the square was crammed up with people. There was no space for movement.
The soldiers took the remaining wooden logs and blocked the three roads and helped the people free up some space.
"What kind of incentive have you promised to people that nearly half of the city arrived here. Did you made some mistake or the guards spread false information?" Evans inquired.
"Well actually, I wanted a large gathering. So, I asked Adney for suggestions. He told me to spread the news that there is an enjoyable entertaining event about to happen" Eric answered.
"Was your brain really in the right place. I think you need to visit the healers. What is entertaining about this event? See there, they had even brought their children. Do you think people would come again to any event after this if it doesn't satisfy them?" Evans said rolling his eyes.
"Why are you agitated, we will find some way to make it entertaining. You don't need to worry about anything." Eric said.
"You mean within half an hour you would do it-" Evans wanted to lash out on Eric but his assistant disturbed him, the reinforcement he had asked for had arrived. He left Eric alone on the platform and went to instruct the guards.