Sandhya thanked him, "Thank you Your Majesty and good night to you too."
They all retired to their rooms after a tiring and exhausting day.
In the morning, Adi woke up, and joined the soldiers in their daily routine. After the drill ended, he went back to his room to freshen up. After washing up, he came to the dining area for breakfast.
Here, his mother and the princess had already arrived. Adi apologized, "Sorry for making you wait."
Sandhya replied, "We just arrived too, Your Majesty."
Adi gestured, "It's a relief. Now let's start eating."
Laxmi and Sandhya nodded and they started their breakfast. Soon, the breakfast ended. Adi looked towards Sandhya and asked, " Princess let's talk in my study?"
Sandhya realized that it was time to clarify the matters so she nodded and followed Adi to his study. After they took their seats, Adi asked, "Princess, I am eager to hear you out."
Sandhya replied, "Thank you Your Majesty. So I will start with why I was in the ship. As you know, Magadh is a peace loving kingdom and we don't wage wars. What we excel at is business and trade.
Be it a maritime trade or through land, we excel in all. We have many merchant groups thriving in the kingdom. Their branches are in every kingdom. The Royal Family also owns a group knows as the Royal Magadh Merchant group. We deal with a variety of items from all the sectors.
But, one of the factor of having good maritime trade is to explore different sea routes. Our ships regularly explores different routes. I had participated in some exploration before but none too far. This time, a crew was going to explore another route and I decided to join in.
At the start, the voyage was smooth. The sea was calm and weather was pleasant. Halfway through, we started encountering storms. The waves were too high. With difficulty we steered through it.
But the situation remained same for many days. The storm stopped a couple of days back, but we were lost. We then traveled in random direction and found the land here.
As we were stuck in storm for several days, the rations and supplies have been exhausted. So we wanted to re-fill it and get back."
Sandhya finished her side of the story in one go and heaved deeply. She then focused on Adi who was hearing her with all his attention.
He was a charming man. He looked easy going up till now and had a pleasant personality, unlike what is generally found in nobles, no less the Royal ones. This astonished her very much.
Adi heard her story with all his attention and he now had a general picture of it. He could believe her story to some extent as she did not had much knights in the ship except her four guards and the chief guard.
Also, her ship was slightly damaged like in the mast. So it seemed true that it had gone through some rough weather. He then asked her, "I have now got some clarity in your matter. So, what all items do you need Princess?"
Sandhya replied, "We don't need many things. We just need some food and rations as it has been depleted. We also need some wood for repairing the ship."
Adi nodded, "No problem, we can provide these items. I will ask my men to transfer food so that you stock it up and the wooden logs too. If you need help in repairing the ship, I will have some men help you all."
Sandhya was delighted, "That will be great. Thanks a lot for your generous help, Your Majesty."
Adi waved, "It's nothing big. We should all help others if we can. So, now this matter is over, I will like to ask what do you plan on doing now?"
Sandhya shook her head, "I don't have anything for now Your Majesty. The repairs will take a few days and I am no expert in it. I will be mostly idle here."
Adi nodded as expected this to be the case. He had something brewing in his mind so he asked, "How about I take you to a tour around my territory?"
Sandhya replied enthusiastically without thinking, "I agree. I have nothing to do and it will be a great pleasure to have Your Majesty show me around."
Adi was a little taken aback by her enthusiasm. But as he could not think of the reason, he shrugged it off. He invited her, "Come Princess. I will show you around."
Adi lead Sandhya out of the castle and took her to show the Noble district first. Here they could see the whole district. Adi introduced, "Princess, this is the Noble district of Rai.
You may have known that Rai was originally built up by the ancestors of Kalinga Royal family, which means my ancestors too. At that time, Rai was very prosperous. You could imagine the height of prosperity by seeing these thirty Duke level estates."
Sandhya nodded in astonishment as she could understand what Adi was implying. A Duke level estate was different from other estates.
In the continent of Gandhar, every Noble had a limit to the size of estate they could have which depends on their title. Every noble title had different estate limit, from the smallest Baron to the highest Duke or Prince residence. The estate limit also changed according to the current title. The estate limit only extended to two generations.
For example, Suppose if a person is a Duke and his Son gets demoted in title, then the grandson of Duke's Son has to change his estate unless he gets promoted back to Duke.
Also, Dukes were very small in number in every kingdom. If at present, one adds up all the Dukes from all the kingdoms in Gandhar, then it won't exceed fifty. So to have thirty Duke level estates in a single province/state was an eye opener and it indicated the level of prosperity of yesteryear.
Sandhya could imagine the peak times Rai had seen. Adi then took her to the estate which was used as makeshift school. As the emergency was over, everything was back on track.
When they got closer to the classroom, they could hear a lady teaching math. Sandhya was little surprised as she could identity the voice as Queen Mother Laxmi's voice and her curiosity grew.
Adi took her near a window from where the peeked inside so as to not disturb the class. Here, Sandhya could see children who were being taught by Laxmi, and she was sure that they were not the children of Nobles.
She could not understand it. With a face full of confusion, she looked at Adi.
Adi looked at her expression of doubt and confusion and explained to her, "They are the children of the residents here. In Rai, we have started a program to make sure that everyone is a literate.
We will ensure that everyone is able to at least read and write and do basic calculations. This will help them avoid getting cheated. We currently teach children in the morning and the adults are taught in the evening after they complete their work. My mother is currently the leading the program and also is the Minister of Education."
Sandhya looked at Adi with wide eyes in astonishment. What she heard has never been done in the whole Gandhar. Teaching commoners and peasants was already a big radical thing.
But to ensure the whole population to be literate was mind boggling. It was unprecedented and a mammoth task for any kingdom. She looked at the children and the teacher, Queen Mother Laxmi. This was also a very rarely seen sight were the highest Royalty was teaching the lowest commoners.
Also, the objections from the Nobles will also have to be taken in consideration. The Nobles always believe the commoners to be lesser than them and will not allow this privilege to be given to them.
Personally, Sandhya didn't treat others as lesser or in disdain. But the Nobles are to be taken seriously since their objection and anger may have disastrous implications.
Adi could see the roller coaster of emotions on Sandhya's face. He wanted to laugh but held back so as to maintain his image. He decided to shock her a little more so he composed himself and said, "We will not just teach them the basics. We will also teach them special skills of Blacksmithing and Healing."