**Chapter 36
The Price of Desperation**
The British came again.
This time, they did not hide their hunger behind pleasantries.
The war had stretched longer than they had promised their own people. Steel vanished faster than it could be forged. Ships sank quicker than they could be replaced. Gold reserves thinned, and credit—once effortless—now came with humiliation.
Surya Nagari felt that desperation before the words were spoken.
The Maharaja received them in the inner council hall, not the ceremonial court. No musicians. No banners. Just stone walls, carved pillars, and a long table that had seen treaties signed and broken over centuries.
The first request was almost polite.
Thirty crore rupees.
For the war effort.
For stability.
For the Empire.
The Maharaja did not answer immediately. He looked toward his son.
The Prince had already calculated the outcome.
"We can extend sixty," the Prince said calmly, his voice steady. "As a loan."
The British officers exchanged quick glances. Relief flashed across their faces before discipline buried it again. Sixty crores meant ammunition. Fuel. Time.
The loan was sanctioned.
Weeks passed.
They returned.
This time, asking again.
Another thirty crore.
"Peace support," they called it.
The Maharaja frowned, but the Prince nodded. Thirty crores were released without ceremony. The British left satisfied, their ledgers temporarily lighter, their war machines breathing again.
Then came the third visit.
And this time, the air in the hall turned cold.
They asked for one hundred crore rupees.
The junior British officer spoke too quickly, too eagerly.
"We are prepared to offer collateral," he said, pushing a folder across the table. "Three islands in the Indian Ocean."
Silence fell.
The Maharaja stared at the papers, then at the officer.
The value was laughable.
Even a child trained in trade would know it.
Five, perhaps ten crore rupees at best.
The Maharaja's hand tightened on the armrest.
Before he could speak, the senior British official cut in sharply.
"That will be enough."
He turned to the Maharaja, bowing slightly.
"Your Highness, forgive the misunderstanding. We come in sincerity."
He replaced the documents.
"We offer not three islands… but a chain of thirty islands in the Indian Ocean."
The Maharaja inhaled slowly.
He knew their worth.
Forty crores. Perhaps a little more, depending on future trade routes.
Still absurd.
Internationally, a loan of one hundred crore demanded assets worth at least one hundred and fifty.
This was not negotiation.
This was coercion disguised as friendship.
"For forty crore property," the Maharaja said coldly, "you ask one hundred crore?"
The British officer smiled thinly.
"These are extraordinary times."
The room fell into negotiation.
Three days.
Three days of argument, calculation, veiled threats, and veiled promises.
The Prince spoke little, but listened to everything.
By the fourth morning, the deal changed.
Land in Hong Kong—strategic, coastal, undervalued due to war fear.
Parcels of industrial land in Britain itself.
Two iron mines in Australia—raw, underdeveloped, but rich.
And the full chain of thirty islands in the Indian Ocean.
In return, one hundred crore rupees.
Even then, the official valuation placed the assets at sixty to seventy crores.
Still unfair.
Still tilted.
But no longer an insult.
The Maharaja's ministers argued late into the night. Voices rose. Tempers flared.
The Prince finally spoke.
"We must give them time," he said quietly. "Allies do not abandon each other in war."
The Maharaja looked at his son, searching his face.
The Prince did not flinch.
The loan was approved.
The British left Surya Nagari relieved—and impressed.
For the third time, the Crown Prince had stood with them.
For the third time, he had saved their pride while feeding their war.
They spoke highly of him in private cables. In London, his name circulated with respect.
Soon after, a message arrived from the British monarchy.
A title.
A carefully chosen honor.
Son of the Lion.
The Prince accepted it with a bow and a faint smile.
What the British did not know—what they could not imagine—was that the Prince was not buying influence for the present.
He was purchasing the future.
He was buying time.
Time for India to awaken.
Time for power to shift.
Time for Surya Nagari to stand unabsorbed, unbroken, unbent.
When independence came—and it would—India would need voices that could not be silenced.
And if India ever tried to swallow Surya Nagari by force, treaties signed in wartime desperation would rise like iron walls.
Only then would the British understand the cost of their loans.
During the negotiations, one detail slipped through almost casually.
The British mentioned Hyderabad.
"Two hundred crores," one officer said lightly. "Unofficial. No documents."
The Maharaja said nothing.
But the Prince remembered.
He remembered how fear loosened purses faster than loyalty ever could.
When the hall emptied and the echoes faded, the Maharaja finally spoke.
"Do you trust them?" he asked his son.
The Prince shook his head.
"No."
"Then why help them?"
The Prince looked out through the stone windows, toward the distant sea.
"Because desperate empires make mistakes," he said softly.
"And mistakes are assets—if you know how to hold them."
The war thundered on.
And Surya Nagari quietly grew stronger beneath it.