Mandakini Follows Ravidasan into the Treasury turns Mandhakini’s separation from her companions into a covert pursuit that brings a hidden threat to the Chola court into view. Amid a crowd and political factional violence in Thanjavur, she recognizes Ravidasan, follows him through a storm-damaged garden, and witnesses his access to an underground treasury and a secret passage associated with Sundara Chozhar’s sickroom. She comes close to the conspirators’ route into the palace, but stops short of entering it herself.

From the crowd to the pursuit

The episode begins in the confusion surrounding Mandhakini’s arrival at the fort with Poonguzhali and Azhwarkkadiyaan. The Velakkara Regiment is entering as a large crowd surges through the gates. Mandhakini watches the soldiers closely, then follows the crowd rather than the secret route that Thirumalai proposes. When people notice her resemblance to Nandhini, Poonguzhali and Azhwarkkadiyaan try to shield her. The soldiers turn their attention to the disturbance and separate the trio from Mandhakini.

The disorder soon becomes a public clash. Accusations over Arulmozhi Varman’s supposed drowning provoke a Pazhuvoor soldier, and the two groups fall upon each other. Supporters shout competing loyalties to the Pazhuvoor patrons, Sundara Chozhar, the Kodumbalur Velaar, and Thirukkovilur Malayaman. Chinna Pazhuvettarayar’s arrival on horseback abruptly quiets the crowd: people scatter, the Velakkara Regiment moves on, and Pazhuvoor soldiers gather around their commander. In the aftermath, Poonguzhali and Azhwarkkadiyaan discover that Mandhakini has vanished. Their search nearby fails to find her.

Mandhakini has not simply been lost in the crowd. She has noticed Ravidasan moving with it and recognizes him as the man whose presence signals danger. His earlier effort to assassinate Arulmozhi Varman in Ilankai gives her a specific reason for alarm. Her keen eyesight keeps him in view even as the crowd breaks apart; when he and a companion slip into an alley, she abandons the search for her companions and follows. The choice turns a moment of separation into a deliberate act of surveillance.

Through the storm-damaged garden

Ravidasan’s companion is Soman Saambavan, whom the narrative identifies as one of the men seen at the midnight conspiracy in the Thiruppurambiyam Memorial. The two men take narrow streets and paths through a city still marked by the previous night’s storm, passing muddy water and fallen trees. Mandhakini follows without being noticed. The pursuit depends on the contrast between the men’s haste and her ability to keep them in sight: Soman looks around nervously, but neither man detects her.

Their route ends at the wall surrounding Periya Pazhuvettarayar’s palace garden. A large tree, uprooted and broken by the storm, lies against the wall and gives Ravidasan and Soman a way over it. Mandhakini climbs after them. The damaged garden is not merely a setting for their concealment; it supplies the practical means by which the men enter the grounds and allows her to follow without using the palace entrance.

Ravidasan sends Soman to wait while he approaches the palace. Periya Pazhuvettarayar and Nandhini are both absent, but two maids come to inspect the wreckage. Ravidasan speaks to one of them and shows her a ring; she agrees to assist him and later returns with keys and food. Mandhakini cannot hear or understand their exchange. Nevertheless, she stays hidden at a distance and watches, suspecting that Ravidasan is arranging something consequential. The ring, the keys, and the food mark the change from a pursuit across the grounds to a planned entry beneath them.

The treasury and the hidden route

The maid leads Ravidasan to the entrance of the subterranean treasure vault, where the keys open the door. The chamber is dark, and Ravidasan realizes that he has no lamp or torch. After the maid leaves to fetch one, he rejoins Soman and gives him the food, telling him to prepare to spend two or three days in the cavern. Mandhakini remains concealed on a fallen tree, watching from afar. When the men move toward the vault, she shadows them without their knowledge.

Inside, Ravidasan explains the intended timing of the plot. He warns Soman against acting too soon and specifies Friday night, when Sundara Chozhar’s queen will leave him to make her customary visit to the Durga Parameswari shrine. Ravidasan says the king’s lineage is to be annihilated then, and presents the timing as essential to the conspirators’ plans. The exchange changes the meaning of the hidden vault: it is not just a place to shelter or store treasure, but a staging point for an attack directed at the king and his dynasty.

Ravidasan also shows Soman how to reach the vicinity of the royal sickroom. After climbing a wall and looking through a small window, he identifies what lies beyond it. He then presses a circular stone and pushes a square block, causing a passage to open beneath them. Soman is astonished that a subterranean chamber conceals another underground route. Ravidasan says that only Periya Pazhuvettarayar and Nandhini had known of it before, and that Soman now knows as well. The route’s restricted knowledge ties the palace’s inner security to the same household whose garden shelters the conspirators.

Mandhakini at the threshold

When the two men descend, the torchlight fades. Mandhakini emerges from hiding and looks into the opening, even placing a foot on a step, but then withdraws rather than follow them below. Instead, she climbs the wall by the way Ravidasan used and settles at the small window from which he had looked out. From there she sees the garden and the palace complex beyond it. Her pursuit has brought her to the edge of a concealed route into the royal precinct, but the episode ends with her observing from above rather than entering the passage.

The scene’s decisive reversal is that Mandhakini, separated from her supposed escorts and unable to understand the conspirators’ speech, becomes the only observer who follows their movements into the grounds. Her eyesight and persistence compensate for what she cannot hear, while her restraint at the opening leaves the secret passage exposed to the reader without claiming that she has entered it or confronted the men. The storm’s fallen tree first enables the conspiracy’s movement over the garden wall; the same concealment gives Mandhakini a way to track it. The episode thus converts public disorder into private danger: the crowd obscures the conspirators, but it also gives Mandhakini the chance to follow them to the hidden approach to Sundara Chozhar.