All important decisions on the peace process or rapprochement between the palace and the parties are on hold for two weeks. "Only after His Majesty comes back," is the familiar refrain in government and palace circles.

Officially, this is an unofficial royal pilgrimage. The king is visiting various holy temples revered by Hindus as sources of spiritual power. But the Nepali monarch is also meeting sources of temporal power in New Delhi.

Whatever the real purpose of the visit, most Nepalis are convinced that King Gyanendra's is not just seeking divine blessings, but also that of India's political leadership. Otherwise why would he go to India twice in nine months, while Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee hasn't been here on a bilateral visit for five years? (He did attend the SAARC Summit two years ago.)

The royal visit also gives the Maoists breathing space to take stock of the past two months. The king, the parties and the government may seem at perpetual loggerheads, but they are fairly clear about what they want to achieve with the peace process.

This is not so much the case with the Maoists. Two Maoist representatives have been going door-to-door for the past month paying courtesy calls. On Wednesday Krishna Bahadur Mahara even went to the bastion of capitalism, the FNCCI, and assured businessmen that his group essentially supported a free market economy.

Mahara's main message to everyone he meets is: "Trust us this time. We really want peace. Help us." However, the leadership has also been telling its cadre to be prepared for a last-ditch do-or-die battle. In large parts of the country, the government is still nowhere to be seen, and local Maoist cadre are getting impatient. They are intimidating party leaders and dissenters, saying, "Just you wait, we'll fix you once the ceasefire is over." Still, there haven't been any major violations of the truce agreement.

While the rightists are giving King Gyanendra the credit for the ceasefire, the Maoists are spreading the word that the army wanted a truce after it figured it couldn't defeat the rebel forces. This is one reason the ceasefire is still fragile and there is residual fear.

In their talks with the parliamentary party leadership, Maoist representatives have been eager to give the impression that they are now as powerful as them. However, when talking to opinion makers and intellectuals, the Maoists also express fears that the king may be springing a trap on them, and solicit support.

Many of the Maoists' internal demands have been rejected outright by the king. For instance, they had insisted that the peace talks be held outside the country, but sources tell us King Gyanendra refused. Similarly, the Maoists want to deal through their trusted Western mediators who have been talking to them over the past three years. But Mahara and Sharma now seem suspicious that the palace may slowly want to jettison the mediators.

India has said it doesn't think third-party Western mediation is a good idea, and our officials could be taking their cue from that. But what is intriguing is that in the past six months, the mediators spent more time in New Delhi than in Kathmandu.

And since King Gyanendra is also going to be in India for the next ten days, that is perhaps where we can expect a breakthrough.