A little over a month had passed since the attack on the Sandalbar clinic.Long enough for Mary's stitches to dissolve into an angry pink line.Long enough for Harrington's office to countersign the armoury ledger, for crates to be opened under a sub-divisional officer's eye, and for the rifles and shotguns to move from grease and straw into Farabi hands.Still nowhere near long enough for anyone's nerves to forget the blood.
The First Class compartment of the Punjab Mail rattled rhythmically, a sound like iron bones shaking in a metal box. Outside the window, the green-and-brown quilt of the countryside blurred past—fields of wheat, scrubland, and the occasional flash of a canal distributary.
Jinnah sat by the window, a file of Lahore High Court papers open on his lap, though he wasn't reading them. Opposite him, Dr. Evelyn Cartwright watched the landscape with the eyes of someone who automatically counted the distance to the nearest hospital. Mary was in the adjacent coupé, resting under strict orders and an entirely unnecessary number of cushions.
"You are quiet, Mr. Jinnah," Evelyn said, turning from the glass. "Are you mourning the loss of your Lahore practice already? It must be difficult, splitting your brain between a barrister's chambers and a frontier outpost."
Jinnah closed the file with a snap.
"The brain," he said, "is resilient. It is the schedule that suffers. But I am not mourning. My chambers are functioning."
"Without you?"
"With my shadow," Jinnah replied. "Mr. Imran Ali."
Ah yes, Bilal piped up from the back of his mind. The NPC you set to 'automate'. How's the code running?
"He is managing exceptionally well," Jinnah told Evelyn. "He drafts, he files, he meets the clients I cannot see. He works with the terrifying energy of a man who believes that if he makes a single typographical error, the floor will open up and swallow him."
"Or that you will fire him," Evelyn noted dryly.
"I have given him no reason to think I am a tyrant," Jinnah said. "I merely told him that accuracy is the only currency I accept. He seems to have taken it as a religious commandment. He is trying to prove himself useful with a desperation that is… frankly, exhausting to watch."
Evelyn gave him a long, searching look. The rhythm of the train filled the silence for a moment.
"You don't understand, do you?" she said quietly.
Jinnah raised an eyebrow. "Understand what, Doctor?"
"That desperation," she said. "You think it's just professional ambition. You think he wants to be you. But for people like Imran—for most people in this country—it isn't about climbing the ladder. It's about not falling off the cliff."
She leaned forward, her linen dress creasing slightly.
"You have always had a net, Mr. Jinnah. Money, family, intellect. Even when you lose, you land on a cushion. Imran knows that if he fails you, he goes back to a grain shop in Gujranwala. That isn't ambition. That is fear."
Jinnah stiffened slightly.
"I provide him opportunity," he said. "What drives him is his own affair."
"It's not just him," Evelyn went on, her voice steady but sharp. "Look at me. You pay me well, you treat me with respect. But do you think a British woman becomes a doctor in the colonies because the path was easy? I was too female for the London hospitals and too educated for the marriage market. I've had to fight for every inch of floor space I've ever stood on. I came to India because it was the only place that would let me cut people open to save them."
She gestured toward the coupé door, behind which Mary slept.
"We don't serve you because you are a genius, Mr. Jinnah. We serve you because you are the first man who offered us a ship that looked like it wouldn't sink."
Jinnah looked at her—really looked at her—seeing not just the efficient physician, but the years of closed doors and cold corridors behind her eyes.
He inclined his head slowly.
"Then," he said, his voice softer, "I am the one who should be thankful. If it were any other employer, you would likely be on this train heading back to Bombay by now, leaving me to manage my own madness."
"Likely," she admitted, a small smile touching her lips. "But you are stubborn, and I suppose I am too. Which brings me to my next point. Safety."
The smile vanished.
"I am going back," she said. "Mary is going back. But I will not pretend I am not afraid. Those men in the clinic… the look in their eyes wasn't just theft. It was violation."
Jinnah reached into the travel bag on the seat beside him. He pulled out a small, polished wooden box and slid it across the table.
"Open it," he said.
Evelyn undid the latch. Inside lay a Webley service revolver, compact, heavy, and smelling of gun oil.
"There is another, its twin, in the estate armoury," Jinnah said. "Crated, numbered, tagged for Nurse D'Souza the moment she is cleared to work. From this moment on, you are not merely medical staff. You are officers of the estate. You will carry them."
Evelyn stared at the metal. "I am a doctor. I fix holes; I don't make them."
"You are a doctor in a war zone," Jinnah said. "And until we have civilized the district, you will carry the means to say 'no' effectively."
Security patch installed, Bilal narrated. Class upgrade: Battle Medic.
"Furthermore," Jinnah continued, ticking points off on his fingers, "the protocol for the clinic has changed. No more open doors. No more trusting the queue."
He leaned in, his gaze intent.
"One: a Farabi—armed with a rifle, not a lathi—will stand inside the clinic room during all hours of operation. Not in the yard. In the room. Just inside the door."
"That violates patient privacy," Evelyn objected.
"He will stand with his back turned," Jinnah countered. "But he will be there. Two: if the patient is male, he does not enter alone. A Farabi accompanies him to the stool and stands over him. If he twitches toward his waistband, he will be on the floor before you can drop your stethoscope."
"And the women?"
"Women may enter alone," Jinnah said. "But their bundles are checked at the gate—by Farabi wives, not by men."
He went on, matter-of-fact:
"The housing project is complete. The Farabi quarters behind the Bungalow are finished. Their families have moved in. They are no longer sleeping on verandahs; they are defending their own homes."
"And the water?" Evelyn asked, ever the pragmatist. "If we have families, we have cholera risk."
"The filtration tanks are active," Jinnah said. "One at the main Bungalow, one at the Bhagatpur stronghouse, one at Chak 17-M. We've had a month to flush the lines; the water is running clear."
He tapped the file on his lap.
"As for your pharmacy: we have secured a supply of quinine, antiseptic, and bandages sufficient for six months. Ordered through Lahore, consigned to the estate. It should already be somewhere behind us on a goods train."
Supply drop incoming, Bilal murmured.
Evelyn sat back, the tension in her shoulders easing slightly. She closed the revolver box.
"You have been busy," she said.
"I have been securing the perimeter," Jinnah replied. "We were caught napping once. In these past weeks the estate has been awake."
He looked out the window. The train was slowing; the landscape was shifting from the fertile central Punjab to the dustier scrub of Montgomery.
"There are now fifty strong men on the estate," Jinnah said quietly. "And enough rifles and shotguns from that consignment to put forty of them behind a barrel if needed. They are drilling in rotations. The stronghouses are manned day and night."
Zone control achieved, Bilal whispered. At least on our square of the map.
"The word has gone out," Jinnah told her. "The zaildars know. The gangs know. For a month they have been testing the fences with rumours and finding only stone. Sandalbar is no longer a soft target. Any bandit group that wishes to look in our direction will need more courage than they possess. We are not just a farm anymore, Doctor."
"No," Evelyn said, resting her hand lightly on the wooden box. "We are a fortress."
"We are a state," Jinnah corrected her, his eyes reflecting the passing telegraph poles. "We are just waiting for the rest of the map to acknowledge it."
The train whistle blew, a long, mournful sound that cut across the darkening sky, announcing their return to the front lines.