That night, the library felt smaller than usual.
The books were the same. The lamps were the same. The maps on the table still showed canals and chaks in neat ink. But the air had changed; it carried the faint metallic taste of a man about to cross a line he had spent his life pretending did not exist.
Madhu stood just inside the doorway, shawl over his shoulders, bare feet silent on the carpet. Varun waited outside as before, a shadow on the other side of the wood.
Jinnah remained seated behind the desk for a long moment, fingers resting on the map between Hayat Khan's lands and Ratan Singh's.
"You did what I asked," he said at last. "You watched. You followed. You showed me the path from burnt looms to their courtyards."
"And now," Jinnah went on, "they must learn that the jungle they hire can also turn on them."
Bilal stirred in the back of his mind, dry and alert. This is the part where you admit law is too slow and too blind to hit the men at the top. So you borrow the jungle's teeth for one night.
Madhu's eyes narrowed, curious. "Tell me, Janab. What do you want done?"
Jinnah did not rush his words.
"You will go to Ratan Singh first," he said. "Not with fire. Not with knives. With humiliation."
Madhu's lips twitched. "That, I can afford."
"You will take your men to his dera in the second part of the night," Jinnah said. "After the lamps are out, before the dawn prayers. You will beat him and his armed men—hard enough to make them remember, not hard enough to kill. No broken skulls. No missing limbs."
"His servants? His women?" Madhu asked.
"No innocent is to be touched," Jinnah said sharply. "No women. No children. No old men. If you harm so much as a maidservant, whatever stands between you and the law now will vanish."
Madhu inclined his head, accepting the rule.
"Then?" he prompted.
"Then," Jinnah said, "you will tie him and his men in the village square. Ropes, not chains. Faces uncovered. Let the weavers and tenants see their lion lying in the dust for once."
Madhu's eyes glittered.
"And after that?"
"After that," Jinnah said, "you go to his granary. You take grain. Not all of it—enough to hurt, not enough to starve his villages. Load it on carts. And you move it."
"Move it where?" Madhu asked, though his smile was already forming.
"Hayat Khan's barns," Jinnah said. "The main one. The one he swears he guards like his own honour."
Bilal chuckled softly in his mind. Oh, this will hurt more than any bruise. Grain is pride. Reputation. Tax. You're not just stealing food; you're stealing the story they tell about themselves.
"You will leave traces," Jinnah continued. "Not clever ones. Obvious ones. Marks in the dirt from Ratan Singh's carts. A broken jute sack near Hayat's wall. One of Ratan's men's turbans dropped on the path. Enough that even a lazy darogha half-asleep on bhang can follow it."
Madhu frowned. "They will say I did it," he pointed out. "They will always say I did it."
"They already do," Jinnah said. "I am not asking you to fix your reputation. I am asking you to make their alliance cost them something. Right now they use men like you as tools. Tonight you show them that tools can decide where they cut."
Madhu considered this in silence, the muscles in his jaw working.
"And what of Hayat Khan?" he asked. "He will scream that he is innocent."
Jinnah's mouth thinned.
"Let him explain to the authorities," he said, "why his barns are suddenly full of grain traced from his neighbour's carts, the morning after his neighbour was beaten senseless in the square. Let him compose that legal argument. I look forward to hearing it."
Bilal's voice slid in, sardonic. You're basically staging a mock trial with ropes and grain instead of wigs and affidavits. Barrister's revenge.
"And the law?" Madhu pressed. "If someone dies?"
"No one dies," Jinnah said. "That is the condition. If you kill a man, you hand Hayat and Ratan a martyr and the Government a rope. We are not building martyrs. We are handing out lessons."
He leaned forward.
"You are not to burn houses," he said. "You are not to harm anyone who does not carry a weapon. Do you understand me, Madhu? This is not your usual work. This is surgery."
Madhu's gaze sharpened.
"Surgery hurts too," he said. "But… I understand."
He straightened.
"When do you want the lesson taught?"
"Tonight," Jinnah said. "Before anyone has time to move grain or hire other shadows."
Madhu nodded slowly.
"As you wish, Janab."
He turned to go.
"Madhu," Jinnah said suddenly.
The bandit stopped, hand on the doorframe.
"If you enjoy this too much," Jinnah said, voice low, "we stop. If you start taking your own revenge under the cover of mine, we stop. You are earning a different kind of debt tonight. Do not squander it."
Madhu looked back over his shoulder, expression unreadable in the lamplight.
"I have my own list of crimes," he said. "I do not need to add yours to make it longer."
Then he slipped out into the corridor and vanished into the dark with Varun.
The library was quiet again.
You know this is extra-legal, Bilal said.
"Yes," Jinnah replied.
And that if anyone connects you to it, they'll say, "See? Give a barrister an estate and he becomes just another princeling with pet bandits."
"Yes," Jinnah repeated.
And we are still doing it.
Jinnah's hands closed briefly into fists, then relaxed.
"We are," he said. "Because sometimes the law needs to be reminded that fear is not a private monopoly of the powerful."
"Be quiet," Jinnah said. "We have work to do in the morning."
The night belonged to men like Madhu.