Peace did not return to Montgomery; only the silence before a different kind of storm.
While the Zaildars nursed their bruises and grudges, Bilal initiated what he called "PsyOps Phase One."
It began in the tea stalls near the railway station, drifted into the weekly market at Okara, and finally settled like dust in the courtyards of Zaildar Ratan Singh's own village.
The agents were Madho's men—Root operatives—but they wore no masks today. They wore the rough clothes of itinerant laborers, potters, and wandering peddlers.
"It wasn't about the water," a man repairing a wheel in Ratan Singh's village muttered to the stable-hand. "You think Hayat Khan risked a feud just for wheat? He has enough wheat."
"Then what?" the stable-hand asked, leaning in.
"A girl," the operative whispered, looking around as if afraid to be overheard. "A girl from the Lohari gate side. Hayat Khan had his eye on her for a second wife. But they say Ratan Singh used his influence to secure her for his nephew instead."
The lie was planted.
In another corner of the tehsil, another whisper took root: "Hayat Khan is not finished. The grain was just the insult. He is coming back. Next time, he takes the girl back. And he burns Ratan's haveli to hide the theft."
Ratan Singh, a man whose pride was already inflamed by the police investigation into the "stolen" grain found on Hayat's land, heard the whispers from his servants. The grain theft had been an economic blow; this was an attack on his honor.
"He thinks he can walk into my house and take women?" Ratan roared, smashing a clay cup against the wall. "He thinks I am a man of straw?"
The pot boiled over.
Taking Out the Referee
Two nights later, Darogha Shafiq was cycling back from a late inspection at the station—a routine ride he took to collect his weekly envelopes from the gambling dens.
The road near the canal bridge was dark. He never saw the men who hit him.
A lathi struck the front wheel, sending the cycle crashing into the dust. Before Shafiq could reach for his whistle, a sack was thrown over his head.
It was a professional beating. Not lethal, but precise. Knees, elbows, ribs. They stripped him of his belt and his baton.
"This is for taking money from both sides," a voice whispered—a voice that sounded like a generic Punjabi bandit, untraceable. "Next time, stay in the Thana."
They left him groaning in the ditch, his bicycle twisted like a pretzel.
By morning, the news was everywhere: The Darogha was in the hospital with a broken leg and cracked ribs. The police force, leaderless and terrified, locked the gates of the Thana and refused to come out.
The referee had been removed from the field. And crucially, the Darogha believed it was one of the Zaildars betraying him, never suspecting the hand of the Barrister.
The Clash of the Zaildars
With the police paralyzed, Ratan Singh did not wait for Hayat Khan to attack. He struck first.
He gathered fifty men—tenants forced into service, hired lathi-wielders, and a few men with muzzle-loading shotguns. They marched on Hayat Khan's lands at noon, burning the sugarcane standing in the fields.
Hayat Khan was waiting. His men poured out of the village, armed with axes and swords.
It was not a raid; it was a battle.
The two mobs clashed in the open fields between the villages. Shots were fired. Men fell. The smoke of burning sugarcane rose into the sky, a black signal flag visible for miles.
In Montgomery, Commissioner Harrington stood on his verandah, watching the smoke.
"Where is the police?" he snapped at his assistant.
"The Darogha is unconscious, Sir," the assistant said, pale-faced. "The constables say they are outnumbered. They are asking for the Army."
"The Army is in Lahore Cantonment," Harrington shouted. "It will take two days to get a company here! By then, these idiots will have burned half the tehsil."
He gripped the railing.
"We need a force now. A disciplined force. Someone who can stand between two mobs without joining either."
His eyes fell on the map in his mind—on the canal colonies, on the only estate that had been strangely, perfectly quiet for weeks.
"Get me Ahmed," Harrington ordered.
The Call to Jinnah
Ahmed Khan arrived at the Canal Bungalow in the Commissioner's own car, dust trailing behind it like a comet tail.
Jinnah was in the study, reviewing the honey yield ledgers. He looked up as Ahmed burst in, breathless.
"Sir," Ahmed said. "Harrington Sahib requests... no, he begs for assistance."
"The Zaildars?" Jinnah asked calmly.
"Total war, Sir. Ratan Singh attacked Hayat. The police are hiding in the station because the Darogha was beaten last night by... unknown persons."
Unknown persons, Bilal smirked. Nice work, Root.
"And what," Jinnah asked, "does the Commissioner expect me to do? I am a barrister, not a general."
"He asks for the Farabis," Ahmed said. "He knows you have thirty rifles and fifty disciplined men. He asks if you can deploy them—under my command as the Government Liaison—to separate the combatants until the Army arrives."
Jinnah stood up. "He wants to deputize my estate guards?"
"Yes, Sir. He is writing the order now. 'Emergency Auxiliary Police duty'."
Jinnah turned to the window.
This is it, Bilal said. The level up. We stop being a private estate and start being the state's backbone.
"Very well," Jinnah said, turning back. "But on my terms."
"Sir?"
"One," Jinnah said. "My men go under your command, Ahmed. You give the orders to fire, if necessary. I will not have my Havildar accused of murder later."
"Agreed."
"Two: They go in the estate truck, fully uniformed. They do not hide. They show the district what order looks like."
"Agreed."
"And three," Jinnah added, his eyes sharp. "Harrington remembers who saved his district when his own police could not."
"He will not forget, Sir," Ahmed promised.
The Intervention
The truck roared down the canal road, the heavy tires churning up dust. In the back, thirty Farabis sat in two rows, bolt-action Enfields across their knees. They wore the khaki shirts and armbands of the estate.
They looked nothing like the ragged mobs fighting in the fields. They looked like a machine.
When the truck reached the edge of the conflict, the fighting was brutal. Men were wrestling in the mud; shots rang out from behind haystacks.
"Stop!" Ahmed shouted, jumping out of the cab.
No one listened.
"Havildar," Ahmed said, his voice trembling slightly, then firming up. "Deploy."
The Farabis spilled out of the truck. They didn't charge screaming. They formed a line—a classic skirmish line, rifles raised, kneeling in the dirt.
"Load!" the Havildar bellowed.
The sound of thirty bolts racking back in unison was louder than the gunfire. Click-CLACK.
That sound—mechanical, precise, deadly—cut through the noise of the mob. Heads turned.
"By order of the District Commissioner!" Ahmed shouted, his voice cracking with adrenaline. "Disperse! Or we fire!"
Ratan Singh's men looked at the line of rifles. Hayat Khan's men looked at the disciplined faces of the Farabis. They saw men who were not angry. They saw men who were working.
"They have Enfields," someone screamed.
"Fire one volley! High!" Ahmed ordered.
CRACK!
Thirty bullets tore through the air, well above the heads of the mob. The noise was deafening. The fighting stopped instantly.
"The next volley," the Havildar shouted, "will be at knee level. Go home!"
It took ten minutes. The mobs, realizing they were outgunned and out-disciplined, melted away. Ratan Singh and Hayat Khan, realizing the game had changed, retreated to their respective havelis.
The Farabis held the ground. They did not loot. They did not chase. They simply stood, a wall of khaki and steel, imposing peace on a field of chaos.
The Offer of Ten Villages
Two days later, Harrington sat in his office. His face was gray with fatigue. The Army had finally arrived to patrol the towns, but the countryside was still tense.
Jinnah sat opposite him, cool and unruffled.
"Your men," Harrington said, "saved a massacre, Mr. Jinnah. Ahmed's report is... glowing. He says they behaved better than the regular police."
"They are paid to behave," Jinnah said. "And they are led by men who know that discipline is the better part of valour."
Harrington rubbed his face.
"The police are useless right now," he admitted. "Shafiq is in the hospital. His constables are terrified. The Zaildars are in custody, but their villages are... ungoverned. I have a vacuum in the entire eastern tehsil."
He looked at Jinnah. "I cannot put a soldier in every village. And I cannot trust the old Zaildars anymore."
Harrington leaned forward. "Mr. Jinnah, your estate covers three villages. Your system works. Your 'Farabis' are respected—and feared."
"Yes?"
"Could you," Harrington hesitated, then plunged on, "could you temporarily extend your... rural uplift and security scheme... to the neighboring ten villages? Just until the new police force is trained? We would deputize your guards officially. We would pay a stipend for the service."
Jinnah sat very still.
Zone Control, Bilal whispered, his voice vibrating with excitement. He's handing us the keys. He's asking us to annex territory legally.
"Ten villages," Jinnah said thoughtfully. "That is a heavy burden, Commissioner. It would require recruiting more men. More trucks. More logistics."
"We will authorise the recruitment," Harrington promised. "We will provide the petrol. Just... keep them quiet. Keep them from burning each other. If they see your men patrolling, they will stay home."
Jinnah stood up, buttoning his coat.
"I did not come here to run a district, Commissioner," he said. "But I will not let my neighbors burn. I accept the charge. Temporarily."
"Temporarily," Harrington agreed, relief washing over him.
As Jinnah walked out to his car, Bilal was laughing in the dark of his mind.
Temporarily, Bilal echoed. Just like the income tax was temporary. Just like the British Empire was temporary. We just became the Law, Sir.
We just became the State, Jinnah corrected him.
He looked out at the Montgomery sky. The smoke was gone. In its place, the flag of Sandalbar—invisible but heavy—was unfurling over ten new villages.