The return to Sandalbar was not merely a homecoming; it was a revelation.
As the tonga turned off the main canal road, the dust settled to reveal the Canal Bungalow. But it was no longer the cracked, abandoned shell Jinnah had first inspected.
The walls had been reinforced, the crumbling bricks patched and raised a foot higher. The entire structure had been whitewashed, gleaming stark and clean against the dusty greens of the canal belt. A new flagpole and the rising skeleton of the antenna mast gave the place an odd, half-military silhouette.
"Good God," Evelyn murmured, stepping down. "I asked for a clinic, Mr. Jinnah. You appear to have built a fortress."
"In this district," Jinnah replied, adjusting his cuffs, "the distinction is often academic."
Mary, still moving carefully and complaining about stitches, was shepherded firmly to a small side room with a charpai, where Evelyn and the house helper ordered her to lie down "for once in her life".
They walked through the Bungalow. The main hall was swept and organized. The room designated for the clinic now held a proper examination table, a cabinet with glass doors for instruments, and—most crucially—two sturdy patient beds in the side room for observation, with clean linens and mosquito nets.
"Proper furniture," Evelyn noted, running a hand over a bed frame. "And the roof looks like it won't leak on my patients."
"Ahmed has been efficient," Jinnah said. "He understands that I do not pay for excuses."
Base upgrade complete, Bilal murmured. Visuals improved. Morale bonus active.
Before they could inspect the wireless room, a commotion at the clinic door drew their attention.
Krishan Chand was standing there, looking anxious. Beside him stood a man in ragged clothes, holding a bundle wrapped in a frayed, dirty blanket. The bundle was shivering violently.
"Doctor-mem!" Krishan called out, relief washing over his face. "Thank God you are here."
He nudged the man forward. The blanket shifted, revealing a child—a boy of perhaps five years—his eyes rolled back, teeth chattering with the rattling chill of high fever.
Evelyn didn't ask a single question. She didn't ask who they were or where they came from. She simply pointed to the examination table.
"Put him there," she ordered. "Now."
As the man laid the child down, his hands trembling almost as much as the boy's, Evelyn stripped back the blanket.
"Mary is not here," she snapped over her shoulder. "Jinnah, water. Krishan, keep the father out of my light."
Jinnah handed her the water without a word. As Evelyn began her work—checking pulses, dampening a cloth—Krishan gently took the father by the arm.
"Come," Krishan said softly. "Let the lady work. Come outside. The Barrister-Sahib will listen."
The Story of Madho
Outside on the verandah, a Farabi guard named Varun—a tall, broad-shouldered man with a scar disappearing into his beard—brought a metal tumbler of water.
The man drank it in one desperate gulp, water streaming down his dusty beard. He looked like a creature hunted to the edge of endurance: lean, wiry, eyes darting constantly toward the clinic door.
"This is Madho," Krishan said quietly to Jinnah. "He is from beyond the station line, in the scrub. He is… one of the men I spoke of."
Jinnah stood by the pillar, watching the man.
"You are a bandit," Jinnah stated. It was not an accusation, merely a classification.
"I am an outlaw, Sahib," Madho said, his voice rough. "There is a difference. I do not loot the poor. I do not touch women."
"The law," Jinnah said, "rarely appreciates the distinction."
"The law?" Madho laughed, a broken, bitter sound. "The law is what the Zaildar says it is."
He looked at his empty hands.
"I had land, Sahib. Not much. Four acres. The harvest was bad two years running. I could not pay the lagan. I went to the Zaildar to beg for time."
His jaw tightened.
"He said he would forgive the tax," Madho whispered, "if I sent my sister to work in his haveli. We know what work that is. I refused. That night, his men came to drag her away. I beat two of them half to death with a shovel and took my family into the jungle."
Jinnah listened, his face impassive.
"And now?"
"Now the police hunt me for assault," Madho said. "And the Zaildar hunts me for revenge. We live in the scrub. We eat what we can find or steal from government godowns. But the fever…" He glanced toward the clinic door. "The fever does not care about my pride. My boy is dying, Sahib."
Classic cornered-animal scenario, Bilal noted, somber. System failure leading to radicalization. This is the origin story of half the insurgents in history.
"You remind me," Jinnah said slowly, "of a story from this very soil. Do you know of Dullah Bhatti?"
Madho blinked, surprised. "The hero? From Akbar's time?"
"He was a bandit too, in the eyes of the Mughal court," Jinnah said. "He fought against the tax collectors. He protected the girls of Punjab from being sold."
He stepped closer.
"You think you are fighting the British Empire, Madho. You are not. The King in London does not know you exist. You are fighting a local tyrant who uses the Crown's stamp to cover his own sins."
Madho looked down. "It makes no difference to my neck, Sahib."
"It makes a difference to mine," Jinnah replied.
The clinic door opened. Evelyn stepped out, wiping her hands on a towel.
"Malaria," she said grimly. "And severe malnutrition. His little body has no reserves left. I've given him quinine and something to bring the temperature down, but without food he'll have nothing to fight with. He's starving, Jinnah."
Jinnah turned to Varun, the Farabi guard standing at attention nearby.
"Varun," he said. "Go to the stores. Bring a sack of wheat flour and a bag of lentils. And a blanket."
Varun did not move.
Jinnah frowned. "Did you not hear me?"
"I heard you, Sir," Varun said. His posture was rigid, his eyes fixed on Madho. "But I know this man."
Madho looked up, recognizing him for the first time. He shrank back slightly.
"We served in the same regiment in the War," Varun said, his voice hard. "France. 1916. He was a good soldier then. But he deserted the path, Sir. He chose to become a dacoit. A thief."
Varun turned his eyes to Jinnah.
"Sir, we are here to protect the estate. To protect honest tenants. It would be a waste of your resources—grains meant for our people—to feed a man who lives by breaking the law."
The silence on the verandah was sudden and absolute.
Here it is, Bilal warned. Internal conflict unlocked.
Jinnah looked at Varun. He did not look angry. He looked precise.
"You are a Farabi, Varun," Jinnah said softly. "Are you also a judge?"
Varun blinked. "Sir?"
"Are you a magistrate?" Jinnah continued. "Have you heard the evidence? Have you examined the witnesses? Are you empowered to pass sentence?"
"No, Sir," Varun said, unease creeping into his stance. "But—"
"Then do not presume to execute a verdict of starvation," Jinnah said, his voice cutting like a razor.
He pointed at Madho.
"This man fought for the same King you did. He dug trenches in the same mud. The difference is that when you came home, you found work. When he came home, he found a Zaildar trying to sell his sister."
Varun's eyes widened slightly. He hadn't known.
"Every man," Jinnah said, "is capable of falling if the ground is pulled out from under him. And every man deserves a chance to stand up again before we bury him."
Varun stood stiffly, wrestling with it.
"Sir," he said, his voice lower. "When you hired us… you told us to follow our conscience. You said: 'Refuse orders that are unlawful or wrong.' My conscience says… helping a criminal is wrong."
He's using your own code against you, Bilal noted. Smart man.
"Your memory is excellent," Jinnah said. "But your application is flawed."
He stepped closer.
"Conscience, Varun, requires context. To feed a murderer so he can kill again is wrong. To feed a starving child and a father who was forced into the jungle to save his family's honour—that is not wrong. That is justice. The law is not just a stick to beat people with. It is also a shield. If the Zaildar broke the law first, then this man is not a criminal. He is a victim."
He held Varun's gaze.
"I will decide the policy of this estate. You will enforce it. And the policy is: we do not let children die because their fathers have enemies. Now, get the grain."
Varun stood frozen for a heartbeat. He looked at Madho—really looked at him—and saw not a story about a deserter, but an exhausted, terrified father. He saw the ragged clothes that barely covered the frame of a man who had once worn a uniform like his own.
The rigidity left his shoulders. He saluted—sharp, crisp.
"I… apologize, Sir," Varun said. "I did not understand the situation. I will bring the supplies."
He turned and marched toward the storehouse.
Madho let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for years. He fell to his knees, reaching for Jinnah's feet.
"Sahib—"
Jinnah stepped back quickly, distaste flickering in his eyes.
"Stand up," he ordered. "I do not want your worship. I want your conduct. You will take the food. You will feed your son. And when he is well, you and I will talk about how a man with your skills can stop running and start working."
Madho stood, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "I will wait, Sahib. I will wait."
As Varun returned with the sacks, dragging them heavy across the floor, Bilal spoke up in the quiet of Jinnah's mind.
You realize what just happened? he asked.
I realize I have to argue with my own guards to dispense grain, Jinnah replied tiredly.
You just met your first Root candidate, Bilal said. And you just taught your Farabis the difference between obeying rules and upholding justice.
He watched Varun hand the sack to Madho with a nod that was no longer purely hostile.
This, Bilal thought, is just the beginning.