Heart of Steel (37 page)

“If they plan to starve you out,” Yasmeen said, “it will take awhile.”

“Yes,” Nasrin said. “Supplies from the east are not as plentiful, and Temür did not know if we could make friends with the west. So we prepared to have no friends at all. We have repurposed two of the salt factories into water factories to ease the burden on the river, and have spent years laying the pipes that bring fresh water to every part of the city.”

“It is incredible.”

“It has been much work, but well worth it.”

But Nasrin did not smile in full, and her eyes softened as her gaze swept over the city—almost with longing, Yasmeen thought. A city that wasn't fully hers.

She pointed to a sandstone fortress near the sea. Tall walls surrounded a palace and the great tower, made of red stone and rising tall over the city, impossible to miss. One only had to glance that way, and their vision would be filled with that tower. It looked indestructible, immovable, imposing.

Perhaps Hassan was right. Perhaps such a thing would serve as a constant reminder . . . and even powered down, the fear that it might be turned back on.

“Come in over there,” Nasrin said. “Near the
kasbah
wall, you may tether your ship.”

Near a large section of the city under tents and stalls. “Is that a marketplace?” Yasmeen asked.

“Yes. But please understand—I know that some of the ports to the north are rough, Captain, especially as regards to the treatment of women. I see that there are no women on your crew, and so your men cannot have much practice with them. I ask that, unless necessary, they remain aboard the ship.”

Yasmeen flushed. Because there were no women aboard, Nasrin thought that Yasmeen could not control her crew or depend on them to behave. But she had never been one to offer excuses. “Our supplies have spoiled along the way. If I may send my steward and one other man to restock them, it would be greatly appreciated. I will remind them to be gentlemen.”

“That would be allowed. If they do not speak the language, I will be happy to send a guide to them, so that they might find everything more easily.”

And keep an eye on them. Though Yasmeen bristled, in truth, she knew little of the crew's behavior at port except for what she'd seen in the Charging Bull.

To avoid any trouble at all, an escort might be a very fine idea. “Thank you, Lady Nasrin.”

“Very good. Perhaps you would like to speak with your steward now, while I go and properly greet Hassan. As soon as you have tethered, perhaps you and Mr. Gunther-Baptiste would accompany me to the
kasbah
.”

Such polite orders from a woman who had decided that Yasmeen was a complete barbarian. “We will.”

 

 

The heat was welcome after so much cold. Though not
sweltering, as he'd experienced it before in Rabat, warm enough to soak into skin and bones. He expected Yasmeen to lift her face to the sun after they came down the cargo lift and climbed up into the crawler's box, but the expression that he had seen aboard
Ceres
as she'd spoken to Nasrin—a tight combination of embarrassment, frustration—had given way to the cool amusement that tried to express everything was going her way.

On the padded seat bench behind Hassan and Nasrin, he gave her a searching glance. She met his eyes, gave a tiny shake of her head.

Well, they were not on her decks. He slid his hand into hers, offered the little support he could, and her amusement softened and warmed.

The crawler rumbled lightly and lifted its body from the ground on segmented legs. On its back, their small box of cushioned benches rose too, high enough that the steamcarts and wagons they passed would not belch into their faces. The rounded back allowed them to see over the driver, seated at the crawler's head, offering a perfect view of the green of the city, the blue of the sea—with the war machines and dreadnoughts the only marring.

Temür had rebuilt this into an amazing city. When last he'd been here, all had been yellow from the desert, a city baked and a people who simply lived and worked. But now, almost all of the buildings had been painted in whites and blues, and trees sheltered the streets from the sun. The people no longer looked so downtrodden. Several called up to Hassan with warmth. But on every face, there was still the wary glance, the tight pinch of a mouth—only the children playing seemed to lack it.

The gates in the
kasbah
walls were open, and Archimedes saw no guards. The enormous tower filled up the corner of the courtyard on Archimedes' right. A fountain spilled water on their left. Farther inside, only two guards stood at the palace entrance, and those not heavily armed—and not a single man wore the Horde's walking suit, that machine of steam and steel that could crush a body beneath its massive feet. A masjid had been built at the end of the courtyard, a simple dome and four minarets. He caught Yasmeen's eye. Her small nod said that she thought the same thing: Temür had been working very hard to bring the people to him. Judging by the small number who milled about, they hadn't been coming.

Nasrin turned in her seat. “I have forgotten to tell you, Mr. Gunther-Baptiste—I have greatly enjoyed your stories.”

He was surprised. “You've read them?”

“Of course. We have many of the publications from the New World sent to us, and Temür and I have long followed the adventures of Archimedes Fox. We have missed a few chapters, however.”

Yasmeen frowned. “You knew he was also Archimedes?”

“Yes. We were not certain at first, but in every story, a new brightly colored waistcoat for Mr. Fox was faithfully described as if dictated.” Her laugh was delicate, the ringing of a silver bell. “We knew he could not be anyone else.”

“I thought he didn't know,” Archimedes said. “That the assassins only found me by luck—there were so few.”

“Oh, no. Those are men who Temür deemed incompetent, but for one reason or another, it would have been . . . delicate, to dispose of them. So he sent them to find you, knowing they would not be returning.”

Taken aback, Archimedes shook his head. “That's oddly flattering.”

Yasmeen said, “So it wasn't regarding Archimedes' debt?”

Nasrin's brows lifted. “Archimedes? You use that name at all times now?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

Her gaze slipped to Yasmeen. “And you are Captain Fox. I thought you were untethered.”

Untethered? After a second, Archimedes understood. Nasrin's life was dependent upon Temür's continuing; she wondered if Yasmeen's life was tethered to his in the same way.

“She's not,” he said, but Yasmeen added, “I might as well be,” and he couldn't speak again immediately, so great was the emotion crushing his chest. She had not even said that she loved him yet, not in as many words. But now she declared, so very simply, that his death would be like her own.

It wouldn't be—and thank God for it, because that meant if he was ever killed, she would likely go on a tear of vengeance unlike the world had ever seen.

Nasrin's gaze held Yasmeen's. “Hassan has also been telling me of your journey, and how you came to captain the airship. I offer apologies for my insult.”

“Thank you, Lady Nasrin, but there was no insult taken.”

“You are very kind, and a liar.”

“And you are fully altered.”

The women smiled at each other for a long moment. Nasrin looked to Archimedes again, whose bemusement must have been clear. She said, “It is true. When you are fully altered, you have not much need to use lies as protection—though they are still useful when protecting others. Your name is a lie like that, I suppose, though you hardly needed protection from us.”

“No?”

“Temür was angry after you destroyed the barge, it was true—but we also recognized that sending you out so quickly after you fell under the tower had been
our
mistake.”

“He didn't care about the money?” Yasmeen said doubtfully.

“Of course that would have been of great use to us, but he did not
lose
money. He lost war machines—and as you must see, he already has more than most men could ever use. What are two or three more?”

Like Yasmeen's puddings. Like an extra five thousand livre. Archimedes couldn't ever recall falling into hysterical laughter, but he was afraid it might be coming. His brain felt as if it would soon explode. “So there was no debt?”

“Oh, there was a debt. But it was of obligation, an explanation.” She gave him a disapproving glance. “You ought to have come to us. Every assassin we sent had the same message: come to us.”

Now he did laugh, on a memory of slashing knives, quickly drawn guns. “I never let them get round to it. And I have spent ten years trying to find something of value enough to replace the money.”

“If there was no debt, why did you steal the sketch?” Yasmeen asked. “It wasn't necessary.”

“It was necessary to save his life,” Nasrin countered. “One of those assassins would have eventually killed him. His luck cannot last forever . . . though I suppose with you at his side now, he does not need luck to protect him. And I knew that he would come for the sketch, so Temür and I let others know that we had it.”

“Why didn't you just send him a letter, requesting him to come?”

Nasrin smiled faintly. “A request from Temür Agha is an order—and an obligation fulfilled under order is not one truly fulfilled. So my seeing him in Port Fallow was a happy accident, an opportunity opened to give him reason to come. I took it.”

“Then you weren't there to kill him.”

“Not at all.” She looked to Hassan, and her smile was sharp. “I was only there to see why our friend Hassan was selling his jewelry.”

 

 

That announcement killed any further conversation. Though
Yasmeen could clearly read the resignation on the older man's face, there was not much to be done. Nasrin told them they would meet with Temür Agha after he'd spoken with Hassan and left for his audience with Temür. Yasmeen and Archimedes were escorted through the open, airy palace to a chamber that looked much like her cabin aboard
Lady Corsair
—though with many more pillows, a breeze that blew the silk curtains over the bed, and live birds singing in a small private garden.

“Are they going to kill us?” Archimedes wondered.

“I don't know,” Yasmeen said. “It will all depend on Hassan, you realize.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he was a true friend to Temür?”

“From everything I've witnessed between them, yes.”

Yasmeen smiled faintly. “Then that might make Temür more lenient, or make the betrayal seem that much worse. It is impossible to know.”

A serving girl bustled in, pulled a chain over a large marble tub. A clanking echoed through the floor, and a tile opened, spilling steaming water.

Yasmeen began unbuckling her jacket. “And it appears that if we are going to our executions, we are to be clean.”

“Anything else would be rude. I hope we are also fed,” he said and joined her.

 

 

Though she kissed him in the privacy of their bath, she
dared not lose all awareness and make love. They were fed flaky pastries filled with beef and spices, a peppery stew over couscous, breads stuffed with honey and almonds. Yasmeen tasted each for poison, then for flavor, then his mouth after they drank the mint tea with rosewater.

She dared not do more, so she lay against him on the pillows, thinking of how she might possibly kill Temür if the man
did
intend to execute them. She would have to be quicker than Nasrin, to take the woman by surprise. After Temür was dead, she didn't know how quickly Nasrin would also fall. Hopefully it would be quick. Hopefully, if the woman had time to strike at all, she would only have time to strike at Yasmeen—and Archimedes would live.

“I ought not have come here with you,” she told him.

He frowned. “What?”

She sat up. “We could have left Hassan somewhere safe. We didn't have to bring him back to the city. You know why we did: Kareem al-Amazigh might be here, and I need to kill him.”

“I know,” he said, and her chest squeezed almost to nothing.

Of course, he understood. Like her, he did not live in civilization, not truly. He did not live under the safety of rules and laws. No, the only rules and laws they lived by were their own.

But that also meant that when the seas ate up someone she loved, whether it was in lawless Port Fallow or the Ivory Market, whether it was aboard a ship on the ocean, that there was no one to seek justice. Murder was not illegal in a land without law, and so the only possible recourse for Yasmeen, the only loyalty she could show to her crew was to seek her own justice, to apply her own laws.

That didn't mean they had to be
his
.

“I could have come later,” she said. “I didn't have to risk you. I should have been patient. I understand the
gan tsetseg
now, Archimedes. If the man I need to protect is hurt, a part of me will also die. I don't know if it is beautiful or barbaric, but I
know
it now.”

“Yasmeen.” Roughly, he took his face between her hands and kissed her—and kissed her again. “I will stand behind you. I will
always
stand behind you.”

But he wouldn't, she knew. If anything ever threatened her, he would jump in front and take the first blow. Just as she would for him.

Hours passed. By the afternoon, they heard a growing commotion, of many voices shouting together. They had no view from their chamber, and so Yasmeen climbed quietly to the roof to look over, and saw the courtyard filled with men and women. Together, like this, the effects of the Horde occupation were still shouting as they did: almost every man and woman had been modified by the tools of the occupation. Legs had been altered into lifts or rollers, arms augmented with steel and iron or replaced altogether. But although they shouted, they did not seem angry. Determined, rather—and all of them seemed to be waiting, expectant.