“Without question.” Qhora peered into his downcast face and saw what a feeble sheep of a man he was now that he had nothing to bray about. “Your families were great once, but they were not great because of the blood in their veins or the gold in their purses. They were great because they were people who did great things. They united their people, defeated their enemies, raised cities from the plains, and wielded the law as a warrior wields a sword. If you want to reclaim your country, if you want to reclaim your great names, then you will have to do great things, too.”
The older gentleman smiled sadly at her. “If I was a younger man, I might rush off to fight for riches and power. Heaven knows, I probably would have rushed off to fight just to earn a smile from a young lady as pretty as you. But we are not warriors, not anymore. We are accountants and landlords, bankers and industrialists. We wield pens, not swords. We have no armies, no great war-birds or war-cats at our command. And I fear not even the Lord General himself would raise his hand against the queen. He holds his own honor more dearly than his life. No, I’m sorry, Lady Qhora, but this is no longer a land where revolution has any meaning. Not without the masses, anyway.”
“Then raise the masses,” Qhora said. “They’re hungry and homeless. They’re angry and desperate. Give them a banner, give them a leader, and give them a target. They will be your army. No legion will stand against their own brothers and sisters on the battlefield. Then the queen’s army will become yours as well and you may walk into her palace unopposed and put a proper leader in her place. Someone strong and sensible. Someone with pride in your country, with faith in its future.”
“Like who?” the gentleman asked.
Qhora glanced around the table. “I wouldn’t know, I’m still a stranger here. Perhaps someone like our hostess, Lady Sade.” She saw the lady in question blush demurely.
“And how would one go about such a venture?” the elderly lady beside Sade asked. “Gather our people and walk out into the fields with rocks and clubs? Or shut down our factories and wait for the legions to arrive?”
Qhora shook her head. “I don’t think that would be proper, given the circumstances. You need to publicize your goals before the killing starts. Everyone needs to know what is happening and why, or there will be chaos and your cause will be lost before the fighting even begins.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
The princess said, “A declaration of war.”
Chapter 24. Taziri
A middle-aged woman at the wedding had been quick to praise the Espani doctor and just as quick to spout off the directions to her offices. Over the din of the music, Taziri had asked for them repeated, twice, but as she wound through the city she began to suspect she had gotten the last several turns wrong. A strolling policeman was able to set her right and twenty minutes later she found the grimy number plate of the doctor’s office on a large stone building that appeared much older than the row houses to either side of it.
She pounded on the front door, waited, and pounded again. I’m too late, of course. Everyone’s gone home for the night.
Taziri was about to turn away when she heard soft footsteps echoing inside the building and a few moments later the locks clicked and the door swung open. A young woman with grease-smeared cheeks and dark bags under her eyes smiled politely from the shadowed entrance. “Yes?”
Taziri’s empty stomach twisted into a tight lump. Oh my God, this is her. No, wait, she doesn’t look Espani. “Hi. I’m sorry about the late hour, I wasn’t sure anyone would be here. Are you Doctor Medina?”
“No, I’m one of her assistants. We’re closed for the night. I thought you might be a friend of mine bringing a bit of supper, but I guess I’m going hungry tonight. Again.” She stuck her tongue out and grinned. “Is there something I can do for you, or do you want to come back tomorrow when the doctor is in?”
“Uhm. Well, I’m not sure, really. I guess I should come back tomorrow.”
The woman frowned. “What’s wrong with your hand?”
Taziri glanced down and discovered she’d been massaging the numb fingers of her left hand again. Her wrist felt so weak she was almost afraid to lift her hand to wave it. “Oh. It’s nothing. There was a fire the other night and something hit my arm.”
“Did a doctor take a look at it?” The woman stepped out into the street, her frown deepening. “Did they send you here? Why did you wait? You should have come right away. Burns are very dangerous. They’re difficult to assess correctly and they can grow worse if not treated properly.”
Taziri’s first thought went to the shivering wreckage of Medur Hamuy, curled up and shaking like a frightened child on the deck of the Halcyon. My God, could that be happening to me? Could I be dying from this burn? What about Menna? Suddenly her heart was pounding and she had to swallow to clear her throat. “There was so much going on. I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“You didn’t think?” The woman glanced around at the distant streetlamps. “Come inside so I can take a look at it. Come on.” She led Taziri into the cavernous building down a long hallway with a wooden floor that snapped and creaked with every step they took. They passed several open and closed doors and finally came to a large room at the back of the building where a handful of burning candles and lanterns revealed a workshop filled with mechanical bits for peg-legs and hook-hands, some crude and simple made of wood, and others elegant and complex made of shining metals.
“My name is Jedira, by the way.” The woman motioned her guest onto a stool beside a work bench.
“Taziri.”
“Hello, Taziri. Nice jacket. Air Corps? Is that how you got the burn?”
“Yes. The fire in Tingis.” Taziri grabbed the cuff of her sleeve but Jedira stopped her and together they very gingerly slid the engineer’s arm out of the armored flight jacket.
Taziri went cold at the sight of her arm. The sleeve of her thermal shirt was black and twisted and threaded with blobs of red and white something. Her hands began to shake but Jedira quickly produced a pair of scissors and cut away the sleeve as gently as possible, tugging her skin only slightly as the last of the fabric came away. In the bright light of the lantern beside her, Taziri saw a black band of scorched flesh around her coppery forearm. The color contrast alone brought the taste of bile to her mouth. But as she rotated her arm, she saw that it was no longer a smooth column of flesh connecting her elbow to her wrist, but a gnarled and twisted tree branch. It almost looked as though a small dog had taken a bite out of the underside of her forearm, though the weeping sores and mangled skin appeared miraculously intact. At least I can’t see any muscle or bone. She swallowed hard to get the burning acidic taste out of her throat. “Is it bad?”
Jedira nodded. “I’m sorry. You see this pale area? This means the blood vessels are severed and probably dead by now. There’s no blood getting to your muscle, so it’s dying. Any weakness in your arm or hand?”
Taziri nodded.
“How long has it been now since the fire?”
“One day exactly.”
“Okay.” Jedira selected a magnifying glass from her tool rack and inspected the burn again. “Well, I would guess that the worst is over. Or at least, the worst has happened. Your fingers still have their color, so there’s blood getting to your hand. That’s very good. You could have lost your whole hand.”
Taziri shuddered, unable to process the idea of losing a part of her body.
“Any loss of feeling? Numbness, tingling, coldness?”
Taziri nodded. “I can’t feel these two fingers at all. I can move them, but they feel sort of rubbery or wooden.”