Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [53]
Archimedes was glad for the man, though if Hassan hadn’t had much time to adjust to the change, the counselor might be hoping for a swift return to Morocco. Archimedes had once experienced the tower’s dampening effect, and the terrifying inability to feel what he’d known he ought to feel still lingered like a cancer in his mind. Yet Hassan had lived his entire life under its influence. It was possible that the strength of the man’s emotions would be more frightening than the lack of them.
For now, however, Hassan only seemed filled with pleasure at seeing him.
A parlor decorated in pale blues lay to the left. Though three men—two in French naval uniforms, and another as simply dressed as Hassan—were standing around a card table with a large map spread between them, Hassan led him to a sitting room. More rolled letters lay atop a writing desk. A window looked over the tree-lined canal, the bare branches flocked with ice and snow. Hassan gestured to two armchairs flanking the open fireplace.
The counselor settled into the chair nearest the flames. “You’ll forgive me. I feel the cold to my bones here. Do you see the gray?” He lifted his chin, stroked his fingers through his curly black beard. “I grow old. Has it been ten years since I saw you last?”
“Not quite nine,” Archimedes said.
“Ah, yes. Yes.” A faint smile touched the man’s mouth. “I can still hear Temür’s rage echoing through the kasbah when word of the barge’s destruction came. Much has changed since that day. But not enough has changed.”
And with that single statement, the counselor’s reserve returned—but it wasn’t completely familiar. Weariness accompanied it now, the sort that Archimedes usually saw in soldiers who’d been at war for too long, and with no end to the fighting in sight.
“What would you change?”
“We have long been under the foot of the Horde, Wolfram, and Temür has sacrificed much to lift it. But now the heel is his.”
From rebel to dictator. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
But not completely surprised. A man with as much power as Temür would not give it up easily, no matter his intentions at the beginning.
The man nodded once, an understated gesture that said Archimedes’ sorrow was nothing to his. A deep sigh resonated from his chest. “You have always been a friend to the Horde rebels, Wolfram. I wonder now if you will be a friend to the rebels in Rabat.”
“I didn’t know there were rebels in Rabat.”
“A growing number, led by Kareem al-Amazigh.” He tilted his head toward the door, as if indicating the man Archimedes had seen in the parlor. “He inspires many of us and reminds our people of the old ways, but we are a people who have not fought for centuries. We need to light a fire beneath them—as was done in England, when the fall of the tower sparked the revolution and drove the Horde out.”
“But you want to drive Temür out,” Archimedes guessed.
“Yes. And if God wishes it, to put a new man in his place—to create a hero, as the Iron Duke became when he destroyed the tower in London.”
“For this, you want my help?” Archimedes grinned. “I do have the looks of a hero.”
“You have never been serious. It is fortunate that I know you, or I would believe you mock our struggle.”
“Never that.”
“Which is why I met with you alone. Kareem does not know your heart. Please consider that when you speak with him.” Hassan leaned forward, holding his hands to the fire. “You provided the Iron Duke with explosives.”
Was this the help that he wanted Archimedes to give? Shaking his head, Archimedes said, “I procured those through Temür. I can’t find more for you, not quickly.”
And his obligation to Yasmeen came first.
But Hassan made a sweeping motion, as if to return his response. “No, this is not what I hope for. We have a man to supply the weapons, but we do not have the money. This is why we turn to you.”
For money? Archimedes