Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [56]
“Hassan,” she said. “Who is he?”
“One of Temür Agha’s advisors. His prime counselor, though he has retired from the position, and gives quiet support to Temür’s opposition. He enjoys more freedom than most in Rabat, and that retirement is how he traveled here without question—he has been taking small tours, so that his absence would be unremarkable.”
Yasmeen doubted that. Any man who did not note the comings and goings of a close advisor was a fool, and Temür Agha was not. But she cared little about politics; if Hassan could grant them entry to the city, she would take it. “Who is he to you?”
“When I was smuggling, he was Temür’s right hand. I often negotiated and secured weapons from him when Temür wasn’t available, sent messages through him. He’s a good man.”
Now he made no sense. “Weapons from Temür Agha? I thought he was buying them from you—that you got the weapons from the rebels.”
“He is a rebel.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he insisted quietly.
“He burned Constantinople to the ground to destroy a rebellion. Do not tell me I am wrong; I was there. I heard the screaming as the firebombs dropped and the war machines rolled over homes. I smelled the bodies roasting and left to rot.” She would never forget that smell. “Do not say he is a rebel.”
His face dark and eyes haunted, Archimedes nodded. “You aren’t wrong. But I have heard another story—though probably only bits of it. Hassan can tell you.”
Perhaps he could, but it didn’t matter. Rebel or not, the only thing to know was that Temür Agha was a ruthless man, not to be crossed lightly.
“So tell me about this expedition—and why we are married.”
Archimedes closed his eyes. “It’s aboard Ceres.”
“Ceres?” Her laugh started, and she couldn’t hold it back. “Guillouet will never let me aboard.”
“He will, because you won’t be crew, but part of the expedition.”
Would money outweigh Guillouet’s self-righteous loathing toward her? Oh, but that would be fascinating to see. “Then why are we married?”
“Because Kareem al-Amazigh, who is paying for the expedition, doesn’t believe that unmarried women should be flying around without the protection of their brothers and fathers. So we’ll be married and sharing a cabin.”
She laughed again, loving the absurdity of it. Though the protection of a loved one was a noble sentiment, most of the women in Rabat didn’t even know who their fathers and brothers were. In the occupied territories, the Horde’s practice of taking laborers’ children from their parents and raising them in a crèche erased all familial ties.
Finally able to breathe, she wiped her eyes. “So he has found religion, then? He sounds much like your father.”
“Even my father hired you.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t a woman. I was foreign.” She grinned when he tilted his head back, groaning as if in memory of his father’s speeches. “But don’t worry—I won’t shoot Kareem al-Amazigh. Hopefully.”
“He won’t be aboard.” He met her eyes again, and the sudden seriousness of his expression stopped her response. “I have to warn you now. Perhaps I should have spoken up when we made our agreement, but before I spoke to Hassan, I’d still hoped that the woman we saw wouldn’t be Temür Agha’s guard and we wouldn’t have to travel to Rabat to find the sketch. It’s a long story, but I was shot, and Hassan gave me a transfusion of his blood—infecting me with his nanoagents so that they could heal me.”
“I see.” Each occupied territory had a different tower, operating on a slightly different frequency. An infected Englishman could travel to Morocco without being affected by the signal. But a man infected by someone susceptible to the tower would be, too—even if the infection were passed on far away from the occupied territories. As soon as he traveled within the tower’s range, it would affect him. “Will you be useless to me in the city?”
His skin had drawn tight, paling over his cheekbones and jaw. “I can follow orders, carry out instructions. I can act of my free will, but there’s no