“I hope so, my lady.” Bao pressed his ear to Hasan’s back, listening. “His lungs are clear, so that is good.” He met my eyes, looking worried. “I wish Master Lo were here. Or even your damned Raphael.”

“Do your best, Master Lo’s magpie,” I murmured. “There are others waiting.”

“I’ll need your help to sop the blood. And maybe others to hold him still. It’s going to hurt.” A thought came to him. “Sudhakar!”

“Yes, Bao?”

“Fetch a pipe and a lamp. And opium, lots of opium.”

“Yes, Bao!”

“He’s very obedient,” I observed as he trotted off again.

“He was trained to be,” Bao said in a flat voice.

When Sudhakar returned a second time, Bao filled the bowl of the long, slender pipe with sticky brown poppy resin, coaxing Hasan Dar to lean on one elbow and take the mouth-piece of the pipe between his lips. He then held the oil lamp beneath the bowl until a sweet-smelling smoke arose. Hasan Dar sucked gratefully on the pipe, while Bao watched with an expression somewhere between hunger and envy.

“Don’t even think about it,” I warned him. “I am not nursing you through that twice.”

“Not even a wife yet, and already you nag,” he retorted, drawing a pained chuckle from Hasan.

The opium took effect quickly. Seeing the commander’s limbs relax, Bao nodded in satisfaction and beckoned to Sudhakar. “Take the pipe, and see that it’s given to anyone who wants it.”

“Yes, Bao!”

The quoit was lodged in Hasan Dar’s ribcage, closer to his back than his front, three or four inches protruding and the rest sunk deep into his flesh. After washing his hands, Bao gave it a cautious tug, wary of the razor-sharp outer edge. Hasan hissed between gritted teeth, but the thing didn’t move.

“I think it struck bone,” Bao muttered. He glanced around. “Are any of the household servants here?”

I shook my head. “Pradeep has them busy.” He was in charge of rounding up food and bedding, not to mention a hundred horses left to stray.

“Sudhakar!” Bao called. “A change of plan. Do you know where his lordship keeps his hunting gear?” The lad came hurrying back, nodding. “Good. Fetch me a falconer’s glove.”

“Yes, Bao!”

“The Falconer really was a falconer?” I asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“I did not know that,” Amrita remarked. She looked pale and anxious. “Is there anything I can do to help, Bao?”

“Can you sew?” he asked.

The Rani turned even paler. “Yes, but…” Her gaze skated over the quoit sticking out of Hasan Dar’s side, and her expression turned determined. “Yes, I can try.”

“Sorry, my lady,” Bao apologized. “I did not mean for you to sew the commander’s wound.” He nodded at the sewing kit, which contained curved needles and sturdy, waxed thread. “But if you could thread a needle for me, it would be a great help.”

“Of course.” Kneeling gracefully, Amrita bent to the task, glad to be of use, her hands calm and steady.

I rubbed Hasan Dar’s back in a circular motion and breathed the Breath of Ocean’s Rolling Waves, the most calming of all the Five Styles. His breathing slowed to match mine, the jutting edge of the quoit rising and falling, glinting in the lamplight.

Sudhakar returned with a falconer’s glove, a thick padded affair made of tough leather. Bao donned it, flexing his fingers.

“Ready?” he asked the commander, who gave a dreamy grunt of assent. Bao took hold of the steel quoit and gave it a sharp yank.

Strong as he was, it still took three yanks to free it; and there was a sharp, cracking sound as the quoit came loose, along with a hoarse cry from Hasan Dar. The wound gaped, a white shard of bone jutting out of it, blood pulsing over the commander’s skin. Bao swore, tossed the quoit aside, and stripped off the glove, plucking out the bone-shard and probing the wound for others, extracting two smaller splinters with his bare hands.

“It’s clean,” he said breathlessly. “My lady? Moirin?”

I blotted the wound with clean bandages, while Amrita silently handed Bao the threaded needle.

Bao sewed.

I swabbed.

When it was done, a ragged line of stitches sealed the wound shut, the flesh seeping a little. After uncorking and sniffing different unguents and ointments, Bao chose one to slather on the wound. Together, we worked to bandage it, wrapping clean cloths around Hasan Dar’s torso.

“So this is what war is like,” our lady Amrita said in a low tone. “It is a very terrible thing!”

“So it is, my lady.” Bao swiped his forearm over his brow, which was damp with sweat, then settled onto his heels. “All right.” He plunged his hands into the basin of clean water, soaping and washing them as Master Lo had taught him to do. “Sudhakar! Tell me, who is next?”

I lost count.

I do not know how many wounds I helped Bao stitch that night, how many broken bones I helped him set.

Many.

At one point, I asked him why there was no physician in the household, when surely there must have been regular injuries.

“Lord Khaga tended to them himself,” he said, surprising me. “As did his father, and his grandfather before him. He took pride in his skill.” Bao shrugged. “People are complicated, Moirin.”

“True.”

There was a rebellion on the part of the Rani’s guards when Bao suggested the uninjured men should transport the bodies of the dead outdoors, where the cold would preserve them from decay.

“With all due respect, that is a pariah’s work, Bao-ji,” Pradeep said to him, shuddering. “Not a warrior’s.”

Bao narrowed his eyes at the fellow. “We are speaking of men who fought and died bravely. Those of us who survived owe them a debt of honor. Their bodies should be tended to with dignity.”

“I will do it, Bao,” young Sudhakar volunteered, even though he was unsteady on his feet and his nose resembled a squashed turnip. “Or at least I will try. I do not mind. I was born a no one, a no-caste.”

An injured guard smoking opium from a pipe Sudhakar had prepared and handed to him coughed and lowered the pipe.

The Rani Amrita raised her hand in the mudra of fearlessness, stilling the room. “Bao is correct,” she announced. “A debt of honor is owed to the dead, and we will see that each and every one is transported safely home and given a proper funeral-even our enemies, in the hope that they will find a greater peace in the next life. However…” She gave Bao an apologetic glance. “I fear there are predators in the mountains, are there not? Leopards and such?”

He nodded. “Yes, highness. I hadn’t thought of it, but yes.”

“I would not have the bodies of our dead dishonored by animals,” Amrita said firmly. “So. For now, let them abide. Only know, we will be returning them to Bhaktipur; and it will be our honor to do so.”

She lowered her hand.

In the silence that followed, the guard with the pipe let out a little sigh, returning the mouth-piece to his lips and beckoning to Sudhakar to hold the lamp for him.

I smiled at Amrita, who smiled wearily back at me. “I think that is how you change the world, my lady,” I said to her. “One small step at a time.”

After many long hours, at last there was nothing urgent left to be done. Everywhere, injured and uninjured men slept on the stone floors of Kurugiri, rolled in blankets. Although she could have had her choice of either Jagrati’s or Tarik Khaga’s chambers, the Rani chose instead to sleep in the harem. Lest he need my assistance, I stayed with Bao in the banquet hall where he had tended to the majority of the injured.

“You were very brave today, Moirin,” Bao mumbled, already half-asleep, his arm around my waist and his hand resting over the hard lump of Kamadeva’s diamond stashed deep within a pocket of my coat. “Facing Jagrati and that cursed thing.”