“Sonya, you are going to obey me! You understand? You . . . everyone—obey me.”
She stared. I was speaking swiftly, grimly, imperatively. “You stay at my side. I’ll want you to translate when I give orders. Was that siren to announce the king’s death?”
“Yes, he . . . Leonard, what are you doing? That thing in your hand—”
I silenced her. And then, fearing perhaps that she might not follow me, I gripped her hand, jerked her forward as I ran with rapid strides toward the crowd of girls at the foot of the stairway.
I think that Sonya believed at that moment that I had lost my reason. Her face stared up at me with terror in her eyes—a frightened child beside my bulk, whom I was dragging forward so swiftly that she could hardly keep her feet.
A few men near us shouted at me, but when I turned ferociously on them, they ran. Someone threw a missile at me, then another—stones which they were picking up from the flower beds. One struck my back; and one struck Sonya.
The crowd was beginning to take courage; a wave of it surged at me. Struggling men shoving one another, shouted menacingly at me; but the men in the front rank, shoved forward by the press behind them, were pushing back, away from me.
Another stone hit me. I stopped short. I did not want to use the Frazier beam yet—time enough for that.
“Sonya, tell them to stop!” I dropped her hand, stood away from her. “Tell them that I won’t hurt you! Tell them to stop . . . or I’ll kill them! All of them!”
The missiles stopped at the first sound of her voice. From the stairway top a guard was shouting up to one of the old men on the roof; at Sonya’s voice they both were silent to listen.