I added swiftly, “Sonya, you follow me! I don’t want to drag you! Will you come?”
“Yes. I . . . I’ll come.”
I took her at her word and ran on. I had overawed an unarmed crowd of spectators. But the girls were still ahead of me, a thousand or more of them, jammed near the foot of the great stairway, and a hundred or two more upon it.
I reached the first of them, with Sonya running fleet as a faun behind me. The girls, unarmed, scattered to give us room. We dashed through to the foot of the stairway, began mounting it.
The girls on it made way for me. But, halfway up, I saw above me, three girls with swords. They stood their ground, and whirled to oppose me.
Others with swords were near them and turned at me also, and above them, I was aware that the guards were coming down from the top to attack them from behind.
I stopped, and thrust Sonya in front of me. “You tell your girls to get out of the way!”
She screamed it.
“Again, Sonya! Tell them to get off the stairway! Fools! Can’t they understand I’m for them! Get them off here, I tell you! I’ll handle those guards up there!”
It stung Sonya into action. She shouted my commands, rushed up a few steps, waving the girls aside. Behind me, they were retreating, clearing the stairway. Above they stood undecided, with awkwardly brandished swords, undecided whether to oppose me or to turn to defend themselves from the guards coming down from above.