A thick frost covers the ground, leaving the grass in Hyde Park a pale green-white colour. It crunches satisfying under your booted feet, small compensation for the bitter cold of the late November morning that chills you right to the bone. Despite being well wrapped up – the heavy boots, the thick scarf, the warm jacket and a hat – you shiver.
Despite the cold the park is busy, crowds of people mill about the bare trees, drifting along the pathways and across the grass. It’s far more busy than even a warm afternoon at the height of summer would merit. For that reason, you shiver again.
“It isn’t that cold,” says Aizhan, hooking her arm around yours. As Siobhan, Aizhan towers over you. She looks down at you and dimples, her smile far warmer than any she accorded you in Iraq a few months ago. Her almost white blonde hair and pale complexion gives her the impression of being an ice princess – strangely appropriate for the setting you think. “Once we get into the crowd you will warm right up,” she adds.
“That’s what I’m worried about,” you say to Aizhan’s confusion. “I’m sorry I have an ulterior motive.”
The Cossack girl pouts, marring her beautiful face momentarily. “You do?”
“I wanted the help of an adept of Hanuman,” you tell her, using the Akshardham term. “A Viritrilbian.”
“Don’t you know any others,” she teases. “What about Joe, or my sister?”
You manage to hide the momentary discomfort at the mention of Joe’s name. “Rosalie has all but banned him from field work,” you tell her. It’s not a lie. Rosalie has told Joe to stay close to home whilst their daughter is still so young. But by all reports, Joe would come in an instant if you offered him the chance to stretch his legs in the field, travel ban from Rosalie not withstanding. No the real reason you haven’t asked for Joe’s help is that you’ve felt awkward around him since his bachelor party. The memories of the clumsy flirtation in the hotel rear their ugly head until you damp them back down. “Besides, I wanted to see you again.”
Aizhan squeezes at your arm affectionately for a moment. “A working holiday,” she smiles. “This crowd is part of it?”
You nod, holding Aizhan for a second before the pair of you move any closer to the crowd. “This is Speakers’ Corner,” you explain in a whisper. “There’s a tradition of coming here to make speeches. Anyone can do it. I’ve seen as many as half a dozen speakers here at once, talking at length on whatever crazy idea they have, but it’s rarely used at this time of year.”
“These crowds aren’t normal,” queries Aizhan, following your lead and whispering back. “You suspect something.”
“I do. Why are there so many people here? Look at them,” you continue, still talking as quietly as you can. The crowd is mixed, pensioners, students, children, builders still wearing their hard hats and even office workers. The last groups give you pause, because they must be skipping work to be here. “How do you get a group like that here on a cold Wednesday morning in November?”
Aizhan nods, seeing the oddity of it too. “So you think something unnatural is at work here, like in Amarah?”
“It’s different,” you say gesturing at the crowd. “These people aren’t like the cultists there. They’ve been genuinely convinced by what they’ve heard.”
“But it’s still unnatural,” says Aizhan thoughtfully. Her face freezes for a moment as she follows her thoughts through to the logical conclusion. “You think someone is misusing Hanuman’s gifts,” she asks, horrified.
The idea clearly appals Aizhan, that someone with the same level of power as a Stellae or Akshardam would use their prodigies for power or personal gain like a common warlock. You remember how you stumbled into the world of magic. You were lucky. Not that you managed come through your encounter with Blackwell, but that you met the right people: Frank and Joe. What would have happened if you never met them?
You nod in reply. “I need to warn you though. I came last week, just to the edge of the crowd. I couldn’t make out what was said, but I heard what the crowd said afterwards. It’s… It’s some kind of racist demagoguery. All about foreigners stealing peoples jobs. The crowd I saw last week was on the edge of frenzy. If they hear you speaking – your accent…”
“I can try a local accent,” suggests Aizhan. She probably can, being Viritrilbian. One of Joe’s prodigies is to mimic voices perfectly.
“If you can,” you reply. “Safer to say nothing though.” Aizhan nods.
You close your eyes for a brief second, till you see the constellations of imago floating around you. Your accent is going to be a problem too, even though your Siobhan identity is supposedly from Belfast and therefore from what remains of the United Kingdom. You doubt the crowd can measure the subtleties and variances in different Irish accents. But you do have imagos here that spoke with a purely English accent. You pick at one of them, pull the memories close even as you hang on to Siobahn’s physical form.
You pull at her. “We need to get in close,” you say, your accent shifting to a Londoner’s. Aizhan’s eyebrows move in surprise, but she says nothing.
Together you start pushing forward into the crowd. The sea of people becomes a solid wall, unwilling to break. You push again, this time with Eldibria, softening the minds of the people in front of you. A simple enough use of your power and one that you are well practised at. They all smile as you slip past them, dragging Aizhan along with you. With a little effort you near the front of the crowd.
You hear the speaker before you see him. The calm and confident speech is not what you expected at all. If it wasn’t for the words, the contents of the man’s speech, you’d think you were listening to a measured debate. The words though, the words are hateful. Time and again he refers to parasites, shirkers, freeloaders. Though he never says so directly, he makes it clear he also means foreigners.
The most frightening thing is the attitude of the crowd. They don’t shout or yell or anything. They stand and listen and quietly nod, as if what the speaker said was obvious, or something they already knew and they were glad that he had said it. The words even snake in your ears, seductive and beguiling. You have to hum under your breath to keep yourself distracted from them. Behind you, Aizhan grits her teeth as she tries to do the same.
Finally you near the front of the crowd. You stand on your tiptoes to see the speaker, your stomach twisting as you see him – he’s handsome, very handsome. He flashes a bright white smile at the crowd, at you, and runs a hand through his thick blond hair before continuing. He paces confidently in front of the crowd as he extols the virtues of deportation. He leaves you wanting to trust him, believe him despite what he says. At the same time, just on the edge of your senses, there is something greasy and wrong.
You turn to Aizhan. Despite the pained expression her face she nods. She sees it too.
And then suddenly the speech finishes. The man waves cheerily to the crowd and disappears into them. A pair of ugly, heavy set men who’s bulk seems to be as much fat as muscle follow him. Maybe they are bodyguards? The spell holding the crowd rapt seems to break, they drift apart heading back to their homes, their schools and their offices. They buzz with chatter as they depart, talking excitedly about what they’ve heard.
“What do you think,” you ask Aizhan, still maintaining the pretence of a London accent.
She looks around to check that no-one is paying attention. “It felt like Hanuman,” she whispers to you. “Or something very like it.
Or something very like it. Your stomach somersaults again, and a nauseous feeling steals over you: Fane. Their Dark Starts projects are crude attempt to replicate the powers of the Stellae. Is that what this man is? A knock-off of Viritrilbia?
“What is it,” asks Aizhan nervously. “You know something.
“I have an idea,” you admit urgently. “We need to follow him.” Aizhan looks at you doubtfully, but she lets you tug her along. You bob up and down through the crowd, trying to catch sight of the speaker. He proves impossible to spot, but luckily you don’t need to.
It is his escorts you see, pushing through the crowds abruptly. The sound of the complaints following in their wake make them easy to follow. Especially since you can use Eldibria to ease your passage through the mass of people. You follow the pair, keeping your distance as they exit the park. As they drift away from the crowd, the speaker becomes visible again. He talks animatedly with his guards as they cross the road and head towards the tube station.
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