A group of roughly dressed men issued from the beer tent; some to see what was going on and others to take a more participatory role.
Sadly, I was even further from the pod than when I’d started. The huge press of people was pushing me in the wrong direction. I couldn’t even move my arms to elbow my way out and the ground underfoot was so rough that I was afraid I’d lose my footing and go down. With that thought, I stumbled over a rut and fell to my knees.
A man swathed in two or three blankets and smelling strongly of drink, tobacco, and horses pulled me up again. I came up ready for trouble, but he was already moving away. I gasped my thanks. He nodded. Nothing sinister – just a disinterested act of kindness.
I was caught in a dilemma. Go with the crowd? Rely on safety in numbers? Or try for the pod again? But what if I led them to it? Or had they found it already and were just waiting for us to return?
Think, Maxwell.
They wanted me. If I led them away then at least Leon, who was still out there freezing his bits off, could reach the pod and once he was there, all things were possible. In these temperatures, if neither of us found shelter soon, we were finished anyway. At least, as their prisoner, they would be bound to warm me up a little. Unless, of course, they just killed me here and now and left my body on the ice.
I was roused from that pleasant picture by Leon seizing my arm and demanding to know, in some exasperation, why I was just standing here.
‘They’re everywhere,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want to lead them to the pod.’
‘We’ll make a dash for it,’ he said. ‘It’s too cold to stay here any longer. Head down. Use your elbows. Get to the pod. I’ll cover your back.’
‘Are you armed?’
‘No. Go.’
Head down, I barged through the crowd. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line and historians’ elbows are honed by years of practice.
I heard a voice. ‘There! In the grey blanket!’
I braced myself again for a bullet in the back.
I was in a cathedral once. I can’t remember what I was doing there – trying not to burst into flames on consecrated ground, probably. Anyway, they were getting the place ready for a TV programme and someone was checking the sound levels. At some point, the organist must have played a series of the lower notes. I hardly heard anything, but I felt the note inside my chest, rather than with my ears.
This was very similar.
The pain was sudden and savage. For a moment, I was back in the woods at Agincourt, staring at the red, wet sword protruding from my chest.
I felt my legs begin to give way. I couldn’t breathe in. Sounds around me began to blend one into another, one long drone …
Now I knew what the hairdryer thing was. Not an EMP device. They had some sort of sonic weapon designed to neutralise people, not equipment. The effects were painful and disabling. And very unpleasant.
My lungs couldn’t seem to work properly. I couldn’t get a rhythm going. My heart fluttered. Beneath me, the ice swayed and tipped as I felt my head spin. Everything blurred. I couldn’t get back to the pod. I’d forgotten where it was. Legs that weren’t mine took two or three wobbly steps in a direction I hadn’t meant to go.
All around me, I could vaguely hear women screaming. Someone crashed into me, spun me around, and I was lost all over again.
Where was I?
What was happening?
My chest was on fire. I put two clenched fists to my heart and tried to bend forward to ease the pain, but it was all internal. Nothing helped.
Sonic weapons are supposed to be less harmful than conventional types. They’re not. Take my word for it – and I’m someone who knows what she’s talking about.
They must have had it on a fairly narrow beam because only a few of us seemed to be really badly affected. It was the secondary effect that did the real damage.
Panic.
The Great Plague might be nearly twenty years in the past, but the nightmares were still only just beneath the surface. Londoners, seeing people drop suddenly to the ice for no good reason at all, lost their heads and panicked.
The screaming intensified. People tried to scatter away from what they supposed was infection. Maddened dogs ran through the crowds, howling and barking. They’d been affected too. Children cried. Men shouted. In fear. Or anger. Or for their families who were being swept across the ice in the panic. I heard the sounds of a stall overturning.
The worst was yet to come.
I heard a sharp crack. And then another. Beneath my feet, something trembled.