Behind the curtain, St-Patrick-Hartbrooke wills his hands to stop shaking. They don’t. He closes his eyes, trying to force stability upon them, but the tremors only increase… until something soft and warm grasps them, and the shaking stops. Aaaakzeee opens his eyes to see Madeline, his dear Madeline, smiling up at him and offering her support.
“I’m so sorry to put you and Luna…”
“Hush,” his partner replies, squeezing tighter. “You wouldn’t be the man I’d chosen had you done anything else. You’re trying to make a better world for her, and for me, and for us all, and we will be here with you for all of it.”
He brings his beak down to meet her hand, and she kisses him on the other side of it. “Now, go. You have a crowd waiting.”
She’s right. Of course she’s right. And with all of the favours he’s earned on this mayoral campaign spent on raising this crowd, he’d better make use of it, or it will serve none of its intended purposes. The Space Griffin straightens up, and Madeline tugs his cravat straight, and adorns his lapel with a patriotic pin. He grins at her, and then turns to the curtain and adopts a stern visage before passing through.
The crowd is slightly smaller than he’d hoped, but it will serve. If all goes well, the crowd just needs to be of a certain critical mass to start, and this should be more than enough to achieve that. As he steps forth, the crowd falls silent, courtesy of a few well-placed people in the crowd hushing the others.
“My friends,” the Taaa’keee speaks, his voice echoing out through the marketplace, “we face difficult times ahead. War has come to our peaceful colony, against the wishes of all the good people who live here, from the oldest Space Lizard to the youngest Oblate Spheroid; from the richest True Citizen in her castle,” a pointed gaze at the Mayor’s residence, “to the poorest Citizen-Pretender begging in the street; from the bravest Dragoons and Hussars to the most committed pacifists: none of us wanted this.”
St-Patrick-Hartbrooke looks up to the sky, then raises a finger to point at it while returning his gaze o sweep the crowd, trying to give the impression that he is looking at every single individual present. "It is New Prussia who brought this war here. It is New Prussia who bombed our spaceport, who will kill our brave Hussars and Dragoons, who threatens to bombard our beautiful colony and kill your brothers and sisters, your husbands and wives, your parents and children.
“Her Majesty’s Hussars and Dragoons will do their utmost to protect us, but they are only mortal. They may fall; they may break; they may even fail. And we need to be ready for the eventuality, God forbid, that they are unable to protect us. I will say now what no one has dared to: it may happen that New Prussian soldiers will be walking these streets soon, declaring this a New Prussian colony…”
There is a murmur at this, but he pays it no mind. He just needs to give them something to think about.
“…And that will be a lie. Unless we let it be the truth,” and he stabs his finger down on the podium to emphasize each of the next few words, “That. Will. Be. A. Lie.”
The murmur dies down, and the Space Griffin gives them a moment to let that idea sink in, before continuing. “This colony was founded as part of Britannia Prime, and everything we have here was given to us by King Grigori, God rest his soul, and Her Majesty, Queen Catherine. We are Britons, all of us, until the last of us stops fighting, from loss of life or loss of courage. Her Majesty is coming for us, with a fleet that dwarfs the one in orbit, coming to drive the invaders back to their backwater planet, where they’ll be bombed back into using internal combustion engines to get around. She will keep faith with us, so we must keep faith with her!”
A few affirmative grunts sound from within the crowd, and gradually, ever-so-gradually, he takes that bit of momentum as a cue to let the volume of his voice start to rise. He has the crowd hooked; they’re responding to what he’s saying; now he needs to make his pitch. "If they seek to rule us, we must with our every breath heave our spit into their faces! If they seek to enslave us, we must refuse to take a single step towards their goal. And if they seek to swallow us, we must become a poison pill so bitter that the Tsar chokes on it, sitting on his golden throne back in his palace!
“Lay aside all the preserves you can; we will need them to stay strong! Clear your crawlspaces, your attics, your cellars, and wall them away: we will need them to hide, and strike back from! Put aside your differences and squabbles; we will need to present a united front to our oppressors, and show them that they cannot take what is ours from us: not our freedom, not our land, and not our Queen!”
A deep breath; it’s getting harder to get all of this out at the volume he’s at, but he needs to continue, to keep building to the crescendo. “We will fight them in the streets and in the fields, in the markets and the estates, in the city and the countryside. We shall fight them until rescue comes, and the Queen drives them back to their little corner of the galaxy, knowing that they never won, because we were never beaten!”
The crowd roars in response, but here’s where St-Patrick-Hartbrooke sees whether this has worked… “And she will come for us, because no matter how they try, they cannot take her from us! WE ARE HER PEOPLE, AND CATHERINE IS OUR QUEEN!”
A single cry comes from out of the crowd… “Long live the Queen!”
It is joined by a few others, a moment later… “Long live the Queen! Long live the Queen!”
And, to his immense gratification, the crowd starts to join in: by the fifth repetition, half the crowd is yelling it; by the seventh, even those who don’t want to say it aloud are mouthing it to keep from standing out. He grabs his cane, unused since he healed from the duel, and wields it like a drum-major’s baton. “Let’s show Her Majesty that Weatherby remains loyal!”
Although he’s already exhausted from the speech, and would like nothing more than to collapse into bed with his dear Madeline back at the apartment, Aaaakzeee St-Patrick-Hartbrooke III sets off down the road, the crowd in tow, occasionally shouting “Long live the Queen” himself to keep the chant alive whenever it starts to flag a bit. The patriots throughout the town, as well as those who would like to be thought such, all join up as the march passes by, boosting the numbers until a substantial percentage of the town’s population is present.
It is a message, sent to three recipients. Least consequentially, to the Mayor and the power brokers of Weatherby, to show that he is a serious contender for the next election. More pointedly, to those who are thinking of welcoming the New Prussians with open arms, to show that they are isolated and outnumbered, and should have second thoughts about the consequences of defecting. And finally, to the Queen herself, to promise bad publicity if she actually lets this colony of what are surely her most devoted followers fall into enemy hands.
And all it took was a few agents in the crowd, to make the right noises at the right time, and steer the mood exactly to where he’d wanted it to be. Expensive, yes, but a small price to pay if it laid the groundwork for the Resistance he wanted in place, should the New Prussians set foot on this planet, his home.
All in all, a good day’s work accomplished. Tomorrow, after some tea with honey to soothe his aching throat, the real work would begin.
