When the loudspeakers went into operation, Mike shoved Wilhelm toward the microphone.
“I need a break. You’re on, buddy.”
Wilhelm stared at the microphone much like a rabbit staring at a serpent. “What do I say? I don’t know—I’ve never—”
“Piece of cake, Wilhelm. Just give a campaign speech. But, ah, one word of advice.”
“Yes.” Wilhelm stared at him. Mike grinned.
“Don’t run against me. Not today. You can save that for the election. Today, you’re campaigning against the princes.”
Still staring. “What election?”
“The one I’m going to swap a horse with the emperor for. I’ll have it by the end of the day tomorrow, I think. Maybe sooner. Gustav’s a decisive man, and I do believe the cardinal and the princes, between them, have really and seriously and genuinely pissed him off. The stupid bastards.”
Still staring. But Mike’s grin never faded. It wouldn’t have, even if he weren’t on Europe’s greatest stage.
“I think it’s time the CPE had an actual government. Don’t you, Wilhelm?” He jerked a thumb at the palace behind them. “Instead of this silly playpen for princes.”
Wilhelm’s eyes closed. A little smile came to his lips. “Ah. Yes, actually.” His eyes reopened, and this time did not seem confused and uncertain at all. “Yes, indeed.”
It took the former duke a bit of time to learn how to speak into a microphone. But not much, really, given his unfamiliarity with the device. And once he began talking, the words themselves flowed easily enough. By the time he was done, in fact, he was bordering on Mike’s own brand of full-bore rhetoric.
Only bordering on it, to be sure. But it was a border, now, not a frontier.
Mary Simpson never spoke at all, that day. Mike, seeing the sheer terror that held her almost paralyzed, did not press the issue. It was enough, really, that she was standing there on the steps in full view of the crowd. The American Lady. Wife of the Admiral, who commands the ironclads. Our ironclads.
And, of course, managing that superb professional smile. Mike suspected that Mary Simpson, if condemned to Hell itself, could greet Satan with it.
Besides, Gramma Richter could hold the fort. Which she did, in her own splendid tough-old-biddy manner. By the time Veronica was finished speaking, the crowd had settled down completely. They wouldn’t have dared do otherwise.
She was done shortly after noon. Mike took another stint at the microphone. By now, he estimated the size of the crowd at somewhere in the vicinity of forty thousand people. Between thirty and fifty thousand, at any rate. The entire population of Magdeburg, for all practical purposes—along with, by that time of the day, a number of people pouring in from the nearby countryside.
But it was really impossible to get a very accurate count, even though Mike knew the rule-of-thumb methods for doing so. He’d organized rallies himself, in times past, not simply been a participant in them. The problem was twofold.
First, the crowd was simply too large to fit into the square. It spilled down all three of the major avenues, as well, as far as Mike could see.
Second—this he saw with pure relief—the crowd was beginning to circulate. People were leaving as well as coming in. And almost all of them going in one direction—toward the naval yard.
He recognized that phenomenon, also. He’d seen it often enough, in another universe. Working men with families—and Magdeburg was by now the most plebeian city in all of Germany, even including Grantville—do not come to large political rallies very often. Quite unlike students and footloose young people, in that respect. And, when they do, they often bring their families.
To see the capital of their country, as much as to petition for a redress of grievances. Because that was how they saw it, however much or little that image might correspond to reality. Their capital, of their country; which they had built—and they had died for.
So, often enough at mass rallies in Washington, D.C., Mike had seen men and women and children go wandering off after a time from the speeches and the waving banners. Just to go, as a family, and admire the Washington monument or the Lincoln Memorial or the Smithsonian.