Chapter 90: “Tide”

Chapter 90: “Tide”

Early in the morning, Earl Hall woke at his most habitual time and took a walk through his garden and across the lawn.

After he finished looking at his beloved pure-blooded horses and returned to the third floor of the villa, changing into clothes for going out, his wife, Caitlyn, had also risen and was instructing her personal maid to pass along arrangements she had just thought of.

“It is time for breakfast,” Earl Hall said with a smile, standing beside the coat rack.

Just then, he heard a commotion outside. It grew closer and closer, without subsiding.

His brows furrowed almost imperceptibly. Earl Hall turned his head and glanced at his personal valet.

Without the great noble having to speak, the valet immediately walked to the window and pulled open the remaining gauze curtain.

With a swish, more light poured into the bedroom, clear and bright.

The valet cast his gaze outside, sweeping left and right. His expression abruptly grew grave.

He turned back, glanced at the Countess, who was still speaking with the maid, and hurried to Earl Hall’s side. Lowering his voice, he said, “A march! Many people are marching!”

A march? Earl Hall was not unfamiliar with the term. As a Loen great noble and the second-largest shareholder of the Constant Coal and Steel Consortium, he had seen workers gather and march many times, demanding higher weekly wages and maximum working hours. In the past month or two, Backlund had also seen several marches and protests erupt for various reasons, but they had all been calmed quickly, without causing much impact.

His gaze moved back and forth over his valet’s face for several seconds. Earl Hall narrowed his eyes slightly, keenly sensing that today’s march might differ from what he imagined.

Without revealing anything, he stepped forward and arrived beside the window.

With a single glance, Earl Hall’s eyes froze.

Taking advantage of his position on the third floor, he saw that the distant road was covered in black masses of people. They gathered together, surging in this direction like a massive dark cloud about to cover all of Backlund.

“Bread!”

“We want bread!”

The shouts of thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps even more people gathered into one, gradually turning loud and distinct, making Earl Hall’s scalp tingle.

During Masses and other events at Memorial Day Square, it was not as though he had never seen so many people, nor heard so many layered voices. But at those times, he had barely counted as one of the crowd, part of that whole. Today, however, he was one of the targets of that surging “tide.”

Earl Hall could not help glancing toward the rear of the marching crowd, only to discover that there was no end in sight. Still, with his rich experience handling affairs, he could make certain judgments from the details he observed.

He could see that the police officers and soldiers positioned along the two sides of the march were extremely few in number. Compared with the huge crowd, they were like tiny sprays of foam stirred up by a sea tide—insignificant.

Earl Hall was certain that a march directed at Queens Borough would receive the strongest possible control, and that large numbers of soldiers and police officers would not go undeployed. The current situation could only indicate one thing:

There were simply too many people participating in the march!

So many that the soldiers and police officers were spread too thin!

A march of over a hundred thousand? Perhaps even more… A march born from food shortages may transform into riot and looting at any time… Right now it still appears very orderly… Is that because there are many organizers and leaders? Damn it. Did MI9 and the major Churches fail to notice any signs at all? How could a march of this scale be organized overnight? Even if Backlund has already become a powder keg, to light it, one still has to strike quite a few matches! Thought after thought flashed through Earl Hall’s mind, his expression…