Flashman on the March

A split second, and then she was off the stool like a striking snake, whipping the knife from her boot as she launched herself at me, screaming vengeance, and it would have been Flashy R.I.P., Abyssinia 1868, if Wedaju hadn’t thrust me aside, caught her wrist as the knife descended, thrown her on her back, and pinned her, all in one lightning movement. She was hollering blue murder as he disarmed her, the old chamberlain was collapsing in an apparent fit, my escorting guardsmen were hastening to put themselves between the commotion and the throne, the apartment seemed to be full of squealing handmaidens… and Queen Masteeat gently slapped the muzzle of a lion which had arisen, growling, at the dis turbance. Beyond that she didn’t blink an eyelid, waiting until Uliba’s shrieks had subsided, and applying herself to a chicken leg in the meantime.

“Fair, fat, and forty” was how Speedy had described her. She must have been a stunner as a girl, but sloth and gluttony had plumped out the comely face, and if “fat” was a trifle unkind she still looked as though it might take two strong men to raise her commanding form from its cushioned bed. It was clad in a splendid robe of shimmering blue silk, with one fleshy polished shoulder and arm bare, and if there was plenty of her it all appeared to be complete and in working order. Elspeth would have called her sonsy, signifying bonny and buxom. As a commoner she’d have been a fine figure of a woman; being royalty, she was stately, regal, imposing, statuesque, or any other courtly grovel you please, and a perfectly acceptable piece of mattress-fodder—supposing she had the energy.

For a more lethargic lady I’d seldom seen. The full, good-natured face, as light as creamy coffee between the long oiled braids, was placid, and the large, slightly protruding eyes were almost sleepy as she considered me, toying with the mane of her blasted man-eater. Seeing her so at ease among her cushions, pondering which dish to tackle next, it struck me that if she was as shrewd and ruth less as I’d been told, she knew how to conceal it. Even her voice, when she addressed Uliba, was gentle and bored.

“Is this the man? The horse-trader of India? Tell me in a word, but do not name him.”

Uliba said it was, at the top of her voice, with unprintable ad ditions, as she writhed in Wedaju’s grasp. “And I shall kill the bastard! The filthy villain would have cast me to death, I who had guided and guarded him! He shall die! As I am a woman, I swear it!”

“And as I am a queen, I shall have you whipped till you weep if you raise your voice in my presence again,” says Masteeat mildly. “It would not be the first time… remember?”

“I remember!” snaps Uliba, and glared at me. “As I shall remember you also, dog! And I shall have my way in the end, dear sister! When the time comes this jackal shall be paid a traitor’s wages!”

“That shall be as God wills.” Masteeat indicated the stool. “Sit, child, and be still. You who aspire to a throne should try to behave like a queen. What he did or did not do is for another day. We have greater matters before us now.”

Like what goody to guzzle next, apparently, for she was busy at the dishes even as she chided Uliba, sounding like a patient teacher with a naughty pupil, and I guessed this was a scene they’d played many times in Uliba’s childhood, and that it drove her wild. She wrenched free of Wedaju, stood blazing silently for a moment, and then stalked back to her stool. Masteeat selected what looked like a large underdone steak, took a hearty bite, chewed reflectively, and directed her handmaiden to take a tray to me, indicating that I should help myself.

I didn’t know, then, that this was a considerable honour in Ab court circles. I made a quick survey of the raw beef and roasts, surrounded by cakes and desserts, chose some skewered meat, and bowed civilly in majesty’s direction, but she was busy engulfing the last of her steak. Having belched delicately, she wiped her lips with the hem of that beautiful dress, began to spoon a pudding into herself, and signed to the handmaiden, who clapped sharply to call the room to attention. The old chamberlain, having clam bered to his feet, bowed and tottered out, followed by the guards and Wedaju, who I was glad to see was taking Uliba’s knife with him.

And then, before my wondering eyes, Masteeat laid aside her empty bowl, and clicked her tongue. At this three of the lions rose with a reluctant lethargy to match their mistress’s, and padded out, followed by the bowing handmaidens, leaving the fourth lion, evi dently a royal favourite, blinking at the Queen’s feet and purring like a motor engine.

So there we were, Flashy and the sister-queens, and I’ll not waste time rehearsing my bewildered thoughts. All that seemed certain was that if Uliba had attempted a coup, it had misfired, but her elder didn’t seem much put out, and was giving courteous atten tion at last to her visitor.

“You have earned a welcome by your patience,” says she, “but first I must know your true name.”

“Sir Harry Flashman, ma’am,” says I, shoulders back, chin up. “Colonel, British Army, with messages from Sir Robert Napier, general officer commanding Her Britannic Majesty’s forces in Abyssinia.”

She nodded acknowledgment and glanced at Uliba. “So you were telling the truth. You did well to whisper it in my ear alone.”

“Pah!” snaps Uliba. “At last you believe me! The Queen is gracious!”

“Be thankful for that,” says Masteeat. “And for the Queen’s mercy.”

“I ask no mercy from you!” Uliba was on her feet again. “I never have, and I never will!”

“You have never had to,” says Masteeat, stroking her lion’s mane. “The baby of the family must always be indulged and excused and forgiven, whatever her fault. Because she is the baby, and knows well how to trade on it.”

Uliba let out a squeal like a steam whistle, fists clenched, stamping. “You lie! I never made excuse, or pleaded kinship! I have shown a bare face and fought for what should be mine! I am no hypocrite, like you who talk of the Queen’s mercy! What mercy have you shown to my friends, my faithful ones? To Zaneh, and Adilu, and Abite, you cruel heartless woman?” And I’d not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it: she burst into tears and stood there, knuckling her eyes.

“What you would have done if they had plotted against your throne. But I was less cruel than you would have been. They died quickly—even Zaneh, who betrayed your plot to me weeks ago, hoping for favour. He should have suffered as a double traitor—and you should have known better than to trust a discarded lover… oh, stare, girl, do you think I know nothing?” She sounded weary. “I may not punish you for treason, but I could slap you for stupidity.”

Uliba went on sobbing, and Masteeat frowned at me as though becoming aware that the family squabble was being earwigged by this foreigner. I was spellbound: Uliba racked by sobs of penitence or rage, you couldn’t tell which, looking all forlorn and fetching in her scanty tunic, and the languid matron reclining on her cushions, a study in fatigued perplexity. At last she sighed, pushed the lion aside, and extended a hand towards Uliba.

“Oh, come here, little one! Stop this foolish weeping; you have nothing to weep for!” Uliba gave a mighty gulp, scowled, and tossed her head. “Come, I say!” And damme if Uliba didn’t dash the tears from her eyes and move with halting steps to the couch. Masteeat took her hand and pulled her gently to her knees, putting an arm about her shoulders.

“What am I to do with you, daughter of tribulation, sister of strife? You are too big to put across my knee these days… and if I did, you would rage and break things… and later hang your head and beg forgiveness. Perhaps even make me another gift in amends… ?”

She twitched the blue silk robe aside, revealing a massive but beautifully turned leg (ran in the family, no doubt) shod with a golden sandal and bearing two ankle-chains, one of the silver bells popular with Galla ladies, the other of cheap little coloured beads.

Uliba stared and sniffed. “You kept it! All these years…”

“Since your sixth birthday, when you flew into a passion because you were not given a pony, and father had you beaten, and you broke my crystal cup in your tantrum,” says Masteeat. “And howled with remorse, and presently brought me this anklet as a peace offering.”

“I made it with beads stolen from Warkite’s gown of state… the bitch!” sniffs Uliba, adding sulkily: “I wonder your majesty wears such a tawdry thing!”

Masteeat leaned forward to finger the anklet, and said in that tired, gentle voice: “I have no jewel so precious as that brought to me by a sad, sorry little girl long ago. And if she tries to take my throne, still she is that little girl… and so I must love her always.”

Uliba gave a wail that combined frustrated rage with that howl of remorse Masteeat had mentioned, and buried her face, while her sister went on in the same gentle, chiding tone.

“But what’s to be done with her? Our father Abushir raised her as though she were a true daughter, and she repays his dead spirit by trying to overthrow me, her own sister and rightful Queen, not once but twice, and is forgiven. Then we find her a husband, whom she shames with lovers, and Gobayzy of Lasta takes him prisoner and hopes to compel her to surrender her sweet self as ransom, the pretty antelope… more fool Gobayzy!” She stroked Uliba’s braids.

“Meanwhile she rebels for a third time… and fails… and weeps. Oh, a sad tangle…”

During these sisterly exchanges I’d been ignored except by the lion, which had ambled up to rub his great head against my ribs—that’s how tall he stood—until Masteeat clicked her tongue, at which he trotted out obediently. Meanwhile she continued to pet her “pretty antelope", the murderous virago who’d tried to dethrone her and was being coddled like a prodigal daughter… no, I can’t fathom women.

“Yet Gobayzy might suit you,” murmurs Masteeat. “He’s a block head, and goes in fear of me, and would rejoice to have my baby sister as his queen—”

“As one of his hareem whores, you mean!” sniffs Uliba. “Kings don’t take a concubine’s brat as their consort!”

Masteeat slapped her wrist. “Your mother was a gracious and lovely lady whom our father would have made his queen if he could. You should be proud to be her daughter.”

“I am proud!” flares Uliba, and started to blub again.

“Good. Then dry your tears, and if Gobayzy is not to your taste we’ll say no more of him. There are other panthers in the wood, as who knows better than you.” She glanced at me, and whispered to Uliba with a sly smile that suggested she wasn’t asking my size in collars. Uliba glared at me and snapped a reply in the Galla tongue, to Masteeat’s amusement.

“And still you seek revenge on him? Perverse wretch!”

It seemed a good moment to make my peace with Uliba, but I’d barely assumed an ingratiating grin and started to explain that I’d been trying to save her, truly, when she was on her feet again, spitting hate.

“He lies, the misbegotten bastard! He would have spurned me to my death to save his dirty skin! As I’m a woman, it’s true!”

“As I’m a woman, you make my head ache,” sighs Masteeat. “Enough! Your tale may be true or not… hold your tongue, child! And hear my royal command. You will seek vengeance no further. Great matters are not to be risked for the spite of a reckless girl—and a rebel. You will submit, and show the Colonel Flashman effendi the honour and respect due to the Queen’s guest. Now, give him the kiss of good faith before you go.”

I’d not have credited it that the Uliba I’d known, the savage who’d gloated over Yando’s death, the cool hand who’d kept her head in the Gondar pit, the fighting fury who’d downed Theodore’s riders, could have been turned into a weeping, fretful, penitent child by the firm authority of an elder sister. But I’d seen it, mirabile dictu, anything was possible, and now she hesitated only a raging second before bowing curtly to Masteeat, marching up to me, and planting icy lips for an instant on my cheek. It was like being kissed by a cobra, with an accompanying hiss.

“I know what I know!” Then she was past me through the cur tained archway, and Masteeat chuckled.

“Not the most passionate embrace she has given you, I dare say… Look beyond the curtain, effendi… she is one who loves to eavesdrop. No? God be thanked, peace at last! Come, give me your hand.”

I helped her to rise, which she did with surprising ease and grace, considering her proportions. Face to face she was a bare half-head below my height, and I was aware of a bodily strength at odds with her indolence; the bare shoulder and arm were smoothly muscled and her grip was strong. For a moment the fine black eyes surveyed me and the plump jolly face was smiling—expectantly, I’ll swear, and I thought, here goes, and bowed over her hand, kissing it warmly and at length up towards the elbow—and she burst out laughing, a regular barmaid’s guffaw, so I said, “By your majesty’s leave", stepped inside her guard, and put my mouth gently on hers.

Risky diplomacy, you’ll say, but that knowing smile had told me she’d be all for it. The full lips were wide and welcoming, and for a delightful moment she treated me as though I were her under done steak. Then she stepped back, giving me a playful push and another slantendicular smile, and without a word poured us two goblets of tej from a well-laden buffet at the wall. We drank, and she piled into the snacks and sweetmeats, urging me with her mouth full to keep her company, so I picked a bit, marvelling, for she’d shifted a hearty helping but a few moments ago, and here she was cleaning up a plate of raw beef and a large bowl of mixed fruit, wiping the juice from her chin with her sleeve, heaving a contented sigh, and recharging our goblets. Then without preamble, she asked:

“Did you truly kick the little fool over the Great Silver Smoke? I’d not blame you, for she’s a torment and a pest of hell, as well as a great liar. So one can never be sure. No matter.” She leaned her ample rump on the buffet. “Why did your general choose her to guide you to me?”

I said I believed Speedy had suggested her, and she clapped her hands in delight. “The Basha Fallakal Oh, what a beautiful man is that! I would have made his fortune, but he would not fight my lion.” She sighed and giggled. “Oh, but I was young and wanton then… and very drunk! How is he, the rogue? Did he guess, I wonder, that Uliba would attempt my throne again?”

I said cautiously that Napier had mentioned her ambitions, but neither he nor Speedy had taken them too seriously.

“Unlike some besotted clowns in Galla who admire her body and fine airs,” scoffs Masteeat. “She has a way with men, as you know, and she is strong and brave and reckless—oh, a heroine, my little sister! If only her judgment of men looked higher than their loins. She thinks that a few lovers in high places can conjure a revolution out of the air, and all Galla will enthrone her by acclaim!” She shook her head and drank. “I knew a month ago that when your general sent her south she would use the occa sion to seek out Zaneh and Abite, who had pledged her their regiments. So when she came to the rendezvous she found not them but Wedaju waiting. And now I am plagued with a thrice-rebellious sister, and Zaneh and Abite and a score of others pay with their lives.”

For a moment she was solemn as she refilled her goblet, then she brightened.

“Still, the Basha Fallaka chose well. She guarded and guided you, and when her silly plot came to nothing she kept faith with you and your people—aye, even though she believed you had betrayed her.” She was smiling with real admiration. “Do you know, when Wedaju brought her prisoner to me, and she had stamped and raged and gloried in her treason and cursed her conspirators for fools and cowards… why, then she demanded private audience, and told me of your mission. Aye, she is a heroine indeed, when she is not playing the idiot. She keeps her word—which is why I believe her when she vows to take my throne.” She tossed her head, swirling her braids, and eyed me. “You wonder why I tolerate her, do you not?”

I said tactfully that her majesty was a marvel of patience, and loved her sister dearly. Masteeat shrugged and refilled our goblets.

“So she thinks. Oh, I have a sisterly affection for her—but not enough to stop me sending her to the stranglers if there was no other way. That startles you? You supposed my endearments sincere?” She smiled coolly over the rim of her cup. “A little, perhaps… but their true purpose was to play on her girlish emotions, for she’s a romantic, our Uliba-Wark, with a tender heart for kittens and little birds and the fond sister who told her bed-time stories. The same Uliba who can gloat over the torture of an enemy…” I thought of Yando hanging terrified “… weeps great tears over this—” She drew her robe aside to display the bead anklet. “Lord God, the time my women spent searching for the wretched thing! It served my purpose, as did my embraces. While her shame and remorse last, she will not attempt my throne again, believe me.” Seeing my expression, she burst out laughing, refilled her goblet, crammed a handful of sweets into her mouth, washed them down with one great gulp, hiccoughed, picked up the tej flask and a dish of dainties and made her stately way, swaying slightly, back to her couch, apologising with an elegant flutter of her fingers for keeping me standing, and begging me to take Uliba’s stool.

I wondered had I ever seen her like. Every inch a queen, with the table manners of a starving navvy; tyrant of the toughest savages in Africa and indulgent to the point of lunacy of her wildcat sister; using lions as lapdogs and plainly ready to enjoy amorous jollity with a chap she’d known a bare five minutes; uninhibited, merry, gluttonous, imperious, sentimental and cynical by turns—and unless I was badly in error, as astute and formidable as any crowned female I’d ever met, and they’re nobody’s fools, these royal ladies. As she proceeded to prove, lolling in cushioned comfort with enough lush inside her to float a frigate.

“But enough of Uliba-Wark. She tells me your Dedjaz (* General, an abbreviation of Dedjazmach.) Napier seeks an alliance against Theodore, but she knew nothing of any price. Now, I am sure that he will have named a sum; and equally sure that he will have urged you to make as cheap a bargain as the silly woman will accept.” She took a long swig, mocking me with an eye like a velvet fish-hook. “But I am surest of all that you are too gallant a gentleman to take advantage of a poor African lady.”

What could I do but smile in turn, and resolve then and there to pay her the whole kitboodle, as she was sure I would, the crafty trollop. She knew my style, and I knew hers, and ’twasn’t my money anyway.

“Since your majesty is graciously pleased to signify your assent to Sir Robert’s proposal,” says I, all ambassador-like, “I am empow ered to promise fifty thousand dollars in Austrian silver of 1780 minting…” It was a pleasure to see the light of pure greed mantle that jolly face “… provided that your majesty’s forces invest Magdala and prevent the Emperor’s escape.” I bowed, sitting down. “I have the honour to await your majesty’s reply.”

“And when will the money be paid?”

“When Sir Robert has the honour of paying his respects to your majesty in person.”

She gave me her old-fashioned look. “Which means when Theodore is dead or captured, but not before.”

“That, ma’am,” says I, “is exactly what it means. But you need have no fear. Sir Robert’s a man of his word. And so am I.”

“Oh, I am very sure of that. Very well; it is promised, it is done.” She extended an imperious hand, and again I hastened to help her rise, but this time I drew her plumpness smoothly to me, and was about to clamp her buttocks and make a meal of her, but she held her face away, looking mischievous. “And until the silver is in my treasury, I hold a hostage, do I not?” She flirted her lips across mine. “Now, you must take counsel with my commanders.”

Any doubts I might have had about the military bandobast of the Wollo Gallas were banished entirely in the next few hours when I conferred with their commanders. They were as expert and brisk in planning as their queen had been in negoti ation, grasped Napier’s requirements at once, and knew exactly how to satisfy them. By the time we were done I was confident that whatever the hazards of taking Magdala, the Gallas would do their part to the letter.

There were four of them in the great airy apartment where Fasil, their general in chief, had his head-quarters. He was a mercenary, of the Amoro Galla tribe, notorious for their bravery, ferocity, and hatred of Christians, and didn’t he look it? He was a tall grizzled veteran whose hawk profile was marred by a dreadful sword-cut which had cleft both cheeks and the bridge of his nose; his style was all Guardee, sharp with authority and sparing with words. His two immediate sub ordinates were surprisingly young, hard-case stalwarts commanding infantry and cavalry respectively, full of bounce and confidence of which Fasil was sourly tolerant—not a bad sign. I don’t remember their names. Fourth man in was Masteeat’s son, Ahmed, a lively, hand some stripling who had inherited his mother’s lazy smile without her indolence, for he was restless with energy. He seemed to be Fasil’s a.d.c. In attendance there were half a dozen scribes taking notes.

What impressed me at first sight even more than the men was the great scale model, six feet by three, which occupied the centre of the room. It was an exact representation of Magdala and the country round, and beat any sand-table I’d ever seen. I doubt if any military academy of Europe or America could have shown better—and these were the primitive aborigines whom Punch depicted as nigger minstrels.

I made a sketch of it, and if you study it along with my descrip tion you’ll understand why I examined it with mounting alarm, for it was clear to me that if Theodore defended his amba like the pro fessional soldier he was reputed to be, Napier’s command was looking disaster in the face.

Until now, you see, all I knew of Magdala was what the croakers said: that it was impregnable if resolutely defended—but that’s been an old soldier’s tale since Joshua’s day, and I’d been ready to believe that the shave (* Rumour.) was exaggerated. I wasn’t prepared for that sand-table, if it was accurate. Fasil swore it was, to the inch, having been made by their best engineers and artists months earlier, when Masteeat had contemplated an attack on the place.

“And would have taken it, garrisoned by sheep as it is!” cries young Ahmed. “But Menelek and Gobayzy came snapping at our ankles like the dogs they are!”

“I could take it now, prince, if her majesty wishes,” brags the infantry wallah, with a cocky grin at me. “Why leave it for the British, who may not restore it to her majesty afterwards?”

“Since when are you a politician?” growls Fasil. “Keep to your trade and let your queen mind hers.”

“Oh, give him his way, lord general!” cries the cavalry chap. “Let’s see him pit his skill against Theodore’s!” He turned to me. “Given leave, my horsemen would have cut the Emperor’s rabble to pieces before they’d crossed the Bechelo!”

“Silence, fools!” growls Fasil. “Who are you to dare to reproach her majesty?” The lads protested that they’d meant no such thing, while I sought confirmation of the bad news.

“Theodore is in Magdala already?”

“He reached the amba three days ago, and camps his army on Islamgee, under the Magdala cliff,” says Fasil. “But his guns are not yet emplaced. When they and his great mortar have been sited, our scouts will bring us instant word, which we shall pass to your Dedjaz Napier; thus he will know which height Theodore will defend.” He leaned forward and tapped three features in the model with his pointer. “Fala… Selassie… Magdala…”

Look at my map and you’ll see them: three flat-topped peaks like the legs of an upturned stool, surrounded by mountains, a wilderness of rock and ravine worthy of Afghanistan. A saddle of land almost two miles long connects Fala and Selassie, and beyond lay the plain of Islamgee and Theodore’s army. I walked round the table, weighing it all, and saw that there was only one way for Napier to advance after he’d crossed the Bechelo. I ain’t being clever; any fool could ha’ seen it.

The road that Theodore had made to transport his artillery wound in a great loop from the Bechelo river through the Arogee plateau, and on to Magdala itself. But that wouldn’t do for Napier; it was too perilously close to the broken country bordering the Warki river, where the Abs would have all the advantage of ambush and sur prise; the mere sight on the model of the beetling rocky sides of the Warki valley gave me the horrors; let ’em draw you in there and you’d never come out.

The only safe way was to take a long slant to the right and come to Arogee by the spurs running up through Afichu plateau; it might mean some stiff climbing for our troops, but they’d be in fairly open ground all the way, which would suit our infantry and gunners if Theodore were daft enough to offer pitched battle.

The key to the whole puzzle was plainly Fala. If Theodore put guns there he’d be able to bombard our advance over Arogee, but our gunners could give him shot for shot, and once Fala was taken the way to the Islamgee plain and Magdala would be open. And then… it would be a question of “so far so good” and put up a prayer.

You may remember pictures of Theodore’s great amba; the illus trated papers were full of them in ’68. It’s what they call a vol canic plug, a sheer cylinder of rock over three hundred feet high, with only one precipitous way up guarded by gates and ramparts. If Theodore was ready to fight to a finish and his gunners stood to it, Napier might never take that ghastly height. And his army, cut off and out of supply, would die at the end of nowhere.

Well, that wasn’t my indaba. My task was to see that the Gallas did their stuff, and I’m bound to say they seemed eager enough. Fifty thou’ and undisputed sovereignty over the Galla confederacy might be the prize to Masteeat, but unless I misread the looks of her commanders they asked nothing better than a chance to adorn their spear-points with Theodore’s courting tackle.

“Where’s Dedjaz Napier, d’you know?” I asked.

“Three days ago he was over the Takazy, at Santara, a week’s march from Magdala,” says Fasil. “By now he will be close to Bethor, perhaps at the Jedda ravine. God providing, they should be across the Bechelo in… three days? Perhaps four.”

“Oh, three, surely!” cries young Ahmed. “If he knows we are with him, he must come like the wind!”

“Even the wind must rest, prince,” says Cavalry. “They have come far and fast.”

“And they lay three days at Santara so that the main force might close up with the advance guard,” says Infantry.

“But they are none but fighting men now!” protests Ahmed. “They have left their slaves behind, and will march at speed with only their guns to carry!” To a Galla, all camp-followers were slaves, apparently. He appealed to me. “They will make all haste?”

“If they’re well provisioned,” says I.

“Your men will come to the Bechelo with full bellies,” says Fasil. “The Dalanta folk will see to it, out of hatred of Theodore.”

“And love of my mother!” insists Ahmed.

“Indeed, highness,” says Fasil tactfully, and Cavalry and Infantry made loyal noises.

“Hear, hear,” says I, and asked Fasil precisely how he would set about bottling Theodore. He traced an arc with his pointer south of Magdala.

“Two thousand scouts are already in place, and presently we will have a screen of cavalry from Guna to Lake Haik. Wherever he goes, it will not be southward.”

It looked a hell of a long arc, more than a hundred miles. “Your cavalry’ll be spread mighty thin, then.”

“Not so thin,” says he. “There will be twenty thousand riders.”

If I stared, d’you wonder? That was three times the force that Theodore could muster, ten times as many as Napier would use to storm Magdala. No wonder Cavalry had said he could have cut Theodore to ribbons, and Infantry had boasted of taking the amba with his foot-soldiers. He spoke up now, nodding confidently to me.

“The cavalry will be a reserve, of course; they will not be needed. I shall have three regiments of spearmen deployed between them and the amba, should Theodore attempt to break out.”

“Then you will have the chance to match tactics with Theodore!” cries Cavalry, winking at me. “A battle of the giants… but have no fear, foot-soldier, we shall be there.”

“So you will,” grins Infantry. “Behind us, out of harm’s way.”

“But close enough to hear cries for help…”

Not the way generals in civilised armies talk to each other as a rule, especially before their chief, but among experts outer forms of discipline don’t matter too much; the Gallas didn’t need to stand on ceremony. There was no bitterness in the young men’s rivalry; they were laughing at each other, Ahmed was grinning, and Fasil had the kind of authority that doesn’t depend on military etiquette. Listening to them, I knew that they’d do their part; it remained for Napier to attend to his, and he’d need all the prime intelligence I could give him. I questioned Fasil and his lieutenants on every par ticular: where exactly the infantry would be placed, their precise numbers (eight thousand all told), how long they’d be able to stay in the field, how they’d communicate, what were the lines of retreat from Magdala—all the small change, in fact, and as I noted it I was musing on how best to present it with a view to gaining the most credit.

There was no question of taking my news to Napier in person: he expected me to command the Galla encirclement of Magdala, bless him, and with Theodore’s ruffians infesting the northern approaches I’d not have ventured forth for a pension anyway. So I wrote a brief and suitably modest report to say that I’d arrived at Masteeat’s court, that she was an eager ally, the Wollos were fallen in and numbered off and could be counted on to stop Theodore’s southern bolthole, that he was camped on Islamgee with about seven thousand troops, but until his guns were placed we couldn’t tell whether he’d defend Magdala, offer battle, or cut and run. To be continued in our next, the weather remains fine, and please reply by the bearer of this despatch—and make him a present of a revolver.

I asked Fasil for Wedaju as my messenger because he could be trusted to reply intelligently to the sort of questions Napier would ask, and he was the kind of young hero who’d get there, through Hell and high water. He was summoned, and in the presence of Fasil and Co. I added the verbal messages that couldn’t be written in case they fell into Theodore’s hands: the number and rough disposition of the Galla force, the escape routes which Fasil thought Theodore would most likely take, and most importantly, the lie of the land—this I did by having Wedaju study the sand-table, and satisfy me that he could make a sketch of it from memory for Napier’s benefit. I demonstrated what I thought the best route from the Bechelo to Arogee, to which Fasil and his lads gave their approval. Some commanders don’t care for suggestions from below, but I knew Bob Napier would weigh mine and follow them unless he saw good reason not to.

Finally, and principally for young Ahmed’s benefit, I told Wedaju to assure Napier that the Queen of Wollo Galla had pledged her alliance in the most cordial terms, and shown me every courtesy and consideration, and we could congratulate ourselves on having the support of such an illustrious and enlightened ruler and her fine soldiery. Diplomatic butter, no more, but Ahmed took it large, clasping my hand and vowing that I must repeat it to Mama instanter, so that she could respond with similar compliments and greetings to the British dedjaz. And it was right, says he, that we should take the opportunity to inform her majesty that all was in train for the bottling of Theodore, so let us seek her approval as a loyal council should.

I could see that Fasil felt that the less opportunity royalty got to interfere, the better, “but you don’t argue with a prince of the blood, even if he is your galloper, so off the five of us trooped to her majesty’s private apartments, with Wedaju in tow. There we were informed by her doddering chamberlain that her majesty was unable to grant us audience at present, as she had been resting and was now being attired by her ladies for the evening’s entertainment (from which I deduced that the tej had finally caught up with her and she was being revived and rendered fit for public view). What entertainment, demands Ahmed, and was told, with an obsequious smirk at me, that there was to be a grand reception and feast in honour of the British baldaraba. (* Agent, representative.) Capital, says Ahmed, now get out of my way, and such is the politeness of princes that a moment later we were making our bows in the presence, while her handmaidens, caught unawares, tried gamely to disguise her majesty’s condition. As I’d suspected, she’d plainly had to be roused from the arms of Bacchus, and was visibly glazed of eye and unsteady on the seat before her dressing-table, with a wench either side to lend unobtrusive support, and her handmaiden-in-chief trying to impart a little dignity by slipping a silver wand into the royal grasp. But she played up well; her head was regally erect, and she greeted us with careful courtesy.

Ahmed wanted me to repeat the flowery part of my message to Napier, but I wasn’t having that, and insisted Wedaju should do it to make sure he had it pat. The lad was shocking nervous before his sovereign, but got it out slow and halting after a few false starts. Masteeat listened with solemn attention, stifling an occasional yawn, and once her silver wand slipped from her drowsy hand and was retrieved by Infantry a split second ahead of Cavalry. I only hoped Wedaju would get done while she could still see and sit upright, but when he’d finished she astonished me by extending an imperious hand to him and saying, slowly but clearly:

“And tell the English dedjaz also that the Queen of Galla calls the blessing of God on him and his brave soldiers, and bids them have a care, so that they come safely to their journey’s end and into the presence of their loving friend, Masteeat, who has them in her heart.” Along with their fifty thousand jemmy o’ goblins, thinks cynical Flashy, but when she added, smiling all fondly maternal on Wedaju, “And you, gallant warrior, fare well through all dangers, and know that you take with you the prayers of a grateful and loving queen,” I wasn’t a bit surprised to see him drop to his knees and press her hand to his forehead and lips, while Infantry and Cavalry fell over each other to join him, Ahmed almost shed a tear of filial devotion, and even grizzled old Fasil looked moist and noble.

If she’d been a beauty in the mould of Yehonala or Lakshmibai, or even as handsome as Uliba-Wark, their adoration (for that’s what it was, no error) would have been in order, but she was a hearty piece of middle-aged Eve’s flesh of no remarkable allure—that she appealed to me was by the way; I’m a connoisseur of feminine beauty but no discrimination worth a dam, and anyway I’m perversely partial to royal rattle. And yet, she had that quality which I can’t describe but which attracts where mere perfection of form and feature are no more exciting than a marble statue.

I guess it’s charm, and she spread it over her soldiers like Circe’s spell. I suppose she charmed me—and I don’t mean only randy-like, but happy captivation. Aye, that must have been it, for I find myself smiling still whenever I think back on her, while Uliba has faded into the shadows.

I came away from that audience a relieved and thankful man, glad to have a moment at last for rest and reflection. Things could hardly have come out better, however hellish they had been since I’d left Napier’s camp weeks ago. My worst fears had been realised along the way: the skirmish with Yando’s gang, that appalling dangle in the steel cage, the palpitating escape from the Soudani bandits at Gondar, the clash with Theodore’s riders, my plunge over Abyssinia’s Niagara, the shock of Uliba’s reappearance and most uncalled-for assault… but here I was again, none the worse bar a bruise or two, duty done in securing the Galla alliance and despatching the glad news to Napier, and no great anxieties ahead that I could see.

True, I’d have to arrange matters so that I could appear to be commanding the Galla operations while keeping clear of the action, but that ain’t difficult when you’ve had years of practice. I’m a prime hand at playing Lionheart without doing a blessed thing (what dear old Tom Hughes called “shouts and great action"), and I could occupy myself splendidly at Galla H.Q., keeping the threads of administration together, don’t you know, taking an overall view until I deemed it safe to join the last rally.

Meanwhile I could think of worse billets than the court of good Queen Masteeat. Safe, well stocked and furnished, friendly… of course it went without saying that I’d have to do my extra-diplomatic duty by her majesty, but that would be no hardship—and if you wonder how I was so sure of her, I can only say that I had felt her mouth under mine and read the message in her lazy smile. Besides, in Ab society, which as I’ve told you is probably the most immoral on earth (Cheltenham ain’t in it), rogering the hostess is almost obligatory, part of the etiquette, like leaving cards, and not at all out of the way in a country where it’s considered a mortal insult to praise a woman’s chastity, since it implies that she’s not attractive enough to be galloped. Say no more.

But while I knew ’twould be only a matter of time before Masteeat and I had our wicked way with each other, I could never have foreseen the circumstances; indeed, had I been forewarned, I’d not have believed it. I’m neither inexperienced nor a prude; I have known, and been party to, abandoned behaviour, and have even joined in the occasional orgy, but I can take oath that I have never known the like of the reception and feast that the old chamber lain had described as “an entertainment".

It was he who led me all unsuspecting to the dining chamber of the royal residence in which the other guests, about a dozen, were already assembled. The long low dining table was surrounded by cushioned stools set in pairs, one for each couple, and at the head was a spread of cushions for the Queen, who had not yet arrived, and her guest of honour. Fasil, Cavalry, and Infantry were on hand, each with a beauty in tow, the two lads being accompanied by a pair of Masteeat’s handmaidens, and Fasil by a quite breathtaking creature of about his own age who may well have been his wife; she had those delicately perfect features you see on some Scandinavian women—and was jet black. The other three couples I don’t remember, except that the women were typically Ab, which is to say peaches. There were no servants at all; we helped our selves to the tej from flagons on the sideboard, and stood about gossiping for all the world like a Belgravia bunfight. Fasil and his juniors talked shop, as soldiers always do, and showed a surprising knowledge of such diverse matters as the Sepoy Mutiny and the war in America, but presently they were set aside by Fasil’s black Venus and the handmaidens, and blowed if I wasn’t cross-examined about London fashions, hairstyles, and the like. Some of their inquiries would ha’ made me blush if I hadn’t been revelling in the attentions of three such ravishing inquisitors, bright-eyed, flirta tious, breathing perfume with each gentle laugh.

It struck me that Masteeat must be uncommon tolerant to allow herself to be so outshone, and then I remembered reading some where that our old Queen Bess had surrounded herself with the prettiest of pippins, no doubt knowing that there was only one woman who’d be looked at. That was certainly the case when the Queen of Galla made her entrance, stately and smiling sleepily, and somehow contriving to put all the bowing beauties in the shade.

And, dammit, she wasn’t even sober yet, to judge from her swaying gait, careless gestures, and ringing laugh. They’d put her in very fair trim, though, with a gold circlet as a sort of coronet, and gold thread cunningly worked into her braids; she had gold chain earrings depending to her broad bare shoulders, and a gold collar clasped about her throat. Her dress was white and of some clinging gauzy stuff cleverly cut to disguise a waist and hips which were undoubtedly overblown and to display a bosom whose development matched her shoulders admirably. She carried a gold wand this time, and the effect of her carriage and manner was overpower ing, no other word for it.

When the company had finished its obeisance, she held her arm for me to take, and led the way to the head of the table, where she took her seat among the cushions, indicating that I should join her. She reclined on one elbow, but I decided to sit, as being less awkward and more in keeping with the company, who had their little stools. More tej was poured, Masteeat led the company in pledging me, Queen Victoria, Napier, and the British Army, in that order, each toast requiring a full goblet, no heel-taps. We ain’t going to eat a great deal, thinks I; they’ll be too tight to pick up the grub. But I was dead wrong.

You know what dining out I’d done thus far; rough browsing mostly and not too formal even at Uliba’s citadel and the monastery. But I’d never been to a Lord Mayor’s Banquet, if you know what I mean, and that was what I was treated to, Habesh style. It’s quite alarming.

You sit there, drinking toasts, wondering when the soup’s going to arrive, when suddenly the most appalling din breaks out just beyond the door, a full-throated bellowing, peal after peal of some huge body in mortal pain thrashing about to the accompaniment of yelling voices, shrieks of command and cries of desperation, fur niture crashing, the bellowing rising to a crescendo—and the guests applauding and your hostess imbibing another pint of tej, smacking her lips in anticipation.

And then servants scurry in, and there is planked down in front of you a plate containing a twelve-pound beefsteak, raw, red, and bleeding, and as I live and breathe, it has steam rising from it, which perhaps ain’t surprising since thirty seconds before it was part of the living animal which is bawling in agony outside. I’d had raw beef before, in transparently thin slices, cold, and not too bad, but as I gazed at this smoking horror I thought, no, the devil with etiquette, protocol, and diplomatic niceties, I ain’t touching it, whatever offence I give. Down the table they were buffing in like mad cannibals, even those elegant beauties, with gore trickling down their lovely chins and being wiped with dainty fingers. I daren’t look at Masteeat for fear of what I’d see; the mere sound of her champing made me come all over faint.

“You do not care for the brundo!” She laughed, took a hearty draught of tej, and called a servant to remove my bloody lump of carcase and replace it with a whole roast chicken. “Our friend Speedy, the great Basha Fallaka, shuddered like a girl when the beast was tethered and carved. That is why it was done outside today, so that your delicate senses might not be disturbed!” She struck me lightly on the arm, joshing, so I had to look at her, but either she’d wiped herself or swallowed the steak whole, for the chubby laughing face was clean and shining. “So, eat with good appetite!”

I can’t say I did, for the beast was still bellowing piteously outside, and some of the guests were calling for second helpings of the poor brute. And after that, when the roast meats and fowls and fish and stews and curries were served, the voracity with which the company punished each succeeding course quite put me off. God knows my generation were good trenchermen, but they weren’t fit to guzzle in Ethiopian company; it was wolf, wolf, wolf with an unrestrained vengeance, and those exquisite females, like so many tawny goddesses in their fine silks and gauzes, laid in as hard as the men. Talk about having hollow legs—and they drank pint for pint, too, taking their cue from her majesty, who bade fair to outstrip her potations of the afternoon.

It was, as you can imagine, a noisy business all round, and by the time the desserts and fruits were reached it was like being in a farmyard at feeding time. It didn’t stop them talking, mind; the din of conversation rose as the drink went down, and Masteeat found time between her gargantuan mouthfuls of food and gulps of liquor to call down amiable curses on the head of Uliba-Wark, who had defied a royal command to attend the feast and flounced off in dudgeon when rebuked.

“She becomes tiresome,” says Masteeat, and heaved a mighty yawn; the tej was coming home to roost at last, and her speech was thick and slow. “I begin to think that what I said half in jest I should decree in earnest… send her to Gobayzy.” She lowered another gobletful. “A penance for both of them.”

Fasil, who was sitting first down the table, shook his head. “Would your majesty know a moment’s peace if your half-sister were Gobayzy’s queen, with his army at her command?”

“To make another attempt against me?” laughs Masteeat. “Not so, old soldier, Gobayzy would have none of it. He fears the Galla too much… most of all the Galla Queen.” At which Cavalry and Infantry roared applause, and drank to her, with the others joining in.

“And yet,” says Fasil, when the shouting had died, “Gobayzy’s uncle visited the Dedjaz Napier at Santara. What for, if not to stand first with the British… in your majesty’s room?”

“By God, it is the truth!” cries Infantry. “Did I not say there is no knowing how the British might dispose of Magdala when it is taken!” He scowled half-drunkenly at me. “If Gobayzy worms his way into their confidence, might it not be given to him?” At this there was an uproar of opinion, stilled when Masteeat spoke with tipsy deliberation.

“No.” She set down her goblet carefully, and refilled it, more or less, with an unsteady hand. “No. Gobayzy’s a… a worm, you say… Well, what can he give the British? His army of… of worms?” She chuckled. “Worms who crawl away at the sight of our spears! No. The British dedjaz has chosen already…” She threw out an arm across my shoulders. “Chosen already, I say! Has he not?” She leaned towards me, and I prepared to catch her, but she kept her balance. “Has he not?” she repeated, and giggled, enveloping me in tej fumes. The great black eyes were half-closed, the smiling lips were moist and parted, and her braids were brushing my face. “Has he not?” she said a third time, her voice a drowsy murmur, and I glanced at Fasil, but he had turned away to his black charmer, and no one else was paying us any heed.

“Has he not?” for the fourth time, drunk as David’s sow, but not too far gone to kiss me gently, playing her tongue along my lips, whispering. “Oh… beautiful! More beautiful than Basha Fallaka … Are you all so beautiful, you English… ?”

“Just a few of us, ma’am,” says I, and she gave a whoop of laughter and heaved her bulk away, knocking over her goblet, which I gallantly rescued and refilled, after a fashion, for I was feeling the worse for wear myself, what with too much booze and the rising clamour and laughter… for now the party was becoming lively, and if you don’t believe what I’m about to tell you, I can’t help it.

Young Cavalry and his bint had evidently had their fill of meat and drink, and were starting to satisfy another appetite, pawing and fondling with increasing passion, and slipping off their stools on to a mattress which some obliging menial must have laid behind their places. Gad’s me life, thinks I, not before the savoury, surely, but there was no doubt about it, they were setting to partners in earnest, and Fasil, seated next to them, had unwound a fold of his shama and was holding it up to shield the performers from the public gaze, the damned spoilsport—and blow me if Cavalry’s other neighbour wasn’t doing likewise, providing a complete screen!

But if they’d cut off the sight, they couldn’t shut out the sound. Even above the drunken babble of talk, gasps and grunts and rhythmic pounding were audible, followed at last by a prolonged ecstatic wailing that reminded me of little Fraulein Thingamajig on the voyage to Trieste. Well done, Cavalry, that’s your sort, thinks I, and looked to see the company, and Masteeat if she still had her senses, express their indignation at such unseemly behaviour—but no one was paying the least attention until Fasil and t’sother chap resumed their shamas and the happy couple emerged, the bint in some disorder and Cavalry looking as though he’d just been ridden down by the Heavy Brigade. Then, as God’s my witness, the whole company raised their glasses in salutation as the lovers resumed their stools.

And then the other diners followed suit, in turn. Whether they observed some order of precedence, like Bishops going into dinner before Rear Admirals, I can’t say, but I think not, since Fasil and his consort were next to bat, and he must have been senior to Cavalry, surely. I was caught out, because Cavalry undid his shama to give ’em privacy, and nodded and frowned in my direction—and of course I was the nearest chap, and since I didn’t wear a shama I could only hold up a cushion, which wasn’t really adequate. Being fairly foxed, I started to apologise to Fasil, but quickly averted my gaze, thinking that’s a position I haven’t seen before, but ex Africa semper aliquid novi (* “Out of.Africa there is always something new”—Pliny the Elder.) as Charity Spring would have said.

Then Infantry and his charmer were at it, and of course the inevitable happened: the others got impatient, and started out of turn, and all order was abandoned. Only the most perfunctory attempts were made to shield the jolly amorists, and the place shook like a New Orleans brothel in Holy Week. The Abs have two claims to distinction: they’re the noisiest eaters and fornicators on earth, and their queen is up there with the leaders. I’d been too intent on the scandalous scene to pay her much heed, and now when I looked she was reclining on one elbow, regarding me glassily over the rim of her tej goblet; whether she could see me or not I wasn’t sure until she reached out a hand to stroke my cheek, and (of all things) chucked me under the chin, gurgling with laughter and lurching closer.

“Has… he… not… ?” she mumbled drowsily—by jove, she’d lapped the gutter, but d’you know, it was a rum thing, the drunker she got the more I fancied her. I’ve said she was no great beauty, but there was something damned fetching about the plump polished cheeks between the shining braids, the moist lips trem bling in a vacuous smile, the satin skin of her arms and shoul ders, the hard juggs thrusting themselves into my grasp, and the wild abandon with which she suddenly revived, clamping her mouth on mine, clawing at my rump, howling and writhing fit to wreck the furniture… and I think some considerate chaps must have noticed, for I’ve a recollection of being secluded by their shamas.

I hope we were, anyway… not that I imagine anyone would have paid us the slightest heed in the surrounding happy pandemonium, but one has to think of propriety and the good name of the service, especially among native peoples, however trying conditions may sometimes be. As I said to Speedicut, it’s hell in the diplomatic.

Elspeth maintains that one of the jolliest things about what she calls houghmagandie is the sweet exchanges of conversation afterwards. What they would have been like with Queen Masteeat of Galla, I cannot say, for she fell asleep at the end of our little frolic, and had to be carried insensible to bed by the more sober of her hand maidens, snoring like a volcano. My stars, but she was a glutton for mutton, and I was a well-ruined ambassador as I picked my way clear of the wreckage of that dining-chamber—would you credit it, Infantry and Cavalry were still going strong, with Fasil’s woman, too, while he was tucking into a helping of brundo, fed to him by his subordinates’ laughing lovebirds. No one’s ever going to believe this, thinks I; hang it all, Nero himself would have taken one look and cried “Oh, chuck it!” But that’s Ab society for you; other folk have dinner parties, but in Habesh they’re dinner orgies. [40]

I’ve no very clear recollection of making my way to the apart ment in the palace set aside for me, but I know I suffered a most ghastly bout of “spinning pillow” and had to hang over the side of the bed with the floor racing up to me and receding, time and again, before I finally settled, lying there in the dark wondering how much of Queen Masteeat I could take. She was no refined amorist, that one, strong as a bullock, randy as a stoat, and the roughest ride I could remember since Ranavalona of Madagascar—another Black Pearl of Africa, but before I could make philosophic review of this coincidence, my attention was distracted by a gentle pricking of some sharp point under my right ear, and a soft voice whispering:

“Lie still, friend, and prosper… for the moment. Speak… and you’ll be talking to Shaitan.”

I’ve written elsewhere of the terror of being shocked awake by deadly danger, and of the freezing paralysis that follows. It’s happened to me more than once—why, in China I was dragged out of bed into a midnight skirmish, and then into the pres ence of the lunatic leader of the Taiping Rebellion, but at least in that case my panic was shortlived, since my kidnappers proved to be friends. No such luck in Habesh; half-drunk as I was, there was no mistaking the threat of the knife-point, the lamplit nightmare of the gleaming eyes and teeth in the black faces staring down at me, the gag thrust brutally into my mouth, and the grip of the hands which wrenched me to my feet and ran me from the room, down a rickety staircase, and into the pouring rain of a chill night. Robed figures with swords and spears were about me, and then a blind fold was whipped over my face and I was being half carried, half thrust along, trying to yell for help through my gag and almost swallowing the thing out of sheer funk.

What made it doubly terrifying was the complete silence of my captors: not an order, not a word or a threat after that gloating voice that had woken me; these were professional kidnappers, probably expert assassins, who knew exactly what they were doing, where they were taking me, and why—although the wherefore didn’t occur to me, fuddled with fright and liquor as I was, until I was flung down on to a stretcher, swiftly bound to it, and borne off at a run. Only then, when I realised that I was not being hauled out to instant execution, did I ask myself who could be behind this abduction.

The answer seemed horribly clear: Uliba-Wark, thirsting for vengeance—and remembering how she’d dealt with Yando was enough to bring me out in a lather of fear. Oh Lord, and she’d had some ghastly notion of removing a victim’s bones one at a time and keeping him in agony for months! Being unable to scream or spew, I could only lie terrified while they jolted me along at speed—heaven knew how far we went, or how long it took; you ain’t at your calculating best with a mind a-shudder and a bellyful of drink, but I don’t believe they could have kept up that pace more than an hour, over five miles, perhaps, before they halted for a breather and set me down.

The blindfold was stripped away, leaving me blinking in the glare of a torch in the hand of one of the men surrounding me; seven or eight of them, Gallas in white pyjamy trowsers and belted robes, strapping fellows fully armed with spears and sickle-swords, one or two with muskets and their leader with a couple of horse pistols in his belt. He was one of your typical Wollos, handsome as Lucifer and every bit as kindly to judge from his sneering grin, but when I rolled my eyes in dumb appeal he pulled out the gag.

I was too parched to speak at first, but probably because he wanted to hear what I had to say, he signed one of the band who held a chaggle to my lips, and the first words I croaked out, to confirm my suspicions, were: “Where is she?”

“The Queen Uliba-Wark?” says he. “Be patient, you will see her presently… and she will reward you for your services.” It was the same soft mocking voice that had threatened me with a chat to Old Nick, chuckling pleasantly as his gang grinned like a pack of wolves over a peasant, and I gibbered at him.

“What the devil d’you mean? D’you know who I am? A British officer, the envoy of Dedjaz Napier, and by God if you don’t set me loose this instant, you’ll swing higher than Haman, you black son-of-a-bitch! Queen Masteeat will see to it, and that slut Uliba won’t be able to shield you—”

He struck me back-handed across the mouth. “Speak foully once more of Queen Uliba-Wark and you’ll be unable to speak to Shaitan! For before you die I’ll tear your tongue out!” He slapped me again, and resumed his mockery. “No one will know what has become of you, farangi fool! Your dedjaz may ask what has happened to you, and Queen Uliba-Wark will lament your strange disappearance—oh, aye, by then she will have replaced the Fat Bitch! We shall not fail a second time. She may even order me, Goram, to make a search… but by then not enough will remain of your filthy carcase to make a meal for a jackal pup!”

So he wasn’t a mercenary, as for a second I’d dared to hope, but a genuine Uliba-worshipper, one of the crazy conspirators who’d survived the botched coup to put her on the throne. And thanks to Masteeat’s idiotic indulgence, she was free to make a second attempt—and to butcher me.

“Don’t be a fool, Goram,” said I, calm and quiet, for I saw yelling wouldn’t serve with this one. "Dedjaz Napier and the Basha Fallaka are cunning men who know Uliba and her plots, and they’ll trace you and hunt you down, aye, even if you run to the Mountains of the Moon. But release me and you’ll be rewarded—more money than you’ve ever seen! Why, they’re giving fifty thousand dollars to Masteeat just as a gift—”

He clapped a hand over my mouth, and now he was stuffing the gag back between my teeth—he might be loyal to Uliba, but he daren’t risk his gang being tempted by a fortune in silver. I tried to spit it out, but he had it bound in a trice, and I could do nothing but heave and roll my eyes. Then he spat in my face.

“If you were tortured for a year, it would be too light a punish ment! You would have slain our royal lady—she who had loved you and stood your friend! And you think you can buy me, her sworn warrior who lives only to see her on her rightful throne!” He spat again, and shouted to the others to bear me up. So we set off once more through the night; the rain had stopped, but thunder was rumbling in the distance, with an occasional crackle of light ning in the night sky.

Then the pace was slackening as we went up a steep ascent, and now there was a glow ahead, and a challenge to which Goram replied, and I was carried between great boulders into a rock-girt clearing where a great fire burned, and a half-score of Gallas were resting on their weapons. I was dropped without ceremony in front of a seated figure, cloaked and hooded, and my fearful gaze took in long and beautiful legs elegantly crossed, and above them the lithe figure and handsome face, cold as a basilisk’s, of Uliba-Wark.

There was no trace of the fury she’d shown at our last encounter. For a long moment she looked down at me, with a lack of expression that made my skin crawl, and then she rose, shrugging off her cloak, and came to stand beside Goram, one hand on her hip, the other toying with her braids. But not a word did she say, and paid no heed when Goram, having called a question to some sentry out in the darkness, frowned and shrugged and muttered in her ear. Without taking her eyes from mine, she held out her hand, and Goram drew his knife and handed it to her, grinning. She stropped it once, slowly, on her palm, and nodded, and at a word from Goram three of his ruffians seized me, two at the shoulders, one at the ankles, to prevent my struggling.

She signed to Goram to hold out his spear, and to my horror cut the ghastly trophies from its head, slowly and deliberately, to a delighted murmur from the onlookers; she watched me intently, and must have seen the terror in my eyes, for the chiselled lips smiled for the first time, as Goram dropped to one knee beside me and wrenched at my waistband, trying to tear it open.

The horror of that moment is with me still, and always will be: the ring of grinning black faces crowding closer to watch, Goram’s foul breath in my nostrils, the bestial leer of the scoundrel gripping my ankles, the knowledge of the agonising, unspeakable abomination Uliba-Wark was about to inflict on me as she placed her feet one either side of my legs and prepared to stoop, knife in hand…

… and beyond her, on the very edge of the firelight, there appeared a figure which could only be a guardian angel come down from heaven to save poor Flashy from his tormentors, for it was female and beautiful with flowing hair beneath its little white head dress like a halo, naked to the waist as an avenging fury should be, with a spear raised to hurl—and it wasn’t a hallucination or vision conjured by superstitious funk, for she was letting fly with the spear, and the man at my ankles was rearing up with a shriek of mortal anguish, eyes bulging and hands clutching at the bloody point emerging from his chest, flopping forward and spewing gore as he fell over me… which effectively cut off my view of the battle royal which was breaking out all around.

The hands at my shoulders were gone, Goram was no longer tearing at my britches, oaths and screams were in my ears and shots were ringing out and steel clashing as I strove to throw off the body of the dying man sprawled over me; he slid sideways, choking on his own blood, and I lay bound and helpless, staring at my incredible salvation.

For a wild moment I wondered if my brief delusion of divine aid hadn’t been true after all, for now there was a good score of ministering angels racing into the firelight, half-naked women who howled like Harpies and slashed right and left at the Gallas. But only for a moment: angels don’t shout war cries or squeal with pain when they’re wounded, nor do they yell with delight while two of ’em hold an enemy down and a third rips him open. And they don’t peel like Big Side chargers, either; my spear-thrower had looked like a statue of Diana, but some of her companions were as broad as they were long and could have thrown chests with King Gezo’s Dahomey Amazons. They fought with appalling savagery, and the Gallas were hard put to it to hold them; for a few minutes the fight surged to and fro, and then more attackers came leaping out of the dark, the Gallas fell back as the little darlings swept into them in a final charge, hair flying and juggs bouncing, and as two more of my captors went down, hideously slashed, I knew there could be only one end to it.

Goram knew it too, the swine, but where I would have turned and run, the spiteful brute was faithful unto death to his damned Uliba. He cut down one woman, parried a thrust from another, sprang back, shot a look of pure venom in my direction, barked an order, and leaped back into the fight. And to my horror, two of his ruffians broke away from the melee and snatched up my stretcher… but not to carry me out of harm’s way. No, not a bit of it. They threw me on the fire.

As you may know, during my service in the Punjab I had the misfortune to be basted on a gridiron over a slow fire, and bloody disagreeable it was, leaving me singed and smoking but mercifully underdone. An open blaze is different; two or three seconds and I imagine you burst into flames unless your stretcher happens to be made of stout bullock hide, but even then it’s only a matter of time before you come all over of a heat, and your one hope is the arrival of the fire brigade, at speed.

By God, I was lucky. I crashed into the heart of the blaze with a tremendous shower of sparks, and for a heartbeat there was no sensation before the flames began to lick at my feet, which overhung the stretcher, and I’d ha’ been horribly maimed at least if one of the angels (’cos that’s what she was even if she looked like a female gorilla) hadn’t thrust her spear beneath my stretcher and tipped me clear of the blaze with a tremendous heave which deposited me face down with a seared arse and back but no lasting damage.

She and her mates turned me over, and one of ’em had the wit to pour the contents of a chaggle over me, for I was smouldering painfully, and when they pulled the gag out I woke the echoes with complaint and gratitude, mostly complaint, but they very civilly cut me loose from the stretcher, which was uncomfortably hot still, Gorilla Jane helped me to a drink, and they set me with my back to a boulder, where I could take stock of the astonishing scene.

There wasn’t a Galla left standing. The onslaught of these amazing females had overwhelmed them in minutes, and by the excited yells and ghastly chopping sounds their wounded were being despatched, with my spear-hurling Diana supervising the slaughter. Her followers were a mixed bag, mostly young and as handsome as Ab women are, but one or two were older and pretty puggish; they were in various states of undress, despite the night chill, some in tunics of Uliba’s cut, others in skirts or trowsers, and a few of the younger vain misses flaunted themselves like Diana in flimsy head-dresses, cloaks, and loincloths, a most fetching rig. Every woman-jill of them was fully armed.

Amazons, but very different from the Dahomey variety, who were under discipline and drilled like guardsmen. These were irreg ulars and, unlike Gezo’s Gorgons, they behaved like women; half of them were chattering round their own wounded with squeals of concern and comfort; one very young member of the bare-chest brigade was weeping buckets and pouring dust on her head while they covered the face of her dead comrade—and suddenly she was up and raving shrilly, plunging her spear again and again into a Galla corpse until she noticed a live target hard by: Uliba-Wark! She was bleeding from a dozen wounds, held spreadeagled with Diana apparently interrogating her, when the hysterical stabber ran in and planted her spear in Uliba’s body. In an instant the rest were hacking at her like things demented, while the stabber lay wailing and Diana shrugged and turned away, bored like.

I was physically sick on the spot. The Lord knows I had cause to loathe and fear her for the ghastly revenge she had been about to take on me, and I’ll not pretend I was sorry to have her can celled out… but to see her slashed to pieces, that beautiful body that I’d held in my arms and loved to ecstasy, butchered by these creatures from the Pit, was more than I could bear. Just for an instant I had the vision of her, gleaming wet and naked, laughing on the black rock in Lake Tana, and I absolutely wept and moaned. Oh, I’m vile all right; we’d travelled well together until her death had become necessary to my survival, and I’d tried to murder her without compunction. Foul work indeed. But would I rather she was still living and doing what she’d been about to do? On the whole, no; but I still stopped my ears against the awful chopping sounds and eldritch laughter of the executioners.

Having known Uliba, I dare say I shouldn’t have been aston ished to encounter Ab fighting women, but no advance warning could have prepared me for these terrifying bitches. Who the blazes could they be, whose side were they on, and what had I to hope from them? They’d rescued me, no doubt on the ground that anyone whom their enemies wanted to castrate and roast alive must have something to be said for him, but that didn’t make ’em bosom pals.

Speaking of which, I couldn’t help admiring Diana’s as she strode across in my direction. She knew it, too, sweeping back the tails of her cloak and striking a pose, a hand on her pistol butt. Blue eyes, bigod, piercing bright in a lovely face that was no darker than tawny, peacock proud and sassy with it… and now came an even greater shock, for she was standing aside to make way for two who were following her, and they were men. I hadn’t seen either in the fight or its aftermath, but from the deference Diana showed, one of them at least must be a big gun indeed.

He was small and portly and black as your boot, rolling along on stubby legs and standing arms akimbo to survey me. He was bald, with a fringe of woolly white hair, and wore the red-fringed shama of consequence. His companion looked like a bodyguard, for he wore a steel back and breast and carried spear and sword, a tall, likely Adonis, middling dark and moved like a dancer, taking station at Portly’s shoulder. All three regarded me in silence for a moment, and then Portly opened the bowling, most disconcertingly.

“I know what you are, but not who you are!” He spoke in Amharic, with authority. “So tell me your name, and what you have done that these Galla savages should wish to slay you.”

I answered in Arabic, taken aback but head up. “I’m English. My name is Flashman. I’m a colonel… a ras, a chief in the British Army advancing on Magdala. May I ask who you are?”

There was a gasp from Diana and some of the women who pre sumably understood Arabic. They’d suspended the agreeable task of polishing off the enemy wounded at Portly’s arrival, and crowded in to listen. Diana dropped to one knee to study me more closely—gad, she was a little satin stunner, and I bestowed my most courtly smile on her, which she received with a startled look followed by a dis dainful toss of the head and tits. Portly was equally unimpressed.

“I know what a colonel is, and who I am can wait!” snaps he. “So how came a British officer in the hands of the Galla?” He stamped impatiently. “And why should they seek your death?”

This was dangerous ground, and I must hedge until I’d found out who Portly and these dreadful women were. But for his presence I’d have taken them for bandits, like the female dacoits of India; he was obviously someone of official importance—could he be an agent of some petty ruler like Menelek or Gobayzy of whom I’d heard so much—or even of Masteeat’s rival, the despised Warkite? All I knew for certain was that the women enjoyed killing Gallas, and weren’t likely to be well disposed to anyone whose task it was to enlist them as allies. So I assumed my gallant-pathetic expression and asked Diana if I might have a reviving sip of tej and some food, just a morsel would do, to revive me after my ordeal.

Portly made an Ab noise which would translate as “Bah!” but Diana, dear girl, snapped her fingers and Gorilla Jane hastened to offer a flask and wallet of toasted beef. I thought quickly as I imbibed and chewed, decided I’d best not try Portly’s patience by asking a second time who he was, and resolved, since the truth wouldn’t do, to follow the golden rule by sticking as close to it as possible.

I’d been scouting ahead of Napier’s advance, I said, and had been ambushed by these people—Gallas, had he called them? But thank heaven he and his splendid ladies had turned up, and if he would be so obliging as to return me to my army, the British dedjaz, who was noted for his generosity, would reward them with dollars and all kinds of good things: food, drink, weapons… and of course clothes, silks and satins and ornaments…

The women showed eager interest, but Portly gave another furious stamp. “Do I look like a fool? You dare talk to me of dollars and silks as though I were a fellaheen beggar or a bedawi, and evade my question!” He drew breath, and Diana surprised me by putting in her oar unexpected, with a curl-of-the-lip smile.

“Would your dedjaz’s generosity give us the spoiling of Magdala?” Her women gasped eagerly, the bodyguard burst out laughing, and before Portly could explode I said that I couldn’t answer for the dedjaz, but whatever the spoil of Magdala might be, she could count on getting equivalent value, and meanwhile, the sooner I was restored to my army…

“Perhaps he will not be able to take Magdala.” The bodyguard spoke for the first time. “It is the strongest amba in Habesh.”

“He’ll take it, soldier,” says I. “Have no doubt of that.”

“With the help of the Galla warriors of Queen Masteeat?” bawls Portly, taking me flat aback, although I tried desperately to cover it.

“Galla warriors—these people?” I gestured at the bodies. “I don’t understand… why should the British seek anyone’s help? We have no need of it… and I know nothing of this queen—”

“You lie!” cries Portly. “All Habesh knows by now that the British seek alliance with the Wollo Galla, and who are you to be ignorant?” He shot out a fat finger. “You have been sent by your dedjaz to win the Gallas with silver and a crown for Masteeat! So why, then… should they wish you dead?”

When in doubt, play the bewildered loony. That I was blown upon to the far end of Kingdom Come was plain… Uliba had been right, Yando’s gang had guessed who I was and spread the word. But I daren’t admit anything, to unknown accusers, in a country where everybody knew the far end of a fart before it had even erupted. So I babbled.

“I don’t know what you mean! My dear sir, how should I know why these foul villains wanted to kill me? As to winning anyone with silver…” I threw up my hands. “Please, if you’ll only escort me to my army, you’ll receive a mighty reward for my return, I assure you.” I continued in this vein while he stood glaring, and then Diana, who’d been eyeing me like an Arcadian nymph mis trustful of a satyr of doubtful repute, put in her confounded oar again.

“If we feed him into the fire, little by little, he will speak,” says she, but Portly seemed undecided, for he turned away, and after a word with his bodyguard, told Diana curtly to muster the women and prepare to march. She gave a disappointed grunt and issued brisk orders for them to fall in as soon as they’d finished despoiling and mutilating the dead—you can guess what that meant, and I was happy to avert my eyes from that bloodied ground and dese crated bodies—and Uliba’s among them!—and those barbarian sluts, some of ’em mere slips of girls, chattering and laughing as they went about their grisly work.

“Are you sick, farangi? Why do you look away? Does the sight of blood distress you?” I looked up to find the bodyguard leaning on his spear; Portly was off on a frolic of his own, seemingly. “Nay, surely not; you have seen your own blood run from a wound.” He pointed to the star-shaped scar on my hand. “A bullet did that.”

“A clean wound is one thing, soldier,” says I, and nodded towards the Ladies’ De-ballocking Circle. “That is another.”

“Aye, true,” says he. “Yet it is what the Gallas would have done to you… while you still lived. Do the British not believe in retri bution, then, eye for eye, burning for burning?”

Diana crowed with laughter. “We do not take their eyes!” She added nauseating particulars, and I wondered if I’d ever found a beauty so detestable.

“We believe in it,” I told the bodyguard. “That don’t mean I have to watch your disgusting bitches!” It came out as a high-pitched snarl; reaction was overtaking me after the horrors I’d seen and near experienced, and I was on the brink of spewing again.

“Perhaps he is cold with fear at the sight of fighting women!” jeers Diana. “We can unman men before the fight as well as after!” She seated herself on a rock, stretching her legs and folding her arms across her presents for a good boy. “So they fear us, which is why our Lord Toowodros has made special choice of us, and sends us forth to raid and ambush and strike terror in the hearts of his enemies. Is your heart stricken, ras of the British?”

The jibe was wasted; only one word mattered. “Your Lord Toowodros? Who the hell is he, then?” Even as I spoke, I knew the answer, and the bodyguard confirmed it, shaking his head at my ignorance.

“Why, the Emperor! The King of Kings, monarch of Habesh, and by the power of God the conqueror that will be of Egypt and Jerusalem! You know him as Theodore.”

I could only stare at them in utter consternation. Theodore’s people—the last folk on God’s earth I wanted to see. I ain’t often at a dead nonplus, but I was then, for this was the fear that had been in my mind for weeks—of falling into the hands of the mad tyrant who inflicted unspeakable tortures on his victims, who’d beaten missionaries and lashed their servants to death, who’d stretched Consul Cameron on the rack… and, my God, who knew, from what Portly had said, of my mission to Masteeat to enlist the Gallas against him… Portly? Could he be Theodore in person? For all I knew he might—but surely not, in a night skirmish away from Magdala, where he was supposed to be preparing to fight or run? No, impossible, but I was bound to ask…

Diana clapped a hand over her mouth at the question, and the bodyguard laughed outright.

“Do the soldiers of the English queen know so little of their quarry that they think such a fat little hippo as Damash could be the great Emperor—the Lion of Judah? Did he look like a warrior king, a veteran of thirty years in arms?” He glanced at Diana. “Ya, Miriam, what would Gobayzy or Menelek say to Damash as Emperor?”

“Ask rather what Theodore would say to a fool who mistook Damash for the King of Kings,” says she. “How would he punish such an insult?”

“Who knows the mind of kings? They are beyond the ken of common folk.” He put his head on one side, regarding me. “But I should not account this one a fool, as you do. Did you not hear him answer Damash, saying much, but telling nothing?” He leaned towards me, nursing his spear, his eyes intent on mine. “Perhaps Damash is right, and he is the kind of man the Dedjaz Napier would have sent to Masteeat—a man of a long head, skilled in dissimu lation and never aiming where he looks.” He smiled. “You are that man, are you not, Ras Flashman?” Then he was solemn again. “When you come to stand before Toowodros, do not try to deceive him. He loves truth, above all things, and rewards those who deal fairly with him.”

“And takes the hands and feet of those who lie, and feeds the rest alive to the birds and beasts,” taunts Miriam-Diana.

“Peace, you hyena in woman’s shape!” He nodded to me. “I advise as a friend, Englishman. Remember my words.” He was turning away.

My mouth was dry with alarm, but I forced my voice to be steady.

“I’d be a fool if I forgot them… your majesty.”

Miriam-Diana threw back her head with a yell and gave her thigh a ringing slap. “He knew you! By the power of God, he knew you!” She was grinning with delight. “They are not such blind fools, the English!”

The bodyguard who ruled Abyssinia had turned back abruptly, but the solemn look was gone, and his voice was suddenly harsh.

“How did you know me? What did he see?” He looked from me to her, and struck his breast in anger. “What is there here that denotes a king? This is a common soldier!” He shook his spear and slapped himself again, taking two abrupt steps towards me. I gave back, for in a mere moment his earnest, almost friendly manner had given way to shouting rage; it was as though another man had got into his skin, and Miriam was on her feet as though to intervene.

“How did you know me?” he demanded, and jabbed a finger at me. “Have a care! Do not pretend that you saw royalty in my looks and speech, that you could not mistake the descendant of Solomon and Sheba, of Constantine and Alexander! I despise that kind of lie, that courtly flattery! Do not offend me with it!”

Since that was precisely what I’d been about to do, I was briefly at a loss. I’d twigged early enough that he was no common spear-carrier; there’s no lack of Abs with handsome figureheads, with fine aquiline noses for looking down, but he had spoken with that calm assurance that you don’t find in the private soldier, and I’d marked him down as an Abyssinian gentleman-ranker, so to speak. But there had been something else.

“You spoke of your companion… Damash?… as a fat little hippo. Common men do not talk so of superiors who wear the red-fringed shama. That made me wonder.” I climbed to my feet. “But when you cry ‘Peace, hyena!’ to one who commands the Emperor’s fighting women and wears a silver shield on her arm [41]… then I do more than wonder. And whether you despise courtly flattery or no, I have stood before the face of many kings and queens in my time, and know the look… not at once, perhaps, but at last.”

There’s no doubt about it, I’m good at dealing with barmy savages. They scare the bile out of me, and perhaps terror lends wings to my wits, for when I think of the monsters I’ve conversed with and come away with a whole skin, more or less… Mangas Colorado, Ranavalona, General Sang-kol-in-sen, Crazy Horse, Dr Arnold, God knows who else… well, it took more than luck, I can tell you. You must know when to grovel and scream for mercy, but also when to take ’em aback with impudence or argument or pure bamboozle. To find myself in the presence of Mad King Theodore was enough to turn my bowels to buttermilk, but having seen him quiet and crazy in quick time, and realised that he was intelligent well above par, like many madmen, I knew that straight talk and a firm front to cover my quaking guts were my best bet… oh God, I hoped so, and tried not to quiver as I waited, watching him.

You never can tell what they’ll do when you answer ’em cool and apparently steady: some laugh, some ponder, some snarl, some set about you (I’m thinking of Arnold), and some, like Theodore, study you in disquieting silence. Then:

“You were quite wrong, you see, Miriam. He is no fool.”

“Your majesty was wrong also,” says she pertly. “He knew you.”

“Not until I had studied him, and seen what manner of man he was. Damash served his turn.” To me he said: “What success had you with Queen Masteeat? Oh, we can be plain now: I have known for weeks that a British envoy was on his way to seek her help, and since you reached her yesterday we have been watching… fortunately for you.” He gestured towards the Galla dead. “Did you not prosper with her?”

If I said no, I hadn’t prospered, and he had a spy at her court to tell him otherwise, or had intercepted my message to Napier, I was done for. If I told him the truth, that the Gallas were taking the field to cut him off, God knew what he would do. I’d seen already how swiftly his mood could change; I daren’t risk it. I said there’d been no time even to broach Napier’s request, and was subjected to another silent stare.

“No time for talk?” says he. “But time for these—” he gestured again “—to bring you out for death? No, that is not Queen Masteeat’s way.”

“Not with a fine tall soldier,” sniggers Miriam, who seemed to go in no awe of him at all. He paid her no heed.

“So who condemned you? And why?”

I told him the truth of it, since it could do no harm, and he pre sumably knew that Uliba-Wark had guided me south. “We were separated by your riders at the Silver Smoke; she chose to think I had abandoned her, and these dead men were her hirelings to murder me.” I nodded at the clearing. “And there she lies.”

“Uliba-Wark? Dead?” Theodore stared, and wheeled abruptly, striding to the group about Uliba’s body; they scattered like birds. Miriam followed him in some alarm. “I saw it was a woman, but I did not know her, negus, truly…”

“It is no matter,” says Theodore. He looked down at what remained of Uliba, and shrugged without disgust. “She was a stinging gadfly, a sower of discord, a trouble in the eyes of God and man. She coveted her sister’s throne, they say. Behold her now.”

“She coveted men, by all accounts,” says Miriam, and gave me her jeering grin. “Were you her lover, ras of the British?”

I was not about to mention a lady’s name, but her question seemed to catch Theodore on the raw somehow, for he stared hard at her, head back, and then at me, and then at her again, and smiled at last, crooking a finger.

“Hither, wanton,” says he, and she came to his side. He put an arm about her waist and fondled her chin, and she purred like a kitten and nuzzled him. “Speak not of love to fine tall soldiers,” says he. So that explained the licence she enjoyed; one of his concubines, obviously, as well as commanding his killing women. Versatile female. And Theodore of Abyssinia was as jealous as the next man.

And now Damash came rolling back, followed by a groom leading two horses. Behind him the women had finished their revolting chore, and were assembling more or less in ranks, except for Gorilla Jane who was dragging along one of the Galla corpses. Then I saw that it wasn’t a corpse, but a living being, bleeding from a dozen wounds. Theodore, still with his arm about Miriam, addressed me.

"Ras Flashman, though you come with the power of the English Queen to destroy me, who have wished for nothing but peace between her throne and mine, and laboured by the power of God to that end against the wickedness of evil men, yet I hold no malice in my heart towards you, or your Dedjaz Napier, who writes cordially to me and I to him. I take you to be my guest in Magdala, where we shall look into each other’s hearts, in love and friend ship.”

He seemed to expect an answer, so I said, “Much obliged… ah, negus.” He kissed Miriam and toyed with her hand a moment.

“Bring the ras to Islamgee,” says he, and mounted. Damash was budged into the saddle by the groom, but as they prepared to ride off Gorilla Jane cried that here was the Galla chief still alive, though incomplete, and what should be done with him. At her feet, with her companions crouched over it like vultures, was that dreadful thing, stirring feebly, and I saw it was Goram.

Miriam brightened. “We should question him, negus.”

“A Galla warrior will tell you nothing,” says Theodore. He stood in his stirrups, a hand raised. “The blessing of God upon you brave women. And the blessing also on you, Ras Flashman, and His mercy and peace.” He wheeled his horse, and as he passed Gorilla Jane and the shattered wreck of Goram, he added: “Throw him on the fire.” So they did.

I spent a week as “guest” of the Emperor Theodore, and it was one of the longest of my life. How our pris oners, Cameron and Co., endured it for two solid years is beyond me. There may be nothing worse than being in the hands of a deadly enemy, but finding yourself at the mercy of a lunatic runs it close, for there’s no telling what he’ll do—load you with chains or send you presents, threaten you with flogging or swear eternal friendship over a glass of tej, discuss the causes of the American Civil War or invite you to kill him ’cos life has become a burden—that was Theodore, the maniac who held our lives in his hands, tor turing our gracious Queen’s consul half to death, and firing twenty-one-gun salutes to celebrate her birthday. Not the worst host I’ve ever been billeted on, perhaps, but quite the most unpredictable.

There was no way of foreseeing, as they brought me away from that place of slaughter where the Gallas died, that those seven days of horror and hope, of living on the razor’s edge, were to see the final act of the astonishing melodrama, part-tragedy, part-farce, known as the Abyssinian War. For me, it was the last mile of that wild journey that had begun a few short months ago in Trieste. I tell you it as it was; it’s all true.

It was still pitch dark and drizzling gently when we set out, Miriam and I and a few others mounted, with the rest of those female crocodiles trotting behind. I didn’t reckon we’d gone far by sunrise, five miles perhaps, and then we were in a stony desolation of tall cliffs and deep ravines, rounding a mighty eminence of rock on our right hand and following a saddle that connected it to another towering flat-topped height a mile or so ahead, which came into full view as the dawn mist lifted and the sunlight struck it and turned it for a moment into a mountain of gold. I asked where we were.

“Selassie,” says Miriam, pointing ahead and then jerking a thumb at the cliff to our right. “Fala.”

These were the names I’d heard only yesterday, in Fasil’s room at Masteeat’s camp… yesterday, dear God, it seemed an eternity ago! I pictured that sand-table model and tried to match it to what I was seeing… yes, there below us was the road that Theodore had made for his artillery, winding between Fala and Selassie, with folk and carts moving along it, and gangs of what looked like men in chains. As near as I could judge we were coming from the southwest, and if you look at my map you’ll see what was about to come into my view as we rounded Fala.

Beyond the saddle, at the foot of Selassie, was a group of tents—or pavilions, rather, for they were larger and set apart from the camp of little bivouacs at the northern end of the long plain that I knew must be Islamgee. And at the far southern end of that plain, less than two miles from where I sat transfixed, was a great tower ing cylinder of black rock sprouting out of the plain like a column fashioned by some giant sculptor—and the reason I sat transfixed was that I knew what it was before Miriam said the word: “Magdala".

So there it was, the eagle’s nest, the stronghold where Mad King Theodore had held a handful of British and German cap tives for four years, his last outpost where he would be trapped with nowhere to run, for I didn’t doubt that Masteeat’s regiments would even now be marching to cut him off from that wilderness of peaks in the hazy southern distance. And there, below me on Islamgee, was his army—how many strong? Seven thousand, ten? Was he waiting there to meet Napier in the open, or would he retire into Magdala, pulling up the metaphorical drawbridge—gad, if he did, that rock would be a bastard to take by storm! Or might he even march to meet Napier, who must be close by now, surely… And on the thought I turned to gaze north-westwards, straining my eyes across that rock-strewn plain that stretched away across the Arogee plateau directly below us, five miles and more to a distant dark line running across our front, which I knew must be the chasm of the Bechelo. From it the King’s Road wound across the undulating land to Arogee and between Fala and Selassie to the very foot of Magdala.

Surveying that broken ground, bordered by hills and gullies, it struck me that Theodore could do a sight worse than choose the third course—advance beyond Arogee to lay ambushes in the rough country bordering his road; better that than being besieged in Magdala or meeting our people on the flat plain of Islamgee where they’d make mincemeat of him in open battle…

Miriam gave a cry of excitement and stood in her stirrups, shading her eyes and pointing—and as I followed her finger I felt that same wild thrill of disbelief giving way to joy that I’d felt in the garden of Lucknow when we’d heard, ever so faint on the morning air, the far whisper of the pipes that told us Campbell was coming. For it was there, through that shimmering heat haze and the last wisps of mist, on the lip of the plateau beyond the Bechelo… as though to a cue, the last actor was coming on to the stage, with no sound of pipes or rumble of gunfire, heralded only by tiny shining pinpricks of light barely visible in the dusty distance, and I’d ha’ given a thousand for a glass just then, for I’d seen ’em too often to be mistaken—lance-points catching the morning sun… But whose? Bengali Native Cavalry? Scindees? For instinct told me they must be ours, and now it was confirmed by eyes that were younger and sharper than mine.

"Farangil” cries Miriam, with an added oath. “On Dalanta! The Negus was right—those vermin of Dawunt and Dalanta should have been destroyed! They have lain down before your people! Aiee, they come! See there, they come!”

“How d’ye know they’re my people?”

I didn’t know, then, that Theodore had fallen out with the tribes on the Dalanta plateau, which lies north of the Bechelo river, slap across Napier’s line of march, and that the obliging niggers had cleared the way for us. [42] But I could read the consternation on Miriam’s pretty face.

“They can be no one else! We had word when they crossed the Jedda three days ago; now they are on the lip of the Bechelo, and once across the ravine…” She gave a disgusted shrug and spat, and I gazed towards salvation and concluded reluctantly that I daren’t try a run for it, not on a miserable Ab screw that was bound to founder within a mile. Besides, all I had to do was wait; Napier was far closer than I’d dared to hope, and even with the Bechelo chasm to cross, which I knew from Fasil’s model was three-quarters of a mile deep, he couldn’t be more than two days’ march away. I absolutely smacked my palm in delight, and Miriam cried out scorn fully:

“Ha! You rejoice at their coming? But what of their going, when the Amhara drive them like sheep back to Egypt?”

I knew she didn’t believe it, just from her sullen scowl. “If the Amhara are mad enough to try, they’ll find those sheep are wolves,” I told her. “They’ll eat your army of peasants at a bite… no, they’ll not need to, for their guns will blow your rabble to bits, and the elephants will trample the dead.” Unless Theodore has the sense to go to ground on that bloody rock, I might have added, but didn’t.

“Elephants!” She shuddered; they’re mortal scared of jumbo, you see, being convinced he can’t be tamed. She looked thoughtful, and as we rode on I guessed she was wondering how she’d fare in person if Theodore took a hiding. Sure enough, after a moment:

“Suppose your people triumphed… what would they do to Habesh?”

“To a pretty lass like you, you mean? I know what I’d do.”

“No!” cries she fiercely. “You would protect me!”

“Would I now? In gratitude for wanting me fed into the fire?”

“You were a prisoner then!” She rode closer, and said in a low tone, “Now, if your people triumphed, you could do me good… and I would be grateful.” Softly, with her knee against mine, if you please.

“My dear, you’re a girl after my own heart,” says I. “But what if your side won, eh? They won’t… but just suppose…”

“Then I would protect you from the wrath of Theodore! As I shall, even now.”

“I doubt if he’ll be wrathful with me just now,” says I. “Not with the British Army on his doorstep.”

She stared at me. “You do not know him! Oh, believe me, ras of the British, you know him not at all!”

In fact, she was wrong; I did know him, all too well—but I’d forgotten, you see. I thought of him as the well-spoken soldier I’d mistaken for a bodyguard—given to sudden bursts of temper over trifles, if you like, and didn’t care two straws about roasting an enemy, but that’s African war for you. But I’d not associated that man, who’d seemed to be sane enough, and a reasoning being, with the ghastly tales I’d heard of atrocities, of women and children massacred, of frightful tortures practised on countless victims… I’d forgotten Gondar, and that dreadful garden of the crucified. Yet that horror had been the work of the intelligent, earnest man who’d cross-examined me so briskly, and smiled and joked and dallied with the bonny bint riding beside me. It didn’t seem possible… until we rode down from the Fala saddle to the camp below Selassie. Then it became all too horribly plain.

The first intimation came when we had to halt at the King’s Road while a procession of Ab prisoners shuffled by. There were hundreds of them, in the most appalling condition, starved skeletons virtually naked, many of them covered in loathsome sores. Every one of them was chained, some in fetters so heavy they could barely drag them along, others manacled wrist to ankle with chains so short they couldn’t stand upright, but must totter along bent double. The stench was fit to choke you, and to complete their misery they were driven along by burly guards wielding girafs, the hippo-hide whips which are the Ab equivalent of the Russian knout.

“Who in God’s name are they?” I asked Miriam. “Rebels?”

“Huh, you’ll find no living rebels here!” says she. “They die where they’re taken.”

“So these are criminals? What the hell have they done?”

Her answer defied belief, but it’s what she said, with a shrug, and I was to learn that it was gospel true.

“What have they done? Smiled when the King was in ill humour—or scowled when he was merry. Served him a dish that was not to his taste, or mentioned tape-worm medicine, or spoken well of someone he dislikes, or came in his way when he was drunk.” She laughed at my incredulity. “You don’t believe me? Indeed, you do not know him!”

“By God, I don’t believe you!”

“You will.” She surveyed the last of that pitiful coffle as it stag gered past. “True, not all have committed those offences; some merely had the misfortune to be related to the offenders. Oh, yes, that is enough, truly.”

“But… for smiling? Tape-worm medicine? And he takes it out on whole families? How long have they been chained, for God’s sake?”

“Some, for years. Why he brings them down now from their prison on Magdala, who knows? Perhaps to preach to them. Perhaps to kill them before your army arrives. Perhaps to free them. We shall see.”

“He must be bloody mad!” cries I. Well, I’d heard it said often enough, but you don’t think what it means until you see the truth of it at point-blank. And here was this lovely lass, riding at ease in the warm sunlight, tits at the high port and talking cool as you please of a monster to rival Caligula. She must have read the stricken question in my eye, for she nodded.

“Yes, he is a dangerous master, as his ministers and generals will tell you.” She smiled, chin up. “But those who know him, and his moods, and how to please him, find in him a devout and kind and loving friend. But even they must learn to turn his anger, for it is terrible, and when the fit is on him he is no better than a beast. Is that mad, Ras Flashman of the British? Come!”

She led the way across the road to the nearest pavilions, the first of which was the great red royal marquee with carpets spread on the ground about it, guards on the fly, and servants everywhere. Groups of men in red-fringed shamas were gathered before the other large pavilions, evidently waiting, and the plain beyond was covered almost to Magdala by a forest of bivouacs and shelters. The army of Abyssinia was at rest, thousands of men loafing and talking and brewing their billies like any other soldiers, save that these were black, and instead of shirt-sleeves and dangling gal luses there were white shamas and tight leggings, and as well as the piled firearms there were stands of spears and racks of sickle-bladed swords. They looked well, as the Gallas had done, and perhaps as soon as tomorrow they would go out to face the finest army in the world under one of the great captains. And how many of them would come well to bed-time? How many Scindees and King’s Own and Dukes and Baluch, for that matter? Fall out, Flashy, thinks I, this ain’t your party; lie low, keep quiet, and above all, stay alive.

Easier said than done. There was a stiffening to attention of the groups outside the tents, the servants scurried out of sight, and Miriam suddenly whipped a noose over my head and thrust me out of my saddle crying, “Get down! Be still!” as down the hill came a procession in haste. In front was Theodore, with a chico holding a brolly over his head, and in his wake a motley crowd of guards and attendants. I staggered but kept my feet, and was about to protest when Theodore, striding full tilt and shouting abuse at two skinny wretches hurrying alongside him (astrologers, I learned later) caught sight of me, and let out a yell of anger.

“You! You have betrayed me! You lied to me!” He came at me almost at the run, fists clenched and by the grace of God he was carrying nothing more lethal than a telescope, which he flourished in my face. “You swore you had no talk with the Gallas—yet they have marched, in their thousands, and lie now below Sangalat! How came they there? By Masteeat’s order! And who prompted her?” He flung out a hand in denunciation. “You! As Christ is my witness, I had nothing in my heart against you! Judas! Judas!” bawls he, and swung up the telescope to brain me.

Two things saved me. One was Miriam’s horse; startled by someone raving and capering a yard away, it reared, and since Miriam was holding t’sother end of my noose I was jerked violently off my feet and went down half-strangled, but out of harm’s way. My other saviour was one of the astrologers who ran in front of Theodore, waving his arms and crying out, possibly a warning that the omens weren’t favourable for cracking heads—in which case he was dead right, for Theodore smashed him full on the crown with the telescope, and it was a lethal weapon after all, for it stove him in like an eggshell.

It had happened in seconds. I realised that Miriam, seeing him come down the hill in a towering rage, had sensibly decided that the more captive I looked the better, so she’d noosed me—and in an instant there beside me lay the corpse of the poor prophet with his skull leaking, and Theodore was dashing down the telescope, staring at his victim, and suddenly burying his face in his hands and running howling towards the red pavilion. He seized a spear from one of the guards on the fly, and began to stab the surrounding carpet, cursing something fearful. Then he flung the spear aside, shook his fists at heaven, and darted into the pavilion… and the assembled military and civilian worthies stood silent and thoughtful, determined not to look at each other, like a convocation of clergy when the bishop has farted extempore. They knew the unwisdom of noticing, having seen his royal tantrums before.

“Come!” snaps Miriam, and led me quickly in behind one of the nearest tents, where she dismounted and removed the noose. “Sit on the ground, say nothing. All may yet be well. I must see Damash.” And off she went, leaving me in some disquiet, sitting obediently and trembling like an aspen, an object of studied lack of interest to the aforementioned worthies; they acted as though I weren’t there, which suited admirably: I’d no wish to be noticed, especially by the frothing maniac in the red pavilion. I’d seen his quicksilver change of mood during the night, from mild to angry, and the sight of those wretched prisoners, and Miriam’s explana tion, had convinced me that he was fairly off his rocker… but none of that had prepared me for the homicidal rage of a moment ago. That settled it. He was a murderous maniac—and I was his detested prisoner.

I’ll not weary you with my emotions as I sat there in the sun, or my terrors when presently a squad of burly ruffians in leather tunics arrived, bearing manacles, and marched me away from the tents to a little stockade within which stood a small thatched hut with a heavy door. They thrust me in, ignoring my inquiries for Miriam and Damash (I didn’t ask for Theodore), chained me, and left me in stuffy half-darkness to meditate on the mutability of human affairs, with a couple of spearmen outside.

Some things were plain enough—Masteeat and Fasil had lost no time, the Galla cordon that Napier had wanted was in place, and Theodore knew it; since he’d been on top of Selassie with a tele scope he would also know that Napier was within striking distance, and that the game was up with a vengeance—hence, no doubt, his irritable conduct to your correspondent. And whether he chose to fight, fly, or laager on top of Magdala, the pressing question was what he would do with his European prisoners—cut our throats out of spite and die with harness on his back, or hand us over in reasonably good condition like a sensible chap… which he wasn’t.

There was no way of even guessing. On the one hand, here I was in chains, which boded no good, but didn’t suggest hasty execution, and Miriam had said all might yet be well. And since Theodore had kept our folk captive, often in chains, for years without killing any of ’em bar a couple of Ab servants, it looked odds on that he’d spare our lives… but then again, the man was barmy, and there was no telling what he might do now that his back was well and truly to the wall.

To keep my mind from glum speculation, I tried to remember how many times I’d been in chains before. Four or five, perhaps? Proper chains, that is, not the darbies used by the A Division peelers to restrain obstreperous revellers, but your genuine bilboes. There’d been Russia, when Ignatieff had caged me half across Central Asia, and the Gwalior bottle dungeon, and China when the Imps collared me before Pekin, and Afghanistan when that frightful bitch Narreeman was going to qualify me for the Hareem Handicap… at which point it struck me that my present situation, while most disturbing, was grace itself compared to these unhappy memories. I could only hope that I’d not be called on to walk in my new fetters, for they were easily the heaviest I’d ever worn, wrist manacles like double horse shoes, ankle irons two inches thick, and all connected by chain that could have lifted an anchor. And Cameron and Co. had had to wear these for months! Well, I’d not have to carry ’em for more than a day or two, one way or the other… and on this consoling thought I fell asleep—something I hadn’t done, bar my brief drunken stupor following Masteeat’s feast, for more than forty-eight hours.

A dazzling light and commotion at the doorway brought me back to life, trying to start up and failing thanks to the weight of those infernal clanking manacles. The door was open, someone was hanging a lamp from the roof beam and retiring, and as the door crashed shut again I was aware of a swaying figure in the middle of the room, a man whose shama had slipped from his shoulders so that he was bare to the waist. He gave a mighty belch and advanced unsteadily towards me, half-tripping over a large basket of bottles and food which the lamplighter had placed on the floor.

“How are you, how are you, my dear friend, my best of friends?” cries this apparition, whooping with laughter. “Thank God I am well! Are you well? Ah, my good friend, my heart rejoices to see you, for the friendship I have entertained for you has not dimin ished. Be of good cheer, for though you are bound with fetters, as Samson and Zedekiah were bound, even with fetters of brass, yet… yet…” His voice trailed away, muttering: “… and… and, who else? Yes, Jehoiakim also was bound, and Manasseh! They were bound, by the power of God! And so was Joseph, who was sold for a servant, whose feet they hurt with fetters, and he was laid in iron.” He gave another crazy laugh and almost fell over. “But have no fear, for the hour of your deliverance is at hand!”

My eyes had recovered from the lamp-glare, but I could hardly believe them, for the newcomer was Theodore, King of Abyssinia, and he was staggering drunk.

Just as Peacock’s Mr McQuedy, discussing condiments for fish, could imagine no relish superior to lobster sauce and oyster sauce, so I, on the subject of bizarre conversation, had never thought to meet a crazier discourser than Hung-Hsiu-Chuan, leader of the Taiping Rebellion, who was hopelessly mad, or Mangas Colorado, chief of the Mimbreno Apache, who was hopelessly drunk. I discovered in that hut under Selassie that I’d been quite wrong; King Theodore was both hopelessly mad and drunk, and could have given either of them a head start and a beating in the race to Alice’s tea party. If you’ve the patience, and know my earlier papers, you may make comparison with the following record of our chat, from the moment he plumped down, hiccoughing and beaming, in front of me, and spilled out the contents of the basket of food and drink.

I’d had no opportunity to study him at close quarters before, for our first meeting had been by flickering firelight, and at our second his face had been so contorted with rage as to be nigh unrecog nisable. Now, with his black skin (for he was blacker than most Abs) shining with sweat, his eyes staring and bloodshot, and his mouth grinning slackly, he wasn’t your portrait painter’s ideal model; still I could weigh him well enough, and what I saw through the haze of booze and confusion was not an ordinary man.

He had force, no other word for it, a pent-up strength that was as much in the mind as in the body—and the body was impres sive enough. He wasn’t above middle height, but he had the shoul ders and arms of a middleweight wrestler, a chest like a barrel tapering to a slim waist; there wasn’t the least lip of flesh above his waistband. Groggy with drink as he was, I guessed he could move like a striking snake if need be; when he poured out cups of tej his hands were deft and steady.

But the real power was in the eyes, bright and piercing despite the blood-streaks and the occasional drunken tears; there was no tipsy vacancy about them—and that in a way was the shocking thing, ’cos by rights he should have been goggling like the last man out of the canteen. Drunk, yes, but it didn’t suit him; you felt he’d no business to be bottled. It was like seeing the Prince Consort or Gladstone taking the width of the pavement singing “One-eyed Riley". And he was a sight handsomer than either of ’em; forget his tendency to slobber and stare and he was a deuced good-looking fellow, fifty or thereabouts with a pepper-and-salt dusting to grizzle his hair, which was braided in tails down the back of his head; his nose was hooked and prominent and his lips were thin when his mouth was shut, which it wasn’t at the moment. But his normal expression, when sober, was pleasant and alert. When he went mad, which he was liable to do at any moment, he looked like a fiend out of Hell.

So that’s the Emperor Theodore, as best I can limn him for you. One last thing before I get to his chat: I’ve never seen a black face that looked less African: slim, fine-boned, like a dusky Duke of Wellington. Oh, and he had a curious habit, just occasionally, of spitting thoughtfully when he spoke; just a sideways ptt! of the lips, disconcerting until you got used to it.

Theodore [Jovial, passing a cup o/tej]: We shall drink the vintage of the grapes of Ephraim! Ah, my friend, I have been impatient to see you, and to bring you comfort in the prison-house. Even as the Lord looked down from the height of his sanctuary, so I too heard the groaning of the captive. A toast! Name it, my friend!

Flashy [taken aback]: Eh? A toast? Me? Ah, well, let’s see… Here’s how, your majesty!

T: Let me shake your hand. Ah, your chains; do they fret you painfully?

F [toadying warily]: Oh, just a bit… no trouble, really—

T: Do you know why you are chained?

F [cautiously]: Well, I imagine it’s because your majesty misunderstood about my… my dealings with the Gallas—perfectly natural mistake, of course, could have happened to anyone—

T: What are the Gallas to me? You are the one who has misun derstood, my friend, if you think you are chained as a punishment. I chained you as I chained your countrymen, because the British Government thought me cowardly and weak. But now I have released my good friend Mr Rassam, and Lieutenant Prideaux, and I shall release you also, to show I am not afraid. [Earnestly] I had to chain you, in order to release you. If you were not chained, how could you be released? [Laughs heartily and drains cup o/tej.]

F: How indeed!

T: I also chained them because I knew that must bring against me a British army, trained and disciplined, an army such as I have longed to see. [Sighs] I only hope God will spare me to see them before I die. [Drinks again.]

F: Will your majesty fight them?

T: If it is God’s will. My soldiers are nothing compared to your disciplined army, where thousands move in obedience to one. If they come in love and friendship I shall be so moved as to be unable to resist them, but if they come with other intentions I know they will not spare me, so I shall make a great bloodbath and afterwards die. [Emits the grandfather of all belches, closes eyes, and appears to fall asleep.]

Relief was flooding through me, and not only because he was behaving like an intoxicated Cheeryble and plying me with liquor; it would be another story in the morning when his majesty awoke with a head like a burst beehive and started playing Ivan the Terrible. But at least he wasn’t about to kill me, had spoken of my release, and as good as promised to give in without a fight if Napier came “in love and friendship”—which could be managed, surely. Then again, he’d so many screws loose that you couldn’t be certain of anything he said, especially when he was half-seas over. It was of academic interest, but I wondered if his claim that he’d imprisoned our people deliberately to provoke an invasion might not have some thing in it, unlikely though it seemed…

Theodore [waking with an almighty yell]: Damocles! By my death, I am Damocles, with a blade poised above my head, sus pended by a horsehair! [Stares up] Do you not see it, about to fall? Am I not Damocles?

Flashy [taken by surprise]: Wasn’t he the chap who was tied up so that he couldn’t get at his rations… or had to roll something up a hill… didn’t he? A vulture… ?

T: The British army is that blade, coming to pierce me, and I know not what to do! What will happen? I am like a pregnant woman; I do not know whether it will be a boy or a girl or an abor tion! [Starts to weep, drinks deeply]

F: Your majesty, may I make a suggestion? A moment ago you spoke of love and friendship between yourself and our Dedjaz Napier, and I can tell you he’d cry “Amen!” to that with three times three. Well, if you were to send me to him, I could settle things in no time—

T [suddenly fierce]: And tell him the disposition of my army, and where my great guns are sited, and my mortar Sevastopol! Ah, my friend, you do not deceive me! That is what you would settle!

[Swaying drunkenly, yelling with rage.] Was this a thing planned with Masteeat and the Gallas? Were you put into my hand so that you might spy out the nakedness of the land -?

F [horrified]: Good God, no!

T:—and shall I cut off your garments to the middle, even to your buttocks, as the Ammonites did to the servants of King David, thinking them spies? [Baring his teeth savagely] Shall I cut off more than your garments… and will you then confess?

He was absolutely screaming now, this frenzied drunkard who a moment since had been calling me his dearest friend, and babbling of Damocles and pregnant women, and I could only sit pet rified, unable even to scramble back because of my fetters, while he shook his fists and threw himself to and fro in his fury. He began to bay like a hound, beating his temples, and then buried his face in his hands as he’d done when he killed the soothsayer, wailing bitterly. I daren’t say a word, waiting and praying to God he’d come out of it into one of his sane moods. At last he raised his head, filled his tej cup, sank the contents at a gulp (Heaven knew how much he had on board, gallons I shouldn’t wonder)—and then, as God’s my witness, he noticed that my cup was empty and hastened to fill it, with mumbled apologies. His eyes were rolling in his head, and tej was dribbling down his chin and on to his naked chest, but he steadied after a moment, regarding me owlishly.

Theodore: Do you know there is an ancient prophecy that a European ruler will meet a ruler of Habesh, and whether they dispute in combat or not, afterwards a monarch will reign in this country who is greater than any before? That prophecy is about to be fulfilled, but will I be that greatest of kings? Is that to be my destiny?

F [with confidence]: Not the slightest doubt about it, in my opinion. Who but your majesty, I mean to say -?

T [doubtfully]: It may be this woman who sends her soldiers against me.

F: You don’t mean the Queen! Good gracious, your majesty, that shot ain’t even on the table! I can assure you, Sir Robert Napier is under strict orders to withdraw as soon as the captives have been released—

T: When did the British lion leave its kill untasted? You have eaten half the world, and shall Habesh be spared?

F: Of course it will, honour bright—

T [gloomy]: If they spare us it will be because we are not worth the conquest. England laughs at me and derides my poverty. [Pauses] Do they despise me because my skin is black?

F: Certainly not! We ain’t Yankees! Why, more than half the army that is coming against you is made up of nig — Indian troops, what? Dam’ stout fellas, too—

T: But few in number! How lowly they value me, that they send a handful of the mighty British power… How many? Twelve thou sand came over the sea, but how many now stand above the Bechelo? Ten thousand? No. Five thousand?… Two thousand…?

The voice was slurred with drink, the thin lips hung slack in the sweating black face, but under half-lowered lids I caught the glint of a watchful eye… or thought I did.

F: Can’t say, your majesty. Enough, I guess.

T: If Miriam were to ask you, in ways too dreadful to speak of, would you tell her how many is “enough"? No matter. [Hiccoughs, sinks another quart or so o tej, lowers chin on chest, sighs. ] You are my dear friend. I will not permit a hair of your head to be harmed. Let me embrace you. [Lunges forward from sitting position, flings arms round F’s neck, groans and belches, falls asleep.] [43]

As before, there was nothing to be done but sit waiting; you don’t wake a mad drunkard even when he’s snoring in your ear; nor do you heave him off. I’d ha’ been there till morning, no doubt, but someone had been eavesdropping, and when the conversation ceased he decided to take a look, cautiously opening the door and popping his head in, a ferrety little cove with a bright eye and a clever smile. He put a finger to his lips, slipped inside, took a look at majesty comatose, nodded, and tapped him smartly on the shoulder. And damned if Theodore’s head didn’t come up like a jack-in-the-box, full and all as he was.

“It is time to retire, getow’ (* Geta means master, getow supreme master.) says the ferret. “You wish to be abroad at dawn, remember. And you will not wish,” he added, glancing at me, “to keep your guest from his rest.”

"Man abat (* "Man abat lit. “Who’s your father?” seems to have been an Abyssinian catchphrase used as a facetious greeting, not unlike “What’s up?” or “What’s cooking?”) cries Theodore, startled. “Ah, it is you, Samuel! Did I call you?” He closed his eyes, blew out his cheeks, and gave me a huge beam. “Oh, my friend, we have talked long and drunk well, have we not? And indeed it is time to part, if not to sleep. Is my queen awake?”

Samuel hesitated. “The royal lady Tooroo-Wark is on Magdala, getow. With your son Alamayo. But Meshisha is here, and may be—”

“I asked for my queen—my new queen!” bawls Theodore, suddenly enraged. “Not my bastards! Summon her, my lady Tamagno, that I may present her to my friend… my guest, you say… Go!”

Samuel vanished, and Theodore calmed down enough to refill our cups. “Tamagno is to be my queen,” says he. “Alamayo, who is my true son and heir, you shall meet tomorrow. I wish to have him educated at a great English school, such as one I have heard of… Harrah?”

“Harrow? Certainly not, your majesty. Lair of bestial parvenus. Rugby’s the place for your lad… and Meshisha, did you say?”

“Meshisha is a by-blow, gotten in an evil hour,” says he. “A bastard, an idle great fool, but one must employ one’s children, the false get as well as the true. Ah, but here is my true queen that shall be! Tamagno, this is my friend, the Ras Flashman, who brings us comfort from the army of the white queen Victoria, wherefore we do him honour!” He waved a hand wildly in introduction, and the lady and I appraised each other as she rolled in, with Samuel holding the door obsequiously.

My first thought was why the devil was Theodore even looking at her when he had beauties like Miriam to play with. Madam Tamagno was fat, coarse, and looked what she was: a whore, for while Theodore

t "Man abatT' lit. “Who’s your father?” seems to have been an Abyssinian catchphrase used as a facetious greeting, not unlike “What’s up?” or “What’s cooking?”

might talk of making her a queen, in fact she was only his chief concubine. Unlike most Ab women, she painted, and while they tend to conceal their passionate appetites behind demure appearance, this one wore her lust on her sleeve, or rather in her lecherous expression. Someone, I forget who, described her as the most lascivious-looking female he’d ever seen, and recalling the hungry leer with which she surveyed me, I can’t contradict him. She was dressed to match, in the gaudiest silks with a profusion of bangles and necklaces, all tarted up for work, as her first words showed. For when Theodore reached up to fondle her fat paw and slaver it with a drunken kiss, and she’d stripped me in imagination and torn her eyes away, she reproved him playfully for neglecting her while he rioted with foreign prisoners in the cooler. “And I left lonely,” she murmurs.

No prisoner but a guest, cries he, and staggered to his feet with his trollop and Samuel assisting. But then he seemed to forget about me altogether, for he embraced her with mawkish endearments, pawing and nuzzling, and I dare say would have set about her on the spot if she hadn’t guided him out, bestowing one last wanton smile on me as she went. I was glad to watch her go, for she was seventeen stone of dangerous desire if ever I’d seen it, the sort who don’t care about driving a lover crazy by the way she licks her chops over every new fellow she meets. I’d trouble enough just then without a jealous Theodore running amok; he was like a mine primed to explode, and no way to anticipate him.

For consider: in short order he’d tried to brain me, had me loaded with chains only to bring me booze and jollity like a boon com panion, quoted Scripture like a Scotch elder, raved at me as a spy and conspirator, threatened me with mutilation, babbled nonsense and burst into tears, tried to pump me for military intelligence, won dered about having me tortured, sworn eternal friendship, collapsed in a drunken stupor, and introduced me to his black gallop.

Eccentric, eh? I just hoped to God that Napier might get here in time.

You’ve probably never worn chains, and may be interested to know that they can be a sight easier to put on than to take off. The Ab variety consist of massive links between anklets which are secured with soft iron rivets; once hammered shut, they have to be pried open with a wedge, which likewise has to be ham mered with a sledge, and damned unnerving it is to have a grinning blackamoor swinging it down full force, jarring the anklet open, and if he misses his aim you’ll never set that foot on the ground again. Then they slip a leather rope into the anklet, and half a dozen strong men pull it open wide enough to get your foot clear. It takes half an hour and hurts like sin.

I wore my fetters for less than twenty-four hours. What it was like to wear them for months, and even years, I learned next day, when all the prisoners, not only the Europeans but Ab rebels and the like were brought down from Magdala. After I’d been freed and given a breakfast of bread and tej I was seated under guard on a pile of stones near the red royal tent, and watched the captive pro cession winding its way slowly across the Islamgee plain, through the little hutted villages to the tents of the camp. They were still some way off when there was a commotion behind me, and here comes Theodore down the hill from Selassie, with his astrologers and courtiers and the ferret Samuel. When he saw me his majesty gave a great halloo of greeting and came striding to me with both hands out, clasping mine as though I were a long-lost brother.

“My friend, I see you are well!” cries he. “I too am well, and rejoice to see you at liberty! Did you sleep well? Are you refreshed? Let me tell you what I have seen! Your army is crossing the Bechelo, and we have seen elephants descending into the ravine. What does that mean, Ras Flashman?”

I told him it meant big guns, and he rounded on his followers. “You hear? Did I not tell you, but you doubted me? You know nothing! But the hour is coming when you will learn! Go now, assemble the leaders of the regiments, all officers, and the leaders of sections! I shall address them presently. Now, my friend, let us sit—see, your people are coming from the amba, and will soon be with us. Let us drink to your meeting!”

For a man who’d been ripe to roll in gutters only a few hours earlier, he was uncommon spry, and in full fig: a cloth-of-gold coat adorned with silks of many colours, and the most extraordinary pants of what looked like tinsel. He was in such cheerful fettle I wondered if he’d been using hasheesh, but from what I learned later he had no indulgences of that kind, no doubt because booze and fornication occupied most of his leisure time. You’d not have thought he was about to be deposed and possibly slain by an invading army, for he was all hospitality, pledging me in tej and summoning sundry of his military big-wigs to make them known to me—Hasani, commandant of Magdala, austere and unsmiling; the portly Damash, whom I already knew; Gabrie, the army com mander; Engedda, his chief minister, and several others whose names I disremember. Then I must be shown his artillery park below Selassie, and especially his mighty mortar, Sevastopol, an enor mous lump of metal weighing seventy tons and mounted on a wagon with drag-chains which it took five hundred men to pull, he told me proudly. Had I ever seen the like? In truth, I hadn’t, and said so, admiringly, but thinking privately that no one in his right mind would have built such a piece, for at that size it couldn’t be accurate, and what’s the use of a gun that takes all day to position? I reckon his German workmen had simply done what he’d bidden them, and kept their thoughts to themselves.

“You cannot conceive the labour of bringing this wonder to my ambaV cries he. “You have seen my road, but oh, my friend, if you had witnessed our toil, through rain and storm and mud, across rivers and plains, over mountain and desert, and my faithful people on the point of exhaustion, and myself straining on the ropes as we dragged our great guns onward and ever onward. Never was such a journey—no, not even Napoleon himself could have accomplished it!”

Oh, sing us a song, do, thinks I—but d’ye know, when I think of that park of artillery, big pieces, and that monstrous beast of a mortar, I have to admit that, mad or not, he was one hell of a sapper and gunner. A hundred miles over hellish country, months on the road with his soldiers marching on their chinstraps and out of food and forage, their strength dwindling by the day, and still he’d kept ’em going by fear and will and example, through hostile country, for with Menelek and Gobayzy in arms, and Masteeat’s Gallas on the lurk, and Napier on his way, Theodore hadn’t a friend to his name on that hellish trek from Debra Tabor.

“We had to plunder as we went,” he told me, slapping his great mortar proudly, for all the world like some motorist showing off his new machine. “We were like to starve, and the peasant jackals of the villages, who had kissed my feet in the days of my power, hung on the flanks of our army, stinging like mosquitoes when they dared, and cutting the throats of stragglers. So, when we took pris oners,” says he with satisfaction, “we burned them alive. Aye, a long march, and slow… Now, tell me, why does your army march so slowly, and why have they come by the salt plain?”