Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins
either he was less expert or something else caught their interest, for the diamond slipped out from between them and rolled across the floor, to cat-calls and groans of disappointment.
I was watching all this through a haze of booze and disbelief, taking another refreshing swig, and thinking, wait till I get back to Belgravia and teach ’em the new dance step, and when I looked again there was Jeendan, struggling and laughing wildly in the arms of another dancing-boy, and the great stone was back on her belly again – hollo, thinks I, someone’s been handling in the scrimmage. She seized the boy’s wine-cup, drained it and tossed it over her shoulder, and then began to dance towards me, the tawny hourglass body agleam as though it had been oiled, her limbs shimmering in their sheaths of gems. Now she was slapping her bare flanks to the tom-tom beat, drawing her fingers tantalisingly up her jewelled thighs and across her body, lifting the fat round breasts and laughing at me out of that painted harlot’s face.
“Will you have it, Englishman? Or shall I keep it for Lal – or Jawaheer? Come, take it, gora sahib, my English bahadur!”
You mayn’t credit it, but I was recalling a line by some poet or other – Elizabethan, I think – who must have witnessed a similar performance, for he wrote of “her brave vibrations each way free”.21 Couldn’t have put it better myself, thinks I, as I made a heroic lurch for her and fell on all fours, but the sweet thoughtful girl sank down before me, arms raised from her sides, making her muscles quiver from her fingertips up her arms and beyond, shuddering her bounties at me, and I seized them with a cry of thanksgiving. She squealed, either in delight or to signify “Foul!”, whipped her loincloth off and round my neck, and drew my face towards her open mouth.
“Take it, Englishman!” she gasps, and then she had my robe open, thrusting her belly against mine and kissing me as though I were beefsteak and she’d been fasting for a week. And I don’t know who the considerate chap was who drew the curtains to, but suddenly we were alone, and somehow I was on my feet with her clinging to me, her legs clasped round my hips, moaning as I settled her in place and began the slow march, up and down, keeping time to the tom-toms, and I fear I broke the rules, for I removed the jewel manually before it did me a mischief. I doubt if she noticed; didn’t mention it, anyway.
Well, I can’t think when I’ve enjoyed a dance so much, unless it was when we set to partners again, an hour or so later, I imagine. I seem to remember we drank considerable in between, and prosed in an incoherent way – most of it escapes me, but I recall distinctly that she said she purposed to send little Dalip to an English public school when he was older, and I said capital, look what it had done for me, but the devil with going up to Oxford, just a nest of bookworms and bestial, and how the deuce did she do that navel exercise with the diamond? So she tried to teach me, giggling through incredible contortions which culminated in her plunging and squirming astride of me as though I were Running Reins with only a furlong to go – and in the middle of it she screamed a summons and two of her Kashmiri girls popped in and urged her on by whipping her with canes – intrusive, I thought, but it was her home ground, after all.
She went to sleep directly we’d passed the post, sprawled on top of me, and the Kashmiris left off lashing her and snickered to each other. I sent them packing, and having heaved her off was composing myself to slumber likewise, when I heard them chattering beyond the curtain, and presently they peeped in again, giggling. Their mistress would wake presently, they said, and it was their duty to see that I was clean, bright, slightly oiled, and ready for service. “Walk-er!” says I, but they insisted, respectfully covering her with a shawl before renewing their pestering of me, telling me I must be bathed and combed and perfumed and made presentable, or there’d be the devil to pay. I saw I’d get no peace, so I lumbered up, cursing, and warning them that their mistress would be out of luck, for I was ruined beyond redemption.
“Wait until we have bathed you,” giggles one of the houris. “You will make her scream for mercy.”
I doubted that, but told them to lead on, and they conducted me, one holding me up on either side, for I was still well foxed. Beyond the curtains the durbar room was empty now, and the great chandelier was out, with only a few candles on the walls making little pools of light in the gloom. They led me under the staircase, along a dim-lit passage, and down a short flight of stairs to a great stone and marble chamber like a Turkish bath-house; it was in deep shadow about its walls and high ceiling, but in the centre, surrounded by tall slender pillars, was a tiled area with a sunken bath in which water was steaming. There was a brazier close by, and towels piled to hand, while all about stood flagons of oils and soaps and shampoos; altogether it was as luxurious a wallow as you could wish. I asked if this was where the Maharani bathed.
“Not this maharani,” says one. “This was the bath of the Lady Chaund Cour, peace be upon her.”
“It is altogether finer than our mistress’s,” says the other, sidling up to me, “and is reserved for those whom she delights to honour.” She took a playful tease at me, and her companion drew off my robe, squeaking with admiration. “Bahadur, indeed! Oh, fortunate Mai Jeendan!”
She’ll be fortunate to get any good out of me after a bath with you two, thinks I, admiring them boozily as they laid by their little bows and arrows and toy swords, and stripped off their silver skirts and breastplates. Lovely little nymphs they were, and there was much playing and giggling as we stepped down into the bath. It was about three feet deep by seven square, half-filled with warm scented water into which I subsided drowsily, letting it lap over my exhausted frame while one of the Kashmiris cradled my head and gently sponged my face and hair, and the other went to work on my feet and then on to my ankles and calves. You’re on the right lines, thinks I, and closed my eyes, reflecting on what a delightful time of it Haroun al-Raschid must have had, and wondering if he’d ever become bored and yearned for the life of a jolly waggoner or productive farm labour in the open air. You wouldn’t catch Flashy prowling the streets of Baghdad in disguise, looking for adventure, not while there was soap and water at home …
The lower wench was soaping my knees now, and I opened my eyes, contemplating the ceiling far above, all coloured Persian designs, with a picture in the centre, of a cove with a stiff neck sitting under an awning and lording it over a platoon of bearded wallahs crouched in supplication. That’s your sort, thinks I, whoever you are, some Sikh nabob … and that reminded me of the names I’d memorised so painfully from Broadfoot’s packets: Heera Singh and Dehan Singh and Soochet Singh and Buggerlugs Singh and Chaund Cour and … Chaund Cour? Where had I heard that name recently …? Why, only a few moments since, from the houris; this was her bathroom – and suddenly a tiny maggot that had been wandering aimlessly through my mind snapped to attention, even as I heard swirling of water and realised that the girl had stopped soaping my knees and was swinging herself nimbly out of the bath … Chaund Cour’s bath … Chaund Cour who’d been smashed to pieces while bathing!
If the wench washing my hair had moved less sharply I’d have been a goner, but when her mate jumped out she dropped my head like a hot brick, and I went under and came out spluttering – to see her in the act of heaving herself out on the tiles, and from the tail of my eye I saw the huge coloured picture in the ceiling overhead start to quiver, with a dreadful scraping sound. For an instant I was frozen, sprawled in the water, and it can only have been instinct that galvanised my flaccid muscles, so that I thrust myself out of the water, turning and clutching for the edge of the bath, my hand closing on the girl’s ankle. That hold saved me from toppling back, and gave me a purchase to hurl myself out on to the tiles, while she was catapulted back into the water, her scream of terror lost in a deafening grinding thunder like an avalanche, followed by an almighty crash that seemed to shake the whole building and made the tiles start from their settings beneath my face. I rolled away with a yell of terror, sprawling on the wet tiles and staring back in disbelief.
Where the bath had been there was a flat expanse of rough stone, filling the cavity like a huge plug flush with the surrounding tiles. From that monstrous square of rock great rusty chains snaked up, clanking to and fro, into a gaping hole in the patterned ceiling. Foam was gushing up in a curtain from the narrow fissures between the fallen slab and the sides of the bath, washing over me in a wave, and even as I stared in horror it continued to ooze out,