Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins
Khalsa.” She smiled to soften the rebuke. “So for a season you must disperse the divisions about the country, and live on what you can get – nay, it will be good practice against the day when you come to Delhi and the fat lands to the south!”
That cheered them up – she was telling them to loot their own countryside, you’ll notice, which they’d been doing for six years. Meanwhile, she and their new Wazir would see to it that arms and stores were ready in abundance for the great day. Only a few of the older hands expressed doubts.
“But if we disperse, kunwari, we leave the country open to attack,” says the burly Imam Shah. “The British can make a chapaoc and be in Lahore while we are scattered!”
“The British will not move,” says she confidently. “Rather, when they see the great Khalsa disperse, they will thank God and stand down, as they always do. Is it not so, Maka Khan?”
The old boy looked doubtful. “Indeed, kunwari – yet they are not fools. They have their spies among us. There is one at your court now …” He hesitated, not meeting her eye. “… this Iflassman of the Sirkar’s Army, who hides behind a fool’s errand when all the world knows he is the right hand of the Black-coated Infidel.d What if he should learn what passes here today? What if there is a traitor among us to inform him?”
“Among the Khalsa?” She was scornful. “You do your comrades little honour, general. As to this Englishman … he learns what I wish him to learn, no more and no less. It will not disturb his masters.”
She had a way with a drawled line, and the lewd brutes went into ribald guffaws – it’s damnable, the way gossip gets about. But it was eerie to hear her talk as though I were miles away, when she knew I was listening to every word. Well, no doubt I’d discover eventually what she was about – I glanced at Mangla, who smiled mysteriously and motioned me to silence, so I must sit and speculate as that remarkable durbar drew to a close with renewed cheers of loyal acclaim and enthusiastic promises of what they’d do to John Company when the time came. Thereafter they all trooped out in high good humour, with a last rouse for the small red and gold figure left in solitary state on her throne, toying with her silver scarf.
Mangla led me aloft again to the rose-pink boudoir, leaving the sliding panel ajar, and busied herself pouring wine into a beaker that must have held near a quart – anticipating her mistress’s needs, you see. Sure enough, a stumbling step and muttered curse on the stair heralded the appearance of the Mother of All Sikhs, looking obscenely beautiful and gasping for refreshment; she drained the cup without even sitting down, gave a sigh that shuddered her delightfully from head to foot, and subsided gratefully on the divan.
“Fill it again … another moment and I should have died! Oh, how they stank!” She drank greedily. “Was it well done, Mangla?”
“Well indeed, kunwari. They are yours, every man.”
“Aye, for the moment. My tongue didn’t trip? You’re sure? My feet did, though …” She giggled and sipped. “I know, I drink too much – but could I have faced them sober? D’you think they noticed?”
“They noticed what you meant them to notice,” says Mangla dryly.
“Baggage! It’s true enough, though … Men!” She gave her husky laugh, raised a shimmering leg and admired its shapeliness complacently. “Even that beast of an Akali couldn’t stare hard enough … heaven help some wench tonight when he vents his piety on her. Wasn’t he a godsend, though? I should be grateful to him. I wonder if he …” She chuckled, drank again, and seemed to see me for the first time. “Did our tall visitor hear it all?”
“Every word, kunwari.”
“And he was properly attentive? Good.” She eyed me over the rim of her cup, set it aside, and stretched luxuriously like a cat, watching me to gauge the effect of all that goodness trying to burst out of the tight silk; no modest violet she. My expression must have pleased her, for she laughed again. “Good. Then we’ll have much to talk about, when I’ve washed away the memory of those sweaty warriors of mine. You look warm, too, my Englishman … show him where to bathe, Mangla – and keep your hands off him, d’you hear?”
“Why, kunwari!”
“‘Why kunwari’ indeed! Here, unbutton my waist.” She laughed and hiccoughed, glancing over her shoulder as Mangla unfastened her at the back. “She’s a lecherous slut, our Mangla. Aren’t you, my dear? Lonely, too, now that Jawaheer’s gone – not that she ever cared two pice for him.” She gave me her Delilah smile. “Did you enjoy her, Englishman? She enjoyed you. Well, let me tell you, she is thirty-one, the old trollop – five years my senior and twice as old in sin, so beware of her.”
She reached for her cup again, knocked it over, splashed wine across her midriff, cursed fluently, and pulled the diamond from her navel. “Here, Mangla, take this. He doesn’t like it, and he’ll never learn the trick.” She rose, none too steadily, and waved Mangla impatiently away. “Go on, woman – show him where to bathe, and set out the oil, and then take yourself off! And don’t forget to tell Rai and the Python to be within call, in case I need them.”
I wondered, as I had a hasty wash-down in a tiny chamber off the boudoir, if I’d ever met such a blatant strumpet in my life – well, Ranavalona, of course, but you don’t expect coy flirtation from a female ape. Montez hadn’t been one to stand on ceremony either, crying “On guard!” and brandishing her hairbrush, and Mrs Leo Lade could rip the britches off you with a sidelong glance, but neither had paraded their dark desires as openly as this tipsy little houri. Still, one must conform to the etiquette of the country, so I dried myself with feverish speed and strode forth as nature intended, eager to ambush her as she emerged from her bathroom – and she was there ahead of me.
She was half-reclining on a broad silken quilt on the floor, clad in her head-veil and bangles – and I’d been looking forward to easing her out of those pants, too. She was fortifying herself with her wine cup, as usual, and it struck me that unless I went to work without delay she’d be too foxed to perform. But she could still speak and see, at least, for she surveyed me with glassy-eyed approval, licked her lips, and says:
“You’re impatient, I see …. No, wait, let me look at you … Mm-m … Now, come here and lie down beside me … and wait. I said we should talk, remember. There are things you must know, so that you can speak my mind to Broadfoot sahib and the Malki lat.” Another sip of puggle and a drunken chuckle. “As you English say, business before pleasure.”
I was boiling to contradict her by demonstration, but as I’ve observed, queens are different – and this one had told Mangla to have “Rai and the Python” standing by; they didn’t sound like lady’s maids, exactly. Also, if she had something for Hardinge, I must hear it. So I stretched out, nearly bursting at the prospect of the abundances thrusting at me within easy reach, and the wicked slut bobbed them with one hand while she poured tipple into herself with the other. Then she put down the cup, scooped her hand into a deep porcelain bowl of oil at her side, and kneeling forward above me, let it trickle on to my manly breast; then she began to rub it in ever so gently with her finger-tips, all over my torso, murmuring to me to lie still, while I gritted my teeth and clawed at the quilt, and tried to remember what an ablative absolute was – I had to humour her, you see, but with that painted harlot’s face breathing warm booze at me, and those superb poonts quivering overhead with every teasing movement, and her fingers caressing … well, it was distracting, you know. To make things worse, she talked in that husky whisper, and I must try to pay attention.
Jeendan: This is what killed Runjeet Singh, did you know? It took a full bowl of oil … and then he died … smiling …
Flashy (a trifle hoarse): You don’t say! Any last words, were there?
J: It was my duty to apply the oil while we discussed the business of the state. It relieved the tedium of affairs, he used to say, and reminded him that life is not all policy.
F (musing): No wonder the country went to rack