I doubt if there’s been a shrewder or more ruthless crowned female in this neck of the world since Cleopatra!’
‘Yes, you did say she was formidable,’ murmurs Napier. ‘Indeed, she must be to hold sway over such people. And she is young, and a widow, is she not?’ he went on, his eyes on the big moths fluttering round the lamp. ‘Personable?’
‘What Galla girl isn’t?’ grins Speedy. ‘Masteeat means “looking glass”, so there you are. Not that she’s a girl in years – fair, fat, and forty rather, a real stately Juno, but with a fine bright eye and a whale of an appetite … for her vittles, I mean, regular glutton—’
‘To be sure,’ nods Napier. ‘What more?’
‘Well, tell you the truth, Sir Robert, I was less interested in her looks than in getting out of her presence ek dum – when a playful tyrant with power of life and death starts to wonder whether a chap my size could tackle a full-grown lion with a knife … well, I’m glad to bid her good day!’
‘Dear me. Why should she wonder any such thing?’
‘Well, sir, she was three parts drunk at the time, but I reckon the real reason was feminine pique ’cos I’d declined a post in her service.’ He said it straight-faced, the great idiot; some fellows don’t know a gift mare when she kicks ’em in the trinkets. ‘She’d ha’ pitted me against one of her pet monsters if her chamberlain hadn’t dissuaded her. Oh, she’s a rum ’un, Queen Masteeat. Jolly enough foxed, but wilful and sharp as a sabre when sober, for all her languid airs. Why, for two years she’s ruled the confederacy in despite of her elder sister Warkite, Queen of the Ambo Gallas, and there’s a third claimant—’
‘Thank you, Speedy,’ interrupted Napier. ‘Well … however wilful her majesty, she will hardly fail to respect a senior officer of a British army advancing on Magdala. What do you think, Sir Harry?’
Since Speedy had thrown my Arabic in my face I’d been listening to their exchanges with mounting alarm, and now I made for the only bolthole I could see, while playing up like an eager Dick Champion.
‘Why, of course I’ll go, sir, if you wish it – nothing I’d like better!’ A ringing laugh followed by a rueful smile. ‘But … I hate to say it … surely Captain Speedy is far fitter for this work than I? He knows this queen, and speaks her first language, and knows the country and customs—’
‘That is precisely what disqualifies him – every Abyssinian knows him, and secrecy is essential. Theodore’s spies inform him of every move we make – but he must not know that I have sent an envoy to the Gallas.’ Napier spoke with solemn emphasis, tapping a finger. ‘He would surely set his agents to work to prevent their lending us aid. He might even encompass the death of Queen Masteeat – and your life would not be worth two pice if he knew of your mission. You will be deep in enemy country, remember. That is why you must put on native garb again, a harmless Asian traveller going about his affairs unsuspected.’
You’ll notice that what had begun as an invitation had become a cut-and-dried certainty in the mind of this abominable dotard. I’d be skulking behind enemy lines, figged out like Ali Baba, risking capture by a maniac who twisted his victims’ limbs off, and playing travelling salesman to a demented bitch who thought it ever so jolly to throw visitors to the lions – and not a thing to be done about it except feign eagerness with a churning stomach and a grin of glad hurrah, as I sat sweating in that stifling tent with Napier regarding me like a prize pupil and the benighted buffoon Speedy clapping me on the shoulder.
Once again I was hoist with my undeserved reputation for derring-do, my fraudulent record of desperate service, and once again I couldn’t refuse – not and keep my good name. Time was I’d have wriggled and lied and gone to any length to escape from the coils of duty, but experience had taught me to recognise a hopeless case, and this was a beauty – for Napier was right: on the face of it, I was the only man. And I was too great a poltroon to face the disgrace and disgust and social and professional ruin if I shirked and slunk home … no, I hadn’t the game for that.
So I did my damnedest to look like a greyhound in the slips, stiffening the sinews and imitating tigers – and damme if Napier wasn’t regarding me with decidedly wry amusement.
‘I see that I was right in supposing the mission to be one after your own heart. I wonder,’ he sounded almost jocular, ‘if it is perhaps rendered doubly attractive by the fact that it concerns a royal lady of … striking personality. You may not be aware, Speedy, that Sir Harry has great experience in that line. When he was employed as envoy extraordinary to the court of the Maharani of the Punjab he so far succeeded that her majesty proposed marriage. Or so Sir Henry Lawrence assured me. And I recall that on the Pekin expedition the army was consumed with jealousy of the favour shown to him by the Empress of China.’ He made a curious noise which I could only interpret as a roguish chuckle. ‘Really, my dear Sir Harry, you should consider giving a course of lectures at Sandhurst or Addiscombe on the subject of courtly address.’
My, wasn’t this free and easy chat, though? Could he be hinting at the unspoken thought, which had certainly been in the pious minds of Broadfoot and Elgin,25 that I’d best secure royal cooperation by galloping her into what a Frenchman of my acquaintance called a condition of swoon? Surely not? They’d been worldly, wily politicals, but this was a grave, straight-laced senior of the old school who’d never dream … and then I remembered that this same Napier, with his antique whiskers and one foot in the grave, had recently married a spanking little filly of eighteen, which had plainly influenced his outlook on commerce with the fair sex; no wonder he looked as though he’d been fed through the mangle.26 Yes, I knew what he was thinking, the randy old rake; well, I was in no mood to appreciate his lewd levity, if that’s what it was. I said the reports of my diplomatic success had been greatly exaggerated, and that the Army had a deuce of an imagination.
‘But, seriously, sir, are you sure I’m the best man for this?’ Bursting with eagerness to go, you see, but voicing honest doubt. ‘I mean, it’s too big a thing to risk failure, I can see that, and while I’d do my level best, well … It wouldn’t do,’ I burst out, ‘if I let you down through ignorance or inexperience of the country—’
‘My dear Sir Harry,’ says he, so moved by my manly modesty that he put a hand on my shoulder, ‘I know of no man less likely to fail, and none in whom I repose such trust,’ and that, with him looking noble and Speedy muttering ‘Hear, hear!’ was my fate signed, sealed, and shoved down the drain, and I could only await my marching orders looking resolute and wondering how I might still slide out, God only knew how, along the way to the lair of this royal Medusa.
Napier lost no time, calling in Moore to make notes and taking me flat aback by saying I must set out that same night. ‘It is essential you be beyond the possibility of detection before dawn. You need not go far. The guide who is to escort you to Queen Masteeat lives only a few miles hence, and will afford you a roof to rest and prepare for your journey. And to let your beard start to grow,’ he added, ‘so that Khasim Tamwar may present a rather less European appearance.’
‘That’s my nom de guerre, is it? Who am I?’
‘An Indian subject of the Nizam of Hyderabad, whom you served as a diplomat in Syria and Arabia, now travelling to Galla to buy their famous horses for the Nizam’s cavalry – the Gallas ride like centaurs, by the way. You will naturally present the Nizam’s compliments to her majesty, and …’ he raised a finger for emphasis ‘… to her alone will you reveal that you are a British officer and my envoy.’ He took a doubtful tug at his moustache. ‘For your own safety I wish you could remain Indian, but if she is to be persuaded to go to war your true identity may be essential. You agree, Speedy?’
‘Let him be Sir Harry Flashman,’ grins Speedy. ‘Clean-shaven, if possible. I daresay that’s what fetched the Empress of China.’
Napier chose not to be amused. ‘It is no light thing he will be asking her to do. Her life and her people’s lives depend upon it.’ He returned to the map. ‘I spoke of cutting off Theodore’s retreat, and