shown you and Erskine that she’s not disposed to be friendly, but I’m bound to try, you see. So I’ll be obliged to you if you’ll arrange an audience for me the day after tomorrow – I’d like to rest and perhaps look around the city first. For the present, you can tell me your own opinion of her.’
He frowned, and filled my glass. ‘You’ll think it’s odd, sir, I daresay, but in all the time I’ve been here, I’ve never even seen her. I’ve met her, frequently, at the palace, but she speaks from behind a purdah, you know – and as often as not her chamberlain does the talking for her. She’s a stickler for form, and since government granted her diplomatic immunity after her husband died – as a sop, really, when we assumed suzerainty – well, it makes it difficult to deal with her satisfactorily. She was friendly enough with Erskine at one time – but I’ve had no change out of her at all. She’s damned bitter, you see – when her husband died, old Raja Gangadar, he left no children of his own – well, he was an odd bird, really,’ and Skene blushed furiously and avoided my eye. ‘Used to go about in female dress most of the time, and wore bangles and … and perfume, you see—’
‘No wonder she was bitter,’ says I.
‘No, no, what I mean is, since he left no legitimate heir, but only a boy whom he’d adopted, Dalhousie wouldn’t recognise the infant. The new succession law, you know. So the state was annexed – and the Rani was furious, and petitioned the Queen, and sent agents to London, but it was no go. The adopted son, Damodar, was dispossessed, and the Rani, who’d hoped to be regent, was deprived of her power – officially. Between ourselves, we let her rule pretty well as she pleases – well, we can’t do otherwise, can we? We’ve one battalion of sepoys, and thirty British civilians to run the state administration – but she’s the law, where her people are concerned, absolute as Caesar.’
‘Doesn’t that satisfy her, then?’
‘Not a bit of it. She detests the fact that officially she only holds power by the Sirkar’s leave, you see. And she’s still wild about the late Raja’s will – you’d think that with a quarter of a million in her treasury she’d be content, but there was some jewellery or other that Calcutta confiscated, and she’s never forgiven us.’
‘Interesting lady,’ says I. ‘Dangerous, d’you think?’
He frowned. ‘Politically, yes. Given the chance, she’d pay our score off, double quick – that’s why the chapatti business upset me. She’s got no army, as such – but with every man in Jhansi a born fighter, and robber, she don’t need one, do she? And they’ll jump if she whistles, for they worship the ground she treads on. She’s proud as Lucifer’s sister, and devilish hard, not to say cruel, in her own courts, but she’s uncommon kind to the poor folk, and highly thought of for her piety – spends five hours a day meditating, although she was a wild piece, they say, when she was a girl. They brought her up like a Maharatta prince at the old Peshwa’s court – taught her to ride and shoot and fence with the best of them. They say she still has the fiend’s own temper,’ he added, grinning, ‘but she’s always been civil enough to me – at a distance. But make no mistake, she’s dangerous; if you can sweeten her, sir, we’ll all sleep a deal easier at nights.’
There was that, of course. However withered an old trot she might be, she’d be an odd female if she was altogether impervious to Flashy’s manly bearing and cavalry whiskers – which was probably what Pam had in mind in the first place. Cunning old devil. Still, as I turned in that night I wasn’t absolutely looking forward to poodle-faking her in two days’ time, and as I glanced from my bungalow window and saw Jhansi citadel beetling in the starlight, I thought, we’ll take a nice little escort of lancers with us when we go to take tea with the lady, so we will.
But that was denied me. I had intended to pass the next day looking about the city, perhaps having a discreet word with Carshore the Collector and the colonel of the sepoys, but as the sycefn2 was bringing round my pony to the dak-bungalow, up comes Skene in a flurry. When he’d sent word to the palace that Colonel Flashman, a distinguished soldier of the Sirkar, was seeking an audience for the following day, he’d been told that distinguished visitors were expected to present themselves immediately as a token of proper respect to her highness, and Colonel Flashman could shift his distinguished rump up to the palace forthwith.
‘I … I thought in the circumstances of your visit,’ says Skene, apologetically, ‘that you might think it best to comply.’
‘You did, did you?’ says I. ‘Does every Briton in Jhansi leap to attention when this beldam snaps her fingers, then?’
‘Shall we say, we find it convenient to humour her highness,’ says he – he was more of a political than he looked, this lad, so I blustered a bit, to be in character, and then said he might find me an escort of lancers to convoy me in.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ says he. ‘We haven’t any lancers – and if we had, we’ve agreed not to send troop formations inside the city walls. Also, since I was excluded from the, er … invitation, I fear you must go alone.’
‘What?’ says I. ‘Damnation, who governs here – the Sirkar or this harridan?’ I didn’t fancy above half risking my hide unguarded in that unhealthy-looking fortress, but I had to cover it with dignity. ‘You’ve made a rod for your own backs by being too soft with this … this woman. She’s not Queen Bess, you know!’
‘She thinks she is,’ says he cheerfully, so in the end of course I had to lump it. But I changed into my lancer fig first, sabre, revolver and all – for I could guess why she was ensuring that I visited her alone: up-country, on the frontier, they judge a man on his own looks, but down here they go on the amount and richness of your retinue. One mounted officer wasn’t going to impress the natives with the Sirkar’s power – well, then, he’d look his best, and be damned to her. So I figged up, and when I regarded myself in Skene’s cracked mirror – blue tunic and breeches, gold belt and epaulettes, white gauntlets and helmet, well-bristled whiskers, and Flashy’s stalwart fourteen stone inside it all, it wasn’t half bad. I took a couple of packages from my trunk, stowed them in my saddlebag, waved to Skene, and trotted off to meet royalty, with only the syce to show me the way.
Jhansi city lies about a couple of miles from the cantonment, and I had plenty of time to take in the scenery. The road, which was well-lined with temples and smaller buildings, was crowded into the city, with bullock-carts churning up the dust, camels, palankeens, and hordes of travellers both mounted and on foot. Most of them were country folk, on their way to the bazaars, but every now and then would come an elephant with red and gold fringed howdah swaying along, carrying some minor nabob or rich lady, or a portly merchant on his mule with a string of porters behind, and once the syce pointed out a group who he said were members of the Rani’s own bodyguard – a dozen stalwart Khyberie Pathans, of all things, trotting along very military in double file, with mail coats and red silk scarves wound round their spiked helmets. The Rani might not have a army, but she wasn’t short of force, with those fellows about: there was a hundred years’ Company service among them if there was a day.
And her city defences were a sight to see – massive walls twenty feet high, and beyond them a warren of streets stretching for near a mile to the castle rock, with its series of curtain walls and round towers – it would be the deuce of a place to storm, after you’d fought through the city itself; there were guns in the embrasures, and mail-clad spearmen on the walls, all looking like business.
We had to force our horses through a crowded inferno of heat and smells and noise and jostling niggers to get to the palace, which stood apart from the fort near a small lake, with a shady park about it; it was a fine, four-square building, its outer walls beautifully decorated with huge paintings of battles and hunting scenes. I presented myself to another Pathan, very splendid in steel back-and-breast and long-tail puggaree, who commanded the gate guard, and sat sweating in the scorching sun while he sent off a messenger for the chamberlain. And as I chafed impatiently, the Pathan walked slowly round me, eyeing me up and down, and presently stopped, stuck his thumbs in his belt, and spat carefully on my shadow.
Now, close