Amen to that, thinks I. Until that moment I’d given little enough thought to this monster of an emperor and the atrocities he’d committed on his own people. You hear folk like Napier and Speedy talk of them, but it means nothing – and then you see ’em at point-blank, and can’t conceive of such wickedness. Until you come to Gondar, that is, and find yourself contemplating Hell on earth.
It lay about a hundred miles below the Takazy, and was once the capital of Abyssinia, a metropolis of forty-four churches and a great royal palace, standing on a hill from which there was a magnificent prospect of Lake Tana, forty miles away. For generations it had housed wealthy Muslim merchants and a revered priesthood, a magnet for traders from Egypt and the Soudan and the southern lakes, a city peaceful, flourishing, and rich – which was its undoing. Theodore had taxed it exorbitantly, virtually holding it to ransom, and not unnaturally the city fathers had tended to sympathise with the rebels fleeing the Emperor’s vengeance, and give them shelter.
This much Uliba told me as we came down towards it on the fifth day after crossing the river; I wondered if it would be safe to venture close to such a busy centre, and she laughed on a bitter note.
“Over the ridge yonder we shall see great Gondar on its hill,” says she, “and you can see how busy are its folk.”
We topped the ridge, and sure enough there was a distant rise crowned with buildings, some of ’em imposing adobe and stone structures, so far as I could tell from far off, but the lower slopes were covered in the burned ruins of thousands of the thatched houses of the common folk. There was an odd smell in the air, not the foulness of corruption, but more like an aftermath of decay, musty and stale. There was no sign of life on the hill, or on the plain below it, which was empty save for rows of upright objects that I took at first to be leafless trees, until we rode down to them, and I saw they were great crosses, hundreds of them to the edge of the city. And at the foot of each cross was a little pile of whitened bones, except for a few crosses on which were twisted blackened shapes that had once been human, preserved by some freak of the weather like so many withered mummies.
I could only sit and stare in disbelief, aware that Uliba was watching me with an expression of amused curiosity, resting easy in her saddle with one foot cocked up on the crupper. I dare say I was a sight to see, open-mouthed and appalled, asking myself such futile questions as what kind of creature could have done such a thing, and when, and above all, in God’s name, why?
Don’t misunderstand me. As I’ve said, I was inured to mass slaughter, and barbarous cruelty: when you’ve seen the mounds of Taiping dead, or the ghastly harvest of an Apache raid, you don’t gag or faint. But you can be stricken speechless at the sight of a mass carnage that has been conceived and designed and executed with meticulous care – no wild hot-blooded massacre, but a planned methodical operation, with hundreds of timber baulks cut and gathered and fashioned into crosses, hundreds of victims condemned and marshalled and nailed or bound, hundreds of crucifixes reared and planted by hundreds of executioners, hundreds of tortured voices screaming – and whoever had ordered this must have nodded approval and commended it with a “Well done, men, a good day’s work”, as he turned away from the ghastly sight and sounds and rode off to see what cook was preparing for supper.
Or perhaps he had given orders to crucify the population, and been miles away when his troops did the business.
“Oh, no,” says Uliba. “You may be sure that Theodore directed this in person. He would inspect every cross, every hanging body; he may even have driven home nails himself. That is his way, when the devil fit is on him.”
“He’s mad, then. Stark raving bloody insane!” I was thinking of other charming monarchs I had known, like Ranavalona with her death-pits, and that noble savage Gezo of Dahomey bouncing about on his throne fairly slobbering with glee as his Amazons sliced up his victims with cleavers. Plainly Theodore was from the same stable. It’s enough to make you turn republican.
Uliba shrugged. “Mad, perhaps. Or merely Abyssinian. Oh, you think of us as a fierce warlike people who love to fight – and we are, and you understand and admire that because it is in your nature also. But do you understand the joy of killing for its own sake? The delight in blood and the agony of the dying?” She shook her head. “From all I have heard, that is not in the British nature.”
You should see a Newgate scragging, you poor ignorant aborigine, thinks I. Or Flashy breaking de Gautet’s toes and pitching him into the Jotunschlucht with a merry jest, capital fun, and a deed after your own heart, sultana, you who gloated so joyfully over Yando’s performance on the flying trapeze. But sadistic spite in paying off a personal score is one thing; torturing to death an entire population whom you don’t even know, and whose only offence is that their civic rulers gave shelter to a parcel of rebels, is rather different.
It hadn’t properly sunk in, when Uliba had spoken of Theodore’s sparing no man, woman, or child, but it did now, as we rode through that ghastly forest of the dead which even the vultures had abandoned, and mounted the slope through the blackened ruins of Gondar city. Eerie silence hung over it like a shroud, and the stench of burned timber was overpowering, even though the fire had been dead for months. I’d have passed the infernal place by, not only for its foulness but because there might be enemies lurking, but Uliba, who seemed indifferent to the horrors we’d seen, brushed my fears aside.
“Only ghosts live in Gondar since Theodore destroyed it, more than a year ago. The peasants call it accursed, and even the outlaw bands avoid it.” She turned in her saddle to look back over the charred rubble to the rows of crosses below. “But it is well that you should see. If your general doubts the kind of enemy he has to deal with, you can tell him.”
I wondered if Napier would credit it, that a Christian king could spit in the eye of Christianity by turning crucifixion into a kind of blasphemy – for that’s how it would seem to my pious countrymen. And yet that wasn’t the worst of it, as I learned when we’d led our screws through the rubble-strewn streets and past the shattered walls of what had once been shops and churches and stone houses, and came to the broad plaza before the burned-out shell of the huge palace (once the largest building, they say, between Egypt and the Cape) where long-dead kings of Abyssinia had kept their courts amidst the wealth and splendour of a continent. If Prester John existed, this was where he’d sat his throne, where the scorpions and lizards now scuttled among the broken masonry. Once it must have been the wonder of Africa, a great city of fabulous wealth and ten thousand inhabitants; now it reminded me of those age-old ruins of North Africa and Middle Asia, and I must have asked aloud for the twentieth time what in God’s name had possessed Theodore to destroy such grandeur.
“Because he hated it,” says Uliba contemptuously. “Not only for its comfort given to rebels, but for its splendour and treasure and traditions that seemed to mock his stolen royalty. Gondar the Great, the glory of Habesh, a noble city of nobles, was a living reproach to the purge-seller’s brat.”
It came on to rain at sunset, one of those crashing tropical downpours with sheet lightning crackling on the western horizon and thunder booming overhead, so we bivouacked in the porch of one of the four churches which were the only buildings Theodore had left standing. It was dry and snug with the outer door pulled to, cutting us off from the city’s desolation, and when I’d lit a fire with one of my vesuvians31 (Uliba, such a worldly-wise and cultivated little savage in so many ways, had cried out in alarm the first time I’d used one) she set to work preparing a stew of game and kid. I led our beasts through the arch into the empty nave, where I spread their fodder and rubbed them down, and took a quick dekko around in the last of the light from the high unglazed windows.
Theodore might have spared the building, but he’d stripped it bare. There was nothing but a broken font and a bare altar, behind which was another of those crazy frescoes which I’ve already told you of: this one depicted the Children of Israel crossing the Red Sea, pur
sued by Pharaoh’s army who were holding their muskets over their heads, presumably to keep their Ancient Egyptian powder dry.
For the rest, there was nothing but a heavy trapdoor in the wooden floor which covered the area before the altar; elsewhere the floor was bare earth to the walls, in one of which there was a closed side door. I heaved up the trap, whose slats were warped and shrunk with age, and there beneath was a small cellar, about twelve feet by twelve and eight deep, empty but for a few ancient pots and no doubt interesting assorted insect life.
I replaced the trap and joined Uliba in the porch, where we ate our supper by the shadowy firelight with the storm bellowing outside. And now she told me the full unspeakable tale of what Theodore had done to the old city in the autumn of ’66.
“He had wrested tribute from it in the past, so the people expected no more than another shearing of their golden fleece, and came out to greet their emperor, protesting loyalty and hoping to win his favour. They might as well have tried to charm a crocodile. Although the rebels had fled away at his approach, their recent presence was all the excuse Theodore needed to loot the city to its final ruin. The wealth of Selassie, the gold of Kooksuam, the silver of Bata, the gems from the mines of Solomon beyond the Mountains of the Moon, the silks and paintings and even the precious manuscripts were all plundered to the uttermost scrap and coin. Never was such a pillaging … aye, they lived richly in the Gondar that was.”
She poured us cups of tej and sat back against the wall, golden in the firelight, sipping her cup and telling her dreadful tale as lightly as a fairy story.
“But to strip the city to its ruin was not enough, Gondar itself must cease to be. Its citizens, all ten thousand, were herded out like cattle, and the whole town given to the flames: the palace, the treasury, the forty churches, the fine homes of the rich and the hovels of the poor. Gondar burned from end to end, and the glow was seen in the sky from Lake Ashangi to the frontiers of Tigre and Soudan. And when the priests cried out, calling down curses on his head, he had them bound, hundreds of aged men, and thrown into the fire, so that they burned alive, to the last man. But did that satisfy him, d’you think?”
She leaned forward to pick up the tej flask, the black almond eyes watching to see the effect of her story, even smiling a little in anticipation.
“Let me fill your cup, you who love fair women, so that you can steady your spirit while you hear the rest. For now Theodore remembered that when the folk had come out to greet him, they had been led by the girls of the city, dancing and singing. ‘Their song was the signal for the rebels to flee!’ cries he. ‘Traitresses, bring them to me!’ And they too, every girl, from child to young woman, were thrown alive into the flames.” She paused to sip her drink. “The rest of the people he crucified or cut to pieces. What do you think of that, effendi? It is true, you know, every soul in a great city exterminated by the fire, the cross, and the sword, thousand upon thousand. All Habesh knows it.32 What will your general say?”
“Breathe a sigh of relief, most likely, since ’twill solve a problem that’s bound to be exercising him … what to do with Theodore, I mean. This makes it simple; the bastard’ll have to go.”
“You will try him, in a court, and put him to death?”
“Oh, I doubt that. What would we charge him with? We’ve nothing against him but kidnapping a few of our people, mistreating ’em and so forth. Can’t hang him for that. What he does in his own country, to his own folk, ain’t our indaba. Can’t quote you the law, but I’m pretty clear that’s how it stands. Why, I can think of two campaigns that I’ve been in, in India and China, where ghastly things were done by native rulers – women, in fact, dreadful bitches – but we didn’t lay a finger on ’em.”33
“But you said of Theodore, ‘he will have to go’!”
“So he will, one way or t’other. Bullet in the back o’ the head, shot trying to escape, dead of a surfeit of lampreys, who knows?” I gave her a précis of my Harper’s Ferry adventure, where for reasons of state I was supposed to shoot mad John Brown so that the Yankee authorities wouldn’t have the embarrassment of trying and topping the daft old bugger – which I didn’t, as you probably know. “But that was a different case. Theodore’ll have to die, somehow; can’t execute him, but can’t have him hanging around Aldershot on a pension, either. Public wouldn’t stand it. He’ll just have to be done in on the quiet, accidental-looking.”
“What hypocrites you are!”
“No such thing. It’s just the civilised way of doing it, that’s all. What would you do with him, then?”
She leaned back against the wall in a way which stretched her tunic most distractingly, put her hands behind her head, and gazed pensively up at the flickering fire-shadows on the opposite wall.
“Given to me, he would take a year to die. Perhaps two. First of all I would have the bones of his hands and feet removed one at a time, then the larger bones of his arms and legs. This would be done by our most skilful surgeons, who would sew up the wounds, taking care to keep him alive and conscious …” She sighed contentedly, settling down to put her imagination to work. “Next …” But I shan’t tell you what she said next, because like me you may just have had dinner. I’ll say only that I hadn’t heard the like since my fourth wife, Sonsee-array, described what she’d done to captured scalp-hunters in the winter of ’49.
“You’d not give him the option of a fine, then?” says I. “Just so. Well, my dear, I hope you get the chance, because the evil swine deserves it. But I don’t suppose you will, what?”
“If I am Queen of Galla, who knows?” says she softly. “If your general wishes to avoid the responsibility of … punishing Theodore … might he not leave the task to the ally who had helped him to take Magdala?”
Fortunately I’m an old hand at keeping my countenance when mines are sprung under me, so I took a long pull at my tej and thought in haste. For this was her hole card faced with a vengeance, and I must take care.
“That ally, as I understand it, is Queen Masteeat,” says I. “She’s the one I’ve been ordered to approach, leastways.”
Uliba sat upright, very erect in the firelight, and pushed her hands beneath her braids, raising them from her head, letting them fall, and raising them again, then turning her head to regard me steadily from those slanting black eyes, the heavy lips parting as she took a deep breath. It was calculated and most striking, a gesture that said “Look at me, voluptuous romp that I am, female tigress and woman of destiny, for I’m turning my batteries on you, and by gad you’d best make your mind up.” She posed for a long moment, to make sure I noticed, no doubt, and then said:
“If Masteeat were no longer Queen of the Wollos –”
“Then I suppose I’d have to approach Warkite of the Ambos, wouldn’t I?”
“Bah!” She spat it out in contempt, swirling her braids. “To what end? Who would follow that dried-up crone against Magdala? You think because she presumes to the throne of all Galla that she can command loyalty even from her own tribe? She is nothing, a name only! She is no rival to Masteeat!”
“Is anyone?” says I, and she fluffed out her braids again, tossing her handsome head, and then burst out laughing.
“So we come to it! Yes, there is one – and you know her!” She leaned towards me, proud and confident. “The Basha Fallaka Speedy will have told you all about the third pretender, the concubine’s bastard who has twice rebelled – you did not know? – and for her treason was sent from the court of her royal ancestors and forced to marry a commoner, a mere petty chief, a chief so feeble that Gobayzy holds him captive – so who is she to challenge Masteeat, her sister? Masteeat who is strong and crafty and has held her throne against Warkite and such warlords as Gobayzy and Menelek these two years? Masteeat who commands ten thousand swords, oh, aye,” she added, sniffing, “and has a way with men, soft-fleshed and indolent as she is. Well, she is not alone in her way with men. Is she?” And she gave her braids another lift and flaunt.
No, she
was not, but the diplomatic problem facing me was a nice one. In effect I was being asked: if Queen Masteeat was somehow (and God alone knew how) replaced by Queen Uliba, would I, as Britannia’s envoy, recognise and do business with her? That, plainly, would depend on whether she could fill Masteeat’s shoes, which at the moment, given her situation, seemed unlikely. Then again, she was plainly intent on a coup d’etat, so she must have reason to believe she could pull it off, no doubt by kicking Masteeat’s bucket for her. Ergo, she must be counting on mighty support from within the Wollo Galla community, and since, as she’d remarked, she did have a way of enlisting masculine sympathy, no doubt that support would be forthcoming. Sufficient to do the trick? That I couldn’t tell. But the immediate question was, if she did succeed in mounting a palace revolution, what help, if any, would she expect from old Flashy?
You see my dilemma. She was my only hope of reaching Queen Masteeat, and must not be antagonised. And however unlikely it seemed, if by some freak of chance and design she managed to supplant Masteeat in the next two weeks, she would be the key to Galla support against Theodore – but if she tried a coup and it failed, I daren’t be any part of it. Not only would Napier be left without a Galla to bless himself with, my essentials would be used to decorate somebody’s spear. The whole thing was wild and imponderable and downright impossible to predict or plan for, so all I could do for the moment was keep this mad hoyden sweet and see how the sparks fell.
All this in a matter of seconds while she watched me as though I were an opposing duellist, the firelight glinting in her eyes intent on mine, lips parted and expectant. And since there’s only one absolutely safe response to that hopeful feminine regard, I gave her my sentimental gentle leer, took her shoulders tenderly in my hands, brought my lips towards hers … and stopped dead, the hairs bristling up on my neck.
The storm had blown itself out, and the only sounds about us were the soft crackle of the dying fire, the stirring of our horses in the nave, the faint splash and trickle of water across the ground outside the porch door … and now, of a sudden, not far distant, the clatter of a stone disturbed somewhere out in the darkness, the ring of shod hooves, and a voice raised in a harsh shout.
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