It struck me that Masteeat must be uncommon tolerant to allow herself to be so outshone, and then I remembered reading somewhere that our old Queen Bess had surrounded herself with the prettiest of pippins, no doubt knowing that there was only one woman who’d be looked at. That was certainly the case when the Queen of Galla made her entrance, stately and smiling sleepily, and somehow contriving to put all the bowing beauties in the shade.
And, dammit, she wasn’t even sober yet, to judge from her swaying gait, careless gestures, and ringing laugh. They’d put her in very fair trim, though, with a gold circlet as a sort of coronet, and gold thread cunningly worked into her braids; she had gold chain earrings depending to her broad bare shoulders, and a gold collar clasped about her throat. Her dress was white and of some clinging gauzy stuff cleverly cut to disguise a waist and hips which were undoubtedly overblown and to display a bosom whose development matched her shoulders admirably. She carried a gold wand this time, and the effect of her carriage and manner was overpowering, no other word for it.
When the company had finished its obeisance, she held her arm for me to take, and led the way to the head of the table, where she took her seat among the cushions, indicating that I should join her. She reclined on one elbow, but I decided to sit, as being less awkward and more in keeping with the company, who had their little stools. More tej was poured, Masteeat led the company in pledging me, Queen Victoria, Napier, and the British Army, in that order, each toast requiring a full goblet, no heel-taps. We ain’t going to eat a great deal, thinks I; they’ll be too tight to pick up the grub. But I was dead wrong.
You know what dining out I’d done thus far; rough browsing mostly and not too formal even at Uliba’s citadel and the monastery. But I’d never been to a Lord Mayor’s Banquet, if you know what I mean, and that was what I was treated to, Habesh style. It’s quite alarming.
You sit there, drinking toasts, wondering when the soup’s going to arrive, when suddenly the most appalling din breaks out just beyond the door, a full-throated bellowing, peal after peal of some huge body in mortal pain thrashing about to the accompaniment of yelling voices, shrieks of command and cries of desperation, furniture crashing, the bellowing rising to a crescendo – and the guests applauding and your hostess imbibing another pint of tej, smacking her lips in anticipation.
And then servants scurry in, and there is planked down in front of you a plate containing a twelve-pound beefsteak, raw, red, and bleeding, and as I live and breathe, it has steam rising from it, which perhaps ain’t surprising since thirty seconds before it was part of the living animal which is bawling in agony outside. I’d had raw beef before, in transparently thin slices, cold, and not too bad, but as I gazed at this smoking horror I thought, no, the devil with etiquette, protocol, and diplomatic niceties, I ain’t touching it, whatever offence I give. Down the table they were buffing in like mad cannibals, even those elegant beauties, with gore trickling down their lovely chins and being wiped with dainty fingers. I daren’t look at Masteeat for fear of what I’d see; the mere sound of her champing made me come all over faint.
“You do not care for the brundo?” She laughed, took a hearty draught of tej, and called a servant to remove my bloody lump of carcase and replace it with a whole roast chicken. “Our friend Speedy, the great Basha Fallaka, shuddered like a girl when the beast was tethered and carved. That is why it was done outside today, so that your delicate senses might not be disturbed!” She struck me lightly on the arm, joshing, so I had to look at her, but either she’d wiped herself or swallowed the steak whole, for the chubby laughing face was clean and shining. “So, eat with good appetite!”
I can’t say I did, for the beast was still bellowing piteously outside, and some of the guests were calling for second helpings of the poor brute. And after that, when the roast meats and fowls and fish and stews and curries were served, the voracity with which the company punished each succeeding course quite put me off. God knows my generation were good trenchermen, but they weren’t fit to guzzle in Ethiopian company; it was wolf, wolf, wolf with an unrestrained vengeance, and those exquisite females, like so many tawny goddesses in their fine silks and gauzes, laid in as hard as the men. Talk about having hollow legs – and they drank pint for pint, too, taking their cue from her majesty, who bade fair to outstrip her potations of the afternoon.
It was, as you can imagine, a noisy business all round, and by the time the desserts and fruits were reached it was like being in a farmyard at feeding time. It didn’t stop them talking, mind; the din of conversation rose as the drink went down, and Masteeat found time between her gargantuan mouthfuls of food and gulps of liquor to call down amiable curses on the head of Uliba-Wark, who had defied a royal command to attend the feast and flounced off in dudgeon when rebuked.
“She becomes tiresome,” says Masteeat, and heaved a mighty yawn; the tej was coming home to roost at last, and her speech was thick and slow. “I begin to think that what I said half in jest I should decree in earnest … send her to Gobayzy.” She lowered another gobletful. “A penance for both of them.”
Fasil, who was sitting first down the table, shook his head. “Would your majesty know a moment’s peace if your half-sister were Gobayzy’s queen, with his army at her command?”
“To make another attempt against me?” laughs Masteeat. “Not so, old soldier, Gobayzy would have none of it. He fears the Galla too much … most of all the Galla Queen.” At which Cavalry and Infantry roared applause, and drank to her, with the others joining in.
“And yet,” says Fasil, when the shouting had died, “Gobayzy’s uncle visited the Dedjaz Napier at Santara. What for, if not to stand first with the British … in your majesty’s room?”
“By God, it is the truth!” cries Infantry. “Did I not say there is no knowing how the British might dispose of Magdala when it is taken!” He scowled half-drunkenly at me. “If Gobayzy worms his way into their confidence, might it not be given to him?” At this there was an uproar of opinion, stilled when Masteeat spoke with tipsy deliberation.
“No.” She set down her goblet carefully, and refilled it, more or less, with an unsteady hand. “No. Gobayzy’s a … a worm, you say … Well, what can he give the British? His army of … of worms?” She chuckled. “Worms who crawl away at the sight of our spears! No. The British dedjaz has chosen already …” She threw out an arm across my shoulders. “Chosen already, I say! Has he not?” She leaned towards me, and I prepared to catch her, but she kept her balance. “Has he not?” she repeated, and giggled, enveloping me in tej fumes. The great black eyes were half-closed, the smiling lips were moist and parted, and her braids were brushing my face. “Has he not?” she said a third time, her voice a drowsy murmur, and I glanced at Fasil, but he had turned away to his black charmer, and no one else was paying us any heed.
“Has he not?” for the fourth time, drunk as David’s sow, but not too far gone to kiss me gently, playing her tongue along my lips, whispering. “Oh … beautiful! More beautiful than Basha Fallaka … Are you all so beautiful, you English …?”
“Just a few of us, ma’am,” says I, and she gave a whoop of laughter and heaved her bulk away, knocking over her goblet, which I gallantly rescued and refilled, after a fashion, for I was feeling the worse for wear myself, what with too much booze and the rising clamour and laughter … for now the party was becoming lively, and if you don’t believe what I’m about to tell you, I can’t help it.
Young Cavalry and his bint had evidently had their fill of meat and drink, and were starting to satisfy another appetite, pawing and fondling with increasing passion, and slipping off their stools on to a mattress which some obliging menial must have laid behind their places. Gad’s me life, thinks I, not before the savoury, surely, but there was no doubt about it, they were setting to partners in earnest, and Fasil, seated next to them, had unwound a fold of his shama and was holding it up to shield the performers from the public gaze, the damned spoilsport – and blow me if Cavalry’s other n
eighbour wasn’t doing likewise, providing a complete screen!
But if they’d cut off the sight, they couldn’t shut out the sound. Even above the drunken babble of talk, gasps and grunts and rhythmic pounding were audible, followed at last by a prolonged ecstatic wailing that reminded me of little Fraulein Thingamajig on the voyage to Trieste. Well done, Cavalry, that’s your sort, thinks I, and looked to see the company, and Masteeat if she still had her senses, express their indignation at such unseemly behaviour – but no one was paying the least attention until Fasil and t’other chap resumed their shamas and the happy couple emerged, the bint in some disorder and Cavalry looking as though he’d just been ridden down by the Heavy Brigade. Then, as God’s my witness, the whole company raised their glasses in salutation as the lovers resumed their stools.
And then the other diners followed suit, in turn. Whether they observed some order of precedence, like Bishops going into dinner before Rear Admirals, I can’t say, but I think not, since Fasil and his consort were next to bat, and he must have been senior to Cavalry, surely. I was caught out, because Cavalry undid his shama to give ’em privacy, and nodded and frowned in my direction – and of course I was the nearest chap, and since I didn’t wear a shama I could only hold up a cushion, which wasn’t really adequate. Being fairly foxed, I started to apologise to Fasil, but quickly averted my gaze, thinking that’s a position I haven’t seen before, but ex Africa semper aliquid novi,c as Charity Spring would have said.
Then Infantry and his charmer were at it, and of course the inevitable happened: the others got impatient, and started out of turn, and all order was abandoned. Only the most perfunctory attempts were made to shield the jolly amorists, and the place shook like a New Orleans brothel in Holy Week. The Abs have two claims to distinction: they’re the noisiest eaters and fornicators on earth, and their queen is up there with the leaders. I’d been too intent on the scandalous scene to pay her much heed, and now when I looked she was reclining on one elbow, regarding me glassily over the rim of her tej goblet; whether she could see me or not I wasn’t sure until she reached out a hand to stroke my cheek, and (of all things) chucked me under the chin, gurgling with laughter and lurching closer.
“Has … he … not …?” she mumbled drowsily – by jove, she’d lapped the gutter, but d’you know, it was a rum thing, the drunker she got the more I fancied her. I’ve said she was no great beauty, but there was something damned fetching about the plump polished cheeks between the shining braids, the moist lips trembling in a vacuous smile, the satin skin of her arms and shoulders, the hard juggs thrusting themselves into my grasp, and the wild abandon with which she suddenly revived, clamping her mouth on mine, clawing at my rump, howling and writhing fit to wreck the furniture … and I think some considerate chaps must have noticed, for I’ve a recollection of being secluded by their shamas.
I hope we were, anyway … not that I imagine anyone would have paid us the slightest heed in the surrounding happy pandemonium, but one has to think of propriety and the good name of the service, especially among native peoples, however trying conditions may sometimes be. As I said to Speedicut, it’s hell in the diplomatic.
Elspeth maintains that one of the jolliest things about what she calls houghmagandie is the sweet exchanges of conversation afterwards. What they would have been like with Queen Masteeat of Galla, I cannot say, for she fell asleep at the end of our little frolic, and had to be carried insensible to bed by the more sober of her handmaidens, snoring like a volcano. My stars, but she was a glutton for mutton, and I was a well-ruined ambassador as I picked my way clear of the wreckage of that dining-chamber – would you credit it, Infantry and Cavalry were still going strong, with Fasil’s woman, too, while he was tucking into a helping of brundo, fed to him by his subordinates’ laughing lovebirds. No one’s ever going to believe this, thinks I; hang it all, Nero himself would have taken one look and cried “Oh, chuck it!” But that’s Ab society for you; other folk have dinner parties, but in Habesh they’re dinner orgies.40
I’ve no very clear recollection of making my way to the apartment in the palace set aside for me, but I know I suffered a most ghastly bout of “spinning pillow” and had to hang over the side of the bed with the floor racing up to me and receding, time and again, before I finally settled, lying there in the dark wondering how much of Queen Masteeat I could take. She was no refined amorist, that one, strong as a bullock, randy as a stoat, and the roughest ride I could remember since Ranavalona of Madagascar – another Black Pearl of Africa, but before I could make philosophic review of this coincidence, my attention was distracted by a gentle pricking of some sharp point under my right ear, and a soft voice whispering:
“Lie still, friend, and prosper … for the moment. Speak … and you’ll be talking to Shaitan.”
* * *
a Rumour.
b Agent, representative.
c “Out of Africa there is always something new” – Pliny the Elder.
Chapter 12
I’ve written elsewhere of the terror of being shocked awake by deadly danger, and of the freezing paralysis that follows. It’s happened to me more than once – why, in China I was dragged out of bed into a midnight skirmish, and then into the presence of the lunatic leader of the Taiping Rebellion, but at least in that case my panic was shortlived, since my kidnappers proved to be friends. No such luck in Habesh; half-drunk as I was, there was no mistaking the threat of the knife-point, the lamplit nightmare of the gleaming eyes and teeth in the black faces staring down at me, the gag thrust brutally into my mouth, and the grip of the hands which wrenched me to my feet and ran me from the room, down a rickety staircase, and into the pouring rain of a chill night. Robed figures with swords and spears were about me, and then a blindfold was whipped over my face and I was being half carried, half thrust along, trying to yell for help through my gag and almost swallowing the thing out of sheer funk.
What made it doubly terrifying was the complete silence of my captors: not an order, not a word or a threat after that gloating voice that had woken me; these were professional kidnappers, probably expert assassins, who knew exactly what they were doing, where they were taking me, and why – although the wherefore didn’t occur to me, fuddled with fright and liquor as I was, until I was flung down on to a stretcher, swiftly bound to it, and borne off at a run. Only then, when I realised that I was not being hauled out to instant execution, did I ask myself who could be behind this abduction.
The answer seemed horribly clear: Uliba-Wark, thirsting for vengeance – and remembering how she’d dealt with Yando was enough to bring me out in a lather of fear. Oh Lord, and she’d had some ghastly notion of removing a victim’s bones one at a time and keeping him in agony for months! Being unable to scream or spew, I could only lie terrified while they jolted me along at speed – heaven knew how far we went, or how long it took; you ain’t at your calculating best with a mind a-shudder and a bellyful of drink, but I don’t believe they could have kept up that pace more than an hour, over five miles, perhaps, before they halted for a breather and set me down.
The blindfold was stripped away, leaving me blinking in the glare of a torch in the hand of one of the men surrounding me; seven or eight of them, Gallas in white pyjamy trowsers and belted robes, strapping fellows fully armed with spears and sickle-swords, one or two with muskets and their leader with a couple of horse pistols in his belt. He was one of your typical Wollos, handsome as Lucifer and every bit as kindly to judge from his sneering grin, but when I rolled my eyes in dumb appeal he pulled out the gag.
I was too parched to speak at first, but probably because he wanted to hear what I had to say, he signed one of the band who held a chaggle to my lips, and the first words I croaked out, to confirm my suspicions, were: “Where is she?”
“The Queen Uliba-Wark?” says he. “Be patient, you will see her presently … and she will reward you for your services.” It was the same soft mocking voice that had threatened me with a chat to Old Nick, ch
uckling pleasantly as his gang grinned like a pack of wolves over a peasant, and I gibbered at him.
“What the devil d’you mean? D’you know who I am? A British officer, the envoy of Dedjaz Napier, and by God if you don’t set me loose this instant, you’ll swing higher than Haman, you black son-of-a-bitch! Queen Masteeat will see to it, and that slut Uliba won’t be able to shield you –”
He struck me back-handed across the mouth. “Speak foully once more of Queen Uliba-Wark and you’ll be unable to speak to Shaitan! For before you die I’ll tear your tongue out!” He slapped me again, and resumed his mockery. “No one will know what has become of you, farangi fool! Your dedjaz may ask what has happened to you, and Queen Uliba-Wark will lament your strange disappearance – oh, aye, by then she will have replaced the Fat Bitch! We shall not fail a second time. She may even order me, Goram, to make a search … but by then not enough will remain of your filthy carcase to make a meal for a jackal pup!”
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 391