“But … but … how can I pay? Where can I –”
“There is treasure in Delhi, remember,” says she, and glanced at me a third time. “Promise them that.”
“Perhaps … if I gave them this?” He fumbled in his belt and brought out a little case on a chain. “I shall wear it tomorrow –”
“Why not? But I must wear it tonight.” She snatched it from him, laughing, and held it beyond his reach. “Nay, nay – wait! It is for the dance! Would you like that, little brother-who-wishes-he-weren’t-a-brother? Mmh?” She slipped her free hand round his neck, kissing him on the lips. “Tomorrow is tomorrow … this is tonight, so we’ll take our pleasure, eh?”
She nodded to Mangla, who clapped her hands. The music died away, the dancers skipped off the floor, and there was a general withdrawal by the guests. Jawaheer flopped down beside Jeendan on the cushions, leaning his head against her.
“So government is conducted.” Lal Singh spoke in my ear. “Would Hardinge sahib approve, think you? Until tomorrow then, Flashman sahib.”
Tej Singh gave another of his greasy chuckles and nudged me. “Remember the saying: ‘Below the Sutlej there are brothers and sisters; beyond it, only rivals.’” He went off with Lal Singh.
I didn’t know what the devil he meant – nor, in my growing inebriation, did I care. All these gassing intruders were keeping me from the company of that splendid painted trollop who was now wasting her talents in soothing her whining oaf of a brother yonder, cradling him against that superb bosom and pouring drink into him and herself. I was itching to be at her, and even when Mangla came to lead me to the neighbouring booth, I wasn’t distracted: I guess my tastes are coarse, and I’d developed a craving for the mistress that wasn’t to be satisfied by the maid – who kept the curtains open, anyway, and had a matey standing by to keep me liquored through the entertainment which now began. As I said, most of the courtiers seemed to have gone, leaving the Maharani and her chosen intimates to riot with the performers.
The first of these was a troupe of Kashmiri girls, spanking little creatures in scanty silver armour, with bows and toy swords, who cavorted in a parody of military drill which would have scandalised the General Staff and terrified their horses. This was something from Runjeet’s day, Mangla told me: the girls were his female bodyguard, with whom the old lecher had been wont to battle through the night.
Then there was a serious interlude by Indian wrestlers, who are the best on earth outside Cumberland, muscular young bucks who fought like greased lightning, all science and sinew – none of your crude Turkish grunting or the unspeakable Japanese vulgarity. Jeendan, I noticed, roused from her lethargy during these bouts, rising unsteadily to her feet to applaud the falls, and summoning the victors to drink from her cup while she stroked and petted them. Meanwhile their place was taken by female wrestlers, strapping wenches who fought naked (another of old Runjeet’s fancies), with the male wrestlers and Kashmiri girls kneeling round the floor, egging them on, and then wrestling with each other, to the inevitable conclusion, while the band played appropriate music. They were all over the floor in no time, seriously impeding a troupe of dancing girls and boys who had come on to frolic in a measure which proved to be a considerable advance on the polka.
Now, you may not credit this, but I’m not much of a hand at orgies. I ain’t what you’d call a prude, but I do hold that an Englishman’s brothel is his castle, where he should behave according – as many flash-tails as he likes, but none of these troop fornications that the Orientals indulge in. It’s not the indecency I mind, but the company of a lot of boozy brutes hallooing and kicking up the deuce of a row when I want to concentrate and give of my best. A regular bacchanalia is something to see, right enough, but I’m with the discriminating Frog who said that one is interesting, but only a cad would make a habit of it.
Still, evil associations corrupt good manners, especially when you’re horny as Turvey’s bull and full of love-puggle; Mangla’ll have to do, thinks I, if I ain’t too foxed to carry her out of this bedlam, and I was just looking about for her when there was a great drunken cheer from the floor, and Jeendan came swaying out of her booth, helped by a couple of her dancing-boys. She pushed them away, took a couple of shaky steps, and began to writhe like a Turkish wedding dancer, flaunting her hips and rotating her plump little bottom, flirting the tails of her crimson loin-cloth, giving little squeals of laughter as she turned, stamping, then clapping her hands above her head while the others took up the rhythm and the tom-toms throbbed and the cymbals clashed.
That was my first glimpse of Koh-i-Noor, gleaming in her navel like a live thing as she fluttered her belly in and out – but it didn’t hold my attention long, for as she danced she screamed over her shoulder, and one of the dancing-boys leaped in behind her, sliding his hands up her body, unclasping her bodice and letting it fall, fondling her as she danced back into him and slowly turned herself until they were face to face. They writhed against each other while the onlookers shrieked with delight and the music beat ever faster, and then he retreated from her slowly, sweat pouring down his body – and burn me if the stone wasn’t in his navel now! How the devil they did it, I can’t think; Swedish exercises, perhaps. The boy yelled and pirouetted in triumph, and Jeendan staggered into the arms of one of the wrestlers, giggling while he pawed and kissed her. One of the Kashmiri bints flung herself at the boy, clasping him round the waist and wriggling against him; damned if I could see any better this time, but she came away with the stone in turn, undulating to let the onlookers see it, and then subsiding under another youth, the pair of them heaving to wake the dead – but either he was less expert or something else caught their interest, for the diamond slipped out from between them and rolled across the floor, to cat-calls and groans of disappointment.
I was watching all this through a haze of booze and disbelief, taking another refreshing swig, and thinking, wait till I get back to Belgravia and teach ’em the new dance step, and when I looked again there was Jeendan, struggling and laughing wildly in the arms of another dancing-boy, and the great stone was back on her belly again – hollo, thinks I, someone’s been handling in the scrimmage. She seized the boy’s wine-cup, drained it and tossed it over her shoulder, and then began to dance towards me, the tawny hourglass body agleam as though it had been oiled, her limbs shimmering in their sheaths of gems. Now she was slapping her bare flanks to the tom-tom beat, drawing her fingers tantalisingly up her jewelled thighs and across her body, lifting the fat round breasts and laughing at me out of that painted harlot’s face.
“Will you have it, Englishman? Or shall I keep it for Lal – or Jawaheer? Come, take it, gora sahib, my English bahadur!”
You mayn’t credit it, but I was recalling a line by some poet or other – Elizabethan, I think – who must have witnessed a similar performance, for he wrote of “her brave vibrations each way free”.21 Couldn’t have put it better myself, thinks I, as I made a heroic lurch for her and fell on all fours, but the sweet thoughtful girl sank down before me, arms raised from her sides, making her muscles quiver from her fingertips up her arms and beyond, shuddering her bounties at me, and I seized them with a cry of thanksgiving. She squealed, either in delight or to signify “Foul!”, whipped her loincloth off and round my neck, and drew my face towards her open mouth.
“Take it, Englishman!” she gasps, and then she had my robe open, thrusting her belly against mine and kissing me as though I were beefsteak and she’d been fasting for a week. And I don’t know who the considerate chap was who drew the curtains to, but suddenly we were alone, and somehow I was on my feet with her clinging to me, her legs clasped round my hips, moaning as I settled her in place and began the slow march, up and down, keeping time to the tom-toms, and I fear I broke the rules, for I removed the jewel manually before it did me a mischief. I doubt if she noticed; didn’t mention it, anyway.
Well, I can’t think when I’ve enjoyed a dance so much, unless it was when we set to partners again, an hou
r or so later, I imagine. I seem to remember we drank considerable in between, and prosed in an incoherent way – most of it escapes me, but I recall distinctly that she said she purposed to send little Dalip to an English public school when he was older, and I said capital, look what it had done for me, but the devil with going up to Oxford, just a nest of bookworms and bestial, and how the deuce did she do that navel exercise with the diamond? So she tried to teach me, giggling through incredible contortions which culminated in her plunging and squirming astride of me as though I were Running Reins with only a furlong to go – and in the middle of it she screamed a summons and two of her Kashmiri girls popped in and urged her on by whipping her with canes – intrusive, I thought, but it was her home ground, after all.
She went to sleep directly we’d passed the post, sprawled on top of me, and the Kashmiris left off lashing her and snickered to each other. I sent them packing, and having heaved her off was composing myself to slumber likewise, when I heard them chattering beyond the curtain, and presently they peeped in again, giggling. Their mistress would wake presently, they said, and it was their duty to see that I was clean, bright, slightly oiled, and ready for service. “Walk-er!” says I, but they insisted, respectfully covering her with a shawl before renewing their pestering of me, telling me I must be bathed and combed and perfumed and made presentable, or there’d be the devil to pay. I saw I’d get no peace, so I lumbered up, cursing, and warning them that their mistress would be out of luck, for I was ruined beyond redemption.
“Wait until we have bathed you,” giggles one of the houris. “You will make her scream for mercy.”
I doubted that, but told them to lead on, and they conducted me, one holding me up on either side, for I was still well foxed. Beyond the curtains the durbar room was empty now, and the great chandelier was out, with only a few candles on the walls making little pools of light in the gloom. They led me under the staircase, along a dim-lit passage, and down a short flight of stairs to a great stone and marble chamber like a Turkish bath-house; it was in deep shadow about its walls and high ceiling, but in the centre, surrounded by tall slender pillars, was a tiled area with a sunken bath in which water was steaming. There was a brazier close by, and towels piled to hand, while all about stood flagons of oils and soaps and shampoos; altogether it was as luxurious a wallow as you could wish. I asked if this was where the Maharani bathed.
“Not this maharani,” says one. “This was the bath of the Lady Chaund Cour, peace be upon her.”
“It is altogether finer than our mistress’s,” says the other, sidling up to me, “and is reserved for those whom she delights to honour.” She took a playful tease at me, and her companion drew off my robe, squeaking with admiration. “Bahadur, indeed! Oh, fortunate Mai Jeendan!”
She’ll be fortunate to get any good out of me after a bath with you two, thinks I, admiring them boozily as they laid by their little bows and arrows and toy swords, and stripped off their silver skirts and breastplates. Lovely little nymphs they were, and there was much playing and giggling as we stepped down into the bath. It was about three feet deep by seven square, half-filled with warm scented water into which I subsided drowsily, letting it lap over my exhausted frame while one of the Kashmiris cradled my head and gently sponged my face and hair, and the other went to work on my feet and then on to my ankles and calves. You’re on the right lines, thinks I, and closed my eyes, reflecting on what a delightful time of it Haroun al-Raschid must have had, and wondering if he’d ever become bored and yearned for the life of a jolly waggoner or productive farm labour in the open air. You wouldn’t catch Flashy prowling the streets of Baghdad in disguise, looking for adventure, not while there was soap and water at home …
The lower wench was soaping my knees now, and I opened my eyes, contemplating the ceiling far above, all coloured Persian designs, with a picture in the centre, of a cove with a stiff neck sitting under an awning and lording it over a platoon of bearded wallahs crouched in supplication. That’s your sort, thinks I, whoever you are, some Sikh nabob … and that reminded me of the names I’d memorised so painfully from Broadfoot’s packets: Heera Singh and Dehan Singh and Soochet Singh and Buggerlugs Singh and Chaund Cour and … Chaund Cour? Where had I heard that name recently …? Why, only a few moments since, from the houris; this was her bathroom – and suddenly a tiny maggot that had been wandering aimlessly through my mind snapped to attention, even as I heard swirling of water and realised that the girl had stopped soaping my knees and was swinging herself nimbly out of the bath … Chaund Cour’s bath … Chaund Cour who’d been smashed to pieces while bathing!
If the wench washing my hair had moved less sharply I’d have been a goner, but when her mate jumped out she dropped my head like a hot brick, and I went under and came out spluttering – to see her in the act of heaving herself out on the tiles, and from the tail of my eye I saw the huge coloured picture in the ceiling overhead start to quiver, with a dreadful scraping sound. For an instant I was frozen, sprawled in the water, and it can only have been instinct that galvanised my flaccid muscles, so that I thrust myself out of the water, turning and clutching for the edge of the bath, my hand closing on the girl’s ankle. That hold saved me from toppling back, and gave me a purchase to hurl myself out on to the tiles, while she was catapulted back into the water, her scream of terror lost in a deafening grinding thunder like an avalanche, followed by an almighty crash that seemed to shake the whole building and made the tiles start from their settings beneath my face. I rolled away with a yell of terror, sprawling on the wet tiles and staring back in disbelief.
Where the bath had been there was a flat expanse of rough stone, filling the cavity like a huge plug flush with the surrounding tiles. From that monstrous square of rock great rusty chains snaked up, clanking to and fro, into a gaping hole in the patterned ceiling. Foam was gushing up in a curtain from the narrow fissures between the fallen slab and the sides of the bath, washing over me in a wave, and even as I stared in horror it continued to ooze out, pink at first and then a hideous crimson. Beyond the bath the second Kashmiri was cowering against a pillar, her mouth wide in scream after scream. She turned and ran, water flying from her bare body, and then stopped dead, her shrieks changing to a terrified wail.
Three men were standing just clear of the shadows on that side, drawn scimitars in their hands. They wore only loose grey pyjamy trousers and great wide hoods so deep that their faces were invisible; the girl shrank away from them, blubbering and covering her face; she slipped and fell on the wet tiles and tried to scramble away while they stood like grey statues, and then one stepped forward, lightly hefting his sword, she bounded to her feet, screeching as she turned to run, but before she’d gone a step his point was through her back; it came out like a ghastly silver needle between her breasts, and she pitched forward lifeless on the stone block. Then they were flitting towards me in dead silence, expert assassins of whom two skirted wide to take me in flank while the third came straight for me, his blood-smeared blade out before him. I turned to run, slipped, and came down headlong.
Cowardice has its uses. I’d be long dead without it, for it’s driven me to try, in blind panic, ploys which no thinking man would even attempt. A brave man would have scrambled up to run or fling himself at the nearest enemy bare-handed; only Flashy, landing arse over tip on one of the little piles of gear discarded by the Kashmiri girls, would have grabbed at her pathetic tinsel bow, snatched a dart from its quiver, fumbled it gibbering on to the string and let fly at the leading thug as he came leaping over the girl’s corpse at me, swinging up his scimitar. It was only a fragile toy, but it was tight-strung, and that small shaft must have been sharp as a chisel, for it sank to the flights in his midriff and he twisted howling in mid-air, his scimitar clashing on the tiles before me. I grabbed it, knowing I was done for, with one of the flank men driving at me, but I managed to turn his thrust and hurl myself sideways, expecting to feel his mate’s point searing into my back. There was a yell and
clash of steel behind me as I landed on my shoulder and rolled over and up, slashing blindly and bawling like an idiot for help.
Wasted breath, for it had arrived. The other flank man was desperately trying to parry the sweep of a Khyber knife in the hand of a tall robed newcomer – which with a scimitar is rather like opposing a pea-shooter to a rifle. One slash and the scimitar blade was a shattered stump, another and the thug was down with a cloven skull – and the man whose thrust I’d parried leaped back and was off like a hare, dodging for the shadows. The robed apparition turned from his victim without undue haste, took one long stride and brought over his sword-arm like a fast bowler, letting the Khyber knife go; it turned once in the air and drove into the fugitive’s back, he hurtled against a pillar, clinging to it with that dreadful cleaver imbedded in his body, and slid slowly to the floor. Twenty seconds earlier I’d been having my knees washed.
The robed man strode past me, recovered his knife, and cursed as blood splashed his coat – and only then did I realise it was a crimson garment in the tartan of the 79th. He stalked back, hunkering down to wash his blade in the water lapping over the tiles, and surveyed the shambles where the bath had been, the great rock that filled it, and the dangling chains.
“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” says he. “So that’s how they did for old lady Chaund Cour. No wonder we never saw the body – guess she didn’t look like much with that on top of her.” He stood up and barked at me. “Well, sir? You aim to stand around bollock-naked and take your death of cold? Or would you prefer to make tracks before the coroner gets here?”
The words were English. The accent was pure American.
* * *
a “Durbar”, as Flashman employs it, means variously an audience of royalty, the durbar room in which audience is given, and the Punjab government (e.g. “Lahore durbar”).
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