Flashman In The Great Game fp-5

by George MacDonald Fraser

  She was sitting on a low backless couch, listening to the little chamberlain, who was whispering fifteen to the dozen, but at sight of me she stopped him. There were two of her ladies with her, and the whole group just looked at me, the women curiously, and Lakshmibai with the same damned disinheriting stare she'd used in the dungeon.

  "Set him there," says she to Sher Khan, pointing to the middle of the floor, "and tie his hands behind him." lie jumped to it, wrenching the knots with no thought for my flayed wrists. "He will be safe enough so," she added to the little chamberlain. "Go, all of you — and Sher Khan will remain beyond the door within call."

  Dear God, was she going to set about me herself, I wondered, as the ladies swiftly rustled out, and the chamberlain hurried by, eyeing me apprehensively. I heard Sher Khan withdraw, and the door close, leaving me standing and her sitting erect, staring at me — and then to my amazement she sprang from the seat and was flying across the room towards me, with her arms out and her lace trembling, throwing herself against me, clinging to me, and sobbing:

  "Oh, my darling one, my darling, my darling! You have come back — oh, I thought I should never see you again!" And her arms were round my neck, and that lovely dark face, all wet with tears, was upturned to mine, and she was kissing me any old how, on the cheeks and chin and eyes and mouth, sobbing out endearments and shuddering against me.

  I'm an easy-going chap, as you know, and can take things pretty well as they come, but I'll admit that I wondered if I was mad or dreaming. Not much above two hours ago I'd been in Rose's tent in the safety of British lines, gulping down a last brandy and trying to read the advertisements in an old copy of The Times to take my mind off the ordeal ahead, with young Lyster humming a popular song — and since then I'd taken part in a cavalry skirmish, and skulked through a hostile nigger city in disguise, and been scared out of my senses by that fiend Ignatieffs appearance, and stretched on a rack in fearful physical and even worse mental agony, and been rescued at the last minute and dragged and bound in the presence of a female despot — and here she was clinging and weeping and slobbering over me as though I were Little Willie the Collier's Dying Child. It was all a shade more than enough for my poor bemused brain, and body, and I just sank to my knees under the weight of it all, and she sank with me, crying and kissing.

  "Oh, my sweet, have they hurt you? I thought I should swoon when I saw — ah, your poor flesh!" Before I knew it she was down at my legs, soothing my scraped ankles with one hand while she kept the other behind my head, and kissed me long and lingeringly on the mouth. My amazement was giving way to the most wonderful mixture of relief and joy, and pure ecstatic pleasure in that scented dark skin pressed against my face, her open mouth trembling on mine. I could feel her breasts hard against me — and, dammit, my hands were tied, and I could only strain against her until she freed her lips and looked at me, holding my face between her hands.

  "Oh, Lucky — Lucky Lakshmi!" I was babbling out of sheer delight. "Oh, you wonderful, beautiful creature!"

  "I thought you were dead," says she, cradling my head down against her bosom — by George, that was the place to be, and I struggled my hands desperately to try to free them. "All these months I have mourned you — ever since that dreadful day when they found the dead dacoit near the pavilion, and I thought …" She gave a little sob and pulled up my face to kiss me again. "And you are safe, and back again with me … my darling." The great eyes were brimming with tears again. "Ah, I so love you!"

  Well, I'd heard it before, of course, expressed with varying degrees of passion by countless females, and it's always gratifying, but I couldn't recall a moment when it had been more welcome than now. If ever I needed a woman to be deeply affected with my manly charms, this was the moment, and being half in love with her myself it required no effort at all to play up and make the most of it.

  So I put my mouth on hers again, and used my weight to bear her down on the cushions — damned difficult with my hands bound, but she was all for it, and lay there drinking me in, teasing with her tongue and stroking my face gently with her fingertips until I thought I'd burst.

  "Lakshmi, chabeli — untie my hands!" I croaked, and she disengaged herself, glancing towards the door and then smiling at me longingly.

  "I cannot … not now. You see, no one must know … yet. To them, you are a prisoner — a spy sent by the British soldiers …"

  "I can explain all that! I had to come secretly, in disguise, to bring you a message from General Rose. Lakshmi, dearest, you've got to accept it — it's an offer of life! Please, untie me and let me tell you!"

  "Wait," says she. "Come, sit here." And she helped me up, pausing on the way to fondle me again and kiss me before seating me on the edge of a divan. "It is best for the moment that we leave you bound — oh, beloved, it will not be for long, I promise … but in case someone comes suddenly. See, I shall get you a drink — you must be parched — ah, and your poor wrists, so cruelly torn!" The tears welled up again, and then such a look of blazing hatred passed across her face that I shrank where I sat. "That beast of Russia!" says she, clenching her tiny fist. He will pay for it — I will have him drawn apart, and make him eat that hideous eye of his! And the Tsar his master may go straight to hell, and look for him!"

  Excellent sentiments, I thought, and while she filled a goblet with sherbet I thought I'd improve the shining hour.

  "It was Ignatieff who set the Thugs on me that night — he's been dogging me ever since I came to India, spying and trying to stir up rebellion …"

  I suddenly stopped there; she, after all, was now one of the leaders of that rebellion, and obviously Ignatieff was her ally, whatever her personal feelings towards him. She put the cup to my lips, and I drank greedily — being put on the rack's the way to raise a thirst, you know — and when I'd finished she stood up, with the cup between her hands, looking down at me.

  "If I had only listened to you," says she. "If there had only been more time! I did not know … if only I could make you understand — all the years of waiting, and trying to right injustice to … to me, and my son, and my Jhansi …"

  "How is the young fella, by the way? Well, eh, and thriving — fine lad, that …"

  … and waiting turns to despair and despair to hatred, and I thought you were another cold and unfeeling creature of the Sirkar — and yet …" she suddenly knelt down in front of me, and caught my hands, and there was a look in her great almond eyes that made even my experienced old heart skip a beat "… and yet, I knew that you were not like the others. You were gentle, and kind, and you seemed to understand. And then … that day when we fenced, in the durbar room … I felt something inside me that — that I had not known before. And later … "

  "In the pavilion," says I, hoarsely. "Oh, Lakshmi, that was the most wonderful moment of my life! Really capital, don't ye know … beat everything … darling, couldn't you untie my hands a second…?"

  Just for an instant there was a strange, distant look in her eyes, and then she turned her head away, and her hands tightened on mine.

  "… and when you disappeared, and I thought you dead, there was such an emptiness." She was trying not to cry. "And nothing else seemed to matter — not I, or Jhansi, even. And then came news of the red wind, sweeping through the British garrisons in the north — and even here, in my own state, they killed them all, and I was helpless." She was biting her lip, staring pleadingly at me, and if she'd been before the House of Lords the old goats would have been roaring "Not guilty, on my honour!" with three times three. "And what could I do? It seemed that the Raj — and I hated the Raj! — was falling, and my own cousin, Nana, was raising the standard of revolt, and to stand idle was to lose Jhansi, to the jackals of Orcha or Gwalior, or even to the sepoys themselves … oh, but you are British, and you cannot understand!"

  "Dearest," says I, "you don't have to excuse yourself to me, of all people. What else could you do?" It wasn't an idle question, either; the only treason is to pick the wrong side, which, i
n the long run, she had done. "But it doesn't matter, you see — that's why I'm here! It can all come right again — at least, you can be saved, and that's what counts."

  She looked at me and said simply: "I do not care, now that you have come back." And she leaned forward and kissed me again, gently, on the lips.

  "You must care," says I. "See here — I've come from

  General Rose, and what he says comes straight from Lord Canning in Calcutta. They want to save you, my dear, if you'll let them."

  "They want me to surrender," says she, and stood up. She walked away to set the cup down on a table, and the sight of the tight-wrapped sari stirring over those splendid hips set my fingers working feverishly at the knots behind my back. She turned, with her bosom going up like balloons, and her face was set and sad. "They want me to give up my Jhansi."

  "Darling — it's lost anyway. Any day now they'll storm the walls, and that's the end. You know it — and so must your advisers. Even Ignatieff — what the devil's he doing here, anyhow?"

  "He has been here — and at Meerut and Delhi — every-where, since the beginning. Promising Russian help — making rebellion, as you say, on his master's behalf." She made a little helpless gesture. "I do not know … there has been talk of a Russian army over the Khyber — some would welcome it; myself … I fear it — but it does not matter, now. He remains, I suppose, as long as he may do your government some harm … if Jhansi falls, he will go to Tantia or Nana." And she added, with a shrugged afterthought that somehow prickled my spine. "Unless I have him killed, for what he has done to you."

  All in good time, thinks I, happily, and got back to the matter in hand.

  "But it isn't Jhansi they want — it's you." She opened her eyes at that, and I hurried on. "They can't make terms with rebels — why, half your garrison must be pandies, with nothing to hope for; there's no pardon for them, you see. So they'll storm the city, whatever you do. But they want to save you alive — if you will give yourself up, alone, then … then they won't —" I couldn't meet her eye, though " — punish you."

  "Why should they spare me?" For a minute the fire was back in her eye. "Who else have they spared? Why should they want to keep me alive — when they blow men away from guns, and hang them without trial, and burn whole cities? Will they spare Nana or Tantia or Azeemoolah — then why the Rani of Jhansi?"

  It wasn't an easy one to answer — not truthfully, anyway. She wouldn't take it too kindly if I said it was just politics, to keep the public happy.

  "Does it matter?" says I. "Whatever their reasons …

  "Is it because I am a woman?" She said it softly, and came to stand in front of me. "And the British do not make war on women." She looked steadily at me for several seconds. "Is it because I am beautiful? And do they wish to take me to London, as the Romans did with their captives, and show me as a spectacle to the people —"

  "That ain't our style," says I, pretty sharp. "Of course, we don't make war on women … and, well, you see, you're — well, you're different —"

  "To them? To Lord Canning? To General Rose? They do not know me. Why should they care? Why should any of you …" And then she stopped, and dropped to her knees again, and her lip was trembling. "You? Have you spoken — for me? You came from Lord Palmerston — have you asked them to save me?"

  By George, here was an unexpected ball at my foot, with a vengeance. It hadn't crossed my mind that she'd think I was behind Rose's remarkable offer. But when the chance arises, I hope I know how to grasp it as well as the next man — carefully. So I looked at her, steady and pretty grim, and made myself go red in the face, and then looked down at the carpet, all dumb and noble and unspoken emotion. She put out a hand and lifted my chin, and she was absolutely frowning at me.

  "Did you — and have you risked so much, to come here — for me? Tell me."

  "You know what I think about you," says I, trying to look romantically stuffed. "I've loved you since the moment I clapped eyes on you — on that swing. More than anything else in the world."

  At that moment, mind you, it wasn't all gammon. I did love her — pretty well, anyway, just then. Not as much as Elspeth, I dare say — although, mind you, put 'cm together, side by side, both stripped down, and you'd think hard before putting England in to bat. Anyway, I'd no difficulty in looking sincere — not with that flimsy bodice heaving almost under my nose.

  She looked at me in silence, with strange, grave eyes, and then said, almost in a whisper:

  "Tonight — I did not think … I only knew that you were here with me again — when I had thought you lost. It did not matter to me, whether you loved me truly or not — only that you were with me again. But now …" she was looking at me in the strangest way, sorrowfully almost, and with a kind of perplexity "… now that you tell me that it was … for love of me, that you have done this …" I wondered if she was going to fling herself on me again in tears, but after a moment she just kissed me, quite gently, and then said:

  "What do they wish me to do?"

  "To surrender, yourself. No more than that."

  "But how? If the city is to be taken, and there is no pardon for the mutineers, how can I —"

  "Don't fret about that," says I. "It can all be arranged. If I tell you how — will you do it?"

  "If you will stay with me — afterwards." Her eyes were fixed on mine, soft but steady. "I will do whatever they ask."

  Persuasively urged, Rose had said, but I'll bet he'd never envisaged the likes of this — by George, his randy staff men wouldn't have been able to believe their eyes.

  "When the city is stormed," says I, "our fellows will fight their way in to the fortress. You must be ready to make an escape — through the Orcha Gate. We'll have drawn off our cavalry picket just there, so it can be done in safety. You must ride out on the Orcha road — and then, you will be captured. It will look as though … well, it will look all right."

  "I see." She nodded gravely. "And the city?"

  "Well, it'll be taken, of course — but there'll be no looting —" Rose had promised that, for what it was worth "- and of course, the people will be all right, provided they lie low and don't resist. The mutineers … well, it'll all be the same for them, anyway."

  "And what will they do … with me? Will they … imprison me?"

  I wasn't sure about this, and had to go careful. They'd exile her for certain, at least to a distant part of India where she could do no harm, but there was no point in telling her that. "No," says I. "They'll treat you very well, you'll see. And then — it'll all blow over, don't you know? Why, I can think of a score of nig — native chieftains and kings, who've been daggers drawn with us, but their wars have got by, and then we've been the best of friends, and so forth. No hard feelings, you see — we ain't vindictive, even the Liberals …"

  I was smiling to reassure her, and after a while she began smiling back, and gave a great sigh, and settled against me, seemingly content, and I suggested again that it might be a capital notion to unslip my hands, just for a moment — I was most monstrously horny with her nestling up against me — but at this she shook her head, and said we had delayed already, and must not excite suspicion. She kissed me a lingering good-bye, and told me to be patient a little longer; we must bide our time according to Rose's plan, and since her people must have no inkling of it I would have to be treated as a prisoner, but she would send for me when the time was ripe.

  "And then we shall go together … with only a trusted few?" She held my face in her hands, looking down at me. And you will … protect me, and love me … when we come to the Sirkar?"

  Till you're blue in the face, you darling houri, thinks I — but for answer all I did was kiss her hands. Then she straightened her veil, and fussed anxiously with her mirror before seating herself on her divan, and it was the charmingest thing to see her give me a last radiant smile and then compose her face in that icy mask, while I waited suitably hang-dog, standing in the middle of the floor at a respectful distance. She struck her little g
ong, which brought Sher Khan in like the village fire brigade, with chamberlain and ladies behind him.

  "Confine this prisoner in the north tower," says she, as if I were so much dross. "He is not to be harshly used, but keep him close — your head on it, Sher Khan."

  I was bustled away forthwith — but it's my guess that Sher Khan, with that leery Pathan nose of his, guessed that all was not quite what it seemed, for he was a most solicitous jailer in the days that followed. He kept me well provisioned, bringing all my food and drink himself, seeing to it that I was comfortable as my little cell permitted, and showing me every sign of respect — mind you, in view of my Afghan reputation, that might have been natural enough.

  It took me a few hours to settle down after what I had been through, but when I came to cast up the score it looked none so bad. Bar my aching joints and skinned limbs, I was well enough, and damned thankful for it. As to the future — well, I'd thought Rose's plan was just moonshine, but then I'd never dreamed that Lakshmibai was infatuated with me. Attracted, well enough — it's an odd woman that ain't, but the force of her passion had been bewildering. And yet, why not? I'd known it happen before, after all, and often as not with the same kind of women — the high-born, pampered kind who go through their young lives surrounded by men who are forever deferring and toadying, so that when a real plunger like myself comes along, and treats 'em easy, like women and not as queens, they're taken all aback. It's something new to them to have a big likely chap who ain't abashed by their grandeur, but looks 'em over with a warm eye, perfectly respectful but daring them just the same. They resent it, and like it, too, and if you can just tempt them into bed and show them what they've been missing — why, the next thing you know they're head over heels in love with you.

  That's how it had been with Duchess Irma, and that wild black bitch Ranavalona in Madagascar (though she was so stark crazy it was difficult to be sure), so why not the Rani of Jhansi? After all, her only husband had been as fishy as Dick's hatband, by all accounts, and however many young stalwarts she'd whistled up since then, they wouldn't have my style. Well, it was a damned handy stroke of luck — as well as being most flattering.