The Flashman Papers 09 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light fp-9

by George MacDonald Fraser

  With that summary of the regents' characters the day's business concluded, and I was relieved, as Sardul led us past the dispersing soldiery, to note that any glances in my direction were curious rather than hostile; indeed, one or two saluted, and you may be sure I responded civilly. This heartened me, for it suggested that Broadfoot was right, and whatever upheavals in government took place—dramatic ones, by the sound of it—the stranger Flashy would be respected within their gates, their opinion of his country notwithstanding.

  We approached Lahore roundabout, skirting the main town, which is a filthy maze of crooked streets and alleys, to the northern side, where the Fort and palace building dominate the city. Lahore's an impressive place, or was then, more than a mile across and girdled by towering thirty-foot walls which overlooked a deep moat and massive earthworks—since gone, I believe. In those days you were struck by the number and grandeur of its gates, and by the extent of the Fort and palace on their eminence, with the great half-octagon tower, the Summum Boorj, thrusting up like a giant finger close to the northern ramparts.

  It loomed above us as we entered by the Rushnai, or Bright Gate, past the swarms of dust-covered workmen labouring on old Runjeet's mausoleum., and into the Court Garden. To the right a tremendous flight of steps led up to Badshai Musjit, the great triple mosque said to be the biggest on earth -- mind you, the Samarkandians say the same of their mosque—and to the left was the inner gate up to the Fort, a bewildering place full of contradictions, for it contains not only the Sleeping Palace but a foundry and arsenal close by, the splendid Pearl Mosque which is used as a treasury, and over one of the gates a figure of the Virgin Mary, which they say Shah Jehan put up to keep the Portugee traders happy. But there was something stranger still: I'd just bidden farewell to Sardul's escort and my jampan, and was being conducted on foot by a yellow-clad officer of the Palace Guard, when I noticed an extraordinary figure lounging in an embrasure above the gate, swigging from an enormous tankard and barking orders at a party of Guardsmen drilling with the light guns on the wall. He was a real Pathan mercenary, with iron moustaches and a nose like a hatchet—but he was dressed from top to toe, puggaree,*(*Turban.) robe, and pyjamys, in the red tartan of the 79th Highlanders! Well, I've seen a Madagascar nigger in a Black Watch kilt, but this beat all. Stranger still, he carried a great metal collar in one hand, and each time before he drank he would clamp it round his throat, almost as though he expected the liquor to leak out through his Adam's apple.

  I turned to remark on this to Jassa—and dammit, he'd vanished. Nowhere to be seen. I stared about, and demanded of the officer where he had got to, but he hadn't seen him at all, so in the end I found myself being led onward alone, with all my former alarms rushing back at the gallop.

  You may wonder why, just because my orderly had gone astray. Aye, but he'd done it at the very moment of entering the lion's den, so to speak, and the whole mission was mysterious and chancy enough to begin with, and I'm God's own original funk, so there. And I smelled mischief here, in this maze of courts and passages, with high walls looming about me. I didn't even care for the splendid apartments to which I was conducted. They were on an upper storey of the Sleeping Palace, two lofty, spacious rooms joined by a broad Moorish arch, with mosaic tiles and Persian murals, a little marble balcony overlooking a secluded fountain court, silks on the bed, silent bearers to stow my kit, two pretty little maids who shimmied in and out, bringing water and towels and tea (I didn't even think of slapping a rump, which tells you how jumpy I was), and a cooling breeze provided by an ancient punkah-wallah in the passage, when the old bugger was awake, which was seldom. For some reason, the very luxury of the place struck me as sinister, as though designed to lull my fears. At least there were two doors, one from either chamber—I do like to know there's a line of retreat.

  I washed and changed, still fretting about Jassa's absence, and was about to lie down to calm my nerves when my eye lit on a book on the bedside table—and I sat up with a start. For it was a Bible, placed by an unknown hand—in case I'd forgotten my own, of course.

  Broadfoot, thinks I, you're an uneasy man to work for, but by God you know your business. It reminded me that I wasn't quite cut off; I found I was muttering "Wisconsin", then humming it shakily to the tune of "My bonnie is over the ocean", and on the spur of the moment I dug out my cypher key—Crotchet Castle, the edition of 1831, if you're interested—and began to write Broadfoot a note of all that I'd heard on Maian Mir. And I had just completed it, and inserted it carefully at Second Thessalonians, and was glumly pondering a verse that read "Pray without ceasing", and thinking a fat lot of good that'll do, when the door slammed open, there was a blood-curdling shriek, a mad dwarf flourishing a gleaming sabre leaped into the archway, and I rolled off the bed with a yell of terror, scrabbling for the pepperbox in my open valise, floundering round to cover the arch, my finger snatching at the trigger ring …

  In the archway stood a tiny boy, not above seven years old, one hand clutching his little sabre, the other pressed to his teeth, eyes shining with delight. My wavering pistol fell away, and the little monster fairly crowed with glee, clapping his hands.

  "Mangla! Mangla, come and see! Come on, woman—it is he, the Afghan killer! He has a great gun, Mangla! He was going to shoot me! Oh, shabash, shabash!"

  "I'll give you shabash, you little son-of-a-bitch!" I roared, and was going for him when a woman came flying into the archway, scooping him up in her arms, and I stopped dead. For one thing, she was a regular plum—and for another the imp was glaring at me in indignation and piping:

  "No! No! You may shoot me—but don't dare strike me! I am a maharaja!"

  I've met royalty unexpected a number of times—face to face with my twin, Carl Gustaf, in the Jotunberg dungeon, quaking in my rags before the black basilisk Ranavalona, speechless as Lakshmibai regarded me gravely from her swing, stark naked and trussed in the presence of the future Empress of China—and had eyes only for the principal, but in the case of Dalip Singh, Lord of the Punjab, my attention was all for his protectress. She was a little spanker, this Mangla—your true Kashmiri beauty, cream-skinned and perfect of feature, tall and shapely as Hebe, eyes wide at me as she clasped him to her bosom, the lucky lad. He didn't know when he was well off, though, for he slapped her face and yelled:

  "Set me down, woman! Who bade thee interfere? Let me go!"

  I'd have walloped the tyke, but after another searching glance at me she set him down and stepped back, adjusting her veil with a little coquettish toss of her head—even with my panic still subsiding I thought, aha! here's another who fancies Flash at short notice. The ungrateful infant gave her a push for luck, straightened his shoulders, and made me a jerky bow, hand over heart, royal as bedamned in his little aigretted turban and gold coat.

  "I am Dalip Singh. You are Flashman bahadur. the famous soldier. Let me see your gun!"

  I resisted an impulse to tan his backside, and bowed in turn. "Forgive me, maharaj'. I would not have drawn it in your presence, but you took me unawares."

  "No, I didn't!" cries he, grinning. "You move as the cobra strikes, too quickly to see! Oh, it was fine, and you must be the bravest soldier in the world—now, your gun!"

  "Maharaj', you forget yourself!" Mangla's voice was sharp, and not at all humble. "You have not given proper welcome to the English lord sahib—and it is unmannerly to burst in on him, instead of receiving him in durbar. *(*"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").) What will he think of us?" Meaning, what does he think of me, to judge from another glance of those fine gazelle eyes. I gave her my gallant leer, and hastened to toady her overlord.

  "His majesty honours me. But will you not sit, maharaj', and your lady also?"

  "Lady?" He stared and laughed. "Why, she's a slave! Aren't you, Mangla?"

  "Your mother's slave, maharaj'," says she coldly. "Not yours."

&nb
sp; "Then go and wait on my mother!" cries the pup, not meeting her eye. "I wish to speak with Flashman bahadur.

  You could see her itching to upend him, but after a moment she gave him a deep salaam and me a last appraisal, up and down, which I returned, admiring her graceful carriage as she swayed out, while the little pest tried to disarm me. I told him firmly that a soldier never gives his weapon to anyone, but that I'd hold it for him to see, if he showed me his sword in the same way. So he did, and then stared at my pepperbox19 , mouth open.

  "When I am a man," says he, "I shall be a soldier of the Sirkar, and have such a gun."

  I asked, why the British Army and not the Khalsa, and he shook his head. "The Khalsa are mutinous dogs. Besides, the British are the best soldiers in the world, Zeenan Khan says."

  "Who's Zeenan Khan?"

  "One of my grooms. He was flank-man-first-squadron-fifth-Bengal-Cavalry-General-Sale-Sahib-in-Afghanistan" Rattled out as Zeenan must have taught him. He pointed at me. "He saw you at Jallalabad Fort, and told me how you slew the Muslims. He has only one arm, and no pinshun."

  Now that's a pension we'll see paid, with arrears, thinks I: an ex-sowar of Bengal Cavalry who has a king's ear is worth a few chips a month. I asked if I could meet Zeenan Khan.

  "If you like, but he talks a lot, and always the same story of the Ghazi he killed at Teizin. Did you kill many Ghazis? Tell me about them!"

  So I lied for a few minutes, and the bloodthirsty little brute revelled in every decapitation, eyes fixed on me, his small face cupped in his hands. Then he sighed and said his Uncle Jawaheer must be mad.

  "He wants to fight the British. Bhai Ram says he's a fool—that an ant can't fight an elephant. But my uncle says we must, or you will steal my country from me."

  "Your uncle is mistaken," says diplomatic Flashy. "If that were true, would I be here in peace? No—I'd have a sword!"

  "You have a gun," he pointed out gravely.

  "That's a gift," says I, inspired, "which I'll present to a friend of mine, when I leave Lahore."

  "You have friends in Lahore?" says he, frowning.

  "I have now," says I, winking at him, and after a moment his jaw dropped, and he squealed with glee. Gad, wasn't I doing my country's work, though?

  "I shall have it! That gun? Oh! Oh!" He hugged him-self, capering. "And will you teach me your war-cry? You know, the great shout you gave just now, when I ran in with my sword?" The small face puckered as he tried to say it: "Wee … ska … see …?"

  I was baffled—and then it dawned: Wisconsin. Gad, my instinct for self-preservation must be working well, for me to squeal that without realising it. "Oh, that was nothing, maharaj'. Tell you what, though—I'll teach you to shoot."

  "You will? With that gun?" He sighed ecstatically. "Then I shall be able to shoot Lal Singh!"

  I remembered the name—a general, the Maharani's lover.

  "Who's Lal Singh, maharaj'?"

  He shrugged. "Oh, one of my mother's bed-men." Seven years old, mark you. "He hates me, I can't tell why. All her other bed-men like me, and give me sweets and toys." He shook his head in perplexity, hopping on one leg, no doubt to assist thought. "I wonder why she has so many bed-men? Ever so many —"

  "Cold feet, I dare say … look, younker—maharaj', I mean—hadn't you better be running along? Mangla will be —"

  "Mangla has bed-men, too," insists this fount of scandal. "But Uncle Jawaheer is her favourite. Do you know what Lady Eneela says they do?" He left off hop-ping, and took a deep breath. "Lady Eneela says they —"

  Fortunately, before my delicacy could receive its death blow, Mangla suddenly reappeared, quite composed considering she'd plainly had her ear at the keyhole, and informed his garrulous majesty peremptorily that his mother commanded him to the durbar room. He pouted and kicked his heels, but finally submitted, exchanged salaams, and allowed her to shoo him into the passage. To my surprise, she didn't follow, but closed the door and faced me, mighty cool—she didn't look at all like a slave-girl, and she didn't talk like one.

  "His majesty speaks as children do," says she. "You will not mind him. Especially what he says of his uncle, Wazir Jawaheer Singh."

  No "sahib", or downcast eyes, or humble tone, you notice. I took her in, from the dainty Persian slippers and tight silk trousers to the well-filled bodice and the calm lovely face framed by the flimsy head veil, and moved up for a closer view.

  "I care nothing about your Wazir, little Mangla," smiles I. "But if our small tyrant speaks true … I envy him."

  "Jawaheer is not a man to be envied," says she, watching me with those insolent gazelle eyes, and a drift of her perfume reached me—heady stuff, these slave-girls use. I reached out and drew a glossy black tress from beneath the veil, and she didn't blink; I stroked her cheek with it, and she smiled, a provocative parting of the lips. "Besides, envy is the last deadly sin I'd expect from Flash-man bahadur.

  "But you can guess the first, can't you?" says I, and gathered her smoothly in by tit and buttock, not omitting a chaste salute on the lips, to which the coy little creature responded by slipping her hand down between us, taking hold, and thrusting her tongue halfway down my throat—at which point that infernal brat Dalip began hacking at the door, clamouring for attention.

  "To hell with him!" growls I, thoroughly engrossed, and for a moment she teased with hand and tongue before pulling her trembling softness away, panting bright-eyed.

  "Yes, I know the first," she murmurs, taking a last fond stroke, "but this is not the time —"

  "Ain't it, by God? Never mind the pup—he'll go away, he'll get tired —"

  "It is not that." She pushed her hands against my chest, pouting and shaking her head. "My mistress would never forgive me."

  "Your mistress? What the blazes ?"

  "Oh, you will see." She disengaged my hands, with a pretty little grimace as that whining whelp kicked and yammered at the panels. "Be patient, Flashman bahadur—remember, the servant may sup last, but she sups longest." Her tongue flickered at my lips again. and then she had slipped out, closing the door to the accompaniment of shrill childish reproaches, leaving me most randily frustrated—but in better trim than I'd been for days. There's nothing like a brisk overhaul of a sporty female, with the certainty of a treat in store, for putting one in temper. And it goes to show—whiskers ain't everything.

  I wasn't allowed to spend long in lustful contemplation, though, for who should loaf in now but the bold Jassa, looking fit for treason, and no whit put out when I damned his eyes and demanded where he'd been. "About the husoor's business," was all the answer I got, while he took a wary prowl through the two rooms, prodding a hanging here and tapping a panel there, and remarking that these Hindoo swine did themselves uncommon well. Then he motioned me out on to the little balcony, took a glance up and down, and says softly: "Thou has seen the little raja, then—and his mother's pimp?"

  "What the devil d'ye mean?"

  "Speak low, husoor. The woman Mangla -- Mai Jeendan's spy and partner in all mischief. A slave—that stands by her mistress's purdah in durbar, and speaks for her. Aye, and makes policy on her own account, and is grown the richest woman in Lahore. Think on that, husoor. She is Jawaheer's whore—and betrayer, like enough. Not a doubt but she was sent to scout thee … for whatever purposes." He grinned his evil, pock-marked grin, and cut me off before I could speak.

  Husoor, we are together in this business, thou and I. If I am blunt, take it not amiss, but harken. They will come at thee all ways, these folk. If some have sleek limbs and plump breasts, why then … take thy pleasure, if thou'rt so minded," says this generous ruffian, "but remember always what they are. Now … I shall be here and there awhile. Others will come presently to woo thee—not so well favoured as Mangla, alas!"

  Well, damn his impudence—and thank God for him. And he was right. For the next hour Flashy's apartments were like London Bridge Station in Canterbury week. First arrival was a tall, stately, ancient grandee, splendidly attired and straight f
rom a Persian print. He came alone, coldly begging my pardon for his intrusion, and keeping an ear cocked; damned uneasy he seemed. His name was Dewan Dinanath, familiar to me from Broadfoot's packets, where he was listed as an influential Court adviser, inclined to the peace party, but a weathercock. His business was simple: did the Sirkar intend to return the Soochet fortune to the Court of Lahore? I said that would not be known until I'd reported to Calcutta, where the decision would be taken, and he eyed me with bleak disapproval.

  "I have enjoyed Major Broadfoot's confidence in the past," sniffs he. "You may have equal confidence in me." Both of which were damned lies. "This treasure is vast, and. its return might be a precedent for other Punjab monies at present in the … ah, care of the British authorities. In the hands of our government, these funds would have a stabilising effect." They'd help Jawaheer and Jeendan to keep the Khalsa happy, he meant. "A word in season to me, of Hardinge sahib's intentions …"

  "I'm sorry, sir," says I. "I'm only an advocate."

  "A young advocate," snaps he, "should study conciliation as well as law. It is to go to Goolab, is it?"

  "Or Soochet Singh's widow. Or the Maharaja's government. Unless it is retained by Calcutta, for the time being. That's all I can tell you, sir, I'm afraid."

  He didn't like me, I could see, and might well have told me so, but a sound caught his ear, and he was through into my bedchamber like an elderly whippet. I heard the door close as my next unexpected guests arrived: two other grave seniors, Fakir Azizudeen,20 a tough, shrewd-looking heavyweight, and Bhai Ram Singh, portly, jovial, and bespectacled—staunch men of the peace party, according to the packets. Bhai Ram was the one who thought Jawaheer a fool, according to little Dalip