Flashman on the March

“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 indo lent 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 impon derable 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.

If there was a man in those days who could move faster in a crisis than H. P. Flashman, I never met him—but there was a woman who could have given me a head start, Uliba-Wark of Tigre, the nearest thing I ever saw to chain lightning with a link snapped. Before I’d even taken in the meaning of that noise without, she was past me like a whippet, kicking the water chatti on to the fire as she sped to the door. A second later I was beside her, peering through a crack in the ramshackle timbers, and there at the other end of the plaza, a bare fifty yards off, torches were flaring in the dark and shadowy figures of men and horses were moving through the ruins.

Had they caught a glimpse of our fire through the rickety timbers? It seemed not; Uliba’s quick action had doused it in a hissing cloud of steam, and there was no cry of alarm from the torch-bearers, whoever they might be—a question I put to her in a hysterical squeak as we crouched in the darkness.

“Brigands!” she gasped. “Soudanis, surely—no troops of Habesh or honest travellers would be abroad in this weather at night, least of all in Gondar the accursed!” She didn’t need to add that dis covery would mean rape and enslavement for her and unspeakable death for me; that’s what she’d expected from her own Galla kins folk, and Soudanis were notoriously monsters of cruelty. My instinct was that we should bolt from the side door with a couple of horses, but she cut off my breathless suggestion by retorting that they would run us down in no time, and if we lay low the odds were they’d pass us by. Ignoring the only decent shelter in this bloody town? says I, but before she could reply there was a sudden shout from the darkness, followed by a commotion in Arabic which I couldn’t make out, and then Uliba’s fierce whisper in my ear: “They’ve smelt our fire!” And as if that wasn’t enough, one of the bandits’ horses decided to neigh its confounded head off, which brought an answering high-pitched whinny from the nave behind us.

All things considered, I think Uliba and I showed uncommon presence of mind. Through the crack in the door we could see the bandit gang starting towards us in full cry, but before they’d gone a yard I had her by the wrist and was making tracks for the nave; flight from the church on foot was out of the question, there wasn’t time to mount up before they’d be on us, but there was that heaven sent cellar in front of the altar, and with the nave barely lit by the moonshine through the high windows they’d never see the trap. I had it flung back in a twinkling, but to my consternation Uliba pulled free from my grasp and raced to the side door, thrusting it open before running back to me, the clever lass—the bandits would see it and think we’d gone that way; I’d used the same dodge myself when pursued by peelers at home. I swung her down into the cellar, she dropped like an acrobat, and a second later I was slipping over the edge, closing the trap above me as I jumped the last few feet to the cellar floor.

We heard the church door crash open, and pounding feet, but they wasted no time in exclamation, and the first words I heard were a sharp, command in Arabic, directing pursuit through the side door. They were in the nave, taking quick stock like the profes sional chaps they were, and presently their voices filtered down to us through the ill-fitting trap, while we clung together instinctively in the dank little cellar, like children at hide-and- seek.

“Three of them, Sadat?”

“Nay, one of those beasts is a pack-animal. And only two have eaten and drunk by the dead fire, one of them a woman.”

“How can you tell?”

“Use your nose, fool! Musk-oil.”

“Ha, she should be young, then!” Coarse laughter. “Hey, Yusuf, look well out yonder! She can’t have gone far!”

Suddenly light was shining down through the cracks in the trap; they’d brought their torches into the nave, and must have fixed them, for the light shone steady. Oh, God, would they see the trap? We huddled as far back as we could go to the side of the cellar, in the hope that if the trap were opened we’d be out of eyeshot of anyone looking down—unless they dropped in, so to speak… Quite so.

We could only wait, Uliba’s cheek running sweat against mine, while heavy feet thumped the wooden flooring just above our heads, and Sadat the musk-oil expert was saying that this place would do as well as any other, so let Yakub and Gamal bring the stuff inside, and have a care how they handled it, careless dogs that they were. Now there was great bustle, with more of the gang arriving, sounds of heaving and exertion and commands, a ponderous weight dropped on the floorboards, and through all the clamour a voice gentling our horses which had been alarmed by the uproar, while another was roaring to Yusuf for news of the fugitives supposedly being pursued through the night. Someone close above us was demanding what should be done with the stuff—and my blood froze at the reply:

“There must be a cellar under the trap yonder! What better place for the goods?” Uliba couldn’t repress a gasping sob. Then:

“Why has God ordained that I should ride with fools?” wonders Sadat. “What worse place could there be than one where folk are sure to look?”

“Eh? Oh, aye… well, then, where shall we put it?” “Underground, camel-spawn! Yonder, by the wall, you dig a hole, and bury it, and cover all with rubble so that only one lynx-eyed and enlightened by God, like Mahmud here, could hope to find it!” “Did he call me lynx-eyed and enlightened by God?” “Aye, but he didn’t mean it. Get a spade, clown!” “Why must I be the one to dig? Oh, lend a hand, then!” Uliba was limp against me, gasping with relief, and