you?” I looked up to find the bodyguard leaning on his spear; Portly was off on a frolic of his own, seemingly. “Nay, surely not; you have seen your own blood run from a wound.” He pointed to the star-shaped scar on my hand. “A bullet did that.”
“A clean wound is one thing, soldier,” says I, and nodded towards the Ladies’ De-ballocking Circle. “That is another.”
“Aye, true,” says he. “Yet it is what the Gallas would have done to you… while you still lived. Do the British not believe in retri bution, then, eye for eye, burning for burning?”
Diana crowed with laughter. “We do not take their eyes!” She added nauseating particulars, and I wondered if I’d ever found a beauty so detestable.
“We believe in it,” I told the bodyguard. “That don’t mean I have to watch your disgusting bitches!” It came out as a high-pitched snarl; reaction was overtaking me after the horrors I’d seen and near experienced, and I was on the brink of spewing again.
“Perhaps he is cold with fear at the sight of fighting women!” jeers Diana. “We can unman men before the fight as well as after!” She seated herself on a rock, stretching her legs and folding her arms across her presents for a good boy. “So they fear us, which is why our Lord Toowodros has made special choice of us, and sends us forth to raid and ambush and strike terror in the hearts of his enemies. Is your heart stricken,
The jibe was wasted; only one word mattered. “Your Lord Toowodros? Who the hell is he, then?” Even as I spoke, I knew the answer, and the bodyguard confirmed it, shaking his head at my ignorance.
“Why, the Emperor! The King of Kings, monarch of Habesh, and by the power of God the conqueror that will be of Egypt and Jerusalem! You know him as Theodore.”
I could only stare at them in utter consternation. Theodore’s people—the last folk on God’s earth I wanted to see. I ain’t often at a dead nonplus, but I was then, for this was the fear that had been in my mind for weeks—of falling into the hands of the mad tyrant who inflicted unspeakable tortures on his victims, who’d beaten missionaries and lashed their servants to death, who’d stretched Consul Cameron on the rack… and, my God, who
Diana clapped a hand over her mouth at the question, and the bodyguard laughed outright.
“Do the soldiers of the English queen know so little of their quarry that they think such a fat little hippo as Damash could be the great Emperor—the Lion of Judah? Did he look like a warrior king, a veteran of thirty years in arms?” He glanced at Diana. “Ya, Miriam, what would Gobayzy or Menelek say to Damash as Emperor?”
“Ask rather what Theodore would say to a fool who mistook Damash for the King of Kings,” says she. “How would he punish such an insult?”
“Who knows the mind of kings? They are beyond the ken of common folk.” He put his head on one side, regarding me. “But I should not account this one a fool, as you do. Did you not hear him answer Damash, saying much, but telling nothing?” He leaned towards me, nursing his spear, his eyes intent on mine. “Perhaps Damash is right, and he is the kind of man the
“And takes the hands and feet of those who lie, and feeds the rest alive to the birds and beasts,” taunts Miriam-Diana.
“Peace, you hyena in woman’s shape!” He nodded to me. “I advise as a friend, Englishman. Remember my words.” He was turning away.
My mouth was dry with alarm, but I forced my voice to be steady.
“I’d be a fool if I forgot them… your majesty.”
Miriam-Diana threw back her head with a yell and gave her thigh a ringing slap. “He knew you! By the power of God, he knew you!” She was grinning with delight. “They are not such blind fools, the English!”
The bodyguard who ruled Abyssinia had turned back abruptly, but the solemn look was gone, and his voice was suddenly harsh.
“How did you know me? What did he see?” He looked from me to her, and struck his breast in anger. “What is there here that denotes a king? This is a common soldier!” He shook his spear and slapped himself again, taking two abrupt steps towards me. I gave back, for in a mere moment his earnest, almost friendly manner had given way to shouting rage; it was as though another man had got into his skin, and Miriam was on her feet as though to intervene.
“How did you know me?” he demanded, and jabbed a finger at me. “Have a care! Do not pretend that you saw royalty in my looks and speech, that you could not mistake the descendant of Solomon and Sheba, of Constantine and Alexander! I despise that kind of lie, that courtly flattery! Do not offend me with it!”
Since that was precisely what I’d been about to do, I was briefly at a loss. I’d twigged early enough that he was no common spear-carrier; there’s no lack of Abs with handsome figureheads, with fine aquiline noses for looking down, but he had spoken with that calm assurance that you don’t find in the private soldier, and I’d marked him down as an Abyssinian gentleman-ranker, so to speak. But there had been something else.
“You spoke of your companion… Damash?… as a fat little hippo. Common men do not talk so of superiors who wear the red-fringed
There’s no doubt about it, I’m good at dealing with barmy savages. They scare the bile out of me, and perhaps terror lends wings to my wits, for when I think of the monsters I’ve conversed with and come away with a whole skin, more or less… Mangas Colorado, Ranavalona, General Sang-kol-in-sen, Crazy Horse, Dr Arnold, God knows who else… well, it took more than luck, I can tell you. You must know when to grovel and scream for mercy, but also when to take ’em aback with impudence or argument or pure bamboozle. To find myself in the presence of Mad King Theodore was enough to turn my bowels to buttermilk, but having seen him quiet and crazy in quick time, and realised that he was intelligent well above par, like many madmen, I knew that straight talk and a firm front to cover my quaking guts were my best bet… oh God, I hoped so, and tried not to quiver as I waited, watching him.
You never can tell what they’ll do when you answer ’em cool and apparently steady: some laugh, some ponder, some snarl, some set about you (I’m thinking of Arnold), and some, like Theodore, study you in disquieting silence. Then:
“You were quite wrong, you see, Miriam. He is no fool.”
“Your majesty was wrong also,” says she pertly. “He knew you.”
“Not until I had studied him, and seen what manner of man he was. Damash served his turn.” To me he said: “What success had you with Queen Masteeat? Oh, we can be plain now: I have known for weeks that a British envoy was on his way to seek her help, and since you reached her yesterday we have been watching… fortunately for you.” He gestured towards the Galla dead. “Did you not prosper with her?”
If I said no, I hadn’t prospered, and he had a spy at her court to tell him otherwise, or had intercepted my message to Napier, I was done for. If I told him the truth, that the Gallas were taking the field to cut him off, God knew what he would do. I’d seen already how swiftly his mood could change; I daren’t risk it. I said there’d been no time even to broach Napier’s request, and was subjected to another silent stare.
“No time for talk?” says he. “But time for these—” he gestured again “—to bring you out for death? No, that is not Queen Masteeat’s way.”
“Not with a fine tall soldier,” sniggers Miriam, who seemed to go in no awe of him at all. He paid her no heed.
“So who condemned you? And why?”
I told him the truth of it, since it could do no harm, and he pre sumably knew that Uliba-Wark had guided me south. “We were separated by your riders at the Silver Smoke; she chose to think I had abandoned her, and these
