“Detchard?”
De Gautet went in, and we followed. There was a man in a frock-coat in the dimly-lit passage; he closed the door quickly behind us—the other two were still outside somewhere—and motioned us to silence. He was a tall, distinguished old file with a beaky nose and heavy lower lip; he had grey hair and a beard like a muffler round his jaw-line. He glanced keenly at me, muttered “Donner!”, and turned to Rudi.
“A complication. His highness has retired early. He is already in his apartments.”
Aha, thinks I, clever little Bismarck’s bandobast28 didn’t allow for this; oh, Jesus, we’re done for …
“No matter,” says Rudi easily. “He has three rooms; he can’t be in all of them at once.”
This was gibberish to me, but it seemed to reassure Detchard. Without another word he led us along the passage, up a stair, into a well-lighted and carpeted corridor, and round a corner to a large double-door. He paused, listening, cautiously turned the handle, and peered in. A moment later we were all inside.
Detchard stood for a moment, and I could hear my heart thumping like a paddle-wheel. The sound of voices came softly through an adjoining door from the next room.
“His highness is in his bed-chamber,” whispers Detchard.
Rudi nodded. “Strip,” says he to me, and de Gautet bundled up my gear as I tore it off. He knotted it all in my cloak—I had just sense enough to remember my pistols, and thrust them hurriedly under a cushion—and then I was standing there, mother-naked, while Detchard listened with his ear to the panels of the communicating door.
“Lucky little Duchess Irma,” murmurs Rudi, and I saw him grinning at me. “Let’s hope the real prince is as royally endowed.” He tipped me a mock salute, very debonair. “Bonne chance, your highness. Ready, de Gautet?”
Together they went to the communicating door, Rudi nodded, and in a moment they had opened it and slipped through, with Detchard behind them. There was a second in which the murmur of voices sounded louder, and then the door closed, and I was left, stark in a royal dressing-room in a German mansion, all alone and palpitating. For a moment there wasn’t a sound, and then something tumbled next door. Minutes passed, a door was shut somewhere, there was a muttering of voices in the corridor that sent me scampering behind the curtains, and then silence. Several minutes passed, and my teeth began to chatter with cold and apprehension. At last I peeped out, to see if there wasn’t a gown or something to wrap up in: there was plenty of furniture in the room, the main article being an enormous decorated commode—it struck me as my usual luck that whereas most royal successions lead to a throne, mine had got me nothing so far but a thunderbox—but devil a rag of clothing beyond a couple of towels. So I wrapped up in the curtain as well as I could, and waited fearfully.
Then the door opened, and Detchard’s voice said softly:
“Wo sind sie?”
I poked my head out. He was carrying a big silk dressing-gown, thank God, and I grabbed at it, shuddering.
“His highness has left the house,” says he. “Everything is in train. Is all well with you?”
“Oh, splendid—except that I’m almost frozen to death. Isn’t there a fire, in God’s name?”
“There is a stove in the bedroom,” says he, and ushered me through to a splendid apartment, thickly-carpeted, with a huge four-poster bed richly-curtained, and a fine stove with its doors thrown wide to warm the room. While I thawed out Detchard stood with his grey head cocked, considering me and toying with his seals.
“It is truly amazing,” says he, at last. “I did not believe it—but you are the same man. Wonderful!”
“Well, I hope the other one’s warmer than I am. Haven’t you any brandy?”
He poured me a glass, very carefully, and watched me gulp it down.
“You are nervous,” says he. “Naturally. However, you will have the night to accustom yourself to the—ah, novelty of your situation. His highness retired early, with a slight headache no doubt brought on by the fatigue of his journey, so you will be undisturbed. Your host, Count von Tarlenheim, has given particular instructions. You will meet him briefly tomorrow, by the way, before we set out for the border. An amiable dotard. His highness—or I should say, your highness—has been quite formal with him so far, so there will be no questions asked if you are no more forthcoming tomorrow than politeness demands.”
“Thank God for that,” says I. I wanted time to play myself in, so to speak, and the thought of chattering to a breakfast table was out of court altogether.
“The only people who have been close to you on the journey, apart from myself, are Dr Ostred, your physician, and young Josef, your valet. He has been in your service only a day, your old valet, Einar, having become indisposed shortly after we set out.”
“Convenient,” says I. “Will he live?”
“Of course. You are much concerned about him.” He turned, and I leaped violently as the door opened, and a little anxious-looking chap came in.
“Ah, Ostred,” says Detchard, and the little chap blinked, looked at me, at Detchard, and back at me again.
“I thought …” he stammered. “That is—your pardon, highness. I supposed … you had retired … that you would be in bed.” He looked helplessly to Detchard, and I thought, by heaven, he thinks I’m the real man. He couldn’t make out what had gone wrong. So here was a first-rate chance to put the thing to the test; if I could fool my own doctor I could fool anyone.
“I have a headache,” says I, quite gently. “That doesn’t mean that I have to take to my bed.”
“No, no … of course not, highness.” He licked his lips.
“Perhaps you might take his highness’s pulse, doctor,” says Detchard, and the little fellow came over and took my wrist as though it was made of porcelain. There were beads of sweat on his brow.
“A little swift,” he muttered, and glanced at my face. He was scared and puzzled, and then he literally leaped back as though he had seen a ghost.
“He … he …” he exclaimed, pointing.
“No, Ostred,” says Detchard. “He is not the prince.”
“But—” the little doctor gargled speechlessly, and I couldn’t help laughing. “But he is—identical! Dear Jesus! I could not believe it! I was sure, when I saw him, that something had gone amiss—that it was still the prince. My God!”
“What gave him away?” asks Detchard.
“The scars. They are new, and pink.”
Detchard snapped his teeth in annoyance. “The scars, of course. I had forgotten. That might have cost us dear. However, we have the means to put it right.” And he took out a flask, which I suppose Rudi had given him, and daubed at my wounds until he and the doctor were satisfied.
“There,” says Detchard. “When did you last shave your head?”
“Last night.”
“It will do for the moment. Ostred will attend to it again tomorrow.” He pulled out his watch. “Now, it may be best if you and I, doctor, return to our hosts.” For my benefit he rattled off a few more details about Tarlenheim and the arrangements for the morning. “Your valet will look in shortly, to see you to bed,” he concluded. “You may sleep easily, believe me. Now that I have seen you, my doubts are at rest. I seriously question if your own father would detect the imposture. Ha! You see—I said ‘your’ own father.” He smiled grimly. “I half believe in you myself. And so, your highness, I have the honour to bid you good-night.”
They withdrew, bowing, and left me trembling—but for once it wasn’t funk. I was elated—I had fooled Ostred. By God, it was going to work. I took a turn round the room, grinning to myself, drank another glass of brandy, and another, and stood beaming at myself in the mirror. Well, Prince Harry, thinks I, if only Elspeth could see you now. And old moneybags Morrison. And Lord God-almighty Cardigan. He’d be glad enough to have royalty back in his flea-bitten 11th Hussars. For I was royal, for the moment—a full-blown prince of the blood, no less, until—aye, until Bismarck’s little game was playe
d out. And then—oh, the blazes with him. I had another glass of brandy and took stock of my royal surroundings.
Sumptuous wasn’t the word for them—silk sheets, lace pillow, solid silver cup and plate by the bed—with breast of chicken under a napkin, bigod, in case I felt peckish. I resisted a temptation to slip the plate into a pocket—plenty of time for lifting the lumber later. This was only a staging-post on the journey, after all; the pick of the loot would be in the palace of Strackenz. But I felt I could rough it here for the night—excellent liquor, a warm fire, cigars in a tooled leather box, even the pot under the bed was of the best china, with little fat-arsed cherubs running round it. I plumped back on the bed—it was like floating on a cloud. Well, thinks I, they may talk about cares of state, and uneasy lies the head and all that tommy-rot, but this is the life for old Flashy. You may take my word for it, next time you hear about the burdens of monarchy, that royalty do themselves damned proud. I’ve been one; I know.
My eye fell on an ornament on the mantel; a carved kneeling figure. A little prickle ran through me as I realised that this was the cupid Bismarck had mentioned—by jove, he knew his business, that one. Down to the last detail. I rolled off the bed and looked at it, and felt a slight glow of pleasure as I realised it wasn’t a cupid after all—it was a nymph. The great Otto wasn’t infallible then, after all. It was most obviously a nymph, and contemplating it I realised there was one thing missing from my princely paradise. Bronze nymphs don’t compare to real ones: I hadn’t had a woman since the blubbery Baroness Pechman had been so rudely plucked from my embrace—and I hadn’t really been able to get to proper grips with her before Rudi had interrupted us. Fat and all as she was, the thought of her was making me feverish, and at that moment there was a soft tap at the door and a slim, very sober-looking fellow slipped in. This was obviously Josef, my valet.
I was on guard again in a moment.
“Is there anything your highness requires?” says he.
“I don’t think so, Josef,” says I, and gave a yawn. “Just going to bed.” And then a splendid idea occurred to me. “You may send up a chambermaid to turn down the covers.”
He looked surprised. “I can do that, sir.”
Now, Flashy would have growled: “Damn your eyes, do as you’re bloody well told.” But Prince Carl Gustaf merely said, “No, send the chambermaid.”
He hesitated a second, his face expressionless. Then: “Very good, your highness.” He bowed and went to the door. “Goodnight, highness.”
Of course, it was a dam-fool thing to do, but what with the brandy and my randy thoughts, I didn’t care. Anyway, wasn’t I a prince? And the real Carl Gustaf was no monk, by all accounts—and damned careless about it, too. So I waited in lustful anticipation, until there was another knock, and a girl peeped in when I called out to enter.
She was a pretty, plump little thing, curly-haired and as broad as she was long, but just the thing for me with my thoughts running on Baroness Pechman. She had a bright eye, and it occurred to me that Josef was perhaps no fool. She curtsied and tripped across to the bed, and when I sauntered over—slipping the door-bolt on the way—and stood beside her, she giggled and made a great show of smoothing out my pillow.
“All work and no play isn’t good for little girls,” says I, and sitting on the bed I pulled her on to my knee. She hardly resisted, only trying to blush and look demure, and when I pulled down her bodice and kissed her breasts she cooed and wriggled her body against mine. In no time we were thrashing about in first-rate style, and I was making up for weeks of enforced abstinence. She was an eager little bundle, all right, and by the time she had slipped away, leaving me to seek a well-earned rest, I was most happily played out.
I’ve sometimes wondered what the result of that encounter was, and if there is some sturdy peasant somewhere in Holstein called Carl who puts on airs in the belief that he can claim royal descent. If there is, he can truly be called an ignorant bastard.
There are ways of being drunk that have nothing to do with alcohol. For the next few days, apart from occasional moments of panic-stricken clarity, I was thoroughly intoxicated. To be a king—well, a prince—is magnificent; to be fawned at, and deferred to, and cheered, and adulated; to have every wish granted—no, not granted, but attended to immediately by people who obviously wish they had anticipated it; to be the centre of attention, with everyone bending their backs and craning their necks and loving you to ecstasy—it is the most wonderful thing. Perhaps I’d had less of it than even ordinary folk, especially when I was younger, and so appreciated it more; anyway, while it lasted I fairly wallowed in it.
Of course, I’d had plenty of admiration when I came home from Afghanistan, but that was very different. Then they’d said: “There’s the heroic Flashman, the bluff young lionheart who slaughters niggers and upholds old England’s honour. Gad, look at those whiskers!” Which was splendid, but didn’t suggest that I was more than human. But when you’re royalty they treat you as though you’re God; you begin to feel that you’re of entirely different stuff from the rest of mankind; you don’t walk, you float, above it all, with the mob beneath, toadying like fury.
I had my first taste of it the morning I left Tarlenheim, when I breakfasted with the Count and about forty of his crowd—goggling gentry and gushing females—before setting out. I was in excellent shape after bumping the chambermaid and having a good night’s rest, and was fairly gracious to one and all—even to old Tarlenheim, who could have bored with the best of them in the St James clubs. He remarked that I looked much healthier this morning—the solicitous inquiries after my headache would have put a Royal Commission on the plague to shame—and encouraged, I suppose, by my geniality, began to tell me about what a hell of a bad harvest they’d had that year. German potatoes were in a damnable condition, it seemed.29 However, I put up with him, and presently, after much hand-kissing and bowing, and clanking of guardsmen about the driveway, I took my royal leave of them, and we bowled off by coach for the Strackenz border.
It was a fine, bright day, with snow and frost all over the place, but warm enough for all that. My coach was a splendid machine upholstered in grey silk, excellently sprung, and with the Danish Royal arms on the panels. (I remembered that the coach Wellington had once taken me in looked like a public cab, and rattled like a wheelbarrow.) There were cuirassiers bumping along in escort—smart enough—and a great train of other coaches bringing up the rear. I lounged and had a cheroot, while Detchard assured me how well things had gone, and would continue to go—he needn’t have bothered, for I was in an exalted state of confidence—and then presently we rolled through our first village, and the cheering began.
All along the road, even at isolated houses, there were smiling faces and fluttering handkerchiefs; squires and peasants, farm-girls and ploughmen, infants waving the red and white Danish colours and the curious thistle-like emblem which is the badge of Holstein,30 labourers in their smocks staring, mounted officials saluting—the whole countryside seemed to have converged on the Strackenz road to see my royal highness pass by. I beamed and waved as we rushed past, and they hallooed and waved back all the harder. It was a glorious dream, and I was enjoying it to the full, and then Detchard reminded me drily that these were only Holsteiners, and I might save some of my royal energy for the Strackenzians.
It was at the border, of course, that the real circus began. There was a great crowd waiting, the toffs to the fore and the mob craning and hurrahing at a more respectful distance. I stepped out of the coach, at Detchard’s instruction, and the cheers broke out louder than ever—the crashing three-fold bark that is the German notion of hip-hip-hip-hooray. An elderly cove with snow-white hair, thin and hobbling stiffly, came forward bowing and hand-kissing, to bid me welcome in a creaking voice.
“Marshal von Saldern, Constable of Strackenz,” whispered Detchard, and I grasped the old buffer’s hand while he gushed over me and insisted that this was the greatest day in Strackenz’s history, and welcome, t
hrice welcome, highness.
In turn I assured him that no visitor to Strackenz had ever arrived more joyfully than I, and that if their welcome was any foretaste of what was to come then I was a hell of a fortunate fellow, or words to that effect. They roared and clapped at this, and then there were presentations, and I inspected a guard of honour of the Strackenz Grenadiers, and off we went again, with von Saldern in my coach, to point out to me objects of interest, like fields and trees and things—the old fellow was as jumpy as a cricket, I realised, and babbled like anything, which I accepted with royal amiability. And then he had to leave off so that I could devote myself to waving to the people who were now lining the road all the way, and in the distance there was the sound of a great throng and a tremendous bustle; far away guns began to boom in salute, and we were rolling through the suburbs of the city of Strackenz itself.
The crowds were everywhere now, massed on the pavements, waving from the windows, crouching precariously on railings, and all yelling to beat the band. There were flags and bunting and the thumping of martial music, and then a great archway loomed ahead, and the coach rolled slowly to a halt.
The hubbub died away a little, and I saw a small procession of worthies in robes and flat caps approaching the coach. Ahead was a stalwart lad carrying a cushion with something on it.
“The keys to the city,” quavered von Saldern. “For your highness’s gracious acceptance.”
Without a thought, I opened the door and jumped down, which I gather was unexpected, but was a happy act, as it turned out. The crowds roared at the sight of me, the band began booming away, and the little burgomaster took the keys—huge heavy things on an enormous collar—and begged me to accept them as an earnest of the loyalty and love of the city.
“Your city, highness,” he squeaked. “And your home!”
I knew enough to say that I was deeply sensible of the great honour done me, and to give him the keys back again. And being somewhat exalted, I felt it appropriate to slip my sword-belt over my head, present the weapon to him, and say that it would be ever-ready in the defence of Strackenzian honour and independence, or some such stuff.
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 44
