Royal Flash fp-2

by George MacDonald Fraser

  At first the name meant nothing, and then it broke on me.

  "De los Montez? You don't mean Lola Montez?"

  "But who else, sir? The close friend—indeed, some say more than friend—of King Ludwig. Why, the press is never without some fresh sensation about her, some new scandal …" and he went on, chattering and smirking, but I never heeded him. My head was in a spin. Lola Montez, my Rosanna—a Countess, a monarch in all but name, a royal mistress by the sound of it. And she was writing to me, offering me hard cash—plainly I needed more information.

  "Forgive me, sir," says I, breaking in on his raptures. "The title misled me, for I'd never heard it before. When I knew Lola Montez she was plain Mrs James."

  "Oh, dear me, my dear sir," says he, very whimsical. "Those days are far behind us now! Our firm, in fact, represented a Mrs James some years ago, but we never talk of her! Oh, no, I daresay not! But the Countess of Landsfeld is another matter—a lady of quite a different colour, ha-ha!"

  "When did she come by the title?"

  "Why, some months ago. How you should not… ."

  "I've been abroad," says I. "Until this week I hadn't seen an English newspaper in almost a year. I've heard of Lola Montez's doings, of course, any time over the past three years, but nothing of this."

  "Oh, and such doings, hey?" says he, beaming lewdly. "Well, my dear sir, your friend at court—ha-ha—is a very great lady indeed. She has the kingdom under her thumb, makes and breaks ministers, dictates policies—and sets all Europe by the ears, upon my word! Some of the stories—why, there was an article in one of the sheets calling her 'The Modern Messalina'" —he dropped his voice and pushed his greasy face towards me— "and describing her picked bodyguard of splendid young men—what, sir, hey? She goes abroad with a guard of cuirassiers riding behind her coach, sets her dogs on whoever dares to cross her path—why, there was some unfortunate who didn't doff his cap, sir—flogged almost to death! True, sir. And none dare say her nay. The King dotes on her, his courtiers and ministers hate her but go in fear and trembling, the students worship her. For luxury and extravagance there has been nothing like her since La Pompadour, they say. Why, sir, she is the nine-day wonder!"

  "Well, well," says I. "Little Mrs James."

  "Pray, sir!" He pretended distress. "Not that name, I beg you. It is the Countess of Landsfeld who is your friend, if I may be so bold as to remind you."

  "Aye, so it is," says I. "Will you tell me what she wants of me, then?"

  "My dear sir," says he, smirking. "A matter of 'the most delicate', is it not? What that may be-surely you are in a better position than I to say, eh? Ha-ha. But you will be going to Bavaria, I take it, to hear the particulars 'from her own lips'?"

  That was what I was asking myself. It was unbelievable, of course: Lola a queen, to all intents—that was wild enough. But Lola seeking my help—when our last encounter had been distinguished by the screaming of abuse and the crashing of chamberpots—to say nothing of the furore at the theatre when she had seen me among her betrayers … well, I know women are fickle, but I doubted if she remembered me with any affection. And yet the letter was practically fawning, and she must have dictated the sense of it, if not the words. It might be she had decided to let bygones be bygones—she was a generous creature in her way, as so many whores are. But why? What could she want me for—all she knew of me was my prowess in bed. Did the maitresse en titre want to instal me as her lover? My mind, which is at its liveliest in amorous imagination, opened on a riotous vision of Flashy, Pride of the Hareem … but no. I have my share of conceit, but I could not believe that with the pick of all the young stallions of a palace guard, she was yearning for my bonny black whiskers.

  And yet here was a lawyer, authorised on her behalf, ready to advance me £500 to go to Munich—ten times more than was necessary for the journey. It made no sort of sense—unless she was in love with me. But that was out of court; I'd been a good enough mount for a week or so, no doubt, but there had been nothing deeper than that, I was certain. What service, then, could I perform that was so obviously of importance?

  I have a nose for risk; the uneasy feeling that had come over me on first reading her letter was returning. If I had any sense, I knew, I would bid the greasy Mr Greig good-day and tell him to tear his draft up. But even the biggest coward doesn't run until some hint of danger appears, and there was none here at all—just my uneasy instinct. Against which there was the prospect of getting away from my damned relations—oh, God, and the horrors of accompanying the Morrisons into Society—and the certainty of an immediate tidy sum, with more to follow, and sheer curiosity, too. If I did go to Bavaria, and the signs were less pleasant than appeared at present—well, I could cut stick if I wanted. And the thought of renewing acquaintance with Lola—a 'warm' and 'friendly' Lola—tickled my darker fancies: from Greig's reports, even if they were only half true, it sounded as though there was plenty of sport at the Court of Good King Ludwig. Palace orgies of Roman proportions suggested themselves, with old Flashy waited on like a Sultan, and Lola mooning over me while slaves plied me with pearls dissolved in wine, and black eunuchs stood by armed with enormous gold-mounted hair-brushes. And while cold reason told me there was a catch in it somewhere—well, I couldn't see the catch, yet. Time enough when I did.

  "Mr Greig," says I, "where can I cash this draft?"

  5

  Getting away from London was no great bother. Elspeth pouted a little, but when I had given her a glimpse—a most fleeting one—of Lauengram's signature and of the letter's cover, and used expressions like "special military detachment to Bavaria" and "foreign court service", she was quite happily resigned. The idea that I would be moving in high places appealed to her vacant mind; she felt vaguely honoured by the association.

  The Morrisons didn't half like it, of course, and the old curmudgeon flew off about godless gallivanting, and likened me to Cartaphilus, who it seemed had left a shirt and breeches in every town in the ancient world. I was haunted by a demon, he said, who would never let me rest, and it was an evil day that he had let his daughter mate with a footloose scoundrel who had no sense of a husband's responsibilities.

  "Since that's the case," says I, "the farther away from her I am, the better you should be pleased."

  He was aghast at such cynicism, but I think the notion cheered him up for all that. He speculated a little on the bad end that I would certainly come to, called me a generation of vipers, and left me to my packing.

  Not that there was much of that. Campaigning teaches you to travel light, and a couple of valises did my turn. I took my old Cherrypicker uniform—the smartest turnout any soldier ever had anywhere—because I felt it would be useful to cut a dash, but for the rest I stuck to necessaries. Among these, after some deliberation, I included the duelling pistols that a gunsmith had presented to me after the Bernier affair. They were beautiful weapons, accurate enough for the most fastidious marksman, and in those days when revolving pistols were still crude experimental toys, the last word in hand guns.

  But I pondered about taking them. The truth was, I didn't want to believe that I might need them. When you are young and raw and on the brink of adventure, you set great store by having your side-arms just right, because you are full of romantic notions of how you will use them. Even I felt a thrill when I first handled a sabre at practice with the 11th Light Dragoons, and imagined myself pinking and mowing down hordes of ferocious but obligingly futile enemies. But when you've seen a sabre cut to the bone, and limbs mangled by bullets, you come out of your daydream pretty sharp. I knew, as I hesitated with those pistols in my hands, that if I took them I should be admitting the possibility of my own sudden death or maiming in whatever lay ahead. This was, you see, another stage in my development as a poltroon. But I'd certainly feel happier with 'em, uncomfortable reminders though they were, so in they went. And while I was at it, I packed along a neat little seaman's knife. It isn't an Englishman's weapon, of course, but it's devillish handy sometimes
, for all sorts of purposes. And experience has taught me that, as with all weapons, while you may not often need it, when you do you need it badly.

  So, with a word to Uncle Bindley at Horse Guards—who said acidly that the British Army might survive my absence a while longer—and with half of my £500 in my money belt (the other half was safe in the bank), I was ready for the road. Only one thing remained to do. I spent a day searching out a German waiter in the town, and when I had found a likely fellow I offered him his fare home and a handsome bonus, just to travel along with me; I had no German at all, but with my gift for languages I knew that if I applied myself on the journey to Munich I should have at least a smattering by the time I arrived there. I've often said that the ideal way to learn a language is in bed with a wench, but failing that an alert, intelligent travelling companion is as good a teacher as any. And learning a new tongue is no hardship to me; I enjoy it.

  The fellow I picked on was a Bavarian, as luck had it, and jumped at the chance of getting home. His name, I think, was Helmuth, but at any rate he was a first-rate choice. Like all Germans, he had a passion for taking pains, and when he saw what I wanted he was all enthusiasm. Hour after hour, in boat, train, and coach, he talked away to me, repeating words and phrases, correcting my own pronunciation, explaining grammatical rules, but above all giving me that most important thing of all—the rhythm of the language. This is something which only a few people seem to have, and I am lucky to be one. Let me catch the rhythm, and I seem to know what a man is saying even if I haven't learned all the words he uses. I won't pretend that I learned German in a fortnight, but at the end of that time I could pass my own elementary test, which is to say to a native: "Tell me, speaking slowly and carefully, what were your father's views on strong drink," or religion, or horses, or whatever came to mind—and understand his reply fairly well. Helmuth was astonished at my progress.

  We did not hurry on the journey, which was by way of Paris, a city I had often wanted to visit, having heard that debauchery there was a fine art. I was disappointed: whores are whores the world over, and the Parisian ones are no different from any other. And French men make me sick; always have done. I'm degenerate, but they are dirty with it. Not only in the physical sense, either; they have greasy minds. Other foreigners may have garlic on their breaths, but the Frogs have it on their thoughts as well.

  The Germans are different altogether. If I wasn't an Englishman, I would want to be a German. They say what they think, which isn't much as a rule, and they are admirably well ordered. Everyone in Germany knows his place and stays in it, and grovels to those above him, which makes it an excellent country for gentlemen and bullies, In England, even in my young day, if you took liberties with a working man you would be as likely as not to get a fist in your face, but the lower-class Germans were as docile as niggers with white skins. The whole country is splendidly disciplined and organised, and with all their docility the inhabitants are still among the finest soldiers and workers on earth—as my old friend Bismarck has shown. The basis of all this, of course, is stupidity, which you must have in people before you can make them fight or work successfully. Well, the Germans will trouble the world yet, but since they are closer to us than anyone else, we may live to profit by it.

  However, all this I was yet to discover, although I had an inkling of it from studying Helmuth on our journey. I don't bore you with details of our travels, by the way; nothing happened out of the ordinary, and what I chiefly remember is a brief anxiety that I had caught the pox in Paris; fortunately, I hadn't, but the scare I got prejudiced me still further against the French, if that were possible.

  Munich, when we reached it, I liked the look of very well, It was clean and orderly on the surface, prices were far below our own (beer a halfpenny a pint, and a servant could be hired at two shillings a week), the folk were either civil or servile, and the guide-book which I had bought in London described it as "a very dissolute capital". The very place for old Flash, thinks I, and looked forward to my stay. I should have known better; my eagerness to see Lola again, and my curiosity about what she wanted, had quite driven away those momentary doubts I had felt back in London. More fool I; if I had known what was waiting round the corner I would have run all the way home and felt myself lucky to be able to run.

  We arrived in Munich on a Sunday, and having dismissed Helmuth and found a hotel in the Theresienstrasse, I sat down to consider my first move, It was easy enough to discover that Lola was installed in a personal palace which the besotted Ludwig had built specially for her in the Barerstrasse; presumably I might stroll round and announce my arrival. But it pays to scout whenever you can, so I decided to put in an hour or two mooning round the streets and restaurants to see what news I could pick up first. I might even gain some hint of a clue to why she wanted me.

  I strolled about the pleasant streets for a while, seeing the Hofgarten and the fine Residenz Palace where King Ludwig lived, and drank the excellent German beer in one of their open-air beer-gardens while I watched the folk and tried out my ear on their conversation. It could hardly have been more peaceful and placid; even in late autumn it was sunny, and the stout contented burghers with their pleasant-faced wives were either sitting and drinking and puffing at their massive pipes, or sauntering ponderously on the pavements. No one hurried, except the waiters; here and there a group of young fellows in long cloaks and gaudy caps, whom I took to be students, stirred things a little with their laughter, but for the rest it was a drowsy, easy afternoon, as though Munich was blinking contentedly in the fine weather, and wasn't going to be bustled by anybody.

  However, one way and another, by finding a French newspaper and getting into talk with people who spoke either French or English, I picked up some gossip. I soon found that one did not need to ask about Lola; the good Muncheners talked about her as Britons do about the weather, and with much the same feeling— in other words, they thought she was bad and would get worse, but that nothing could be done about her anyway.

  She was, it seemed, the supreme power in Bavaria. Ludwig was right under her thumb, she had swept out the hostile Ultramontane cabinet and had it replaced largely with creatures of her own, and despite the fact that she was a staunch Protestant, the Catholic hierarchy were powerless against her. The professors, who count for much more there than do ours in England, were solidly against her, but the students were violently split. Some detested her, and had rioted before her windows, but others, calling themselves the Allemania, constituted themselves her champions and even her bodyguard, and were forever clashing with her opponents. Some of these Allemania were pointed out to me, in their bright scarlet caps; they were a tough-looking crew, tightmouthed and cold-eyed and given to strutting and barking, and people got out of their way pretty sharp.

  However, with Ludwig infatuated by her, Lola was firmly in the saddle, and according to one outspoken French journalist whose story I read, her supremacy was causing alarm far outside Bavaria. There were rumours that she was an agent of Palmerston, set on to foment revolution in Germany; to the other powers, striving to hold down a growing popular discontent that was spreading throughout Europe, she appeared to be a dangerous threat to the old regime. At least one attempt had been made to assassinate her; Metternich, the arch-reactionary master of Austria, had tried to bribe her to leave Germany for good. The truth was that in those days the world was on the edge of general revolution; we were coming out of the old age and into the new, and anything that was a focus of disorder or instability was viewed with consternation by the authorities. So Lola was not popular; the papers fumed against her, clergymen damned her in their sermons as a Jezebel and a Sempronia, and the ordinary folk were taught to regard her as a fiend in human shape—all the worse because the shape was beautiful.

  Here ends Professor Flashman's historical lecture, much of it cribbed from a history book, but some of it at least learned that first day in the Munich beer-gardens.

  One thing I was pretty sure of, and it flies in the
face of history: whatever may be said, Lola was secretly admired by the common people. They might shake their heads and look solemn whenever her cavalry escort drove a way for her through a crowd of protesting students; they might look shocked when they heard of the orgies in the Barerstrasse palace; they might exclaim in horror when her Allemania horse-whipped an editor and smashed his presses—but the men inwardly loved her for the gorgeous hoyden she was, and the women hid their satisfaction that one of their own sex was setting Europe by the ears. Whenever the insolent, tempestuous Montez provoked some new scandal, there was no lack of those who thought, "Good for you," and quite a few who said it openly.

  And what the devil did she want with me? Well, I had come to Munich to find out, so I scribbled a note that Sunday evening, addressed to the Chamberlain Lauengram, saying that I had arrived and was at his disposal. Then I wandered over to the Residenz Palace, and looked at Lola's portrait in the public gallery—that "Gallery of Beauties" in which Ludwig had assembled pictures of the loveliest women of his day. There were princesses, countesses, actresses, and the daughter of the Munich town-crier, among others, and Lola looking unusually nun-like in a black dress and wearing a come-to-Jesus expression.[20] Underneath it was inscribed a verse written by the king, who was given to poetry, which finished up:

  Oh, soft and beauteous as a deer

  Art thou, of Andalusian race!

  Well, he was probably in a position to know about that. And to think that only a few years ago she had been a penniless dancer being hooted off a London stage.

  I had hoped, considering the urgency of Lauengram's original letter to me, to be bidden to Lola's palace on the Monday, but that day and the next went by, and still no word. But I was patient, and kept to my hotel, and on the Wednesday morning I was rewarded. I was finishing breakfast in my room, still in my dressing-gown, when there was a great flurry in the passage, and a lackey came to announce the arrival of the Freiherr von S tarnberg, whoever he might be. There was much clashing and stamping, two cuirassiers in full fig appeared behind the lackey and stationed themselves like statues on either side of my doorway, and then in between them strolled the man himself, a gay young spark who greeted me with a flashing smile and outstretched hand.