Flashman's Lady

by George MacDonald Fraser

  This consisted of a hundred dancing girls, in white saris, with green fire-flies bound in their hair, undulating in perfect time across the courtyard to weird nigger music; ugly little squirts for the most part, but drilled like guardsmen, and I’ve never seen a pantomime chorus to equal them. They swayed and weaved among each other like clockwork in the most complex patterns, and the mob, in the intervals of stuffing and swilling, rose to them in drunken appreciation. Flowers and ribbons and even plates of food were thrown, fellows clambered on the tables to applaud and yell, the ladies scattered change from their purses, and in the middle of it the military band regained consciousness as one man and began to play “Auprès de ma blonde” again. The bandmaster fell into the fountain to prolonged cheering, one of the aides at our table subsided face down in a dish of curry, General Rakohaja lit a cheroot, about twenty chaps ran in among the dancing-girls and began an impromptu waltz, the Prince and Princess made their entrance in sedans draped with cloth-of-gold and borne shoulder-high by Hova guardsmen, the whole assembly raved and staggered in loyal greeting, and at the next table a slant-eyed yellow gal with slim bare shoulders glanced lingeringly in my direction, lowered her eyelids demurely, and stuck out her tongue at me behind her fan.

  Before I could respond with a courtly inclination of my head there was a sudden blare of trumpets, drowning out the hubbub; it rose in a piercing fanfare, and as it died away the entire congregation staggered to its feet with a renewed clattering of overturned chairs, breaking of dishes, subdued swearing and apology, and stood more or less silent, leaning on each other and breathing stertorously.

  On the centre of the first balcony of the palace, lanterns were blazing, guardsmen were forming, and a brazen-lunged majordomo was shouting commands. Handmaidens appeared bearing the striped umbrella, cymbals clashed, a couple of idol-keepers scurried out with their little bundles, the Silver Spear was borne forward, and here came the founder of the feast, the guest of honour, the captain of the side, imperial in her crimson gown and golden crown, to be greeted by a roar of acclamation which beat everything that had gone before. The wave of adulation beat up and echoed against the towering walls. “Manjaka, manjaka! Ranavalona, Ranavalona!” as she moved slowly forward to the balcony, her stately progress marred only by the obvious fact that she, too, was drunker than David’s sow.

  She swayed dangerously as she stood looking down, a couple of guardsmen lending a discreet elbow on either side, and then the band, in a triumph of instinct over intoxication, burst into the national anthem, “May the Queen Live a Thousand Years”, rendered with heroic enthusiasm by the diners, most of whom seemed to be accompanying themselves by beating spoons on plates.

  It ended in a furore of cheering, and her majesty retired about five seconds, I’d say, before collapsing in a heap. We hallooed her out of sight, and now that the loyal toast was drunk, so to speak, the party began in earnest. There was a concerted rush into the square, in which I found myself carried along, willynilly, and with the band surpassing itself, a frenzied polka was danced; I found myself partnering an enormously fat hippo of a woman in crinoline, who used me as a battering-ram to drive a way through the press, screaming like a steam whistle as she did so.

  I may say that in keeping with the spirit of the evening, I had taken a fairish cargo of drink aboard myself, and it was making me feel reckless, for I kept craning over the heads of the throng in the hope of a sight of the yellow gal who had been eyeing me. Which was madness, of course, but even the thought of a jealous Ranavalona ain’t proof against several pints of aniseed liquor and Malagassy champagne—besides, after months of galloping royalty I was crying out for a change, and that slender charmer would supply it splendidly—there she was, with a froglike black partner clinging to her for support; she caught my glance as the dance swept her past and opened her eyes invitingly at me.

  It was the work of a moment to kick my partner’s massive legs from under her and thrust her squawking under the feet of the prancing throng; I fought my way to the sidelines, scooping the yellow gal out of her partner’s drunken embrace en route, and he blundered on blindly while I bore off the prize with one arm round her lissom waist. She was shrieking with laughter as I swept her into the undergrowth—it was bedlam in there, too, for it seemed that the accepted way of sitting out a dance in Antan’ was to crawl into the bushes and fornicate; half the guests appeared to be there before us, black bottoms everywhere, but I found a clear space and was just settling down, choking lustfully in the waves of scent which my lady affected, when some brute kicked me in the ribs, and there was Rakohaja standing over us.

  I was about to d--n his eyes heartily, but he just jerked his head and moved behind a tree, and since my yellow gal chose that moment to be sick. I lost no time in joining him, cursing my luck just the same. I was pretty unsteady on my feet, but I realised that he was cold sober; the lean black face was grim and steady, and there was something about the way he glanced either side, at the hullabaloo of the dance and the dim forms grunting and gasping in the shadows about us, that made me check my angry protest. He drew on his cheroot a moment, then, pitching it away, he took my arm and ushered me under the trees, along a narrow path, and so by a dimly-lighted passage into a little open garden space, which I guessed must be to the side of the palace proper.

  It was moonlight, and the little space was full of shadows; I was about to demand to know what the dooce this was all about when I realised that there were at least two men half-hidden in the gloom, but Rakohaja paid them no attention. He crossed to a little summer-house, with a chink of light showing beneath its door, and tapped. I stood trying to get my head clear, suddenly scared: faintly in the distance I could hear the sounds of music and drunken revelry, and then the door was opened, and I was being ushered inside, blinking in the lantern-light as I stared round, panic mounting in my throat.

  There were four men seated there, looking at me. To my left, in dark shirt, breeches, and boots, his face vulpine in the lanternray, was Laborde; next to him, solemn for once, his fat chops framed in his high collar, was Fankanonikaka; to the right, slimty elegant in his full court dress, was one of the young Malagassy nobles whom I knew by sight, although I’d hardly spoken to him, Baron Andriama. And in the centre, his handsome young face tense and strained, was Prince Rakota himself. His glance went past me as the door closed.

  “No one saw you?” His voice was a hoarse whisper.

  “No one,” says Rakohaja behind me. “It is safe to begin.”

  I doubted that—I really did. Drunk or not, I can smell a conspiracy when it’s pushed under my nose, and the presence of royalty and several of Madagascar’s most eminent citizens notwithstanding, I knew at once that there was mischief brewing here, but Rakohaja’s hand was on my shoulder, firmly guiding me to a seat, and any lingering doubt was dispelled as the Prince nodded to Laborde, who addressed me.

  “There is very little time,” says he, “so I shall be brief. Do you wish to return to England, in safety, with your wife?”

  The honest answer to that was high treason, and the knowledge must have shown in my face, for little Fankanonikaka broke in quickly; it was a sign of his agitation that he spoke, not in fluent French, but in his bastard English.

  “Not frightening, no alarms, all’s well, Flashman. Friends here, liking you, telling truth, like old boys, ain’t we?”

  If the Queen’s own son, and her secretary and most trusted minister were in it—whatever it was—there could be no point in lying.

  “Yes,” says I, and the Prince sighed with relief, and broke into a torrent of Malagassy, but Laborde cut him short.

  “Pardon, highness, we must not delay.” He turned to me again. “The time has come to depose the Queen. All of us whom you see here are agreed on that. We are not alone; there are others, trusted friends, who are in the plot with us. We have a plan—simple, effective, and involving no bloodshed, by which her majesty will be removed from power, and his highness crowned in her place. He will give you h
is royal word, that in return for your faithful service in this, he will set you and your wife at liberty, and return you to your homeland.” He paused: his words had come out in a swift, incisive rush, but now he spoke slowly. “Will you join us?”

  Could it be a trap? Some d---lish device of Ranavalona’s to test my loyalty—she was fiend enough to be capable of it. Laborde’s face said nothing; Fankanonikaka was nodding at me, as though willing me to agree. I glanced at the Prince, and the almost wistful expression in the fine dark eyes convinced me—nearly. I was sober enough now, and as frightened as any decent coward has any right to be; it might be dangerous to agree, but just the feel of Rakohaja’s grim presence at my elbow told me it would be downright fatal to refuse.

  “What d’you want me to do?” I said. For the life of me, I couldn’t see why they needed me at all, unless they wanted me to strangle the black slut in her bath—the mind shuddered at the thought—no, it couldn’t be that—no bloodshed, Laborde had said—

  “We need someone,” Laborde went on, as though he’d been reading my mind, “who is in the Queen’s confidence, entirely above suspicion, yet with the power so to dispose of the armed forces that they will be unable to protect her. Someone who can ensure that when the moment comes, her Hova guard regiment will not be able to intervene. Those guards within the palace can be dealt with easily—provided there is no reinforcement to assist them. That is the key to the whole plan. And you hold the key.”

  So many thoughts and terrors were jumbling in my mind by now that I couldn’t give them coherent utterance for a moment. The prospect of freedom—of escape from that monstrous Poppaea and her ghastly country—I shivered with excitement at the thought…but Laborde must be crazy, for what could I do about her infernal soldiers?—I might be G-d Almighty on the drill-ground, telling them where to put their clodhopping feet, but I’d no authority beyond that. Their plot might be Al, and I was all for it, provided I was safe out of harm’s way—but the thought of doing anything! One hint of suspicion in those terrible eyes—

  “How can I do that?” I stuttered. “I mean, I’ve no power. General Rakohaja here, he could order—”

  “Not possible, Queen not liking, all thinking bad of General, chop undoubtedly—” Fankanonikaka waved his hands, and Rakohaja’s deep voice sounded behind me.

  “If I, or any other noble, attempted to move the Hova Guards more than a mile from the city, the Queen’s suspicions would be instantly aroused. And I do not have to tell you what follows on her suspicions. It has been tried, once before, and General Betimseraba lingered in agony for days, without arms or legs or eyes, hanging in a buffalo skin at Ambohipotsy. He was plotting, as we are, but not so carefully. He forgot that the Queen has spies in every corner—spies that even Fankanonikaka does not know about. Yet all he did was try to detach two companies of the guard to Tamitave. Nothing was proved—but he failed the tanguin—and died.”

  “But…but—I can’t move the Guards—”

  “You have done so, twice already.” It was Andriama, speaking for the first time. “Did you not give them training marches, one of two days, the other of three? Nothing was said; the Queen was undisturbed. What would excite immediate suspicion, if done by a noble of whom the Queen is jealous—and she is insanely jealous of all of us—may be easily accomplished by the sergeant-general, who is only a slave, and well beloved by the Queen.”

  Fankanonikaka was nodding eagerly; his lips seemed to be framing the words “jig-a-jig-a-jig”. I was going faint at the thought of the risk I’d already run, quite unawares.

  “Don’t you understand?” says Laborde. “Don’t you see—from the moment I saw you in the slave-market, months ago, we have been scheming, Fankanonikaka and I, to bring you to the position where you could do this thing? The Queen trusts you—because she has no reason to suspect you, who are only a lost foreigner. She thinks of you only as the slave who drills her troops—and as a lover. You know how cautiously we have proceeded—so that no hint of suspicion could attach to you; his highness has kept your wife in safety, even beyond the eyes and ears of his mother’s spies. We have waited and waited—oh, long before you came to Madagascar. This is not the first time we have plotted in secret—”

  “She is mad!” the Prince burst out. “You know she is mad—and terrible—a woman of blood! She is my mother—and…and…” He was shaking, twisting his hands together. “I do not seek the throne for greed, or for power! I do it to save this country—to save all of us, before she destroys us utterly, or brings down the vengeance of the world upon us! And she will—she will! The Powers will not stand by forever!” He stared from Laborde to Rakohaja and back again. “You know it! We all know it!”

  I couldn’t fathom this, until Laborde explained.

  “You are not alone. Flashman. Only last month a brig named the Marie Laure was driven ashore near Tamitave; her master, one Jacob Heppick, an American, was taken and sold into slavery, like you. I had him bought, through friends of mine—” He snorted suddenly. “There are five European slaves whom I have bought secretly this year, to save them from worse; castaways, unfortunates, like you and your wife. They are hidden with my friends. But there have been inquiries from their governments—inquiries which the Queen has answered with insults and threats. She has even been foolish enough to abuse the few foreign traders who put in here—men have been taken from their vessels, put to forced labour, virtually enslaved. How long will France and England and America endure this?

  “Even now”—he leaned forward, tapping my knee—“there is a British warship in Tamitave roads, whose commander has sent protests to the Queen. She will reject them, as she always does—and burn another hundred Christians alive to show her contempt of foreigners! How long before that one British warship is a squadron, landing an army to march on Antan’ and pull her from her throne? Does she think London and Paris will endure her forever?”

  And what the d---l, I nearly burst out, is wrong with that? I never heard such splendid stuff in all my life—G-d, to think of British regiments and blue-jackets storming into her beastly capital, blowing her lousy Hova rascals to blazes, stringing her up, with any luck—and then it occurred to me that these Malagassy gentlemen might not view the prospect with quite as much enthusiasm. They wouldn’t relish being another British or French dominion; no, but let good King Rakota mount the throne, and behave like a civilised being, and the Powers would be happy enough to leave him and his country alone. So that was why they were in such a sweat to get rid of mama, before she provoked an invasion. But why should Laborde care—he wasn’t a Malagassy? No, but he was a conniving Frog, and he didn’t want the Union Jack over Antan’ any more than the others did. I wasn’t in the political service for nothing, you know.

  “She will destroy us!” Rakota cries again. “She will bring us to war—and in her madness there is no horror she will not—”

  “No, highness,” says Rakohaja. “She will not—for we will not let her. This time we shall succeed.”

  “You understand,” says Laborde, eyeing me, “what is to be done? You must send the Guards on a march to the Ankay, a mere thirty miles away. Nothing more than that. A training march, lasting three days, under their subordinate commanders, as usual.”

  “That will leave the Teklave and Antaware regiments at Antan’,” says Rakohaja. “They will do nothing; their generals will be with us as soon as our coup is seen to be successful.”

  “We shall strike on the second night after the Guards have gone,” says Andriama. “I shall be in attendance on the Queen. I shall have thirty men in the palace. At a given signal they will take the Queen prisoner, and dispose of her guards within the palace, if that is necessary. General Rakohaja will summon the commanders of the lesser regiments, and with Mr Fankanonikaka will proclaim the new King. It will be done within an hour—and when word of the coup reaches the Hova Guards at Ankay, it will be too late. The enthusiasm of the people will ensure our success—”

  “They will rally to me,”
says Rakota earnestly. “They will see why I do this thing, that I will be a liberator, and—”

  “Yes, highness,” says Rakohaja, “you may trust us to see to all that.”

  I couldn’t help noticing that they used Rakota pretty offhand, for their future monarch; who would rule Madagascar, I couldn’t help wondering? But that was small beer—my mind was racing over this thunderclap that they’d burst on me. They weren’t laggard conspirators, these lads, and I’d hardly had time to get my breath. They had it all pat—but, by jingo, it was an appalling risk! Suppose something went wrong—as it had done before, apparently? The mere thought of the vengeance Ranavalona would take set my innards quivering—and I’d be in the middle of the stew, too. I could have wept at the thought that there was a British warship, this very minute, not four days’ ride away to the eastward. Was there any way I could—no, that wasn’t on the cards. Suppose Laborde could bring it off? Suppose the Queen got wind of it? She had spies—I even found myself looking at Fankanonikaka, and wondering. Who knew—she might have penetrated this conspiracy already—she might be gloating up yonder, biding her time. I thought of those awful pits, and the fellow screaming before her throne, with his arm parboiled…

  “Then you are with us?” says Laborde, and I realised they were all staring at me—Fankanonikaka, round-eyed, eager but scared; the Prince almost appealing, Andriama and Rakohaja grimly, Laborde with his head back, weighing me. In the silence of the little summer-house I could still hear, faintly, the sounds of the distant music. There was a foolish, useless question in my mind—but funk that I was, I had to ask it, although the answer wouldn’t settle my terrors a bit.