The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald

determine her policy by throwing beans on a kind of chess-board, and working out the combinations,⁴⁰ which usually resulted in massacre for someone, just like a Cabinet decision; she would admit them at all times of day – I’ve seen her sitting on her throne, with her girls helping her try on French slippers, while the lads crouched alongside, mumbling over their beans, and she would nod balefully at their pronouncements, take a squint at her bottle or tusk for reassurance, and pronounce sentence. They once walked in when she and I were having a bath together – deuced embarrassing it was, performing while they cast the bones, but Ranavalona didn’t seem to mind a bit.

      If there was any other influence in her life, apart from the mumbo-jumbo men and her own mad passions, it was her only son, Prince Rakota – the chap to whom Laborde had managed to steer Elspeth. He was the heir to the throne, although he wasn’t the old king’s son, but the offspring of one of her lovers whom she’d later had pulled apart, naturally. However, under Malagassy law, any children a widow may have, legitimate or not, are considered sons of her dead husband, so Rakota was next in line, and my impression was that Madagascar couldn’t wait to cry “Long live the King!” You see, despite my misgivings when I’d first heard about him, he was the complete opposite of his atrocious mother – a kindly, cheerful, good-natured youth who did what he could to restrain his bloodthirsty parent. It was common knowledge that if he happened along as they were about to butcher someone on her instructions, and he told them to let the chap go, they would – and mama never said a word about it. He’d have had to spend all his time sprinting round the country shouting “Lay off!” to make much impression on the slaughter rate, but he did what he could, and the populace blessed and loved him, as you’d expect. Why Ranavalona didn’t do away with him, I couldn’t fathom; some fatal weakness in her character, I suppose.

      However, mention of Rakota advances my tale, for about three weeks after I’d taken up my duties, I met him, and was reunited, if only briefly, with the wife of my bosom. I’d seen Laborde once or twice beforehand, when he’d figured it was safe to approach me, and pestered him to take me to Elspeth, but he’d impressed on me that it was highly dangerous, and would have to wait on a favourable opportunity. It was like this, you see: Laborde had told Rakota that Elspeth was my wife, and pleaded with him to look after her, and keep her tucked away out of sight, for if the Queen ever discovered that her new buck and favoured slave had a wife within reach – well, it would have been good night, Mrs Flashman, and probably young Harry as well. Jealous old b---h. Rakota, being a kindly lad, had agreed, so there was Elspeth snug and well cared for, not treated as a slave at all, but rather as a guest. While I, mark you, was having to pleasure that insatiable female baboon for my very life’s sake. They hadn’t told Elspeth that, thank G-d, but jollied her along with the tale that I had taken up an important military post, which was true enough.

      A strange state of affairs, you’ll allow – but nothing out of the way for Madagascar, and no more incredible than some of the things that I’ve known and heard of in my time. I was so bemused with what had happened over the past few months anyway, that I just accepted the bizarre situation; only two things worried and puzzled me. How had the Queen, who found out everything through her system of spies, which was directed by Mr Fankanonikaka, failed to get word of the golden-haired slave in her son’s palace? And why – this was the real conundrum – were Laborde and Prince Rakota in such a sweat to help Elspeth and me? What was I to them, after all? I’m a suspicious brute, you see, and don’t put much stock in altruistic virtue; there was something up here. I was right, too.

      Laborde presented me to the Prince on an afternoon when Ranavalona was safely out of the way, watching a bullfight, which was her prime hobby. It was a byword that the fighting bulls were the only living things she had any feelings for; the only times she was known to weep was when one of them died, or was badly gored in the ring. So it was deemed safe for me to take an hour off from parade, and with Fankanonikaka, Laborde, and a leading general named Count Rakohaja, I was borne out to the Prince’s garden palace in the suburbs of Antan”.

Rakota received me in his throne room, where I was graciously permitted to prostrate myself before him and his Princess. They were tiny folk – he wasn’t more than five feet tall, and dressed like a Spanish matador, in gold tunic and breeches, buckled shoes, and a Mexican sombrero. He was about sixteen, lively and smiling all over his round olive face; he had the beginnings of a moustache.⁴¹ His wife was much the same, a dumpy little bundle in yellow silk; if anything, her moustache was further along than his. They spoke good French, and when I’d clambered upright Rakota said he had brilliant reports of the way I was training the troops, especially the royal guardsmen.

      “Sergeant-General Flashman has worked wonders with the men, and the best officers,” agreed Count Rakohaja; he was a big, lean Hova aristocrat with a scar on his cheek, dressed in a coat and trousers which would have been perfect St James’s, if they hadn’t been made of bright green velvet. “Your highness will be enchanted to learn that he has already won the loyalty of all under his command, and has shown himself a most dependable and trustworthy officer.”

      Which was doing it rather too brown, but the Prince beamed on me.

      “Most gratifying,” says he. “Winning the confidence of the troops is the first essential in a leader. As commander-in-chief – under the sublime authority of Her Majesty, The Great Cow Who Nourishes All The World With Her Milk, of course – I congratulate you, sergeant-general, and assure you that your zeal and loyalty will be amply rewarded.”

      It seemed a trifle odd. I wasn’t a commander, but a glorified drill instructor, and everyone knew it. However, I responded politely that I didn’t doubt the troops would follow me from h--l to Huddersfield and back, which seemed to please his highness, for he ordered up chocolate and we stood about sipping it from silver bowls, two-handed. (The Malagassies have no idea of quantity; there must have been a gallon of the sickly muck in each bowl, and the gurgling of the royal consumption was something to hear.)

      It seemed to me that Prince and Princess were slightly nervous; he kept darting glances at Rakohaja and Fankanonikaka, and his little chubby consort, whenever she caught my eye, smiled timidly and bobbed like a charwoman seeking employment. The Prince asked me a few more questions, in an offhand way – about the quality of the lower-rank commanders, the equipment of palace pickets, the standard of marksmanship, and so on, which I answered satisfactorily, noting that he seemed specially interested in the household troops. Then he took one last gulp and belch at his chocolate, wiped his moustache on his sleeve, and says to me, with a little smile and wave:

      “You are permitted to withdraw to the other end of the room,” and began to talk in Malagassy to the others.

      Mystified, I bowed and retreated, a door at the far end opened, and there was Elspeth, smiling radiantly, and dressed in the worst possible taste in a garden-party confection of purple taffeta – purple on a blonde, G-d help us – tripping towards me with her arms out. In a moment Madagascar was forgotten, with its Queen and horrors and dressed-up mountebanks; I had her in my arms, kissing her, and she was murmuring endearments in my ear. Then propriety returned, and I glanced round at the others. They were ignoring us – all except Fankanonikaka, who was having a sly peep – so I enfolded her again, inhaling her perfume while she prattled her delight at seeing me.

      “… for it has been so long, and while their highnesses have been kindness itself, I have been yearning for you night and day, my love. Do you like my new dress? – her highness chose it for me herself, and we think it most becoming, and it is so heavenly to have proper clothes again, after those dreadful sarongas – but we will not talk of that, and the hateful separation, and the odious behaviour of that… that man Don Solomon – but now we are rid of him, and safely here, and it is such fun – if it were not that your duties keep you from me. Oh, Harry, must they? But I must be a good wife, as I always promised, and not put myself forward where your duty is concerned, and indeed I know the separation is as cruel for you as for me – and, oh, I do miss you …”

      Here she embraced me again, and drew me down on to a settle – the others were deep in their own conversation, although the dumpy little Princess fluttered her fingers at us shyly, and Elspeth must rise to curtsey – even black royalty was just nuts to her,