Royal Flash. George Fraser MacDonald

at me. ‘You’ve made a bad enemy there, my dear. Or is the famous Captain Flashman careless of enemies?’

      ‘They don’t concern me, German, French, or nigger,’ says I. ‘I don’t think much of your Otto at all.’

      ‘Well, you should,’ says she, teasing. ‘For he’s going to be a great man some day – he told me so. “I have a destiny”, he said. “What’s that?” I asked him. “To rule”, says he. So I told him I had ambitions, too – to live as I please, love as I please, and never grow old. He didn’t think much of that, I fancy; he told me I was frivolous, and would be disappointed. Only the strong, he said, could afford ambitions. So I told him I had a much better motto than that.’

      ‘What was that?’ says I, reaching out for her, but she caught my hands and held them apart, looking wicked.

      ‘“Courage – and shuffle the cards”,’ says she.

      ‘Damned sight better motto than his,’ says I, pulling her down on top of me. ‘And I’m a greater man than he is, anyway.’

      ‘Prove it – again,’ said Miss Rosanna, biting at my chin. And, at the cost of more scratches and bruises, I did.

      That was the beginning of our affair, and a wild, feverish one it was, but it couldn’t last long. For one thing, she was so demanding a mistress that she came near to wearing me out, and if she was a novelty, she was one I didn’t altogether enjoy. She was too imperious, and I prefer softer women who understand that it is my pleasure that counts. Not with Miss Rosanna, though; she used men. It was like being eaten alive, and God help you if you weren’t ready to command. Everything had to be at her whim, and I got sick of it.

      It was about a week after our first meeting that I finally lost my temper. We had had a tempestuous night, but when I wanted to go to sleep she had to chatter on – and even a husky Irish voice can get sickening when you’ve heard too much of it. And seeing me inattentive, she suddenly shouts, ‘On guard!’ which was her war-cry before a tumble, and jumped on me again.

      ‘In heaven’s name!’ says I. ‘Get off. I’m tired.’

      ‘Nobody gets tired of me,’ she flashed back, and started teasing me into action, but I was pegged out, and told her to let me alone. For a moment she persisted, and then she was sulky, and then in an instant she was in a raging fury, and before I knew it I had given her the back of my hand and she was coming at me like a wildcat, screaming and clawing.

      Now, I’ve dealt with raging women before, but I’d never met anything like her. She was dangerous – a beautiful, naked savage, flinging everything that came within reach, calling me the foulest names, and – I admit it freely – terrorising me to the point where I grabbed my clothes and ran for it. ‘Bastard and coward!’ was the least of it, I remember, and a chamber pot smashing on the door-jamb as I blundered through. I roared threats at her from the corridor, at which she darted out, white with fury, flourishing a bottle, and I didn’t stay for more. One way and another, I’ve probably had more practice in dressing running than most men, but this time I didn’t bother until I’d got out of shot at the foot of the stairs.

      I was badly shaken, I can tell you, and not my own man again till I was well away from her house and pondering, in my philosophic way, on means of getting my own back on the vicious, bad-tempered slut. It will seem to you to be the usual, sordid conclusion to so many Flashman amours, but I have dwelt on it at some length for good reason. It wasn’t only that she was, in her way, as magnificent a creature as I’ve ever had the good fortune to mount, and comes back to my mind whenever I see a hair-brush. That alone would not be sufficient. No, my excuse is that this was my first encounter with one of the most remarkable women in my life – or in the life of anyone in the nineteenth century, for that matter. Who could have guessed then that Marie Elizabeth Rosanna James would turn a crowned head, rule a great kingdom, and leave a name to compare with Dubarry or Nell Gwynn? Well, she was Flashy’s girl for a week, at least, which is something to boast of. But I was glad to be shot of her at the time, and not just because of the way she treated me: I discovered soon after that she hadn’t been altogether truthful about herself. She hadn’t mentioned, for example, that her soldier husband was in the process of divorcing her, which would have been enough to scare me away to less controversial beds if I’d known it sooner. Apart from the unpleasant social aspects of being cited, I couldn’t have afforded it.

      But she was important in my life in another way – she had been the means of my meeting the splendid Otto. You could say that it was through her that the mischief was born between him and me, and our enmity shaped his future, and the world’s.

      Nothing might have come of it, though, had I not run into him again, by pure chance, a month or so later. It was at Tom Perceval’s place in Leicestershire, where I joined a party to see Nick Ward⁷ fight some local pug, and to do a little hunting in Tom’s coverts. Young Conyngham,⁸ who was a fool of a gambler, was there, and old Jack Gully, who had once been Champion of England and was now a rich ironmaster and retired from the House of Commons as well; there were about a dozen others whom I’ve forgotten, and Speedicut, too – when I’d told him how I’d spent the night of his arrest, he just roared with laughter and cried ‘Flashy’s luck! Well, only the brave deserve the fair!’ And he insisted on telling everyone how it had happened, himself lying in a dirty cell full of drunkards while I was bumping a beauty.

      Most of the company were at Tom’s place when I arrived, and when he met me in the hall he told me:

      ‘They’re all old acquaintances but one, a foreigner that I can’t get rid of, damn him. Friend of my uncle’s, and wants to see something of our rustic ways while he’s here. Trouble is, he’s full of bounce, and some of the fellows are rather sick of it already.’

      It meant nothing until I went into the gunroom with him, where the boys were cheering up the cold night with punch and a roaring fire, and who should be there, very formal in long coat and trousers among all the buffs and boots, but Otto. He stiffened at the sight of me, and I brought up short.

      The fellows gave a hurrah when I came in, and thrust punch and cheroots at me, while Tom did his duty by the stranger.

      ‘Baron,’ says he – the brute has a title, thinks I – ‘permit me to present Captain Flashman. Flash, this is Baron Otto von … er, dammit … von Schornhausen, ain’t it? Can’t get my confounded tongue round it.’

      ‘Schönhausen,’ says Otto, bowing stiffly with his eyes on mine. ‘But that is, in fact, the name of my estate, if you will pardon my correction. My family name is Bismarck.’⁹

      It’s an old man’s fancy, no doubt, but it seemed to me that he said it in a way that told you you would hear it again. It meant nothing to me, of course, at the time, but I was sure that it was going to. And again I felt that prickle of fear up my back; the cold grey eyes, the splendid build and features, the superb arrogance of the man, all combined to awe me. If you’re morally as soft as butter, as I am, with a good streak of the toad-eater in you, there’s no doing anything with people like Bismarck. You can have all the fame that I had then, and the good looks and the inches and the swagger – and I had those, too – but you know you’re dirt to him. If you have to tangle with him, as the Americans say, you know you’ll have to get drunk first; I was sober, so I toadied.

      ‘Honoured to make your acquaintance, Baron,’ says I, giving him my hand. ‘Trust you’re enjoying your visit.’

      ‘We are already acquainted, as I’m sure you remember,’ says he, shaking hands. He had a grip like a vice; I guessed he was stronger than I was, and I was damned strong, in body at least. ‘You recollect an evening in London? Mrs James was present.’

      ‘By God!’ says I, all astounded. ‘So I do! Well, well! And here you are, eh? Damme, I never expected … well, Baron, I’m glad to see you. Aye, hum. I trust Mrs James is well?’

      ‘Surely I should ask you?’ says he, with a thin smile. ‘I have not seen the … lady, since that evening.’

      ‘No?