“Come closer, into the firelight where I can see you,” says Uliba-Wark. “If you are to be a horse-trader out of Hindustan you’d best look like one.”
I shifted my seat before the fire until our faces were no more than a foot apart, and was pleasantly aware of smooth shoulders and well-filled tunic bodice, and the faint musky perfume of oiled skin as she leaned forward, black eyes intent. She put out a hand to feel my hair, which fortunately I was wearing long, and flicked at my whiskers with disdain.
“Those must go, and you’ll let your hair grow and oil it with ghi in the Indian fashion.” She ran a finger-tip through my moustache, cool as you please. “Less hair on your upper lip and no beard.” So much for your notions, Napier. “You can speak the tongue of India, at need?”
“More than one of them, sultana,” says I. “And better than my Arabic, for which you must forgive me. It is a long time since I was among the badawi.”
“You speak it well enough,” says she. “Why do you call me sultana? I am no queen.”
“You look like one.” It’s a compliment I’ve found useful with barbarian ladies, and it made this one laugh with a curl of those enchanting lips that looked as though they’d been carved from purple marble.
“That has been said to me before,” says she, “and surely you have said it to others.” She sat back, folding her long legs beneath her, mocking me. “Well, Khasim Tamwar, for so I must think of you now, you are a very handsome rogue of a horse-trader with a tongue to match, and now that we’ve exchanged our compliments we can leave flirting for the moment and be serious.”
Napier was right; she was unusual. Talking to her in my halting Arabic, and accustoming my ears to hers, so musically different in accent from the guttural desert speech, I found her a bewildering contradiction: she looked like a noble savage, a primitive from out yonder, but with a thoroughly worldly mind, unless I was much mistaken, and while she bore herself with the freedom and authority of a man, she was as conscious of her sex and how to use it as any coquette on the boulevards.
She’d charmed Napier, no question, which I’d have thought nigh impossible for a half-naked female savage toting a spear, but he’d referred to her, hesitantly, as “Madam” and inclined his head gallantly over her hand on parting. And he’d been ready to consign me, and the fate of my mission, to her without a qualm, apparently; you know how bare had been his instructions to me, and it was only at the last minute that he’d touched on the vital matter of how I should communicate with him after I’d reached Queen Masteeat. If all went well with her, no doubt she’d provide a messenger; if things went wrong … well, we’d just have to wait and see, what?
I doubt if I’ve ever been sent into the deep field with a more definite object and less instruction on how to attain it, but now that we were under way, sitting round a camp-fire a mile or so from Mai Dehar, I felt encouraged by the way Uliba-Wark had taken things in her stride: one moment I’d been wrapping the money-belt of two hundred dollars under my sash, being bidden God speed by Napier and having my hand mangled by Speedy – and the next we were out in the chill dark, her two Ab escorts hasting ahead up the hill, dim shadows disappearing over the crest behind the camp. She hadn’t even motioned me to follow, just a glance to make sure I was keeping pace with her. In a moment we’d passed beyond the glow of the camp, and I’d lost her in the gloom until a slim hand closed on mine, leading me at a swift walk – and that guidance, steady and sure, had confirmed what I’d said to Napier: she knew her business.
She’d picked her way over the broken ground without a check, to this little hollow in the lee of a cliff where a fire burned, and the escorts were waiting with four picketed horses. They had food and drink ready on a wooden platter, and with only Napier’s sandwiches inside me I was sharp set. There was a curried pasty which Uliba-Wark divided among the four of us, and some delicious little balls like the bittebolle they serve in Holland, only these weren’t meat but, as I discovered on inquiry, powdered locusts bound with fat. It was too late by then, so I calmed my stomach with some of the liquor they call tej, which is a fermentation of honey and barley, guaranteed to put you under the table if you ain’t careful, but capital in moderation.
As we ate I studied the escorts, and a formidable pair they were, tall, splendidly built, black as night but not negroid with their long heads and chins and straight noses. They bore the curved swords and spears common to all Ab warriors, and one had a short bow and quiver of darts, but their shamas carried the red border which marked them as of the better class, and one wore the silver gauntlets which I later discovered were emblems of knighthood. Even so, he spoke only when Uliba-Wark addressed him, in Amharic, replying with respect, and saluting her gravely when the meal was done and she sent them out of earshot so that she could make her appraisal of my appearance, as I’ve told you, and then discuss our next move.
“Presently we shall ride to my husband’s citadel, which we must reach before dawn. We rest here only because there are things I should tell you without delay. First, if harm should befall, or we should be separated on our journey, you must ride straight for Lake Tana. It is two hundred miles from here, due south-west – you have a compass? Good. There you will follow the east bank of the lake as far as Baheerdar where the Abaia river leaves the lake. Wait there until I come or send word.”
“Hold on – what should separate us? How many of us will there be?”
“The four of us … then only you and I. We are to be secret, remember?”
“Yes, I know, but … you spoke of harm. Is it likely … before we reach wherever Queen Masteeat is, I mean?”
If I sounded anxious, well, I was. It seemed to amuse her.
“Habesh is a perilous place at any time, and more so for me. They must have told you that Gobayzy of Lasta holds my husband prisoner – and he would gladly hold me also. His armed bands are in our way south, and I have other enemies … and some who would be friends, aye, closer friends than I would wish, eager to replace my absent lord.” She was laughing, bigod. “Oh, I am not a safe companion, farangi! But I know the way to Queen Masteeat, and the Basha Fallaka could trust no one else. So … do you fear to travel with me?”
I do like saucy bitches, and they didn’t come saucier than this one, lounging in the firelight which turned her naked limbs to gold, knowing precisely the effect she was having on me. And a moment ago she’d been telling me not to flirt. So I gave her my Flashiest leer.
“I might ask you the same question, sultana. I can be a dangerous companion, too – especially for a defenceless female without a man to protect her. D’you miss your husband, by the way?”
The black eyes widened – and so did the lazy smile. “I do not miss him at all,” murmurs she, with a little chuckle. “But do you truly think I am defenceless?”
One of the things that has always enchanted me about African women with an appetite is that they don’t waste time before indulging it. Where their European sisters have to be jollied into the supine position, often over weeks like my fat fraulein, ladies of colour tend to make straight for the mutton – I think of Ranavalona of Madagascar who had me fornicating under water within a few minutes of our meeting, Black Aphrodite in the buffalo wallow, and dear Mrs Popplewell who couldn’t wait to get the door shut, hardly. And here was this elegant barbarian giving an invitation if ever I heard one – and she’d even got her escorts out of the way.
“It depends who’s attacking you,” says I, and leaning close to her I took that voluptuous lower lip between both of mine, very gently at first, and then, as her mouth stirred, interested-like, my better nature asserted itself and I was about to apply the Flashman half-nelson (buttock in one hand, tit in t’other) when she drew her head back from mine, without undue haste, surveyed me calmly for a moment, then took my face between her hands, and kissed me lightly, with a touch of her tongue along my lips.
“What is the name of the place on Lake Tana where you are to wait for me?” she asked. “You have forgotten. A little dalliance, a wanton kiss, and it has gone from your mind like chaff in the wind –”
“Baheerdar,” says I, “where the Abai river leaves the east bank of Lake Tana,” and would have gone for her in earnest, but she burst out laughing and slid from my grasp, catching my wrists in hands surprisingly strong. “No, enough! This is not the place, or the occasion, and we have long miles to travel before dawn.” To my astonishment she held out a hand, inviting me to shake it. “I should have known better than to doubt one who has the trust of the Basha Fallaka and the wise old soldier who smiles.”
She was smiling herself now without mockery, and it’s how I think of her still, the proud Ethiopian head with its laughing eyes, and the lovely oiled limbs shining in the firelight. “Perhaps we shall be dangerous for each other,” says she. “But I think we shall travel well together.”
I know when to let it be, so I accepted her handshake and asked if she had any further instructions for me. She thought for a moment, and the laughter went out of her eyes. “One thing more. I know you have been at war since before I was born, and are a seasoned soldier accustomed to command. But you do not know Habesh. I do, and on our journey my word must be law. If there is danger of a sudden, and I command, you obey at once, without question. Is it so?”
I knew from her look that she was half expecting an argument, so I didn’t give her one, but nodded grave-faced and touched my brow in acknowledgment. “In your own words, Uliba-Wark … I think we shall travel well together.” She liked that, as I meant she should.
It was close on midnight, and the chill of the late evening was turning to bitter cold as we made ready for the road. The two escorts had materialised from the dark without being summoned so far as I could see, and they saddled the horses and doused the fire. The knightly one spoke to Uliba in Amharic, pointing off into the dark, evidently suggesting a line of march. They conversed for a minute, she shook her head, and he gave a little shrug as though to say “Well, please yourself, but …” and signed to his mate to take the lead. So we left the little hollow, Uliba riding second, myself third, and the knight in the rear. It was slow going at first, in pitch darkness over uneven stony ground, but after an hour the moon rose, and Uliba had us moving at a steady canter.
It was the first time since arriving in Napier’s camp that I’d had a decent spell for reflection, and by rights I should have had two foods for thought: one, how on earth I was going to keep a whole skin in the trials ahead, and two, a pleasant daydream in which I showed the imperious Madam Uliba that while she might command in emergencies, she’d take orders from Flashy when it came to thrashing the mattress. But I couldn’t give proper attention to either, because as we rode through the still dark, frozen by the biting wind despite our cloaks, I felt a growing unease that I couldn’t place. You might say my predicament was cause enough, but ’twasn’t that; unknown danger ahead is one thing, but this was close and imminent, instinct telling me that out there, beyond the shadowy rocks outlined in the moonlight, there was an unseen menace keeping pace with us.
The knight riding rearguard felt it too. Twice he spurred out on the flank, and once approached Uliba-Wark, but got no change, seemingly, for he rode back past me shaking his head. Soon after I heard his hoof-beats cease, and saw he was sitting motionless, head turning as he listened for … what?
When a good scout shows wary, I have conniptions. I couldn’t ask him what was up, so I galloped forward to Uliba and demanded what ailed him.
“He fears for my safety,” says she, “and it makes an old woman of him.”
“He don’t look like a grandmama to me,” says I. “And I ain’t one either – but I know when I’m being dogged!”
“If there were enemies abroad they would have fallen on us before now, not when we are within two miles of the citadel!” scoffs she. “Besides, there is nothing to be seen or heard.”
I might have quoted Kit Carson’s wisdom that it’s when you don’t see or hear the bastards that they’re waiting to drygulch you, but I didn’t need to. At that very moment came the bark of a baboon out in the dark to our left, another bark sounded ahead, Uliba’s head came up in alarm, the Ab who was riding point gave a blood-curdling scream, and the knight came tearing up from the rear, yelling in Amharic. Something told me he wasn’t suggesting that this would be a capital spot for a picnic, and I didn’t need Uliba’s command to put my head down and my heels in and go like billy-be-damned. The leading Ab was toppling from his horse, and as I thundered past him he was floundering on the rocks, howling, with an arrow between his shoulders.
I slid down my screw’s flank, hand on bridle, foot cocked over the saddle, Cheyenne fashion, and not before time, for above me shafts were buzzing like angry hornets, one smacked quivering into the saddle beside my leg, and here was Uliba alongside, crouched low and pointing ahead, and on my other side the knight was galloping full tilt, yelling at her, possibly “I told you so!” in Amharic. It occurred to me briefly that I was in the company of like minds, for neither of them had so much as checked to ask after the arrow-smitten Ab, who was still bawling the odds behind us. Ahead was a narrow gully, and as we swept into it the knight reined his horse back on its haunches and leaped down, sword in hand. He slipped his shield on to his left arm and yelled to Uliba, his teeth bared in a savage grin, shaking his sword in salute.
“On!” cries Uliba fiercely, and she must have been gratified by my prompt obedience. We raced up the gully knee to knee, and then it was down a rocky scree, with our beasts slithering and stumbling, and on to level ground, while faintly behind us the clash of steel mingled with yelling voices, one of them raised in what sounded like a war-cry.
She didn’t check until we’d covered a good half-mile, and then turned to look back. The first dawn light was coming over the ground, but there was no sign of movement at the distant gully.
“Who are they?” I cried. “Not Theodore’s people?”
She gave a little grimace of disgust, drawing the shell-embroidered cloak close about her. “No. One of my suitors and his jackals. They must have been lying in wait while another tracked us and signalled our approach. Sarafa was right, after all.”
“Your escort … who stayed behind?”
She nodded. “He will hold them for a while. He is a very expert swordsman.” Suddenly her voice was weary. “He will be glad to die for my sake.”
Well, there’s one born every minute, but old Colonel Tact muttered something about devotion and greater love and similar tarradiddle, only to be shocked by the most brutal valedictory I’ve ever heard in my life, and damned if she didn’t brush away a tear as she snapped it out.
“He loved my body. And I loved his. And he is dying not for any love of me, but because he made oath to my husband to guard me with his life.” She jerked her reins, wheeling her mount. “Come! Even Sarafa cannot hold them forever.”
Her domestic arrangements were no concern of mine, but I confess I found it singular that her lover should give his life for an oath sworn to a husband for whom she’d said she didn’t care two straws. Deep waters here, evidently, but of less immediate moment than the halloo which was breaking out behind us as a little cavalcade of riders came scrambling down the distant scree. Sarafa had plainly handed in his dixie, and we were off like the wind towards a rocky crest a mile away.
When we’d covered about half the distance I stole a look back and was relieved to see we were holding our own, and I was just demanding of Uliba how far it was to her citadel when I felt my horse stumble, and knew that she’d gone lame. Uliba let out a cry of dismay as the screw staggered, and even as I swung clear, landing on all fours, the thought was in my mind: will she ride on and leave me as she left Sarafa and the unfortunate arrow-fancier?
She didn’t, wheeling and calling to me to mount behind her, which was dam’ sporting and completely useless, since they’d have run us down in a couple of furlongs – they were coming on like the Heavy Brigade, yelling in triumph, half a dozen robed figures brandishing their lances, sure now of a capture and kill.
“Down, sultana!” cries I, drawing the pistol Napier had given me, and seeing what I was at she slipped from the saddle and down beside me as I took cover in a clump of rocks. I was hoping to God our pursuers had no firearms, but even if they had we’d no choice but to make a stand. It was a piece I’d never handled before, an American Joslyn .44 with five shots in the cylinder, any one guaranteed to stop a rhino in its tracks. My immediate aim was to stop a horse, for I’m no Hickok and knew that if I let them come near enough to shoot a rider, and missed him, they’d be all over us.
So I rested the long barrel on a rock, waited with my heart thumping, sighted on the foremost horse, took the pressure, and let fly at thirty yards. The beast went down like a stone, screaming, her rider flew head-first into a boulder and with any luck cracked his skull, and his mates hauled their wind with cries of alarm and sheered off out of range.
“Kill them!” Uliba was blazing with rage. “Shoot the swine! See there – the one with the lion scarf! That is Yando, Gobayzy’s toad! Kill the bastard, I say! Kill him!”
“Not at this range,” says I. “Keep a grip of that bridle, will you? We’re going to need that screw!”
They didn’t have firearms, fortunately, and seemed to be at a loss until their leader, Yando, sent forward a reluctant scout to see how their fallen companion had fared. The fellow came on in little runs from boulder to boulder, while I lay doggo, calming Uliba’s demands that I blow him to damnation. When he reached the fallen body I tried a snap-shot which missed but struck splinters from a rock beside him; he scuttled off in panic, and they made no further sortie, but started shouting at us, and Uliba got to her feet and called back. From the spirited exchanges which ensued, in Amharic, between her and Yando, a burly brute with a hectoring manner, I gathered he was making an informal proposal which she was declining in grossly insulting terms, for from cajoling he passed to threatening and concluded in a veritable passion, jumping up and down, stamping, and hurling his fine lion robe to the ground. I decided to try a long shot at him, and missed again but winged one of his companions, to Uliba’s delight.
That discouraged them, and presently they rode off, Yando shouting what sounded like a mixture of pleas and menaces.
“They will return,” says Uliba. “Yando dare not go back to Gobayzy with a tale of failure. We shall have them round my citadel before night, so the sooner we are within the walls the better.”
She rode her horse and I led my lame screw, and as we went I demanded and got an explanation of our recent stirring encounter. She gave it straight-faced matter-of-fact, as though it were an account of everyday social activities among the smart set – which I guess it was, Abyssinian style.
Her husband, she reminded me, was held prisoner by King Gobayzy of Lasta, who had lustful designs on her and had threatened to have hubby dismembered at length unless she placed herself at his majesty’s disposal. This she had declined to do, so Gobayzy had ordered Yando, a local petty chief, to abduct her. But Yando too had designs on her, and these being troubled times, with Gobayzy at sporadic war with Theodore, had decided to take her for himself, possibly passing her on to Gobayzy later or fobbing him off with some fiction. Hence Yando’s ambush, foiled by resourceful Flashy. Whether her husband remained whole and intact or not, she forgot to mention.
I could see now what she had meant by referring to her “suitors”, and how right she’d been to describe herself as an unsafe travelling companion. Half Abyssinia seemed to be nuts on her, eager to abduct her, and happy to butcher her chance associates, such as myself – and this was the woman who was to guide me through hostile country and present me to her barmy half-sister whom she might well try to depose. By Gad, Speedy could pick ’em, couldn’t he just?
In addition to which, she was the sort who abandoned lovers to their fate, and didn’t seem to care if someone dissected the man she’d sworn to love, honour and obey … but then again, she had a lovely figure, and such legs as the faithful imagine on the houris of paradise.
And she was not without womanly sentiment. “God send that Sarafa died quickly in the fight,” says she. “If he was taken alive Yando will give him a thousand deaths because he was my lover.”
I said Yando might not be aware of that, and she looked at me in astonishment. “Why, Sarafa will taunt him with it!” cries she. “He will throw it in Yando’s face!” She didn’t add “Wouldn’t you?” possibly because she thought the question superfluous.
Once over the ridge we came in sight of the citadel, and it didn’t look any less sinister on second viewing, perched high on a rocky outcrop with a drop of hundreds of feet to the valley below. We reached it in half an hour, and I became aware that it was two towers joined together, six storeys high judging from the window spaces, the farther tower actually projecting out over the void beneath. It was a steep climb to the main door, and before we reached it the womenfolk of the tower were hurrying down to us, full of chatter and alarm, clamouring their questions at Uliba, but sparing a glance for the handsome stranger with the interesting whiskers. I’m not unused to female attention, as you know, but I don’t recall more brazen preening and ogling than I got from Uliba-Wark’s domestics. Plainly they were no strangers to the hayloft and the long grass.
One reason for their shameless glad-eyeing soon became apparent: Uliba-Wark’s stronghold proved to be almost entirely devoid of men, the few there were being either grey-bearded dotards or small boys. Presumably the young ones were away at the civil wars, as conscripts or mercenaries, but I never found out, on account of not speaking the lingo. It’s a damned bore, as you know, for you stand like a tailor’s dummy while the world prattles about you, and worse for me, I think, because I’m used to slinging the batb wherever I am.
They’re mighty strange places, these Abyssinian castles, not unlike our Border peels, with rooms piled on each other like so many boxes connected by stairs that are no better than ladders. Since from what Uliba had said we might have to withstand a siege, I was relieved to find that the main door was a massive affair which it would have taken artillery to breach, and the adobe walls were feet thick, with narrow windows well above ground level, offering a good field of fire. With my Joslyn and fifty rounds I could give a warm reception to anyone toiling up the path to our eyrie.
If I’d had any doubts about Uliba-Wark’s importance, they would have been dispelled by the respect amounting to reverence with which she was treated. They fairly grovelled to her, not only the slaves, who made up half the citadel’s residents, but the free women and the two elderly men who seemed to act as stewards or chamberlains. She delivered a brisk speech to the assembled staff in the great ground-floor hall which seemed to be used as a common room, but what she said was Amharic to me, except at the point where she indicated me, and the whole gang turned in my direction and bowed. When she’d dismissed them I was conducted to an airy chamber on the third floor, bone clean and well if sparsely furnished with a good charpoy,c leather chair, table, wash-stand, rug on the floor and leather curtain on the arrow-slit window – I’ve stayed in country inns at home that were less decent and comfortable.
To my disappointment I was attended by the village idiot supervised by a stout dragon with a moustache who must have been the only Plain Jane in the place, for the dollymops who’d been on hand at our arrival had been typical Ab, which is to say they’d ranged from comely to ravishing. I wondered if Uliba had decided I’d be safer with a fat crone; if so, it wasn’t a bad omen.
Not having had a wink of sleep since our bivouac at Ad Abaga the night before last, I slept the day through, and it was evening when I was summoned to a spacious apartment on the second floor and had my first taste of formal Ab dining. What is the norm, I can’t say, because on later occasions I’ve lounged on cushions on the floor, and sat up at a table like a Christian, but Chez Uliba we reclined on charpoys, Roman orgy fashion, with a low table apiece. But what lent the meal a delightful charm was that the girls waiting on us wore nothing but little aprons of leather laces – I think they had brass collars and a bracelet or two as well, but I can’t say I took much note. You don’t, when your maised is being poured by a lovely little Hebe who rests her bare poont on your shoulder as she stoops to your cup; how I resisted the temptation to turn my head and go munch, I cannot imagine.
If you suppose, by the way, that I am unduly susceptible, you should read the recollections of J. A. St John, Esq., who travelled in Abyssinia in the 1840s and appears to have spent most of his time goggling at boobies, on which he was obviously an authority. He has drooling descriptions of slave-girls, and a most scholarly passage in which he compares Ethiopian juggs to Egyptian ones, and finds the former “more finely shaped and better placed”; the negro bosom he discounts as having a tendency to droop, which suggests to me that he never got the length of Zululand or Dahomey where the ladies give glorious meaning to the term double-breasted. That by the way. I admire the female form myself, but J. A. St John needed a course of cold baths if you ask me.29
To resume. The meal consisted of two kinds of beef, the cooked variety which was roasted black with peppers, and the raw stuff which they call brundo – it’s not bad at all when served with chutney, but I didn’t try it at the time. There was fruit for dessert, and the inevitable tej dispensed from long-necked flasks by the bouncing boobies brigade, and all the sweeter for that.
The two chamberlain chaps shared our nuncheon, as did two of the females, tawny languid ladies who weren’t domestics but more like companions to the mistress of the house, for they talked to her on equal terms, were well dressed and decked with costume jewellery, and plainly thought no small beer of themselves. But then all Ab women do, with cause; the waitresses, whom I spent the time admiring because Uliba didn’t bother to translate the table talk for my benefit, showed no embarrassment at being looked at, the saucy little dears. Uliba, by the way, had discarded her tunic in favour of an exquisite saffron robe which looked like silk, worn toga-fashion with one bare shoulder and two huge hooped golden earrings under her braids.
Just as the meal was ending there was a commotion in the room below, with female voices raised in anger, and presently one of the maids brought up the ladder-stair a girl who was the peachiest thing I’d seen so far, even in that company. She was tawnier than most, but with a long lovely Egyptian face and huge eyes which at the moment were disfigured by weeping. In fact, she seemed torn between grief and rage, sobbing into her cupped hands one moment, shaking her fists and raging the next, to the scandal of the women attendants and the wrath of the elders, all of whom contributed to the row, so that it was bedlam until Uliba snapped them into silence.
She spoke sharply to the weeping girl, who answered sullenly at first, then furiously, stamping and giving Uliba what sounded like dog’s abuse, to which she responded with an icy anger which changed the beauty’s tune altogether, for she flung herself down by Uliba’s charpoy, wailing and smothering her feet with kisses. Uliba spoke to her quietly, and the wench rose, drying her eyes, but then suddenly rounded on me of all people, letting fly another stormy volley, at which Uliba lost her temper altogether, boxed her ears, and sent her squalling down the stair again. The ladies and elders withdrew, leaving the two of us alone while the pap-flashers cleared away the dishes.
I was all agog to know what had ailed the girl. Uliba was still snarling in Amharic as she disposed herself on her charpoy again, but then she began to laugh while her tej cup was refilled, and informed me that the hysteric had been Sarafa’s woman, now presumably a widow, and consequently madder than a cut snake.
“I told her he had stayed to front Yando’s fighters of his own free choice, and the insolent bitch swore that you should have stayed also, but she supposed that you had supplanted Sarafa in my bed, and so were precious to me!” She banged her cup down, angry and merry together. “Ha! And then, because it is not known whether Sarafa is dead or taken, she falls to pleading with me to bargain with Yando for his life. Bemouti!e Well she knows what price I’d have to pay, and when I refuse her she calls me a heartless whore that stole her man and left him to die because I had found a new lover! And this from a slave-girl, to me!”
I agreed that discipline below stairs had gone to the devil these days. “So she wasn’t Sarafa’s wife, then, just his bit o’ black velvet?”
“His concubine, once – as though that gave her the right to rail at me!” She soothed herself with a sip of tej. “I should have the little slut whipped! Or sold to the Egyptians!”
What struck me, of course, was that the grieving tart had assumed that I was Uliba’s latest mount. Natural enough, perhaps, but it prompted a disquieting thought. What with all the to-do of ambush and flight, I’d given no thought to the part I was meant to be playing, and hadn’t even had the chance to remove my whiskers or take the first steps in transforming myself into Khasim Tamwar.
“Does she know who I am – what I am? Do the rest of them, those two old files, or the women?”
“To them you are an Indian traveller. So I have told them, and why should they not believe it? They have never seen an Englishman before. It is when we go south, among the knowing folk, that your disguise must be complete.”
“And when will we go?”
“Perhaps the day after tomorrow, if there is no sign of Yando. That will give time to change the hair on your face while we rest and prepare for the journey.”
“Very good, sultana … Now, tell me, what precisely did you say to that noisy young woman when she accused me of being your lover?”
She regarded me with open amusement as she reclined on her charpoy, a very picture of sexual impudence in her silken robe with one shapely thigh and bare shoulder displayed, and if it hadn’t been for the maids chirruping among the dishes at the end of the room I’d have made a plunge at her. To no avail, judging by her reply.
“Why, I told her the truth – that you were no lover of mine. The brazen wretch swore that I lied, and when I said I had known you but a few hours, and on horseback, too, she cried, ‘Aye, but what of the future?’ I said that was in God’s hands, and she might sleep at my chamber door tonight if she wished, to be sure that no lover came creeping in to me.”
“That was dam’ considerate of you! But I tell you what, sultana, I’ve a notion worth two o’ that – why don’t she sleep at my chamber door, eh? Now, that would really convince her!”
She considered me for a long moment, the strong disdainful face impassive, and then a little imp began to play at the corner of the carved mouth and she swung her legs off the charpoy in one graceful movement and stood looking down at me.
“I told her the future was in God’s hands,” says she coolly. “It is also in mine.” And with that she stooped, brushed her lips on mine, and walked swiftly away, leaving me to the shrill giggles of the maids and the reflection that she was a teasing, provoking, wanton baggage adept at stoking what old Arnold called the flames of lust … and giving me a gentle hint that the fire brigade would be along shortly.
And it was, as I’d expected. I know women, you see, and long experience had taught me that when they start playing Delilah it’s a sure sign that they’re coming to the boil themselves. So it came as no surprise, after I’d said my prayers (you may guess their content) and was drowsing in happy anticipation on the charpoy in my peaceful chamber, listening to the distant creaks and murmurs of the sleeping castle, and the occasional cry of some night beast out yonder, that a soft footfall should approach my room, and a gentle draught stir the air as the door opened and softly closed again.
But I’m a wary bird, and my hand was on the Joslyn beneath my pillow, only to let go as a tall figure advanced silently into the shaft of moonlight from the high narrow window – a figure in a robe of saffron silk which slid to the floor without a sound, revealing a splendid golden body swaying slowly towards me, slim hands clasped over her breasts and then falling away to caress her hips as she passed from the moonbeam into the shadow, kneeling on the charpoy and leaning down over me, her expert fingers and those wonderful lips questing across my body.
Ordinarily I’d have said “Good evening”, or “Come in, my dear, it’s your birthday”, but she had insisted, you remember, that in moments of crisis she and she alone should take the lead, so what could a dutiful soldier do but lie to attention as she made a meal of me, teasing and fondling until I was fit to burst, at which point fortunately she began to conduct herself like some randy Roman empress in a rogering competition, bestriding me furiously with ecstatic cries, those unseen lips finding mine at last as she plunged and writhed in a perfect frenzy, grunting and gasping with an abandon which I shouldn’t have thought her style at all, but you never can tell how they’ll behave in the happy throes, and when she concluded her performance by throwing up her arms and screaming, I confess I entered into the spirit of the thing uninvited, going “brrr!” between her boobies as she collapsed whimpering on my ruined carcase.
“Uliba-Wark,” says I, when I’d got my breath back, “from the moment we met I knew our love was fated, and I’m here to tell you you’re the best ride I’ve had since I left home.” For I like to give credit where it’s due, you know.
I spoke in Arabic, and she replied in a distracted way in what sounded like Amharic, heaving herself up to full stretch above me, and for the first time her head was in the moonlight – the beautiful Egyptian head and shining black eyes of Sarafa’s woman. She, too, was breathing with difficulty, smiling at me in a most ingratiating way and murmuring a question which I could only suppose was a plea for a high mark from the examiner.
Well, she’d earned it, eighty per cent at least, even if my immediate instinct had been to cry “Sold! Impostor!” But that would have been downright discourteous, after the little darling had exerted herself so splendidly, and I was too blissfully sated to tax myself with wondering why Uliba-Wark had put her up to it, or why, so soon after her hysterics of grief for Sarafa, his bint had been ready, nay eager, to pleasure herself groggy with your correspondent – on whom, I may say, she worked her wicked will twice more before daybreak, the naughty little glutton. Seeking consolation? Obeying mistress’s orders? Beglamoured by Flashy’s whiskers? Who could tell?
A moment ago I said that I knew women … and I should have added that what I know is that there’s no explaining ’em, or understanding ’em, or telling what they’ll do next. If you’re lucky enough to be bedded unexpected with a beauty like Sarafa’s wench, you must just follow the wisdom imparted to me by an Oriental lady of my acquaintance, after she’d filled me with hasheesh and ridden me ruined: “Lick up the honey, stranger, and ask no questions.”
a The Blue Nile.
b Speak the language (Army slang, from Hind.).
c Native frame-and-cord bedstead.
d Mead.
e By my death!