I spent a week as “guest” of the Emperor Theodore, and it was one of the longest of my life. How our prisoners, Cameron and Co., endured it for two solid years is beyond me. There may be nothing worse than being in the hands of a deadly enemy, but finding yourself at the mercy of a lunatic runs it close, for there’s no telling what he’ll do – load you with chains or send you presents, threaten you with flogging or swear eternal friendship over a glass of tej, discuss the causes of the American Civil War or invite you to kill him ’cos life has become a burden – that was Theodore, the maniac who held our lives in his hands, torturing our gracious Queen’s consul half to death, and firing twenty-one-gun salutes to celebrate her birthday. Not the worst host I’ve ever been billeted on, perhaps, but quite the most unpredictable.
There was no way of foreseeing, as they brought me away from that place of slaughter where the Gallas died, that those seven days of horror and hope, of living on the razor’s edge, were to see the final act of the astonishing melodrama, part-tragedy, part-farce, known as the Abyssinian War. For me, it was the last mile of that wild journey that had begun a few short months ago in Trieste. I tell you it as it was; it’s all true.
It was still pitch dark and drizzling gently when we set out, Miriam and I and a few others mounted, with the rest of those female crocodiles trotting behind. I didn’t reckon we’d gone far by sunrise, five miles perhaps, and then we were in a stony desolation of tall cliffs and deep ravines, rounding a mighty eminence of rock on our right hand and following a saddle that connected it to another towering flat-topped height a mile or so ahead, which came into full view as the dawn mist lifted and the sunlight struck it and turned it for a moment into a mountain of gold. I asked where we were.
“Selassie,” says Miriam, pointing ahead and then jerking a thumb at the cliff to our right. “Fala.”
These were the names I’d heard only yesterday, in Fasil’s room at Masteeat’s camp … yesterday, dear God, it seemed an eternity ago! I pictured that sand-table model and tried to match it to what I was seeing … yes, there below us was the road that Theodore had made for his artillery, winding between Fala and Selassie, with folk and carts moving along it, and gangs of what looked like men in chains. As near as I could judge we were coming from the south-west, and if you look at my sketch you’ll see what was about to come into my view as we rounded Fala.
Beyond the saddle, at the foot of Selassie, was a group of tents – or pavilions, rather, for they were larger and set apart from the camp of little bivouacs at the northern end of the long plain that I knew must be Islamgee. And at the far southern end of that plain, less than two miles from where I sat transfixed, was a great towering cylinder of black rock sprouting out of the plain like a column fashioned by some giant sculptor – and the reason I sat transfixed was that I knew what it was before Miriam said the word: “Magdala”.
So there it was, the eagle’s nest, the stronghold where Mad King Theodore had held a handful of British and German captives for four years, his last outpost where he would be trapped with nowhere to run, for I didn’t doubt that Masteeat’s regiments would even now be marching to cut him off from that wilderness of peaks in the hazy southern distance. And there, below me on Islamgee, was his army – how many strong? Seven thousand, ten? Was he waiting there to meet Napier in the open, or would he retire into Magdala, pulling up the metaphorical drawbridge – gad, if he did, that rock would be a bastard to take by storm! Or might he even march to meet Napier, who must be close by now, surely … And on the thought I turned to gaze north-westwards, straining my eyes across that rock-strewn plain that stretched away across the Arogee plateau directly below us, five miles and more to a distant dark line running across our front, which I knew must be the chasm of the Bechelo. From it the King’s Road wound across the undulating land to Arogee and between Fala and Selassie to the very foot of Magdala.
Surveying that broken ground, bordered by hills and gullies, it struck me that Theodore could do a sight worse than choose the third course – advance beyond Arogee to lay ambushes in the rough country bordering his road; better that than being besieged in Magdala or meeting our people on the flat plain of Islamgee where they’d make mincemeat of him in open battle …
Miriam gave a cry of excitement and stood in her stirrups, shading her eyes and pointing – and as I followed her finger I felt that same wild thrill of disbelief giving way to joy that I’d felt in the garden of Lucknow when we’d heard, ever so faint on the morning air, the far whisper of the pipes that told us Campbell was coming. For it was there, through that shimmering heat haze and the last wisps of mist, on the lip of the plateau beyond the Bechelo … as though to a cue, the last actor was coming on to the stage, with no sound of pipes or rumble of gunfire, heralded only by tiny shining pinpricks of light barely visible in the dusty distance, and I’d ha’ given a thousand for a glass just then, for I’d seen ’em too often to be mistaken – lance-points catching the morning sun … But whose? Bengali Native Cavalry? Scindees? For instinct told me they must be ours, and now it was confirmed by eyes that were younger and sharper than mine.
“Farangi!” cries Miriam, with an added oath. “On Dalanta! The Negus was right – those vermin of Dawunt and Dalanta should have been destroyed! They have lain down before your people! Aiee, they come! See there, they come!”
“How d’ye know they’re my people?”
I didn’t know, then, that Theodore had fallen out with the tribes on the Dalanta plateau, which lies north of the Bechelo river, slap across Napier’s line of march, and that the obliging niggers had cleared the way for us.42 But I could read the consternation on Miriam’s pretty face.
“They can be no one else! We had word when they crossed the Jedda three days ago; now they are on the lip of the Bechelo, and once across the ravine …” She gave a disgusted shrug and spat, and I gazed towards salvation and concluded reluctantly that I daren’t try a run for it, not on a miserable Ab screw that was bound to founder within a mile. Besides, all I had to do was wait; Napier was far closer than I’d dared to hope, and even with the Bechelo chasm to cross, which I knew from Fasil’s model was three-quarters of a mile deep, he couldn’t be more than two days’ march away. I absolutely smacked my palm in delight, and Miriam cried out scornfully:
“Ha! You rejoice at their coming? But what of their going, when the Amhara drive them like sheep back to Egypt?”
I knew she didn’t believe it, just from her sullen scowl. “If the Amhara are mad enough to try, they’ll find those sheep are wolves,” I told her. “They’ll eat your army of peasants at a bite … no, they’ll not need to, for their guns will blow your rabble to bits, and the elephants will trample the dead.” Unless Theodore has the sense to go to ground on that bloody rock, I might have added, but didn’t.
“Elephants!” She shuddered; they’re mortal scared of jumbo, you see, being convinced he can’t be tamed. She looked thoughtful, and as we rode on I guessed she was wondering how she’d fare in person if Theodore took a hiding. Sure enough, after a moment:
“Suppose your people triumphed … what would they do to Habesh?”
“To a pretty lass like you, you mean? I know what I’d do.”
“No!” cries she fiercely. “You would protect me!”
“Would I now? In gratitude for wanting me fed into the fire?”
“You were a prisoner then!” She rode closer, and said in a low tone, “Now, if your people triumphed, you could do me good … and I would be grateful.” Softly, with her knee against mine, if you please.
“My dear, you’re a girl after my own heart,” says I. “But what if your side won, eh? They won’t … but just suppose …”
“Then I would protect you from the wrath of Theodore! As I shall, even now.”
“I doubt if he’ll be wrathful with me just now,” says I. “Not with the British Army on his doorstep.”
She stared at me. “You do not know him! Oh, believe me, ras of the British, you know him not at all!”
In fact, she was wrong; I did know him, all too well – but I’d forgotten, you see. I thought of him as the well-spoken soldier I’d mistaken for a bodyguard – given to sudden bursts of temper over trifles, if you like, and didn’t care two straws about roasting an enemy, but that’s African war for you. But I’d not associated that man, who’d seemed to be sane enough, and a reasoning being, with the ghastly tales I’d heard of atrocities, of women and children massacred, of frightful tortures practised on countless victims … I’d forgotten Gondar, and that dreadful garden of the crucified. Yet that horror had been the work of the intelligent, earnest man who’d cross-examined me so briskly, and smiled and joked and dallied with the bonny bint riding beside me. It didn’t seem possible … until we rode down from the Fala saddle to the camp below Selassie. Then it became all too horribly plain.
The first intimation came when we had to halt at the King’s Road while a procession of Ab prisoners shuffled by. There were hundreds of them, in the most appalling condition, starved skeletons virtually naked, many of them covered in loathsome sores. Every one of them was chained, some in fetters so heavy they could barely drag them along, others manacled wrist to ankle with chains so short they couldn’t stand upright, but must totter along bent double. The stench was fit to choke you, and to complete their misery they were driven along by burly guards wielding girafs, the hippo-hide whips which are the Ab equivalent of the Russian knout.
“Who in God’s name are they?” I asked Miriam. “Rebels?”
“Huh, you’ll find no living rebels here!” says she. “They die where they’re taken.”
“So these are criminals? What the hell have they done?”
Her answer defied belief, but it’s what she said, with a shrug, and I was to learn that it was gospel true.
“What have they done? Smiled when the King was in ill humour – or scowled when he was merry. Served him a dish that was not to his taste, or mentioned tape-worm medicine, or spoken well of someone he dislikes, or came in his way when he was drunk.” She laughed at my incredulity. “You don’t believe me? Indeed, you do not know him!”
“By God, I don’t believe you!”
“You will.” She surveyed the last of that pitiful coffle as it staggered past. “True, not all have committed those offences; some merely had the misfortune to be related to the offenders. Oh, yes, that is enough, truly.”
“But … for smiling? Tape-worm medicine? And he takes it out on whole families? How long have they been chained, for God’s sake?”
“Some, for years. Why he brings them down now from their prison on Magdala, who knows? Perhaps to preach to them. Perhaps to kill them before your army arrives. Perhaps to free them. We shall see.”
“He must be bloody mad!” cries I. Well, I’d heard it said often enough, but you don’t think what it means until you see the truth of it at point-blank. And here was this lovely lass, riding at ease in the warm sunlight, tits at the high port and talking cool as you please of a monster to rival Caligula. She must have read the stricken question in my eye, for she nodded.
“Yes, he is a dangerous master, as his ministers and generals will tell you.” She smiled, chin up. “But those who know him, and his moods, and how to please him, find in him a devout and kind and loving friend. But even they must learn to turn his anger, for it is terrible, and when the fit is on him he is no better than a beast. Is that mad, Ras Flashman of the British? Come!”
She led the way across the road to the nearest pavilions, the first of which was the great red royal marquee with carpets spread on the ground about it, guards on the fly, and servants everywhere. Groups of men in red-fringed shamas were gathered before the other large pavilions, evidently waiting, and the plain beyond was covered almost to Magdala by a forest of bivouacs and shelters. The army of Abyssinia was at rest, thousands of men loafing and talking and brewing their billies like any other soldiers, save that these were black, and instead of shirt-sleeves and dangling galluses there were white shamas and tight leggings, and as well as the piled firearms there were stands of spears and racks of sickle-bladed swords. They looked well, as the Gallas had done, and perhaps as soon as tomorrow they would go out to face the finest army in the world under one of the great captains. And how many of them would come well to bed-time? How many Scindees and King’s Own and Dukes and Baluch, for that matter? Fall out, Flashy, thinks I, this ain’t your party; lie low, keep quiet, and above all, stay alive.
Easier said than done. There was a stiffening to attention of the groups outside the tents, the servants scurried out of sight, and Miriam suddenly whipped a noose over my head and thrust me out of my saddle crying, “Get down! Be still!” as down the hill came a procession in haste. In front was Theodore, with a chico holding a brolly over his head, and in his wake a motley crowd of guards and attendants. I staggered but kept my feet, and was about to protest when Theodore, striding full tilt and shouting abuse at two skinny wretches hurrying alongside him (astrologers, I learned later) caught sight of me, and let out a yell of anger.
“You! You have betrayed me! You lied to me!” He came at me almost at the run, fists clenched and by the grace of God he was carrying nothing more lethal than a telescope, which he flourished in my face. “You swore you had no talk with the Gallas – yet they have marched, in their thousands, and lie now below Sangalat! How came they there? By Masteeat’s order! And who prompted her?” He flung out a hand in denunciation. “You! As Christ is my witness, I had nothing in my heart against you! Judas! Judas!” bawls he, and swung up the telescope to brain me.
Two things saved me. One was Miriam’s horse; startled by someone raving and capering a yard away, it reared, and since Miriam was holding t’other end of my noose I was jerked violently off my feet and went down half-strangled, but out of harm’s way. My other saviour was one of the astrologers who ran in front of Theodore, waving his arms and crying out, possibly a warning that the omens weren’t favourable for cracking heads – in which case he was dead right, for Theodore smashed him full on the crown with the telescope, and it was a lethal weapon after all, for it stove him in like an eggshell.
It had happened in seconds. I realised that Miriam, seeing him come down the hill in a towering rage, had sensibly decided that the more captive I looked the better, so she’d noosed me – and in an instant there beside me lay the corpse of the poor prophet with his skull leaking, and Theodore was dashing down the telescope, staring at his victim, and suddenly burying his face in his hands and running howling towards the red pavilion. He seized a spear from one of the guards on the fly, and began to stab the surrounding carpet, cursing something fearful. Then he flung the spear aside, shook his fists at heaven, and darted into the pavilion … and the assembled military and civilian worthies stood silent and thoughtful, determined not to look at each other, like a convocation of clergy when the bishop has farted extempore. They knew the unwisdom of noticing, having seen his royal tantrums before.
“Come!” snaps Miriam, and led me quickly in behind one of the nearest tents, where she dismounted and removed the noose. “Sit on the ground, say nothing. All may yet be well. I must see Damash.” And off she went, leaving me in some disquiet, sitting obediently and trembling like an aspen, an object of studied lack of interest to the aforementioned worthies; they acted as though I weren’t there, which suited admirably: I’d no wish to be noticed, especially by the frothing maniac in the red pavilion. I’d seen his quicksilver change of mood during the night, from mild to angry, and the sight of those wretched prisoners, and Miriam’s explanation, had convinced me that he was fairly off his rocker … but none of that had prepared me for the homicidal rage of a moment ago. That settled it. He was a murderous maniac – and I was his detested prisoner.
I’ll not weary you with my emotions as I sat there in the sun, or my terrors when presently a squad of burly ruffians in leather tunics arrived, bearing manacles, and marched me away from the tents to a little stockade within which stood a small thatched hut with a heavy door. They thrust me in, ignoring my inquiries for Miriam and Damash (I didn’t ask for Theodore), chained me, and left me in stuffy half-darkness to meditate on the mutability of human affairs, with a couple of spearmen outside.
Some things were plain enough – Masteeat and Fasil had lost no time, the Galla cordon that Napier had wanted was in place, and Theodore knew it; since he’d been on top of Selassie with a telescope he would also know that Napier was within striking distance, and that the game was up with a vengeance – hence, no doubt, his irritable conduct to your correspondent. And whether he chose to fight, fly, or laager on top of Magdala, the pressing question was what he would do with his European prisoners – cut our throats out of spite and die with harness on his back, or hand us over in reasonably good condition like a sensible chap … which he wasn’t.
There was no way of even guessing. On the one hand, here I was in chains, which boded no good, but didn’t suggest hasty execution, and Miriam had said all might yet be well. And since Theodore had kept our folk captive, often in chains, for years without killing any of ’em bar a couple of Ab servants, it looked odds on that he’d spare our lives … but then again, the man was barmy, and there was no telling what he might do now that his back was well and truly to the wall.
To keep my mind from glum speculation, I tried to remember how many times I’d been in chains before. Four or five, perhaps? Proper chains, that is, not the darbies used by the A Division peelers to restrain obstreperous revellers, but your genuine bilboes. There’d been Russia, when Ignatieff had caged me half across Central Asia, and the Gwalior bottle dungeon, and China when the Imps collared me before Pekin, and Afghanistan when that frightful bitch Narreeman was going to qualify me for the Hareem Handicap … at which point it struck me that my present situation, while most disturbing, was grace itself compared to these unhappy memories. I could only hope that I’d not be called on to walk in my new fetters, for they were easily the heaviest I’d ever worn, wrist manacles like double horseshoes, ankle irons two inches thick, and all connected by chain that could have lifted an anchor. And Cameron and Co. had had to wear these for months! Well, I’d not have to carry ’em for more than a day or two, one way or the other … and on this consoling thought I fell asleep – something I hadn’t done, bar my brief drunken stupor following Masteeat’s feast, for more than forty-eight hours.
A dazzling light and commotion at the doorway brought me back to life, trying to start up and failing thanks to the weight of those infernal clanking manacles. The door was open, someone was hanging a lamp from the roof beam and retiring, and as the door crashed shut again I was aware of a swaying figure in the middle of the room, a man whose shama had slipped from his shoulders so that he was bare to the waist. He gave a mighty belch and advanced unsteadily towards me, half-tripping over a large basket of bottles and food which the lamplighter had placed on the floor.
“How are you, how are you, my dear friend, my best of friends?” cries this apparition, whooping with laughter. “Thank God I am well! Are you well? Ah, my good friend, my heart rejoices to see you, for the friendship I have entertained for you has not diminished. Be of good cheer, for though you are bound with fetters, as Samson and Zedekiah were bound, even with fetters of brass, yet … yet …” His voice trailed away, muttering: “… and … and, who else? Yes, Jehoiakim also was bound, and Manasseh! They were bound, by the power of God! And so was Joseph, who was sold for a servant, whose feet they hurt with fetters, and he was laid in iron.” He gave another crazy laugh and almost fell over. “But have no fear, for the hour of your deliverance is at hand!”
My eyes had recovered from the lamp-glare, but I could hardly believe them, for the newcomer was Theodore, King of Abyssinia, and he was staggering drunk.
Just as Peacock’s Mr McQuedy, discussing condiments for fish, could imagine no relish superior to lobster sauce and oyster sauce, so I, on the subject of bizarre conversation, had never thought to meet a crazier discourser than Hung-Hsiu-Chuan, leader of the Taiping Rebellion, who was hopelessly mad, or Mangas Colorado, chief of the Mimbreno Apache, who was hopelessly drunk. I discovered in that hut under Selassie that I’d been quite wrong; King Theodore was both hopelessly mad and drunk, and could have given either of them a head start and a beating in the race to Alice’s tea party. If you’ve the patience, and know my earlier papers, you may make comparison with the following record of our chat, from the moment he plumped down, hiccoughing and beaming, in front of me, and spilled out the contents of the basket of food and drink.
I’d had no opportunity to study him at close quarters before, for our first meeting had been by flickering firelight, and at our second his face had been so contorted with rage as to be nigh unrecognisable. Now, with his black skin (for he was blacker than most Abs) shining with sweat, his eyes staring and bloodshot, and his mouth grinning slackly, he wasn’t your portrait painter’s ideal model; still I could weigh him well enough, and what I saw through the haze of booze and confusion was not an ordinary man.
He had force, no other word for it, a pent-up strength that was as much in the mind as in the body – and the body was impressive enough. He wasn’t above middle height, but he had the shoulders and arms of a middleweight wrestler, a chest like a barrel tapering to a slim waist; there wasn’t the least lip of flesh above his waistband. Groggy with drink as he was, I guessed he could move like a striking snake if need be; when he poured out cups of tej his hands were deft and steady.
But the real power was in the eyes, bright and piercing despite the blood-streaks and the occasional drunken tears; there was no tipsy vacancy about them – and that in a way was the shocking thing, ’cos by rights he should have been goggling like the last man out of the canteen. Drunk, yes, but it didn’t suit him; you felt he’d no business to be bottled. It was like seeing the Prince Consort or Gladstone taking the width of the pavement singing “One-eyed Riley”. And he was a sight handsomer than either of ’em; forget his tendency to slobber and stare and he was a deuced good-looking fellow, fifty or thereabouts with a pepper-and-salt dusting to grizzle his hair, which was braided in tails down the back of his head; his nose was hooked and prominent and his lips were thin when his mouth was shut, which it wasn’t at the moment. But his normal expression, when sober, was pleasant and alert. When he went mad, which he was liable to do at any moment, he looked like a fiend out of Hell.
So that’s the Emperor Theodore, as best I can limn him for you. One last thing before I get to his chat: I’ve never seen a black face that looked less African: slim, fine-boned, like a dusky Duke of Wellington. Oh, and he had a curious habit, just occasionally, of spitting thoughtfully when he spoke; just a sideways ptt! of the lips, disconcerting until you got used to it.
Theodore [jovial, passing a cup of tej]: We shall drink the vintage of the grapes of Ephraim! Ah, my friend, I have been impatient to see you, and to bring you comfort in the prison-house. Even as the Lord looked down from the height of his sanctuary, so I too heard the groaning of the captive. A toast! Name it, my friend!
Flashy [taken aback]: Eh? A toast? Me? Ah, well, let’s see … Here’s how, your majesty!
T: Let me shake your hand. Ah, your chains; do they fret you painfully?
F [toadying warily]: Oh, just a bit … no trouble, really –
T: Do you know why you are chained?
F [cautiously]: Well, I imagine it’s because your majesty misunderstood about my … my dealings with the Gallas – perfectly natural mistake, of course, could have happened to anyone –
T: What are the Gallas to me? You are the one who has misunderstood, my friend, if you think you are chained as a punishment. I chained you as I chained your countrymen, because the British Government thought me cowardly and weak. But now I have released my good friend Mr Rassam, and Lieutenant Prideaux, and I shall release you also, to show I am not afraid. [Earnestly] I had to chain you, in order to release you. If you were not chained, how could you be released? [Laughs heartily and drains cup of tej.]
F: How indeed!
T: I also chained them because I knew that must bring against me a British army, trained and disciplined, an army such as I have longed to see. [Sighs] I only hope God will spare me to see them before I die. [Drinks again.]
F: Will your majesty fight them?
T: If it is God’s will. My soldiers are nothing compared to your disciplined army, where thousands move in obedience to one. If they come in love and friendship I shall be so moved as to be unable to resist them, but if they come with other intentions I know they will not spare me, so I shall make a great bloodbath and afterwards die. [Emits the grandfather of all belches, closes eyes, and appears to fall asleep.]
Relief was flooding through me, and not only because he was behaving like an intoxicated Cheeryble and plying me with liquor; it would be another story in the morning when his majesty awoke with a head like a burst beehive and started playing Ivan the Terrible. But at least he wasn’t about to kill me, had spoken of my release, and as good as promised to give in without a fight if Napier came “in love and friendship” – which could be managed, surely. Then again, he’d so many screws loose that you couldn’t be certain of anything he said, especially when he was half-seas over. It was of academic interest, but I wondered if his claim that he’d imprisoned our people deliberately to provoke an invasion might not have something in it, unlikely though it seemed …
Theodore [waking with an almighty yell]: Damocles! By my death, I am Damocles, with a blade poised above my head, suspended by a horsehair! [Stares up] Do you not see it, about to fall? Am I not Damocles?
Flashy [taken by surprise]: Wasn’t he the chap who was tied up so that he couldn’t get at his rations … or had to roll something up a hill … didn’t he? A vulture …?
T: The British army is that blade, coming to pierce me, and I know not what to do! What will happen? I am like a pregnant woman; I do not know whether it will be a boy or a girl or an abortion! [Starts to weep, drinks deeply.]
F: Your majesty, may I make a suggestion? A moment ago you spoke of love and friendship between yourself and our Dedjaz Napier, and I can tell you he’d cry “Amen!” to that with three times three. Well, if you were to send me to him, I could settle things in no time –
T [suddenly fierce]: And tell him the disposition of my army, and where my great guns are sited, and my mortar Sevastopol! Ah, my friend, you do not deceive me! That is what you would settle! [Swaying drunkenly, yelling with rage.] Was this a thing planned with Masteeat and the Gallas? Were you put into my hand so that you might spy out the nakedness of the land –?
F [horrified]: Good God, no!
T: – and shall I cut off your garments to the middle, even to your buttocks, as the Ammonites did to the servants of King David, thinking them spies? [Baring his teeth savagely] Shall I cut off more than your garments … and will you then confess?
He was absolutely screaming now, this frenzied drunkard who a moment since had been calling me his dearest friend, and babbling of Damocles and pregnant women, and I could only sit petrified, unable even to scramble back because of my fetters, while he shook his fists and threw himself to and fro in his fury. He began to bay like a hound, beating his temples, and then buried his face in his hands as he’d done when he killed the soothsayer, wailing bitterly. I daren’t say a word, waiting and praying to God he’d come out of it into one of his sane moods. At last he raised his head, filled his tej cup, sank the contents at a gulp (Heaven knew how much he had on board, gallons I shouldn’t wonder) – and then, as God’s my witness, he noticed that my cup was empty and hastened to fill it, with mumbled apologies. His eyes were rolling in his head, and tej was dribbling down his chin and on to his naked chest, but he steadied after a moment, regarding me owlishly.
Theodore: Do you know there is an ancient prophecy that a European ruler will meet a ruler of Habesh, and whether they dispute in combat or not, afterwards a monarch will reign in this country who is greater than any before? That prophecy is about to be fulfilled, but will I be that greatest of kings? Is that to be my destiny?
F [with confidence]: Not the slightest doubt about it, in my opinion. Who but your majesty, I mean to say –?
T [doubtfully]: It may be this woman who sends her soldiers against me.
F: You don’t mean the Queen! Good gracious, your majesty, that shot ain’t even on the table! I can assure you, Sir Robert Napier is under strict orders to withdraw as soon as the captives have been released –
T: When did the British lion leave its kill untasted? You have eaten half the world, and shall Habesh be spared?
F: Of course it will, honour bright –
T [gloomy]: If they spare us it will be because we are not worth the conquest. England laughs at me and derides my poverty. [Pauses] Do they despise me because my skin is black?
F: Certainly not! We ain’t Yankees! Why, more than half the army that is coming against you is made up of nig—Indian troops, what? Dam’ stout fellas, too –
T: But few in number! How lowly they value me, that they send a handful of the mighty British power … How many? Twelve thousand came over the sea, but how many now stand above the Bechelo? Ten thousand? No. Five thousand? … Two thousand …?
The voice was slurred with drink, the thin lips hung slack in the sweating black face, but under half-lowered lids I caught the glint of a watchful eye … or thought I did.
F: Can’t say, your majesty. Enough, I guess.
T: If Miriam were to ask you, in ways too dreadful to speak of, would you tell her how many is “enough”? No matter. [Hiccoughs, sinks another quart or so of tej, lowers chin on chest, sighs.] You are my dear friend. I will not permit a hair of your head to be harmed. Let me embrace you. [Lunges forward from sitting position, flings arms round F’s neck, groans and belches, falls asleep.]43
As before, there was nothing to be done but sit waiting; you don’t wake a mad drunkard even when he’s snoring in your ear; nor do you heave him off. I’d ha’ been there till morning, no doubt, but someone had been eavesdropping, and when the conversation ceased he decided to take a look, cautiously opening the door and popping his head in, a ferrety little cove with a bright eye and a clever smile. He put a finger to his lips, slipped inside, took a look at majesty comatose, nodded, and tapped him smartly on the shoulder. And damned if Theodore’s head didn’t come up like a jack-in-the-box, full and all as he was.
“It is time to retire, getow,”a says the ferret. “You wish to be abroad at dawn, remember. And you will not wish,” he added, glancing at me, “to keep your guest from his rest.”
“Man abat?”b cries Theodore, startled. “Ah, it is you, Samuel! Did I call you?” He closed his eyes, blew out his cheeks, and gave me a huge beam. “Oh, my friend, we have talked long and drunk well, have we not? And indeed it is time to part, if not to sleep. Is my queen awake?”
Samuel hesitated. “The royal lady Tooroo-Wark is on Magdala, getow. With your son Alamayo. But Meshisha is here, and may be –”
“I asked for my queen – my new queen!” bawls Theodore, suddenly enraged. “Not my bastards! Summon her, my lady Tamagno, that I may present her to my friend … my guest, you say … Go!”
Samuel vanished, and Theodore calmed down enough to refill our cups. “Tamagno is to be my queen,” says he. “Alamayo, who is my true son and heir, you shall meet tomorrow. I wish to have him educated at a great English school, such as one I have heard of … Harrah?”
“Harrow? Certainly not, your majesty. Lair of bestial. Parvenus. Rugby’s the place for your lad … and Meshisha, did you say?”
“Meshisha is a by-blow, gotten in an evil hour,” says he. “A bastard, an idle great fool, but one must employ one’s children, the false get as well as the true. Ah, but here is my true queen that shall be! Tamagno, this is my friend, the Ras Flashman, who brings us comfort from the army of the white queen Victoria, wherefore we do him honour!” He waved a hand wildly in introduction, and the lady and I appraised each other as she rolled in, with Samuel holding the door obsequiously.
My first thought was why the devil was Theodore even looking at her when he had beauties like Miriam to play with. Madam Tamagno was fat, coarse, and looked what she was: a whore, for while Theodore might talk of making her a queen, in fact she was only his chief concubine. Unlike most Ab women, she painted, and while they tend to conceal their passionate appetites behind demure appearance, this one wore her lust on her sleeve, or rather in her lecherous expression. Someone, I forget who, described her as the most lascivious-looking female he’d ever seen, and recalling the hungry leer with which she surveyed me, I can’t contradict him. She was dressed to match, in the gaudiest silks with a profusion of bangles and necklaces, all tarted up for work, as her first words showed. For when Theodore reached up to fondle her fat paw and slaver it with a drunken kiss, and she’d stripped me in imagination and torn her eyes away, she reproved him playfully for neglecting her while he rioted with foreign prisoners in the cooler. “And I left lonely,” she murmurs.
No prisoner but a guest, cries he, and staggered to his feet with his trollop and Samuel assisting. But then he seemed to forget about me altogether, for he embraced her with mawkish endearments, pawing and nuzzling, and I dare say would have set about her on the spot if she hadn’t guided him out, bestowing one last wanton smile on me as she went. I was glad to watch her go, for she was seventeen stone of dangerous desire if ever I’d seen it, the sort who don’t care about driving a lover crazy by the way she licks her chops over every new fellow she meets. I’d trouble enough just then without a jealous Theodore running amok; he was like a mine primed to explode, and no way to anticipate him.
For consider: in short order he’d tried to brain me, had me loaded with chains only to bring me booze and jollity like a boon companion, quoted Scripture like a Scotch elder, raved at me as a spy and conspirator, threatened me with mutilation, babbled nonsense and burst into tears, tried to pump me for military intelligence, wondered about having me tortured, sworn eternal friendship, collapsed in a drunken stupor, and introduced me to his black gallop.
Eccentric, eh? I just hoped to God that Napier might get here in time.
a Geta means master, getow supreme master.
b “Man abat?” lit. “Who’s your father?” seems to have been an Abyssinian catchphrase used as a facetious greeting, not unlike “What’s up?” or “What’s cooking?”