"Flashman, Harry - Flashman in the Great Game" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flashman Harry)
She nodded, and struck a little silver gong with her wrist-bangle. "It is time for my noon meal, and this afternoon I hold my court. You may return tomorrow, and we shall discuss the representations you are to make to the subtle Lord Palmerston." She smiled slightly in dismissal. "And I thank you for your gift, colonel."
Her maids were coming in, and the little fat chamberlain, so I made my bow.
"Maharaj"", says I. "Your most humble obedient."
She inclined her head regally, and turned away, but as I backed out round the screen I noticed that she had picked up my perfume-bottle from the table, and was inviting her maids to have a sniff at it.
I came away from that audience thinking no small diplomatic beer of myself. At least I seemed to have got further with her than any other representative of the Sirkar had ever done, even if I'd had to lie truth out of Jhansi to do it. God knew I'd not the slightest right to promise redress of any of her grievances against the Raj, and if I trotted back a list of them to London the Board would turn 'em down flat again, no question. But she didn't know that, and if I could jolly her along for a week for two, hinting at this or that possible concession, she might grow more friendly disposed - which was what Pam wanted, after all. Her hopes would revive, and while they were sure to be dashed in the end, I'd be back snug in England by then.
That was the official aspect, of course; the important thing was the delightful surprise that the old beldam of Jhansi was as prime a goer as ever wriggled a hip, and just ripe for my kind of diplomacy. She was a cocky bitch, with a fine sense of her queenly consequence, but I wasn't fooled by her airs, or the set-down she'd tried to give me by warning me not to try to come round her with whiskery blandishments. That was pure flirtation, to put me on my mettle - I know these beauties, you see, and it don't matter whether they're queens or commoners, when they start to play the cool, mocking grand dame it's a sure sign that they're wondering what kind of a mount you'll make. I'd seen the glint in this one's eye when she walked round me, and thought quietly to myself, we'll have you gasping for more, my girl, before this fortnight's out.
You may think me a presumptuous ambassador on short notice, especially since the object of my carnal ambitions was royal, clever, dangerously powerful, and a high-caste Hindoo lady of reputed purity to boot. But that means nothing when a woman fancies a buck like me; besides, I knew about these high-born Indian wenches - randy as ferrets, the lot of them, and with all the opportunity to gratify it, too. A woman with a shape and face like Lakshmibai's hadn't let it go to waste in four years' widowhood (after being married to some prancing old quean, too), not with the stallions of her palace guard available at the crook of her little finger. Well, I'd make a rare change of bedding for her - and if her lusty inclinations needed any prompting, she might find it in the thought that being amiable to ambassador Flashy was the likeliest way of getting what she wanted for herself and her state. Dulce et decorum est pro patria rogeri, she could say to herself - and I cantered back to the cantonments full of cheery thoughts, imagining what that voluptuous tawny body would look like when I peeled the sari off it, and speculating on the novel uses to which the pair of us could put that swing of hers, in the interests of diplomatic relations.
In the meantime, I had Pam's other business to attend to, so I spent the afternoon in the Native Infantry lines, looking at the Company sepoys to gauge for myself what their temper was. I did it idly enough, for they seemed a properly smart and docile lot, and yet it was a momentous visit. For it led to an encounter that was to save my life, and set me on one of the queerest and most terrifying adventures of my career, and perhaps shaped the destiny of British India, too.
I had just finished chatting to a group of the jawans,*(*Soldiers.) and telling 'em that in my view they'd never be called on to serve overseas, in spite of the new act,9 when the officer with me - fellow called Turnbull - asked me if I'd like to look at the irregular horse troop who had their stables close by. Being a cavalryman, I said yes, and a fine mixed bunch they were, too, Punjabis and frontiersmen mostly, big, strapping ruffians with oiled whiskers and their shirts inside their breeches, laughing and joking as they worked on their leather, and as different from the smooth-faced infantry as Cheyennes are from hottentots. I was having a good crack with them, for these were the kind of scoundrels with whom I'd ridden (albeit reluctantly) in my Afghan days, when their rissaldar*(*Native officer commanding a cavalry troop.)- came up - and at the sight of me he stopped dead in the stable door, gaping as though he couldn't believe his eyes. He was a huge, bearded Ghazi of a fellow, Afghan for certain by the devil's face of him - I'd have said Gilzai or Dourani - with a skull cap on the back of his head, and the old yellow coat of Skinner's riders over his shoulders.10
"Jehannum!" says he, and stared again, and then stuck his hands on his hips and roared with laughter.
"Salaam, rissaldar," says I, "what do you want with me?"
"A sight of thy left wrist, Bloody Lance," says he, grinning like a death's head. "Is there not a scar, there, to match this? - " and he pulled up his sleeve, while I stared in disbelief at the little puckered mark, for the man who bore it should have been dead, fifteen years ago - and he'd been a mere slip of a Gilzai boy when it had been made, with his bleeding fore-arm against mine, and his mad father, Sher Afzul, doing the honours and howling to heaven that his son's life was pledged eternally to the service of the White Queen.
"Ilderim?" says I, flabbergasted. "Ilderim Khan, of Mogala?" And then he flung his arms round me, roaring, and danced me about while the sowars*(*Troopers.) grinned and nudged each other.
"Flashman!" He pounded my back. "How many years since ye took me for the Sirkar? Stand still, old friend, and let me see thee! Bismillah, thou hast grown high and heavy in the service - such a barra sahib,*(*Great lord, important man.) and a colonel, too! Now praise God for the sight of thee!"
And then he was showing me off to his fellows, telling them how we'd met in the old Kabul days, when his father had held the passes south, and how I'd killed the four Gilzais (strange, the same lying legend coming up twice in a day), and he'd been pledged to me as a hostage, and we'd lost sight of each other in the Great Retreat. It's all there, in my earlier memoirs, and pretty gruesome, too, even if it was the basis of my glorious career.*(*See Flashman)
So now it was Speech Day with a vengeance, while we relieved old memories and slapped each other on the shoulder for half an hour or so. And then he asked me what I was doing here, and I answered vaguely that I was on a mission to the Rani, but soon to go home again; and at this he looked at me shrewdly, but said nothing more until I was leaving.
"It will be palitikal, beyond doubt," says he. "Do not tell me. Listen, instead, to a friend's word. If ye speak with the Rani, be wary of her; she is a Hindoo woman, and knows too much for a woman's good."
"What d'you know about her?" says I.
"Little enough," says he, "except that she is like the silver krait, in that she is beautiful and cunning and loves to bite the sahibs. The Company have made a cutch-rani*(*"Cutch" in this sense means inferior, as opposed to "pukka", meaning first-rate. E. g. pukka road, a macadam surface, cutch road, a mere track. Thus cutch-rani, a nominal queen, without power.) of her, Flashman, but she still has fangs. This," he added bitterly, "comes of soft government in Calcutta, by ducks and mulls*(*Ducks and mulls - Bombay Anglo-Indians and Madras Anglo-Indians. Slang expressions current among the British in India, but probably seldom used by Indians themselves.) who have been too long in the heat. So beware of her, and go with God, old friend. And remember, while thou art in Jhansi, Ilderim is thy shadow - or if not me, then these loose-wallahs and jangli-admis*(*Thieves and jungle-men.) of mine. They have their uses - " And he jerked a thumb towards his troopers.
That, coming from an Afghan upper roger*(*A young chief - Sansk., "yuva rajah". For this and other curiosities of Anglo-Indian slang, see Hobson-Jobson, by H. Yule (1886).) who was also a friend, was the best kind of insurance policy you could wish - not that I now had any fears, fool that I was, about my stay in Jhansi. As to what he'd said of the Rani - well, I knew it already, and Afghans' views on women are invariably sour - beastly brutes. Anyway, I didn't doubt my ability to handle Lakshmibai, in every sense of the word.
Still, I found his simile coming to mind next day, when I attended her durbar again, and watched her sitting enthroned to hear petitions, dressed in a cloth-of-silver sari that fitted her like a skin, with a silver-embroidered shawl framing that fine dark face; when she moved it was for all the world like a great gleaming snake stirring. She was very grave and queenly, and her courtiers and suppliants fairly grovelled, and scuttled about if she raised her pinky; when the last petitioner had been heard, and a gong had boomed to end the durbar, she sat with her chin in the air while the mob bowed itself out backwards, leaving only me and her two chief councillors standing there - and then she slipped out of her throne with a little cry of relief, hissed at one of her pet monkeys and chased it out on to the terrace, clapping her hands in mock anger, and then returned, perfectly composed, to lounge on her swing.
"Now we can talk," says she, "and while my vakeel*(*Legal representative (possibly used here ironically). reads out the matter of my `petition', you may refresh yourself, colonel - " and she indicated a little table with flasks and cups on it. "Ah, and see," she added, flicking a flimsy little handkerchief from her sari, "I am wearing French perfume today - do you care for it? My lady Vashki thinks I am no better than an infidel."
It was my perfume, right enough; I bowed acknowledgement while she smiled and settled herself, and the vakeel began to drone out her petition in formal Persian.
It's worth repeating, perhaps, for it was a fair sample of the objections that many Indian princes had to British rule - the demand for restoration of her husband's revenues, compensation for the slaughter of sacred cows, reappointment of court hangers-on dismissed by the Sirkar, restitution of confiscated temple funds, recognition of her authority as regent, and the like. All a waste of time, had she but known it, but splendid stuff for me to talk to her about over the next week or two while I pursued the really important work of charming her into a recumbent position.
But I knew politics wasn't the half of it - I know when a woman's got that little flutter in her midriff about me, and in our ensuing meetings I could watch her enjoying using her beauty on me - and she could do that with a touch that Montez might have envied. I'll admit it now, I found her enchanting; she had the advantage of being a queen, of course, which makes a beauty all the more tantalising - well, even I, on short acquaintance; could hardly have taken her belly in one hand, her bum in the other, and fondled her flat on her back with passionate murmurs, as one would do in ordinary circumstances. No, with royalty you have to wait a little. Not that I wasn't tempted, in those early talks, when she had dismissed her councillors, and we were alone, and just once or twice, from the warm gleam in her eye as she swayed on her swing or lay on her daybed, I wondered if perhaps . . . but I decided to make haste slowly, and play the bowling as it came down.
It came mighty fast, too, sometimes, for if she was generally content just to politick flirtatiously, I soon discovered that she could be dead serious when Jhansi and her own ambitions were concerned; let the talk turn that way, and you saw the passion of her feeling.
"Five years ago, how many beggars were on the streets?" she rounded on me once. "One for every ten today. And who has accomplished this? Who but the Sirkar, by assuming the affairs of the state, so that one white sahib comes to do the work that employed a dozen of our people, who must be turned out to starve. Who guards the state? Why, the Company soldiers - so Jhansi's army must be disbanded, and they, too, can shift or steal or go hungry!"
"Well now, highness," says I, "it's hard to blame the Sirkar for being efficient, and as for your unemployed soldiers, they'll be more than welcome in the Company service - "
"In a foreign army? And will there be room in its ranks, too, for the Indian craftsmen whom the Sirkar's efficiency has put out of work? For the traders whose commerce has decayed under the benevolent rule of the Raj?"
"You must give us a little time, maharaj'," says I, humouring her. "And it ain't all bad, you know. Banditry has ceased; the poor folk are safe from dacoits and Thugs - why, your own throne is secure against greedy neighbours like Kathe Khan and the Dewan of Orcha - "
"My throne is safe?" says she, stopping the swing on which she had been swaying, and lifting her brows at me. "Oh, very safe - for the Sirkar to enjoy its revenues, and usurp my place, and disinherit my son - ha! As to Kathe Khan and that jackal of Orcha, whom the Company in their wisdom allow to live - if I ruled this state, and had my soldiers, Kathe Khan and his fellow-viper would come against me once - " she picked up a fruit from the tray at her elbow, considered it, and nibbled daintily " - and crawl home again - without their hands and feet."
"No doubt, ma'am," says I. "But the fact is that when Jhansi ruled itself, it couldn't deal with these foes. Nor were the Thugs put down - "
"Oh, aye - we hear much of them, and how the Company suppressed their wickedness. And why - because they slew travellers, or was it because they served a Hindoo god and so offended the Christian Company?" She eyed me contemptuously. "Belike had the Thugs been Jesus-worshippers, they would have been roaming yet - especially if they had chosen Hindoo victims."
You can't argue with gross prejudice, so I just looked amiable and said:
"And doubtless had suttee, that fine old Hindoo custom whereby widows were tortured to death, been a Christian practice, we would have encouraged it? But in our ignorance and spite, we forbade it - along with the law which condemned those widows who had escaped burning to a life of slavery and degradation with their heads shaved and heaven knows what else. Come, maharaj' - can we do nothing right?" And without thinking I added: "I'd have thought your highness, as a widow, would have cause to thank the Sirkar for that at least."
As soon as the words were out, I saw I'd put my foot in it. The swing stopped abruptly, and she sat upright, with a face like a mask, staring at me.
"I?" says she. "I? Thank the Sirkar?" And she suddenly flung her fruit across the room and stood upright, blazing at me. "You dare to suggest that?"
Well, I could grovel, or face it out - but I don't hold with grovelling to pretty women, not unless the danger's desperate or I'm short of cash. So I started to hum and haw placatingly, while she snapped in a voice like ice:
"I owe the Company nothing! If the Company had never been, do you think I would have submitted to suttee, or allowed myself to be made a menial? Do you take me for a fool?"
"By God, no, ma'am," says I hastily. "Anything but, and if I've offended, I beg your pardon. I simply thought that the law was binding on all, ah . . . ladies, you see, and ... "
"The Maharani makes the law," says she, all Good Queen Bess damning the dagoes, and I hurriedly cried thank heaven for that, at which she looked down her nose at me.
"That is not the view of your Company or your country. Why should you be different? Why should you care?"
That was my cue, of course; I hesitated a second, and then looked at her, very frank and manly. "Because I've seen your highness," says I quietly. "And . . . well .. . I do care, a great deal, you see." I stopped there, giving her my steadiest smile, with a touch of ardent admiration thrown in, and after a long moment her stare softened, and she even smiled as she sat down again and said:
"Shall we return to the confiscated temple funds?"
Altogether it was a rum game in those first few days - rum for her, because she was a fair natural tyrant, yet whenever a disagreement in our discussions arose, she would allow it to smooth over, with that warm mysterious smile, and rum for me, because here I was day after day closeted with this choice piece of rump, and not so much as touching her, let alone squeezing and grappling. But I had to bide my time, and since she took such obvious and natural pleasure in my company, I contained my horniness for the moment, in the interests of diplomacy.
In the meantime, I occasionally paid attention to the other side of Pam's business, talking with Skene, and Carshore the Collector, and reassuring myself that all continued to go well among the sepoys. There wasn't a hint of agitation now, my earlier fears about Ignatieff and his scoundrels were beginning to seem like a distant nightmare, and now that I was so well established in the Rani's good graces, the last cloud over my mission appeared to have been dispelled. Laughable, you may think, when you recollect that this was 1856 drawing to a close - you will ask how I, and the others, could have been so blind to the fact that we were living on the very edge of hell, but if you'd been there, what would you have seen? A peaceful native state, ruled by a charming young woman whose grievances were petty enough, and who gave most of her time to seducing the affections of a dashing British colonel; a contented native soldiery; and a tranquil, happy, British cantonment.
I was about it a great deal, and all .our people were so placid and at ease - I remember a dinner at Carshore's bungalow, with his family, and Skene and his pretty little wife so nervous and pleased in her new pink gown, and jolly old Dr McEgan with his fund of Irish stories, and the garrison men with their red jackets, slung on the backs of their chairs, matching their smiling red faces, and their gossipy wives, and myself raising a laugh by coaxing one of the Wilton girls to eat a "country captain"*(*A type of curry.) with the promise that it would make her hair curl when she grew older.
It was all so comfy and easy, it might have been a dinner-party at home, except for the black faces and gleaming eyes of the bearers standing silent against the chick-screens, and the big moths fluttering round the lamps; afterwards there was a silly card game, and Truth or Con-sequences, and local scandal, and talk of leave and game-shooting with our cheroots and port on the verandah. Trivial enough memories, when you think what happened to all of them - I can still feel the younger Wilton chit pulling at my arm and crying:
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