Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ subedar^a barred our way and stooped to question our passenger. I heard a woman’s voice, quick and indistinct, and then he had waved us on, and we carried the palki through the gate – and for all my dread at re-entering that fearsome den, I found myself remembering Stumps Harrowell, who’d been the chairman at Rugby when I was a boy, and how we’d run after him, whipping his enormous fat calves, while he could only rage helplessly between the shafts. You should see your tormentor now, Stumps, thinks I; hoist with his own palki, if you like.

      Our passenger was calling directions to Jassa, who was between the front shafts, and presently we bore up in a little secluded court, and out she jumped, walking quickly to a low doorway which she unlocked, motioning us to follow. She led us up a long, dim passage, several flights of stairs, and more passages – and then I knew where we were: I had been conducted along this very way to Jeendan’s rose boudoir, and I knew that pretty little rump stirring under the tight sari …

      “Mangla!” says I, but she only beckoned us on, to a little ill-furnished room where I’d never been. Only when she had the door closed did she throw off her veil, and I looked again on that lovely Kashmiri face with its slanting gazelle eyes – but there was no insolence in them now, only fear.

      “What’s amiss?” snaps Jassa, scenting catastrophe.

      “You saw those men of the Khalsa – the five hundred?” Her voice was steady enough, but quick with alarm. “They are a deputation from Tej Singh’s army – men of Moodkee and Ferozeshah. They have come to plead with the Rani for arms and food for the army, and for a leader to take Tej’s place, so that we may still sweep the Jangi lat back to the gates of Delhi!” The way she spat it out, you would have wondered which side she was on; even traitors still have patriotic pride, you see. “But they were not to have audience of the durbar until tomorrow – they have come before their time!”

      “Well, what of it?” says I. “She can fob them off – she’s done it before!”

      “They were not a beaten army then. They had not been led to defeat by Tej and Lal – or learned to mistrust Mai Jeendan herself. Now, when they come to durbar and find themselves ringed in by Muslim muskets, and call to her for aid which she cannot give them – what then? They are hungry men, and desperate.” She shrugged. “You say she has wheedled them before – aye, but she is not given to soft words these days. She fears for Dalip and herself, she hates the Khalsa for Jawaheer’s sake, and she feeds her rage on wine. She’s like to answer their mutinous clamour by blackening their faces for them – and who knows what they may do if she provokes them?”

      Red murder, like as not – and then we’d have some usurper displacing Tej Singh and reviving the Khalsa for another slap at us. And here was I, back on the lion’s lip, thanks to Gardner’s idiot plots … should I throw in now, and bolt for India? Or could we still get Dalip out before all hell broke loose …?

      “When’s the durbar?”

      “In two hours, perhaps.”

      “Can Gardner bring the boy to us beforehand … now?”

      “Run in daylight?” cries Jassa. “We’d never make it!”

      Mangla shook her head. “The Maharaja must be seen at the durbar. Who knows, Mai Jeendan may answer them well enough – and if she fails, they may still be quiet, with a thousand Muslims ready to fall on them at a word from Gurdana Khan. Then, when you have seen Mai Jeendan –”

      “I don’t need to see her – or anyone, except her blasted son! Tell Gardner –”

      “Why, here’s a change!” says she, with a flash of the old Mangla. “You were eager enough once. Well, she wishes to see you, Flashman bahadur, and she will have her way –”

      “What the devil for?”

      “Affairs of state, belike.” She gave her insolent slow smile. “Meanwhile, you must wait; you are safe here. I shall tell Gurdana, and bring word when the durbar begins.”

      And she slipped out, having added bewilderment to my fears. What could Jeendan want with me? I’d thought it rum at the time, her insistence that I should be Dalip’s rescuer – to be sure, the kid liked me, but she’d as good as made me a condition of the plan, to Paddy Gough’s ribald amusement. Coarse old brute. But it couldn’t be that, at such a time … mind you, with partial females, you never can tell, especially when they’re foxed.

      But all this was small beer beside the menace of the Khalsa deputies. Could she hocus them again, by playing her charms and beguiling them with sweet words and fair promises?

      Well, she didn’t even try, as we saw when Mangla returned, after two hours of fretful waiting, to conduct us to that same spyhole from which I’d watched an earlier durbar. This was a different indaba^b altogether; then, there had been tumult and high spirits, laughter even, but now we heard the angry clamour of the deputation and her shrill replies even before we reached the eyrie, when I saw at a glance that this was an ugly business, with the Mother of All Sikhs on her highest horse and damn the consequences.

      The five hundred were in uproar in the main body of the great hall before the durbar screen, but keeping their ranks, and it was easy to see why. They were wearing their tulwars, but round the walls of the chamber there must have been a full battalion of Muslim riflemen, with their pieces at the high port, primed and ready. Imam Shah was standing forward, addressing the screen, with the old rissaldar-major a pace behind; the golden standard lay before the throne on which little Dalip sat in lonely state, the tiny figure brave in crimson, and with the Koh-i-Noor ablaze in his aigret.

      Behind the purdah more Muslims lined the walls, and before them stood Gardner, in his tartan fig, the point of his naked sabre resting between his feet. Close by the screen Jeendan was pacing to and fro, pausing from time to time to listen, then resuming her furious sentry-go – for she was in a great rage, and well advanced in liquor, by the look of her. She had a cup in hand, and a flagon on the table, but for once she was modestly clad – as modest, anyway, as a voluptuous doll can be in a tight sari of purple silk, with her red hair unbound to her shoulders, and that Delilah face unveiled.

      Imam Shah was in full grievance, shouting hoarsely at the screen. “For three days your faithful Khalsa have lived on grain and raw carrots – they are starving, kunwari, and eaten up with cold and want! Only send them the food and munitions you promised and they will sweep the host of the Jangi lat to –”

      “Sweep them as you swept them at Ferozeshah and Moodkee?” cries Jeendan. “Aye, there was a fine sweeping – my waiting women could have swept as heartily!” She waited, head thrown back, for the effect of this. Imam stood in silent anger, and she went on: “Goolab has sent you supplies enough – why, every wheat-porter in Kashmir makes an endless train from Jumoo to the river, laden –”

      She was drowned in a roar of derision from the five hundred, and Imam advanced a yard to bawl his answer. “Aye, in single file, on pain of mutilation by the Golden Hen, who makes a brave show of assistance, but sends not breakfast for a bird! Chiria-ki-hazri! That’s what we get from Goolab Singh! If he wishes us well, let him come and lead us, in place of that bladder of lard you made our general! Bid him come, kunwari – a word from you, and he’ll be in the saddle for Sobraon!”

      Uproar followed – “Goolab! Goolab! Give us the Dogra for general!” – but still they kept their ranks.

      “Goolab is under the heel of the Malki lat, СКАЧАТЬ