The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ and kissed her full on the mouth – and she jerked away, spitting and pawing at her tongue, her eyes blazing, and swung a hand at my face. I was too startled to avoid the blow; it cracked on my ear – I had a vision of those boiling pits – and then the fury was dying from her eyes, to be replaced by a puzzled look. (I had no notion, you see, that kissing was unknown on Madagascar; they rub noses, like the South Sea folk.) She put her face to mine again, touching my lips cautiously with her own; her mouth tasted of aniseed. She licked me tentatively, so I nuzzled her a moment, and then kissed her in earnest, and this time she entered into the spirit of the thing like a good ’un.

      Then she reached down and led me across the room to the bath, undid her scarf and hat and tossed them aside, revealing long straight hair tied tight to her head, and heavy silver earrings that hung to her shoulders. She slipped into the bath, which was deep enough to swim in, and motioned me to follow, which I did, nearly bursting by this time. But she swam and played about in the water in a most provoking way, teasing and rubbing noses and kissing – but never a smile or a word or the least softening of those basilisk eyes – and then suddenly she clapped her long legs round me and we were away, rolling and plunging like d---ation, one moment on the surface, the next three feet under. She must have had lungs like bellows, for she could stay under an agonizing time, working away like a lecherous porpoise, and then surfacing for a gasp of air and down again for more ecstatic heaving on the bottom. Well, it was novel, and highly stimulating; the only time I’ve completed the carnal act while somersaulting with my nose full of water was in Ranavalona’s bath. Afterwards I clung to the edge, gasping, while she swam lazily up and down, turning those ugly, glinting eyes on me from time to time, with her face like stone.

      Yet the most startling event was still to come. When she had got out of the bath and I had followed obediently, she crossed to the bed and disposed herself on it, contemplating me sullenly while I stood hesitant, wondering what to do next. I mean, usually one gives ’em a slap on the rump by way of congratulation, whistles up refreshments, and has a cosy chat, but I could guess this wasn’t her style. She just lay there stark, all black and shiny, staring at me while I tried to shiver nonchalantly, and then she grunted something in Malagassy and pointed to the piano. I explained, humbly, that I didn’t play; she stared some more, and three seconds later I was on the piano stool, my wet posterior clinging uncomfortably to the seat, picking out “Drink, Puppy Drink”, with one finger. My audience didn’t begin to throw things, so I ventured on the other half of my repertoire, “God Save the Queen”, but a warning growl sent me skittering back to “Drink, Puppy Drink” once more. I played it for about ten minutes, conscious of that implacable stare on the back of my neck, and then by way of variety began to sing the verse. I heard the bed creak, and desisted; another growl, and I was giving tongue lustily again, and the Silver Palace of Antananarivo re-echoed to:

       “Here’s to the fox

       With his den among the rocks,

       And here’s to the trail that we follo-o-ow!

       And here’s to the hound

       With his nose upon the ground,

       An’ merrily we’ll whoop and holl-o-o-o!”

And then the chorus, with vim – it’s a rousing little ditty, as you probably know, and I bellowed it until I was hoarse. Just as I was thinking my voice would crack, blowed if she didn’t glide up at my elbow, glowering without expression from my face to the keys; what the d---l, thinks I, in for a penny, in for a pound, so while pounding away with one hand I pulled her on to the stool with the other, squeezing lustfully and bawling “He’ll grow into a hound, so we’ll pass the bottle round”, and after a moment’s impassive staring she began to accompany me in a most disconcerting way. This time, though, we repaired to the bed for the serious business – and I received a mighty shock, for as I was waiting for her to assume the supine position she suddenly picked me up bodily (I’m six feet and upwards of thirteen stone), flung me down, and began galloping me with brutal abandon, grunting and snarling and even drumming on me with her fists. It was like being assailed by a horny gorilla, but I gather she enjoyed it – not that she smiled, or gave maidenly sighs, but at the end she stroked her nose against mine and growled a Malagassy word in my ear several times … “Zanahary … zanahary^b …” which I later discovered was complimentary.

So that was my first encounter with Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar, the most horrible woman I’ve ever met, bar none. Unfortunately, it was by no means the last, for although she never ceased to regard me with that Gorgon stare, she took an unquenchable fancy to me. Possibly it was my piano-playing,³⁸ for normally she went through lovers like a rat through cheese, and I was in constant dread in the weeks that followed that she’d tire of me – as she had of Laborde and several hundred others. He had merely been discarded, but as often as not her used-up beaux were subjected to the dreadful ordeal of the tanguin test, and then sent to the pits, or dismembered, or sewn up in buffalo hides with only their heads out and hung up to rot.

      No, pleasuring Queenie wasn’t a trade you could settle to, and to make it worse she was a brutally demanding lover. I don’t mean that she enjoyed inflicting pain on her men, like dear Lola with her hairbrush, or the elfin Mrs Mandeville of Mississippi, who wore spurred riding boots to bed, or Aunt Sara the Mad Bircher of the Steppes – my, I’ve known some little turtle doves in my time, haven’t I just? No, Ranavalona was simply an animal, coarse and insatiable, and you ached for days afterwards. I suffered a cracked rib, a broken finger, and G-d knows how many strains and dislocations in my six months as stallion-en-titre, which gives you some idea.

      But enough of romance; suffice to say that my initiation was successful, and I was taken on the strength of her establishment as a foreign slave who might be useful not only as a paramour but also, in view of my army experience, as a staff officer and military adviser. There was no question about this in the minds of the court officials who assigned me to my duties – no thought that I might demur, or wish to be sent home, or count myself anything but fortunate to be so honoured by them. I had come to Madagascar, and here I would stay until I died, that was flat. It was their national philosophy: Madagascar was the world, and perfect, and there could be no greater treachery than to think otherwise.

      I got an inkling of this the same afternoon, when I had been dismissed the royal presence, considerably worn and shaken, and was conducted to an interview with the Queen’s private secretary. He proved to be a jolly little black butterball in a blue cutaway coat with brass buttons, and plaid trousers, who beamed at me from the depths of an enormous collar and floored me by crying:

      “Mr Flashman, what pleasure to see you! I being Mr Fankanonikaka, very personal and special secretary to her majesty, Queen Ranavalona, the Great Cloud Shading the World, ain’t I just, though? Not above half, I don’t think.” He rubbed his little black paws, chortling at my dumbstruck look, and went on: “How I speak English much perfect, so as to astonish you, I being educated in London, at Highgate School, Highgate, confounded in year of Christ 1565, seven years reigning Good Queen Bess, I say. Please sitting there exactly, and attending then to me. I being an old boy.” And he bowed me to a chair.

I was learning to accept anything in this extraordinary country – and why not? In my time I’ve seen an Oxford don commanding a slave-ship, a professor of Greek skinning mules on the Sacramento stage run, and a Welshman in a top hat leading a Zulu impi – even a Threadneedle Street nigger acting as secretary³⁹ to the Queen of Madagascar ain’t too odd alongside that lot. But hearing English – even his amazing brand of the language – took me so aback that I almost committed the indiscretion of asking how the blazes I was to escape from this madhouse – and that could have been fatal in a country where one wrong word usually means death by torture. Fortunately I remembered Laborde’s warning in time, and asked cautiously how he knew my name.

      “Ha-ha, we are knowing all manner, no humbuggery СКАЧАТЬ