Royal Flash fp-2 Read online

  "Herr Rittmeister Flashman?" says he. "My privilege to welcome you to Bavaria. Starnberg, very much at your service." And he clicked his heels, bowing. "You'll forgive my French, but it's better than my English."

  "Better than my German, at any rate," says I, taking stock of him. He was about twenty, of middle height and very slender, with a clean-cut, handsome face, brown curls, and the wisp of a moustache on his upper lip. A very cool, jaunty gentleman, clad in the tight tunic and breeches of what I took to be a hussar regiment, for he had a dolman over his shoulder and a light sabre trailing at his hip. He was sizing me up at the same time.

  "Dragoon?" says he.

  "No, hussar."

  "English light cavalry mounts must be infernally strong, then," says he, coolly. "Well, no matter. Forgive my professional interest. Have I interrupted your breakfast?"

  I assured him he had not.

  "Splendid. Then if you'll oblige me by getting dressed, we'll lose no more time. Lola can't abide to be kept waiting." And he lit a cheroot and began to survey the room. "Damnable places, these hotels. Couldn't stay in one myself."

  I pointed out that I had been kept kicking my heels in one for the past three days, and he laughed.

  "Well, girls will be girls, you know," says he. "We can't expect 'em to hurry for mere men, however much they expect us to jump to it. Lola's no different from the rest—in that respect."

  "You seem to know her very well," says I.

  "Well enough," says he negligently, sitting himself on the edge of a table and swinging a polished boot.

  "For a messenger, I mean," says I, to take some of the starch out of him. But he only grinned.

  "Oh, anything to oblige a lady, you know. I fulfil other functions, when I'm so inclined." And he regarded me with an insolent blue eye. "I don't wish to hurry you, old fellow, but we are wasting time. Not that I mind, but she certainly will."

  "And we mustn't have that,"

  "No, indeed. I imagine you have some experience of the lady's fine Latin temper. By God, I'd tame it out of her if she was mine. But she's not, thank heaven. I don't have to humour her tantrums."

  "You don't, eh?"

  "Not hers, nor anyone else's," says Master von Starnberg, and took a turn round the room, whistling.

  Cocksure men irritate me as a rule, but it was difficult to take offence at this affable young sprig, and I had a feeling that it wouldn't do me much good if I did, so while he lounged in my sitting-room I retired to the bed-chamber to dress. I decided to wear my Cherrypicker rig, with all the trimmings of gold-laced blue tunic and tight pants, and when I emerged Starnberg cocked an eye and whistled appreciatively.

  "Saucy regimentals," says he. "Very pretty indeed. Lola may not mind too much having been kept waiting, after all."

  "Tell me," I said, "since you seem to know so much: why do you suppose she sent for me ?—I'm assuming you know that she did."

  "Oh, aye," says he. "Well, now, knowing Lola, I suggest you look in your mirror. Doesn't that suggest an answer?"

  "Come now," says I, "I know Lola, too, and I flatter as easily as the next man. But she would hardly bring me all the way from England, just to… ."

  "Why not?" says he. "She brought me all the way from Hungary. Shall we go?"

  He led the way down to the street, the two cuirassiers marching at our heels, and showed me into a coach that was waiting at the door. As he swung himself in beside me, with his hand on the window-frame, his sleeve was slightly pulled back, and I saw the star-shaped white scar of a bullet-wound on his wrist. It occurred to me that this von Starnberg was a tougher handful than he looked at first sight; I had noticed the genuine cavalry swing, toes pointing, as he walked, and for all his boyishness there was a compact sureness about him that would have sat on a much older man. This is one to keep an eye on, thinks I.

  Lola's house was in the best part of Munich, by the Karolinen Platz. I say "house", but it was in fact a little palace, designed by King Ludwig's own architect, regardless of expense. It was the sight of it, shining new, like a little fairy-tale castle from Italy, with its uniformed sentries at the gate, its grilled windows (a precaution against hostile crowds), its magnificent gardens, and the flag fluttering from its roof, that brought it home to me just how high this woman had flown, This magnificence didn't signify only money, but power—unlimited power. So why could she want me? She couldn't need me. Was she indulging some whim—perhaps going to repay me for being in Ranelagh's box the night she was hissed off the stage? She seemed to be capable of anything. In a moment, after clapping eyes on her palace, I was cursing myself for having come-fear springs eternal in the coward's breast, especially when he has a bad conscience. After all, if she was so all-powerful, and happened to be vindictive, it might be damned unpleasant… .

  "Here we are," says Starnberg, "Aladdin's cave."

  It almost justified the description. There were flunkeys to hand us out, and more uniformed sentries in the hall, all steel and colour, and the splendour of the interior was enough to take your breath away. The marble floor shone like glass, costly tapestries hung on the walls, great mirrors reflected alcoves stuffed with white statuary and choice furniture, above the staircase hung a chandelier which appeared to be of solid silver, and all of it was in a state of perfection and brilliance that suggested an army of skivvies and footmen working full steam.

  "Aye, it's a roof over her head, I suppose," says Starnberg, as we gave our busbies to a lackey. "Ah, Lauengram, here is Rittmeister Flashman; is the Gräfin receiving?"

  Lauengram was a dapper little gentleman in court-dress, with a thin, impassive face and a bird-like eye. He greeted me in French— which I learned later was spoken a good deal out of deference to Lola's bad German—and led us upstairs past more lackeys and sentries to an anteroom full of pictures and people. I have a soldier's eye for such things, and I would say the loot value of that chamber would have kept a regiment for life, with a farm for the farrier-sergeant thrown in. The walls appeared to be made of striped silk, and there was enough gold on the frames to start a mint.

  The folk, too, were a prosperous-looking crew, courtly civilians and military in all the colours of the rainbow; some damned handsome women among them. They stopped their chattering as we entered, and I took advantage of my extra three inches on Starnberg to make a chest, touch my moustache, and give them all the cool look-over.

  He had barely started to introduce me to those nearest when a door at the far end of the room opened, and a little chap came out backwards, stumbling over his feet, and protesting violently.

  "It is no use, madame!" cries he, to someone in the far room. "I have not the power! The Vicar-General will not permit! Ach, no, lieber Herr Gott!" He cowered back as some piece of crockery sailed past him and shattered on the marble floor, and then Lola herself appeared in the doorway, and my heart took a bound at the sight of her.

  She was beautiful in her royal rage, just as I remembered, although now she had clothes on. And although her aim seemed as vague as ever, she appeared to have her wrath under better control these days. At all events, she didn't scream.

  "You may tell Dr Windischmann," says she, her rick husky voice charged with contempt, "that if the king's best friend desires a private chapel and confessor, she shall have one, and he shall provide it if he values his office. Does he think he can defy me?"

  "Oh, madame, please," cries the little chap. "Only be reasonable! There is not a priest in Germany could accept such a confession. After all, your highness is a Lutheran, and—"

  "Lutheran, fiddlesticks! I'm a royal favourite, you mean! That's why your master has the impertinence to flout me. Let him be careful, and you, too, little man. Lutheran or not, favourite or not, if I choose to have a chapel of my own I shall have it. Do you hear? And the Vicar-General himself shall hear my confession, if I think fit."

  "Please, madame, oh, please!" The little fellow was on the verge of tears. "Why do you abuse me so? It is not my fault. Dr Windischmann objects only to
the suggestion of a private chapel and confessor. He says… ."

  "Well, what does he say?"

  The little man hesitated. "He says," he gulped, "he says that there is a public confessional at Nôtre-Dame, and you can always go there when you want to accuse yourself of any of the innumerable sins you have committed." His voice went up to a squeal. "His words, madame! Not mine! Oh, God have mercy!"

  As she took one furious step forward he turned and ran for his life past us, his hands over his ears, and we heard his feet clatter on the stairs. Lola stamped her foot, and shouted after him, "Damned papist hypocrite!", and at this the sycophantic crowd in the ante-chamber broke out in a chorus of sympathy and reproach.

  "Jesuit impertinence!"

  "Intolerable affront!"

  "Scandalous insolence!"

  "Silly old bastard." (This was Starnberg's contribution.)

  "Impossible arrogance of these prelates," says a stout, florid man near me.

  "I'm Church of England myself," says I.

  This had the effect of turning attention on me. Lola saw me for the first time, and the anger died out of her eyes. She surveyed me a moment, and then slowly she smiled.

  "Harry Flashman," says she, and held out a hand towards me— but as a monarch does, palm down and pointing to the ground between us. I took my cue, stepping forward and taking her fingers to kiss. If she wanted to play Good Queen Bess, who was I to object?

  She held my hand for a moment afterwards, looking up at me with her glowing smile.

  "I believe you're even handsomer than you were," says she.

  "I would say the same to you, Rosanna," says I, cavalier as be-damned, "but handsome is too poor a word for it."

  Mind you, it was true enough. I've said she was the most beautiful girl I ever met, and she was still all of that. If anything, her figure was more gorgeous than I remembered, and since she was clad in a loose gown of red silk, with apparently nothing beneath it, I could study the subject without difficulty. The effect of her at close quarters was dazzling: the magnificent blue eyes, the perfect mouth and teeth, the white throat and shoulders, and the lustrous black hair coiled up on her head—yes, she was worth her place in Ludwig's gallery. But if she had ripened wonderfully in the few years since I had last seen her, she had changed too. There was a composure, a stateliness that was new; you would always have caught your breath at her beauty, but now you would feel a little awe as well as lust.

  I was leering fondly down at her when Starnberg chimes in.

  "'Rosanna'?" says he. "What's this, Lola? A pet name?"

  "Don't be jealous, Ruth," says she. "Captain Flashman is an old, very dear friend. He knew me long before—all this," and she gestured about her. "He befriended me when I was a poor little nobody, in London." And she took my arm in both of hers, reached up, and kissed me, smiling with her old mischief. Well, if that was how she chose to remember our old acquaintance, so much the better.

  "Listen, all of you," she called out, and you could have heard a pin drop. "The Rittmeister Flashman is not only the closest to my heart of all my English friends—and those, you remember, include the noblest in the land—but the bravest soldier in the British Army. You see his decorations"—she leaned across me to touch my medals, and the presence of two almost naked, beautifully rounded breasts just beneath my face was delightfully diverting. Lola was always vain of her bosom,[21] and wore it all but outside her gown; I wished I had had a pinch of snuff to offer her. "Who ever saw a young captain with five medals?" she continued, and there was a chorus of murmured admiration. "So you see, he is to be honoured for more reasons than that he is my guest. There is no soldier in Germany with a higher reputation as a Christian champion."

  I had sense enough to look quizzical and indulgent at this, for I knew that the most popular heroes are those who take themselves lightly. I had heard this kind of rot time without count in the past few years, and knew how to receive it, but it amused me to see that the audience, as usual, took it perfectly seriously, the men looking noble and the women frankly admiring.

  Having delivered her little lecture, Lola took me on a tour of introduction, presenting Baron this and Countess that, and everyone was all smirks and bows and polite as pie. I could sense that they were all scared stiff of her, for although she was her old gay self, laughing and chattering as she took me from group to group, she was still the grande dame under the happy surface, with a damned imperious eye. Oh, she had them disciplined all right.

  Only when she had taken me apart, to a couch where a flunkey served us Tokay while the others stood at a respectful distance, did she let the mask drop a little, and the Irish began to creep back into her voice.

  "Let me look at you comfortably now," says she, leaning back and surveying me over her glass. "I like the moustaches, Harry, they become you splendidly. And the careless curl; oh, it's the bonny boy still."

  "And you are still the most beautiful girl in the world," says I, not to be outdone.

  "So they say," says she, "but I like to hear it from you. After all, when you hear it from Germans it's no compliment—not when you consider the dumpy cows they're comparing you with."

  "Some of 'em ain't too bad," says I carelessly.

  "Ain't they, though? I can see I shall have to keep an eye on you, my lad. I saw Baroness Pechman wolfing you up a moment ago when she was presented."

  "Which one was she?"

  "Come, that's better. The last one you met—over there, with the yellow hair."

  "She's fat. Overblown."

  "Ye-es, poor soul, but some men like it, I'm told."

  "Not I, Rosanna."

  "Rosanna," she repeated, smiling. "I like that. You know that no one ever calls me by that name now. It reminds me of England—you've no notion how famous it is to hear English again. In conversation, I mean, like this."

  "Was that why you sent for me—for my conversation?"

  "That—and other things."

  "What other things?" says I, seeing a chance to get down to business. "What's this very delicate matter that your chamberlain talked about?"

  "Oh, that." She put on a coy look. "That can wait a little. You must know I have a new motto since I came to Bavaria: 'pleasure before business'." She gave me a sleepy look from beneath those glorious black lashes that made by heart skip a little. "You wouldn't be so ungallant as to hurry me, would you, Harry?"

  "Not where business is concerned," says I, leering again. "Pleasure's another matter."

  "Wicked," she says, smiling lazily, like a sleek black cat. "Wicked, wicked, wicked."

  It is remarkable what fatuities you can exchange with a beautiful woman. I can think shame when I consider the way I sat babbling with Lola on that couch; I would ask you only to remember that she was as practised a seductress as ever wore out bed linen, and just to be beside her, even in a room full of people, was in itself intoxicating. She was overpowering, like some rich tropical flower, and she could draw a man like a magnet. The same Dr Windischmann, Vicar-General, whose name she had been taking in vain so recently, once said that there was not even a priest in his charge who could have been trusted with her. Liszt put it more bluntly and accurately when he observed to me: "As soon as you meet Lola, your mind leaps into bed."

  Anyway, I mention this to explain how it was that after a few moments with her I had forgotten entirely my earlier misgivings about her possible recollection of our parting in London, and my fears that she might harbour a grudge against me for the Ranelagh affair. She had charmed me, and I use the word exactly. Laughing and talking with her over the Tokay, only one thought was in my mind: to get her bedded as swiftly as might be, and the devil with anything else.

  While we were chatting so amiably and I, poor ass, was succumbing to her spell, more people were arriving in the ante-room, and presently she had them called up, with Lauengram playing the major-domo, and talked to them in turn. These levees of hers were quite famous in Munich, apparently, and it was her habit to hold court to all sorts of fol
k: not just distinguished visitors and such odds and ends as artists and poets, but even statesmen and ambassadors. I don't recall who was there that morning, for between Lola and the Tokay I was not paying much heed, but I know they scraped and fawned to her no end.

  Presently she announced that we would all go to see her cuirassiers at exercise, and there was a delay while she went off to change; when she returned it was in full Hussar rig, which showed off her curves admirably and would have caused the police to be called in London. The sycophants "Ooh-ed and Aah-ed" and cried "Wunderschön!", and we all trooped after her to the stables and rode out to a nearby park where a couple of squadrons of cavalry were going through their paces.

  Lola, who was riding a little white mare, took great pleasure in the spectacle, pointing with her whip and exclaiming authoritatively on the manoeuvres. Her courtiers echoed her applause faithfully, all except Rudi Starnberg, who I noticed was watching with a critical eye, like myself. I ought to know something about cavalry, and certainly Lola's cuirassiers were a smart lot on parade, and looked very well as they thundered past at the charge. Starnberg asked me what I thought of them; very fine, I said.

  "Better than the British?" says he, with his cocky grin.

  "I'll tell you that when I've seen 'em fight," says I, bluntly.

  "You won't deny they're disciplined to perfection," cries he.

  "On parade," says I. "No doubt they'd charge well in a body, too. But let's see 'em in a mêlée, every man for himself; that's where good cavalry prove themselves."

  This is true; of course, no one would run faster from a melee than I, but Starnberg wasn't to know that. For the first time he looked at me almost with respect, nodding thoughtfully, and admitted I was probably right.