The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
have a headache,” says I, quite gently. “That doesn’t mean that I have to take to my bed.”
“No, no … of course not, highness.” He licked his lips.
“Perhaps you might take his highness’s pulse, doctor,” says Detchard, and the little fellow came over and took my wrist as though it was made of porcelain. There were beads of sweat on his brow.
“A little swift,” he muttered, and glanced at my face. He was scared and puzzled, and then he literally leaped back as though he had seen a ghost.
“He … he …” he exclaimed, pointing.
“No, Ostred,” says Detchard. “He is not the prince.”
“But—” the little doctor gargled speechlessly, and I couldn’t help laughing. “But he is—identical! Dear Jesus! I could not believe it! I was sure, when I saw him, that something had gone amiss—that it was still the prince. My God!”
“What gave him away?” asks Detchard.
“The scars. They are new, and pink.”
Detchard snapped his teeth in annoyance. “The scars, of course. I had forgotten. That might have cost us dear. However, we have the means to put it right.” And he took out a flask, which I suppose Rudi had given him, and daubed at my wounds until he and the doctor were satisfied.
“There,” says Detchard. “When did you last shave your head?”
“Last night.”
“It will do for the moment. Ostred will attend to it again tomorrow.” He pulled out his watch. “Now, it may be best if you and I, doctor, return to our hosts.” For my benefit he rattled off a few more details about Tarlenheim and the arrangements for the morning. “Your valet will look in shortly, to see you to bed,” he concluded. “You may sleep easily, believe me. Now that I have seen you, my doubts are at rest. I seriously question if your own father would detect the imposture. Ha! You see—I said ‘your’ own father.” He smiled grimly. “I half believe in you myself. And so, your highness, I have the honour to bid you good-night.”
They withdrew, bowing, and left me trembling—but for once it wasn’t funk. I was elated—I had fooled Ostred. By God, it was going to work. I took a turn round the room, grinning to myself, drank another glass of brandy, and another, and stood beaming at myself in the mirror. Well, Prince Harry, thinks I, if only Elspeth could see you now. And old moneybags Morrison. And Lord God-almighty Cardigan. He’d be glad enough to have royalty back in his flea-bitten 11th Hussars. For I was royal, for the moment—a full-blown prince of the blood, no less, until—aye, until Bismarck’s little game was played out. And then—oh, the blazes with him. I had another glass of brandy and took stock of my royal surroundings.
Sumptuous wasn’t the word for them—silk sheets, lace pillow, solid silver cup and plate by the bed—with breast of chicken under a napkin, bigod, in case I felt peckish. I resisted a temptation to slip the plate into a pocket—plenty of time for lifting the lumber later. This was only a staging-post on the journey, after all; the pick of the loot would be in the palace of Strackenz. But I felt I could rough it here for the night—excellent liquor, a warm fire, cigars in a tooled leather box, even the pot under the bed was of the best china, with little fat-arsed cherubs running round it. I plumped back on the bed—it was like floating on a cloud. Well, thinks I, they may talk about cares of state, and uneasy lies the head and all that tommy-rot, but this is the life for old Flashy. You may take my word for it, next time you hear about the burdens of monarchy, that royalty do themselves damned proud. I’ve been one; I know.
My eye fell on an ornament on the mantel; a carved kneeling figure. A little prickle ran through me as I realised that this was the cupid Bismarck had mentioned—by jove, he knew his business, that one. Down to the last detail. I rolled off the bed and looked at it, and felt a slight glow of pleasure as I realised it wasn’t a cupid after all—it was a nymph. The great Otto wasn’t infallible then, after all. It was most obviously a nymph, and contemplating it I realised there was one thing missing from my princely paradise. Bronze nymphs don’t compare to real ones: I hadn’t had a woman since the blubbery Baroness Pechman had been so rudely plucked from my embrace—and I hadn’t really been able to get to proper grips with her before Rudi had interrupted us. Fat and all as she was, the thought of her was making me feverish, and at that moment there was a soft tap at the door and a slim, very sober-looking fellow slipped in. This was obviously Josef, my valet.
I was on guard again in a moment.
“Is there anything your highness requires?” says he.
“I don’t think so, Josef,” says I, and gave a yawn. “Just going to bed.” And then a splendid idea occurred to me. “You may send up a chambermaid to turn down the covers.”
He looked surprised. “I can do that, sir.”
Now, Flashy would have growled: “Damn your eyes, do as you’re bloody well told.” But Prince Carl Gustaf merely said, “No, send the chambermaid.”
He hesitated a second, his face expressionless. Then: “Very good, your highness.” He bowed and went to the door. “Goodnight, highness.”
Of course, it was a dam-fool thing to do, but what with the brandy and my randy thoughts, I didn’t care. Anyway, wasn’t I a prince? And the real Carl Gustaf was no monk, by all accounts—and damned careless about it, too. So I waited in lustful anticipation, until there was another knock, and a girl peeped in when I called out to enter.
She was a pretty, plump little thing, curly-haired and as broad as she was long, but just the thing for me with my thoughts running on Baroness Pechman. She had a bright eye, and it occurred to me that Josef was perhaps no fool. She curtsied and tripped across to the bed, and when I sauntered over—slipping the door-bolt on the way—and stood beside her, she giggled and made a great show of smoothing out my pillow.
“All work and no play isn’t good for little girls,” says I, and sitting on the bed I pulled her on to my knee. She hardly resisted, only trying to blush and look demure, and when I pulled down her bodice and kissed her breasts she cooed and wriggled her body against mine. In no time we were thrashing about in first-rate style, and I was making up for weeks of enforced abstinence. She was an eager little bundle, all right, and by the time she had slipped away, leaving me to seek a well-earned rest, I was most happily played out.
I’ve sometimes wondered what the result of that encounter was, and if there is some sturdy peasant somewhere in Holstein called Carl who puts on airs in the belief that he can claim royal descent. If there is, he can truly be called an ignorant bastard.
There are ways of being drunk that have nothing to do with alcohol. For the next few days, apart from occasional moments of panic-stricken clarity, I was thoroughly intoxicated. To be a king—well, a prince—is magnificent; to be fawned at, and deferred to, and cheered, and adulated; to have every wish granted—no, not granted, but attended to immediately by people who obviously wish they had anticipated it; to be the centre of attention, with everyone bending their backs and craning their necks and loving you to ecstasy—it is the most wonderful thing. Perhaps I’d had less of it than even ordinary folk, especially when I was younger, and so appreciated it more; anyway, while it lasted I fairly wallowed in it.
Of course, I’d had plenty of admiration when I came home from Afghanistan, but that was very different. Then they’d said: “There’s the heroic Flashman, the bluff young lionheart who slaughters niggers and upholds old England’s honour. Gad, look at those whiskers!” Which was splendid, but didn’t suggest that I was more than human. But when you’re royalty they treat you as though you’re God; you begin to feel that you’re of entirely different stuff from the rest of mankind; you don’t walk, you float, above it all, with the mob beneath, toadying like fury.
I had my first taste of it the morning I left Tarlenheim, when I breakfasted with the Count and about forty of his crowd—goggling gentry and gushing females—before setting out. I was in excellent shape after bumping the chambermaid and having a good night’s rest,