The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
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 rich 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 Notre-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, Rudi,” 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