The first intimation came when we had to halt at the King’s Road while a procession of Ab prisoners shuffled by. There were hundreds of them, in the most appalling condition, starved skeletons virtually naked, many of them covered in loathsome sores. Every one of them was chained, some in fetters so heavy they could barely drag them along, others manacled wrist to ankle with chains so short they couldn’t stand upright, but must totter along bent double. The stench was fit to choke you, and to complete their misery they were driven along by burly guards wielding girafs, the hippo-hide whips which are the Ab equivalent of the Russian knout.
“Who in God’s name are they?” I asked Miriam. “Rebels?”
“Huh, you’ll find no living rebels here!” says she. “They die where they’re taken.”
“So these are criminals? What the hell have they done?”
Her answer defied belief, but it’s what she said, with a shrug, and I was to learn that it was gospel true.
“What have they done? Smiled when the King was in ill humour—or scowled when he was merry. Served him a dish that was not to his taste, or mentioned tape-worm medicine, or spoken well of someone he dislikes, or came in his way when he was drunk.” She laughed at my incredulity. “You don’t believe me? Indeed, you do not know him!”
“By God, I don’t believe you!”
“You will.” She surveyed the last of that pitiful coffle as it stag gered past. “True, not all have committed those offences; some merely had the misfortune to be related to the offenders. Oh, yes, that is enough, truly.”
“But… for smiling? Tape-worm medicine? And he takes it out on whole families? How long have they been chained, for God’s sake?”
“Some, for years. Why he brings them down now from their prison on Magdala, who knows? Perhaps to preach to them. Perhaps to kill them before your army arrives. Perhaps to free them. We shall see.”
“He must be bloody mad!” cries I. Well, I’d heard it said often enough, but you don’t think what it means until you see the truth of it at point-blank. And here was this lovely lass, riding at ease in the warm sunlight, tits at the high port and talking cool as you please of a monster to rival Caligula. She must have read the stricken question in my eye, for she nodded.
“Yes, he is a dangerous master, as his ministers and generals will tell you.” She smiled, chin up. “But those who know him, and his moods, and how to please him, find in him a devout and kind and loving friend. But even they must learn to turn his anger, for it is terrible, and when the fit is on him he is no better than a beast. Is that mad, Ras Flashman of the British? Come!”
She led the way across the road to the nearest pavilions, the first of which was the great red royal marquee with carpets spread on the ground about it, guards on the fly, and servants everywhere. Groups of men in red-fringed shamas were gathered before the other large pavilions, evidently waiting, and the plain beyond was covered almost to Magdala by a forest of bivouacs and shelters. The army of Abyssinia was at rest, thousands of men loafing and talking and brewing their billies like any other soldiers, save that these were black, and instead of shirt-sleeves and dangling gal luses there were white shamas and tight leggings, and as well as the piled firearms there were stands of spears and racks of sickle-bladed swords. They looked well, as the Gallas had done, and perhaps as soon as tomorrow they would go out to face the finest army in the world under one of the great captains. And how many of them would come well to bed-time? How many Scindees and King’s Own and Dukes and Baluch, for that matter? Fall out, Flashy, thinks I, this ain’t your party; lie low, keep quiet, and above all, stay alive.
Easier said than done. There was a stiffening to attention of the groups outside the tents, the servants scurried out of sight, and Miriam suddenly whipped a noose over my head and thrust me out of my saddle crying, “Get down! Be still!” as down the hill came a procession in haste. In front was Theodore, with a chico holding a brolly over his head, and in his wake a motley crowd of guards and attendants. I staggered but kept my feet, and was about to protest when Theodore, striding full tilt and shouting abuse at two skinny wretches hurrying alongside him (astrologers, I learned later) caught sight of me, and let out a yell of anger.
“You! You have betrayed me! You lied to me!” He came at me almost at the run, fists clenched and by the grace of God he was carrying nothing more lethal than a telescope, which he flourished in my face. “You swore you had no talk with the Gallas—yet they have marched, in their thousands, and lie now below Sangalat! How came they there? By Masteeat’s order! And who prompted her?” He flung out a hand in denunciation. “You! As Christ is my witness, I had nothing in my heart against you! Judas! Judas!” bawls he, and swung up the telescope to brain me.
Two things saved me. One was Miriam’s horse; startled by someone raving and capering a yard away, it reared, and since Miriam was holding t’sother end of my noose I was jerked violently off my feet and went down half-strangled, but out of harm’s way. My other saviour was one of the astrologers who ran in front of Theodore, waving his arms and crying out, possibly a warning that the omens weren’t favourable for cracking heads—in which case he was dead right, for Theodore smashed him full on the crown with the telescope, and it was a lethal weapon after all, for it stove him in like an eggshell.
It had happened in seconds. I realised that Miriam, seeing him come down the hill in a towering rage, had sensibly decided that the more captive I looked the better, so she’d noosed me—and in an instant there beside me lay the corpse of the poor prophet with his skull leaking, and Theodore was dashing down the telescope, staring at his victim, and suddenly burying his face in his hands and running howling towards the red pavilion. He seized a spear from one of the guards on the fly, and began to stab the surrounding carpet, cursing something fearful. Then he flung the spear aside, shook his fists at heaven, and darted into the pavilion… and the assembled military and civilian worthies stood silent and thoughtful, determined not to look at each other, like a convocation of clergy when the bishop has farted extempore. They knew the unwisdom of noticing, having seen his royal tantrums before.
“Come!” snaps Miriam, and led me quickly in behind one of the nearest tents, where she dismounted and removed the noose. “Sit on the ground, say nothing. All may yet be well. I must see Damash.” And off she went, leaving me in some disquiet, sitting obediently and trembling like an aspen, an object of studied lack of interest to the aforementioned worthies; they acted as though I weren’t there, which suited admirably: I’d no wish to be noticed, especially by the frothing maniac in the red pavilion. I’d seen his quicksilver change of mood during the night, from mild to angry, and the sight of those wretched prisoners, and Miriam’s explana tion, had convinced me that he was fairly off his rocker… but none of that had prepared me for the homicidal rage of a moment ago. That settled it. He was a murderous maniac—and I was his detested prisoner.
I’ll not weary you with my emotions as I sat there in the sun, or my terrors when presently a squad of burly ruffians in leather tunics arrived, bearing manacles, and marched me away from the tents to a little stockade within which stood a small thatched hut with a heavy door. They thrust me in, ignoring my inquiries for Miriam and Damash (I didn’t ask for Theodore), chained me, and left me in stuffy half-darkness to meditate on the mutability of human affairs, with a couple of spearmen outside.