“Policy,” says Blanc, shrugging. “Theodore likes him, and if he takes advantage of it, do we not all benefit?”
“I just wish he didn’t seem to like Theodore quite so much,” says Prideaux. “I like to be sure our spokesman is on our side. But that’s no matter,” he added, turning eagerly on me. “However did they come to take you, sir, and what can you tell us? Is Napier about to attack?”
I’d made up my mind to tell them nothing of my mission to Masteeat, on the principle of least said, soonest mended, and also I was leery of Rassam. So I said I’d been on a long scout and run into an ambush. Napier I believed to be no more than a day’s march away, but did Theodore mean to fight him, that was the point? I asked if they had any notion.
“All we know is that he is insane,” says Blanc, “and altogether unpredictable. He has received a letter of ultimatum from Sir Robert Napier, and Rassam urges him to write in reply, but it is dangerous even to hint that he would be well advised to sue for peace.”
“Theodore’ll fight,” says Cameron, sounding dog-tired. “He cannot back down now.”
“Then God help us all,” says Blanc. “But I believe you are right, Consul. Even if he faces certain defeat, he will give battle, out of pride and superstition. Oh, he is ruled by his astrologers, and his lunatic fatalism! You heard him just now, lamenting his lost rifle? He regarded it as a talisman, and is sure that catastrophe will follow if it is not recovered! That is why he is here, at Magdala—nothing but superstition.” Seeing my expression, he laughed, and explained.
“Magdala is another talisman; he believes that while he holds it, he cannot fail. Only last week he cried aloud that while he had lost all Abyssinia, Magdala remained, and he would hold it and emerge again as a conqueror. He truly believes it, too.”
“He can’t believe it!” Automatically I added: “He must be—”
“Mad?” says Prideaux. “You’ve noticed, sir? Yes, his majesty is a trifle erratic.”
“We can thank God for it,” says Cameron. “If he didn’t think of that rock as a symbol of victory, he would not have determined to hold it… and God knows where we would have been taken to by now. At least we’re here, where Napier can find us.”
They were silent, and I knew they were thinking: “If we survive.” At least they were sane enough to do nothing but wait; no wild talk of trying to break out, or blow up the powder magazine which was only a few yards from our tent, by the artillery park. Captivity had taught them patience; that was evident from what they told me of schemes for escape that had been considered and rejected, of plots with the rebels to storm the amba in Theodore’s absence, and of the hideous consequences of conspiracies gone amiss, with the guilty being mutilated and flung over cliffs, and one girl of sixteen being flogged to death with girafs. Small wonder that attempts to suborn their jailers hadn’t got far, although in some respects even leading men on the amba had been helpful and friendly, despite the risk of arousing Theodore’s displeasure.
Thus there had been a continuous correspondence carried on with our politicals in Egypt and Aden, with letters sewn into the clothes of Ab couriers, and supplies of money and comforts coming in for the prisoners. You may read about it at length in the memoirs of Blanc and Rassam, if you’ve a mind to, and it’s the strangest tale—in a way, my own experience of Theodore mirrors it in minia ture. For sometimes they’d been treated as honoured guests, some times beaten and tortured; splendidly fed with luxurious dinners of seven courses, and loaded with chains; well housed and allowed the freedom to wander, tend their gardens, and promised early release, then dragged away from one prison to another. There had simply been no pattern to their strange existence. No wonder, when Samuel the ferret came to summon us back to the royal presence, my companions exchanged anxious looks. “Now what?” wonders Prideaux. “Chains or candy?”
In fact it was to be given an alarming reassurance—reassuring because it was a promise from Theodore, speaking at his sanest, that in the event of danger we’d be put in a safe place, along with his family; alarming because it suggested that battle was imminent.
That was not my only anxiety. Among the great concourse of priests, generals, courtiers, astrologers, and servants assembled before the red pavilion to hear his majesty’s pronouncements were a number of his women, with the bloated “Queen” Tamagno to the fore. She was seated with her attendants close to the King, being fanned with great ostrich plumes, and once again I was conscious of being appraised like a prize bullock in the ring. Prideaux mut tered beside me.
“Careful o’ that one, sir. She’s a Haymarket Hussar, (* Haymarket Hussar: a courtesan of the better class. Grant Road was the prostitutes’ quarter in Bombay.) and quite desperate altogether.” From which I gathered that he, too, had taken the lady’s fancy, and avoided her for his own good.
“Haymarket or Grant Road?” says I, and he said ’twas no joke, Theodore being a real mad miser with his women. “A fellow on sentry-go at the hareem cadged a cup of tej from one of the concubines, and was lashed to a pulp. Best to keep together when the likes of Madam Tamagno’s on the prowl; safety in numbers, what?”
“Unless she likes to drill by platoons,” says I, and he exclaimed “I say!", at which point Theodore announced that it was time for him to address the troops, who’d been waiting patiently in the sun for an hour or more. So we were marshalled by Damash, and trooped obediently in the King’s wake through the camp to the plain where the flower of the Habesh military stood at attention in orderly silence, and gazing at the huge array under the silken banners, I found myself praying that Napier would keep to the open ground.
The speech was pure Theodore, a rousing address contradicted at the end. He began by trotting before them on a stallion and then dismounted to climb on a rock, displaying himself in his rainbow attire and delivering a great harangue against the invaders of the country. “Understand,” bellows he, “that in a day or two you will be obliged to confront the finest army in the world outside Africa, men far superior to you in strength and in arms, whose very uniforms are bedecked with gold, to say nothing of their treasures, which can only be borne by elephants!” That’ll cheer them up, thinks I, but then he went on, flourishing his arms on high.
“Are you ready to fight?” bawls he. “To fight, and enrich your selves with the spoil of these white slaves! Will you conquer, or will you leave me in the lurch? Think of my great deeds in the past, of my conquests, of great battles in which you have triumphed over my enemies! You have adorned your weapons with their weapons, ha-ha! [Prolonged cheering.] When these white kaffirs approach you, what will you do? You will wait until they fire on you, and before they can reload, you will fall upon them with your spears! [Less enthusiastic cheers.] Your valour will meet with its reward, and you will enrich yourselves with spoils beside which this rich dress that I am wearing will seem but a shabby trifle.” [Sensation, and clashing of spears and swords.]
Stirring stuff, and I was remarking to Prideaux on the neat way he’d cried up our army and then changed tack by depicting us as lambs to the slaughter, when a beaming old codger at the head of one of the foot regiments stepped forward, brandishing his spear and shouting:
“Oh, only wait, great king, until these foreign asses make their appearance! We’ll tear them to pieces, and those who are lucky enough to escape will have a sorry tale to tell in England!”