Flashman and the Throne of Swords
Chapter Fifteen
by Technomad
The dinner we were bidden to, that evening, was a bit of a frost. We had notified the crew of the Lady of Shallot that we were invited to dinner, and might be staying over for a while. Spring had given his men leave to go ashore, at least a few at a time. "But be very careful here," he had growled, his scar reddening in his forehead. "Only a few at a time go ashore, keep close together, don't get too drunk, and don't wander off by yourselves!"
"Aye aye, sir," growled his bosun, a scar-faced old salt who looked like he could have sailed with Cap'n Flint. "I'll keep the boys in line. Never fear, sir!"
"See that you don't let them get into trouble, or I'll have you licking out the bilges till we hit Kings Landing again," snarled Spring. "Remember, Ancipiti plus ferit ense gula!"
The bosun nodded. "'Gluttony slays more than the sword,' aye, aye, sir!" As we left, I was staring at Spring, who gave me a diabolical grin.
"Aye, he's been with me a while, and I've got him able to at least recognise a quote when he hears one!" He shook his head sadly. "If only I'd had him as a lad, I could've made a real scholar out of him!" I knew better than to bandy Latin tags with him, since my Latin had been rather weak at Rugby and I'd not had the inclination or time to keep it up in the years since Arnold kicked me out.
I was not anticipating an enjoyable evening, and I was not to be disappointed. We were introduced to "King" Stannis' consort, a rather unappealing creature named Selyse, and their daughter Shireen, a maid of maybe ten years old.(1) Poor little Shireen was a shy little thing, and I could see why. Part of the skin of her face and neck was covered in what looked like grey stone, fused with her flesh. I could barely repress a shudder at the sight.
"That's the mark of greyscale, Sir Harry," muttered Spring, into my ear. To my surprise, he also seemed to pity the poor girl. "Greyscale is one reason we're being cautious about contact here. If it were loose in Britain, or Europe, there'd be no resistance to it!" I thought of Elspeth, disfigured so, and nearly threw up. I knew, all too well, what unchecked sickness could do. Hadn't I seen the cholera wreaking far worse havoc on the Army than the Russians ever could, in the Crimea? (2) And although I am no historian, I knew more than enough to remember the devastation the Black Plague had brought in its wake. Not to mention smallpox…aye, I thought, keeping this little gift in Westeros would be well worth any effort.
At dinner, it was clear that Lady Melisandre ruled here; Stannis merely reigned. It came out that Melisandre was from Asshai, an area of which we British knew little. She knew of Thoros of Myr, and had little good to say of him. "He is a drunken, lecherous fool, who is far more interested in riding in tourneys and bedding serving wenches than in spreading the word of the Lord of Light. He was sent to convert the previous king, Aerys, when we found out how fascinated he was by fire." (3) A shadow passed across her face. "He was unsuccessful, and stayed on in Kings Landing rather than face the wrath of his superiors."
We were dining with some other guests from our world. There was a Dutch captain, one Jan Van der Decken, who told us that he was for Kings Landing, as soon as he could get released. "These folk seem to want to keep me here forever," he told us, low-voiced and speaking in German, which I could understand. "It's as though they've some secret here, that they don't want getting out!"
"Well, they are at war with Kings Landing, you know," I answered, still low-voiced. "King Stannis is King Robert's rightful heir, or so he claims. They might think that you'd tell secrets in Kings Landing."
"Me, a spy?" snorted Van der Decken. "Not in a hundred thousand years. I'm just a merchant looking to make a profit!"
"What are you carrying?" I asked. I knew that Dutchmen were good merchants, and knowing what they were selling would be of interest when we got back to Kings Landing.
"Machinery. Mostly fine clocks. When I was here before, I noticed that these people only had candles and hourglasses and sundials for telling time. I think that some fine clocks would sell well." A shadow passed across his face. "If they would only let me be on my way!"
"What is that language, Ser Harry?" asked Lady Melisandre. I hadn't noticed that conversation had fallen silent, and everybody was listening to me and Captain Van der Decken. "It does not sound like Braavosi, and I know it is not Myrish or Westerosi. Not even the odd dialect that you 'English' speak." While Westerosi and English were mutually comprehensible, there were some differences, and not all of us English were as able as Dick Burton and I were to wrap our tongues around the difference and sound Westerosi. Of course, in my own case, my sojourn in the Eyrie and among the mountain tribesmen had exposed me to Westerosi more thoroughly than I had planned. Aye, or wanted.
"Terribly sorry, my lady. Captain Van der Decken is Dutch, and does not speak English as well as some other tongues. I'm a skilled linguist, and it just went faster to speak to him in this language. No offence intended." Melisandre subsided, but gave us a suspicious glance.
Under the table, Spring kicked me a good one in the shin. "We're guests here, so mind your bloody manners, for once!" he snarled. That was Spring, all over. Mad, murderous pirate though he was, he was a stickler for good manners and the proprieties. Not wanting to set him off, I made sure to stick to English after that, since all at the table could apparently speak it, even the two Frog captains who were sitting not far away.
The conversation turned in other directions, and I took the opportunity to size the Frenchmen up. Unlike many of my foolish, chauvinistic countrymen, I was not about to underestimate them merely because they were French. I had seen 'em in action too often, in the Crimea (4), the Pekin expedition (5), and in Mexico (6), to have any illusions that they were any less brave, daring or intelligent than Englishmen are.
One of 'em, a chap named George Bazaine (7), I knew from my time in Mexico. He'd been on the staff of his uncle, a Marshal of France named Francois Bezaine, and was just the sort of active, intelligent officer I bar. 'Twas partly due to his brilliant ideas that I'd been trapped with poor Max at Queretaro when the Juaristas penned us in, and it was none of his fault that I'd not been stood up against the same wall as the soi-disant Emperor of Mexico.
Bazaine was glad to see me; he liked me, but then folk generally do for some reason. "Ah, Sir 'Arry, it is good to see you!" he enthused. At least he didn't kiss me on the cheek, but that custom wasn't followed in Westeros, and we could see the locals looking at us rather quizzy already. To the assembly, he explained: "Sir 'Arry and I were comrades-in-arms recently, in our attempt to bring the benefits of civilisation to Mexico! Alas, we were unsuccessful!" He put on a mournful look. "The stars themselves seemed to be against us, and the locals did not seem to wish the benefits of French culture and modern civilisation!"
Spring and I exchanged significant glances. I'd been there, and Spring had, no doubt, seen the papers' reports on the whole Mexican mess, even though our press thought that the Yanks' stupid civil war was far more interesting. Poor Max's enterprise had been doomed from the beginning. Napoleon had been expertly led up the garden path by some designing Mexican exile politicians, and persuaded that the Mexes were longing for a king. What with the Yanks busily fighting each other, they couldn't do anything much about it, and the moment seemed perfect. Accordingly, he had sent an expedition to Vera Cruz,(8) expecting the silly Mexicans would be a pushover. They weren't. They rallied around their President, Benito Juarez, (9) and most of them fought the Frenchies and their toadies like Furies.
Oh, Max meant well. He'd been gulled into coming to Mexico, and quickly learned that most patriotic Mexicans hated him like poison, save only the ones who either thought he'd be an improvement (a very small group, that grew smaller the more clear it became that Max was little beside's Napoleon's cat's-paw in the Americas) or had reason to believe that they'd grow fat under his rule. Still and all, I do think that had he honestly been the choice of the Mexican people, and been accepted enough to be able to tell Napoleon to go to blazes, he might've made a fairly good ruler. But he never had a chance, for all his good intentions. We know what road is paved with those, don't we? In his case, the road ended in front of a dusty wall at Queretaro, with his cause in ruins, his wife mad, and his name a bye-word for failure.
But Bazaine clearly still believed in the whole silly scheme, and this wasn't the place to refight those old battles. Spring and I held our peace, and Bazaine introduced us to his travelling companion, a Father Armand David. He'd years of experience in distant lands, and was known for his work in China. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Sir Harry, Captain Spring," he said. "While I am here, I hope to find out more about the stories of dragons once having actually lived here!" While he was a Catholic padre, his main love seemed to be natural history. He proceeded to bore us with a long disquisition about how he hoped to amaze the world of natural history by being the first European in recorded history to turn up with an actual dragon. "Even a dragon's egg, I think, would be enough to make sure my name lives on in science!"
Up at the head of the table, Stannis cleared his throat. Gently, he said, "Father David, I hate to break it to you, but there haven't been dragons in years. At least, none in Westeros. There are reports of them in distant lands, but none very near here. The last dragons died some while after the Dance of the Dragons, a civil war between factions of the then royal family, a hundred or so years ago."
Father David looked so crestfallen that I had to feel sorry for him. I'm no scientist, but I've had enough to do with scientific johnnies in my day to know how seriously they take their work. "Cheer up, Father," I said. "I'm told there are all sorts of interesting creatures in Westeros, and I'm sure there are some that're not known to folk at home. You can still make your reputation, even without dragons!" At this, he perked up. I hoped I'd quashed his mad idea of bringing dragons back to Europe. I had read enough, and heard enough, about Westerosi history to know how bloody dangerous and intractable those monsters could be. The thought of one loose in London was enough to make me sweat ice water.
After several interminable hours spent eating all-but-indigestible food (I'm no gourmet, but Stannis should have hanged his cooks for sheer incompetence) we were bid good night, and shown to quarters well up in Dragonstone. Before we turned in for the night (Spring had sent to the Lady of Shallott for our traps, and I had everything I'd likely need, including my barker) Spring took me aside for a moment.
"Sir Harry," he said, low-toned, "be very, very careful here. Sile, et philosophus!(10) I don't know about you, but I'd almost feel safer accepting hospitality from Gezo, back in Dahomey, than here!" With that, he left me to my thoughts and went into his room, and I could hear him pulling the bolt to on the door. I thought that was an excellent idea, and did likewise. As I went to bed (the bed, may I say, was something that would not have been out of place in the Tower of London - as an instrument of torture) I shook my head at the thought of John Charity Spring, of all people, being my firmest ally. Semper aliquid novi, indeed.
Over the next few days, we were bidden several times to "King" Stannis' presence. He was interested in increased trade with Britain, since he knew that we were the main manufacturing country in Europe. Captain Van der Decken looked sulky, but we paid him no mind. Hollanders are good at what they do, but there's no beating British quality. The Frogs didn't get much of a look in, not that they seemed to mind much. Father David kept on barbering on about finding rare animals, until I felt like going out and shooting every last four-footed or feathered thing I could find, just to shut him up. I'm not averse to a spot of hunting, but obsessing over creatures that probably don't exist doesn't strike me as a suitable pastime for a gentleman.
However, all was not as it seemed. Spring and I had both been cultivating the servants, who weren't, as it turned out, all happy with the new arrangements. Some of 'em had been loyal worshipers of the Seven Gods, while others just didn't like the look of Melisandre, or her uncanny spooky ways. Not that I blamed them on the second count. To look at, at least at first, she was a right ripe piece, but between those red eyes and her uncanny way of talking, I'd not have bedded her for a pension.
Unlike us, the servants could go anywhere in Dragonstone, and we set 'em to work, sleuthing out any clues they could find about what those damned Frogs were up to. I'd had a chance to get aboard the Dutchman's ship (a few well-placed bribes worked wonders there) and found that he was telling the truth. Nothing there but clocks and other gadgets. The stuff he was carrying would have been seen as impossibly old-fashioned in Europe; a lot of it looked as though he'd picked it up for a song, second-hand, and hoped to make fat profits selling it to the gullible Westerosi.
We were suspicious about the French, though, or at least Bazaine. He was the same adventurous scamp I remembered, all too well, from Mexico, and he was up to mischief. I'm a wrong 'un myself, and I know another of my kind when I see 'em. Unlike the padre, he had no real reason to be there; he was no merchant, and I knew him well enough to know that exploration for its own sweet sake was not his style, not at all. He was there because the French government had sent him.
And if the French were planning to intervene in Westeros in strength, they could do far worse than cozy up to 'King' Stannis. His base at Dragonstone was deucedly hard for enemies to take, as I had already noted, and he had an arguable claim to the throne of the Seven Kingdoms. Matter of fact, if Queen Cersei's sprogs really were no get of King Robert's, he was the rightful heir by local law. A lot depended on what credence people gave his charges. I remembered that after Edward IV had drunk, wenched and debauched himself to death (fortunate man!), his brother, Richard of Gloucester, had made a successful claim based on the idea that King Edward's marriage had not been valid; he'd apparently been 'pre-contracted' to another woman at the time he and Liz Woodville had jumped the broom. Given his known behavior, and the fact that the bishop that had witnessed the previous pre-contract was alive and willing to swear to it, Edward's sons were out (and soon in the Tower) and Dick was in.
I didn't know what, if any, bandobast Stannis had on the mainland, or how people felt about him there. With my mind running on the Wars of the Roses, I knew that one thing that had made Crookback Dick's claim stick was that he had a reputation for solid, fair governance, while the Woodvilles who had taken over the court after Liz had married Edward were seen as grasping, pushy and out for themselves alone. If that didn't sum up sweet Cersei and Joff, I didn't know what would.
I wished I hadn't got my mind running on the Wars of the Roses; I'd had to swot 'em up at Rugby for an exam, and for some reason, it'd stuck in my brain. To jog my mind into pleasanter tracks, I began wondering what the chances were for some vicious amusement. Stannis, himself, was a stick who'd have thought Dr. Arnold (11) was a raving hedonist, but I was sure that not everybody else in the castle, or on Dragonstone, was of his kidney. And Elspeth was nowhere nearby.
As though my thoughts had been overheard, the door of our quarters opened, and one of the servant wenches we'd suborned into snooping for us slipped in. I got up, feeling the Old Adam stirring in me, but the sound of John Charity Spring's voice behind me made me shrivel up in my trousers. Spring had that effect on me for all of our acquaintance, damn him.
"What've you got for us, missy?" he rasped. Stepping up beside me, he gave the wench a smile he probably thought was reassuring. I thought it would frighten the Devil, but this poor creature hadn't had the benefit of Spring's long-time acquaintance as I had, and apparently was fooled. She came forward shyly, reaching into her pocket.
"Please, m'lords, I was working in the cellars, and came across a pile of big wooden crates, about as tall as I am when they're stood on end. I also found these." She held out what she'd found, and I felt my guts turn to ice.
She was holding three Minie balls. I'd seen more than enough of those to know just what they were, both in the Yanks' idiotic civil war and elsewhere. Minie balls were what had made rifles practical on the battlefield. Before they came in, rifles were much slower on the reload than muskets, what with having to tamp the ball down the muzzle so that the lands inside the barrel could grip it. But a Minie ball wasn't really spherical; it was more like a cylinder with one end pointed and the other hollowed out, so that when the rifle was fired, the rear would expand and grip the lands, making the ball spin properly on its way down the barrel.
We'd been careful not to equip any Westerosi with anything but smooth-bore muskets; the Tower and other arsenals had been scoured for the Brown Besses we still had on hand. Since we now had breech-loading rifles, the advantage in any fight would be with us, since those easily outranged any musket, and were also far more accurate. Whatever fools had chosen to acquaint the Westerosi with Minie balls and rifle-muskets, which, I knew, were a drug on the market what with the end of several wars, had taken away a great deal of our edge. I thought I knew who had done it, and I could have wrung his greasy Frog neck for him.
Spring was looking pale, but his scar was darkening. "We now know what we came to find out," he muttered. "Tempus fugit, (12) and quickly! We'd best make our excuses to Stannis and light on out of here!" Mad pirate though he was, I agreed with him wholeheartedly.
Much as I hated it, though, we couldn't just slip our cables. While we didn't recognise his claim, Stannis saw himself as a king, and wouldn't be happy at all if we just took French leave. Accordingly, we presented ourselves before him as soon as could be, and I stood mumchance, my guts turning to water inside me, while Spring made excuses about why we had to leave. His years dealing with the likes of Gezo and the other unpredictable kings on the Slave Coast came in handy, I must say. While his scar was darker than I liked to see, to hear him, you'd've thought that he really regretted having to go.
"We give you leave to depart, Captain, and hope that you will return to grace Us with your presence once again. May the blessings of the Lord of Light go with you," Stannis said. We bowed our bottoms half off, backed away, and as soon as it was safe, turned and headed for the dockside as though the hounds of Hell were on our trails.
And thank God we did. Just as our jollyboat got halfway to the side of the Lady of Shallott, Stannis appeared behind us on the shore, with that infernal pest Melisandre beside him. "Hold! By the command of King Stannis, First of His Name, and the Lord of Light, you are under arrest!" came echoing over the water.
"Fat bloody chance of us going back!" snarled Spring. To the oarsmen, he snarled: "Row, damn you! Row for your very lives!" They were nothing loath; they'd seen that mob that was gathering on shore, and wanted no part of it. Soon we were beside the Lady of Shallott, scrambling up through the boarding battens like so many monkeys. I've no idea what happened to the jollyboat. Someone at Dragonstone probably has it to this day, and I wish 'em all the joy of it they deserve.
"Wind's agin' us, Cap'n!" said the bosun. Sure enough, there was a wind that would hold us in harbour until the locals could get up enough force to swarm us and board. Luckily, Spring had thought of that contingency.
"Get steam up! We'll show 'em a surprise!" Spring had given orders that the steam engine be kept ready to go on short notice, and soon, I felt, with a shudder of relief, the deck begin to vibrate as the propellers began to spin. "Slip the anchor cable, for your lives!" That showed me that Spring was really serious about us getting away. Most sailors hated to abandon the anchor, since it was seen as a confession of poor seamanship. But Spring's men knew better than to disobey. The anchor cable paid out, sliding off and out into the sea.
Someone or other had given the order to man the harbour-defence catapults, damn him. I heard a whizzing noise and looked out to see a splash as a catapult stone landed in the sea. Luckily, those things aren't easy to aim quickly, and their artillerists weren't up to much. Probably well out of practice. I'd have let it go without bothering, but not John Charity Spring. "Man the starboard guns! Give 'em a good broadside!" he roared, and his crew, those who weren't working to get us out of that accursed harbour, leaped to obey. Out came the gun muzzles, and at Spring's "Fire!" they roared in near-unison. I could see alarm and consternation where the shells had landed, and remembered that some of Spring's crew were ex-Shenandoahs, and knew what they were doing with the big guns.
In a shorter time than I'd've believed, we were out at sea, but not out of difficulties. Spring looked up at the sky, his manner troubled. "There's a gale a-brewing, or I'm a Dutchman!" he muttered. He roared more commands, and the crew scrambled aloft to set tops'ls. Once we had enough way to not need it, Spring ordered the steam engines to be stopped; we weren't so well-found for fuel to be able to waste it ad lib.
"I've never seen a storm like this, Sir Harry," Spring growled. "Could that damned Melisandre have had something to do with it?" He was normally no more a believer in mumbo-jumbo than I, but we'd both seen enough of 'King' Stannis' pet witch to not feel easy discounting her powers.
Soon, the skies were dark grey, and the sea was high as the winds roared blue murder, tossing the Lady of Shallott about, driving us ever farther north, off-course for Kings Landing. I could do nothing more, so I went below and threw myself into my bunk. As I drifted off, the last thing I saw in my mind was Melisandre's face, with her red eyes gleaming in triumph. That was nothing I wanted to sleep on, but there was nothing for it. I was out for quite some time.
[1] At this time, Shireen Baratheon was ten years old, and, unfortunately, had been disfigured by the disease known as "greyscale."
[2] The Allied armies in the Crimea lost far more men to disease than to the Russians, despite the best efforts of Florence Nightingale and her co-workers.
[3] The last of the Targaryen kings to reign, Aerys, was an unstable personality at best, and seems to have suffered from pyromania. There are reports that, when convinced that he would lose Kings Landing, he gave an order that the city should be burned rather than surrendered intact.
[4] See Flashman At The Charge.
[5] See Flashman and the Dragon
[6] The French expedition to Mexico was one of the more improbable chapters of nineteenth-century military history. While it was foredoomed for various reasons, many French units fought very well there, notably the Foreign Legion, whose valiant last stand at the village of Cameron entered Legion mythology. Flashman was involved, actually joining the Legion at one point, but so far, his account of his time in Mexico has yet to come to light.
[7] George Bazaine, son of Marshal Bazaine, was a distinguished French soldier, serving as his father's staff officer in Mexico.
[8] Flashman's account of events is concise, but accurate, as far as it goes. The original expedition to Vera Cruz was a joint affair, with the British and Spanish joining in (the pretext was unpaid debts owed by the Mexican government to those countries) but the others pulled out as soon as French intentions became clear.
[9] Benito Juarez is one of the national heroes of Mexico. A full-blooded Zapotec Indian, he rose to the Presidency, and won eternal glory by fighting the French and throwing them out of Mexico.
[10] "Be silent, and be taken for a philosopher."
[11] Dr. Thomas Arnold was headmaster of Rugby from 1828 to 1841. His reforms of the school were hugely influential, although he himself was a very controversial person. Flashman had been at Rugby under his Headship, and never forgot the experience. Arnold disapproved strongly of almost anything Flashman did, and finally expelled him for drunkenness. See Tom Brown's Schooldays for another view of Arnold.
[12] "Time flies."
END Chapter 15
