Excerpt, Chapter 22: Flashman and the Iron Throne

The torch crackled. My shadow crawled along walls illuminated orange: a great black blob racing through the Red Keep's tunnels.

I was already wheezing by the time I'd passed the warped dragons' skulls. The cellars were musty by anyone's standards – ne'er mind for a man approaching sixty, like your humble correspondent. But I soldiered on, if not so much for Queen and Country as for self-preservation. And also…aye, well.

The stone floor gave way to dirt, and the dirt to mud. My boots sank inches into a soupy mass, whose contents I didn't care to speculate about – especially given the more disturbing examples of fauna that Westeros had inflicted on me of late.

The tunnel opened. It was almost as spacious as a Parisian sewer. Water had seeped toward the center, which had the consistency of a swamp. I hugged the walls.

A light appeared ahead. Another torch. The man holding it must have swung around, since his torch fuffed as it swiveled. He was barely more than a shadow from this distance. But I knew I'd guessed the right tunnel.

The light winked out. I followed it. My boots squelched faster into the mud, and I wheezed in time with them. It seemed like ages rushing through that nightmare maze, and ages more trying to figure out which tunnel he'd taken. I found it, though: the bastard couldn't hide his footprints, and there was his light again –

Crack!

A gunshot. I ducked. Torchlight glistened on the stalactites, which told me that he hadn't moved. He was waiting.

Well, let him. I had more time than he did, and that was the point. Let the bastard take the time to mak siccar[1] with half the British army on his heels, and good hunting to him.

He must have realized that too, since I heard his footsteps a moment later. I got up and blazed away at him with my own Derringer – three shots, and not a one of them accurate, blast 'em. He turned again, and I saw the glint of metal in the torchlight, and jumped for cover just before—

Flick.

A misfire. He cursed.

I fumbled to my feet covered in ooze, but my hand was steady enough – or at least, I'd concealed the shakes to my satisfaction.

I caught the first good glimpse of his face, then – the black hair with its hints of grey, the trimmed goatee, and that unmistakable curl of the lip, so like Rudi's boyish grin decades before. Uncannily so. I noted with some satisfaction that his own robes were dripping with mud.

Petyr grinned, sucking in that stale air as if it was a spring day in the French countryside.

"Well. Confound me if it isn't Mister Flashman."

He tossed the two-shot Derringer into the lake in an overwrought, ostensibly offhand gesture that would have made an actor at the Gaiety blush - though I'd seen worse from a few.[2] The pistol sank with a plunk.

But Master Baelish had a glint in his eye, didn't he just? Smiling like little Havvy when he'd done something wrong, and bloody well knew it. (This was before Havvy had disappointed his father by growing up to be respectable, mind).[3]

"What gave me away?" he said. "Not that it matters. The Gold Cloaks'll be out in force by now. They're armed well enough—"

"Wolsely ain't asleep, you know," I said. "He's disarming 'em like Pandies[4] as we speak. Set up some cannons at the Royal Armory, I shouldn't wonder. Unless you think they'll attack us with swords."

The smile narrowed. No, young Petyr knew which way the wind blew where the Goldcloaks were concerned. If ever a regiment belonged to the Flashy School of Survival, they were it.

"Not that you'd have gone far," I said. "Certainly not to your factory in the Fingers."

For the shortest of moments, his eyes widened. Now it was my turn to smile. It's a coward's luxury, twisting the knife in – as long as you know you've got 'em. And you had better know.

"You'll find Her Majesty don't take kindly to lordlings making their own Tower muskets," I said.

Petyr's hands clenched, and then loosened. He just stood there for a moment or two, staring off into space. No doubt calculating like mad. At last, he rested his hand on one of those bizarre underground vines that crept up the walls.

"Clever," he said. "Not just a stupid soldier after all, eh?"

"I have my moments."

Petyr sighed again in that sharp way of his. And that smile...I felt my skin crawling just a bit more.

"You know, Mr. Flashman…" he said, "I got into a duel when I was a young man."

"Can't say I care, particularly."

"Stupid decision, really," Petyr said. "I got this—"

He traced a scar along his face.

"—and decided that fighting wasn't for me. No, I'm afraid bean-counting and collecting whores have been my chief preoccupations after that. Much better at it, you see."

"Every man has his calling. So if ye don't mind, I think the Governor-General will have a few questions before hanging you-"

Petyr barked a laugh.

"Ah, but you seem to have forgotten something, Mr. Flashman," he said. "And I must admit that it only occurred to me a moment ago as well."

"Oh?"

"I'm still a Westerosi noble," he said. "I trained with a sword as part of my education..."

The smile widened.

"...And you're an old man."

I'd been expecting it. Expecting something. But Petyr was young – and quick, for all his lack of martial ardor.

He tossed his torch in my face. I yelped and dodged to one side, guarding my eyes instinctively. My pistol cracked…and the shot went wide. Petyr's sword left its sheath in the same motion.

There are times when the true-blue coward has his advantages over the normal man. There's no better goad than fear. Your average fellow on the street can convince himself that maybe it won't be so bad if he don't fight to the last breath. The coward, though…well, he knows that it's now or never, grips his sword like grim death, and blubbers into the fray.

But Petyr was fast. He wasn't necessarily smooth; his movements had a rusty jerkiness to them from years of neglect. But he was fast. Even with that medieval meatcleaver.

He cut at my cheek like De Gautet on one of his better days – and I fell back just in time, howling blood murder. Petyr advanced, cutting left and right. My foot slipped on the soupy floor, and he was almost on me.

I barely steadied myself against the wall, and then he was coming for me all the harder. Cut. Parry. Cut – I scrambled backward. Ward —no, a feint, and I backed up.

I angled for a tunnel that would have hampered his sword-arm. Petyr knew what he was about, though, and maneuvered away. Now I could only hope to draw him into the darkness – where I could fall on my knees and hack for his ankles, or find some way to make my weight tell. But even then, he'd have the light at his back.

I tried my hand at offbalancing him. Baelish seemed like another of those chessmasters, of whom I'd met a fair few. Bismarck, for one. And none of them like their cleverness thrown in their faces.

"Bit obvious, really, when you think about it," I said.

"Oh? Do tell."

Feint – Cut.

"It ain't every day that all the warlords choose to attack us, even though we've got the means to smash 'em," says I. "Especially when they all make stupid mistakes. Almost as if someone was whittling everyone down."

"Huh. Imagine that—HAH!"

He tried again. His blade seemed everywhere at once, too, and I decided that taunting him wasn't working.

The bastard was still talking, though.

"Now, now," Petyr said. "I did give you a chance to screw that blonde piece before I sent her into your Gatlings. Just think. A black-whiskered Targaryen bastard on the Iron Throne. I almost thought her dragons could pull it off, too."

The blade was like quicksilver. It glittered with that torchlight – but. Yes. I turned it with the forte and tried for a mad sweep. It opened his cheek, and he leaned too far back – overbalanced. Panicked.

I tried for another cut. Petyr was on guard again. Not for the last time, I cursed the lack of furniture to kick at him. So it was more of the same, except with Petyr bleeding and tense.

My strength was fading. I wheezed. The last bits of endurance were leaching out, and my grip was becoming looser.

Petyr's cuts felt like hammer blows. I fell back to the Maltese cross. Not a good choice, looking back; it's an up-down-across motion that leaves you winded in half a minute. And that's if you're young, which I wasn't.

I nearly collapsed, but Petyr's impatience saved me. He slashed wildly, and our blades clashed hilt to hilt. We closed.

Finally, thinks I…but no. Baelish had a weasel's own slipperiness, and he'd been trained in that free-for-all wrestling that Westerosi knights used instead of good swordplay. He wrapped my arm in some sort of hold and wrenched. I heard something pop. And screamed.

My sword clattered to the floor. Baelish was wary, though – he scrambled for his own sword, and then edged closer again with one eye on me. He was trembling. Blood from the cheek I'd sliced was still dribbling into the mud.

For my own part, I was shivering with that red-faced terror that my enemies had always mistaken for anger.

"Wait," I gasped. "Just – ugh - Just wait, curse you! Please don't kill me…I—It's not fair, and oh please don't-"

I might have blubbed, then. I'm fairly sure that I tried to clutch his cloak and slobber on it like I'd seen Westerosi supplicants do. And you know, Baelish just stared at me for a second. Puzzled, like. A smile crept across his face.

"A fair try, Mr. Flashman," he said. "Points for theatre, even. But we both know you're not the type to—"

"Urk!"

I clutched my chest. My heart was hammering far too fast for comfort – so much that I was half-sure that I was actually dying. My reply—or attempt thereat—came out as a croak.

…And Petyr leaned just that slightest bit closer.

I lunged, and punched his crotch for all I was worth. Petyr tried to turn. It was far too late for that. My fist landed solidly between his legs.

The blow doubled the bastard over. He gave a strangled yelp and dropped. I stomped on him a few times – twice to take the fight out of him, and once for luck.

When that was over, I retrieved the sword with my one good hand, stabbed his sword-arm for good measure (eliciting another pleasant shriek), and held it to his throat.

And then I almost did collapse. It hadn't all been shamming. The adrenaline was gone.

It took Master Baelish a while to recover from that. Someone might know to check the tunnels. They'd find us eventually. Maybe. He lay there for a while, gasping and wincing. I tried to catch my breath.

Finally, he spoke again.

"House arrest…might not be so bad," Baelish said at last. "Well, assuming you people don't hang me."

"I wouldn't be so sure," I said.

Even then, I saw that glint in his eye. Bleeding and broken beneath the Red Keep – but still giddy with mischief, after a fashion.

An idea struck me. It was one of the better ones - not close to convincing Jefferson Davis that I'd come to fix the lightning rod, but more satisfying, in its way.

Baelish laughed. It was a high-pitched sound that blended with his gasps of pain, it but was laughter.

"Your Wolsely will find me useful still, I think," he said. "No…we'll be seeing each other again. They won't hang me until the Walkers are dealt with, at least."

"That's too bad, then," I said.

"What's too bad?" Baelish said.

"The way you died trying to escape."

It took a moment for the realization to dawn on Baelish. For his eyes to widen, and watch as my blade came down. Even a belated attempt to dodge.

Not fast enough. My sword cut him off-center, but it cut deeply. Baelish was almost too weak to cry out when the second blow fell. Never mind the third.

I haven't done much murder in my time, and I don't recommend it. Bully and coward I might be – in spades – but by the time you reach sixty, you've begun to care more about whores and a good glass of port than watching your enemies suffer.

But it wasn't my debt that Baelish had owed.

"An offering of blood, for the Dragon in the Night Lands," I whispered. "Enjoy, Khaleesi."

I dropped the sword and dragged my battered carcass toward the exit.

He was a foul man, was Petyr Baelish. Charming in his own way – like Yehonala, except that Petyr put too much stock in his own bandobast [5], and too little in ours. Petyr Baelish and the Incomparable Yi Concubine: a pretty pair of vipers they'd have made.

There was, of course, one crucial difference. I'd actually liked Yehonala, for all that she'd been Caligula in female form. Baelish, though? Well, Yehonala was still warming the Imperial Throne at Peking, wasn't she, while Baelish was feeding worms in the Red Keep. That should be indication enough.

[1] "Make sure." The phrase is part of Scottish dialect, perhaps picked up - albeit tongue-in-cheek - from Elspeth's family.

[2] The Gaiety Theatre, built in 1868, was known for its musical burlesque, pantomime, and operetta performances. It remained standing until 1956.

[3] Flashman doubtless refers to his own son. The younger, rather unfortunately-named Harry Albert Victor Flashman ("Havvy") became a man of the cloth.

[4] "Pandies" - Derogatory label for rebelling sepoys during the Indian Mutiny. After the Mutiny began, the British often disarmed Indian regiments at gunpoint.

[5] "Organization" (Hindi)