I had three days still left at Balmoral, and the first of them was spent closeted with Ellenborough and a sharp little creature from the Board of Control, who lectured me in maddening detail about my mission to Jhansi, and conditions in India — I won't weary you with it here, for you'll learn about Jhansi and its attendant horrors and delights in due course. Sufficient to say it did nothing but deepen my misgivings — and then, on the Wednesday morning, something happened which drove everything else clean out of my mind. It was such a shock, such an unbelievable coincidence in view of what had gone before (or so it seemed at the time) that I can still think back to it with disbelief- aye, and start sweating at the thought.
I'd had a thoroughly drunken night at Abergeldie, to take my mind off the future, and when I woke cloth-headed and surly on the Wednesday morning, Elspeth suggested that instead of breakfast I'd be better going for a canter. I damned her advice and sent for a horse, left her weeping sulkily into her boiled egg, and ten minutes later was galloping the fumes away along the Balmoral road. I reached the castle, and trotted up as far as the carriage entrance; beyond it, on the far side of the gravel sweep, one of the big castle coaches that brought quality visitors from Aberdeen station was drawn up, and flunkies were handing down the arrivals and bowing them towards the steps leading to the side door.
Some more poor fools of consequence about to savour the royal hospitality, thinks I, and was just about to turn my horse away when I happened to glance again at the group of gentlemen in travelling capes who were mounting the steps. One of them turned to say something to the flunkies — and I nearly fell from the saddle, and only saved myself by clutching the mane with both hands. I believe I nearly fainted — for it was something infinitely worse than a ghost; it was real, even if it was utterly impossible. The man on the steps, spruce in the rig of an English country gentleman, and now turning away into the castle, was the man I'd last seen beside the line of carrion gallows at Fort Raim — the man Palmerston was sending me to India to defeat and kilclass="underline" Count Nicholas Pavlevitch Ignatieff.
"You're sure?" croaked Ellenborough. "No, no, Flashman — it can't be! Count Ignatieff- whom we were discussing two nights since — here? Impossible!"
"My lord," says I, "I've good cause to know him better than most, and I tell you he's in the castle now, gotch-eye and all. Cool as damn-your-eyes, in a tweed cape and deer-stalker hat, so help me! He was there, at the door, not ten minutes ago!"
He plumped down on a chair, mopping at the shaving-soap on his cheeks — I'd practically had to manhandle his valet to be admitted, and I'd left a trail of startled minions on the back-stairs in my haste to get to his room. I was still panting from exertion, to say nothing of shock.
"I want an explanation of this, my lord," says I, "for I'll not believe it's chance."
"What d'ye mean?" says he, goggling.
"Two nights ago we talked of precious little else but this Russian monster — how he'd been spying the length and breadth of India, in the very place to which I'm being sent. And now he turns up — the very man? Is that coincidence?" I was in such a taking I didn't stand on ceremony. "How comes he in the country, even? Will you tell me Lord Palmerston didn't know?"
"My God, Flashman!" His big mottled face looked shocked. "What d'you mean by that?"
"I mean, my lord," says I, trying to hold myself in, "that there's precious little that happens anywhere, let alone in England, that Lord Palmerston doesn't know about — is it possible that he's unaware that the most dangerous agent in Russia — and one of their leading nobles, to boot — is promenading about as large as life? And never a word the other night, when —"
"Wait! Wait!" cries he, wattling. "That's a monstrous suggestion! Contain yourself, sir! Are you positive it's Ignatieff?"
I was ready to burst, but I didn't. "I'm positive."
"Stay here," says he, and bustled out, and for ten minutes I chewed my nails until he came back, shutting the door behind him carefully. He had got his normal beetroot colour back, but he looked damned rattled.
"It's true," says he. "Count Ignatieff is here with Lord Aberdeen's party — as a guest of the Queen. It seems — you know we have Granville in Petersburg just now, for the new Tsar's coronation? Well, a party. of Russian noblemen — the first since the war — have just arrived in Leith yesterday, bringing messages of good will, or God knows what, from the new monarch to the Queen. Someone had written to Aberdeen — I don't know it all yet — and he brought them with him on his way north — with this fellow among 'em. It's extraordinary! The damndest chance!"
"Chance, my lord?" says I. "I'll need some convincing of that!"
"Good God, what else? I'll allow it's long odds, but I'm certain if Lord Palmerston had had the least inkling … " He trailed off, and you could see the sudden doubt of his own precious Prime Minister written on his jowly face. "Oh, but the notion's preposterous … what purpose could it serve not to tell us? No — he would certainly have told me — and you, I'm sure."
Well, I wasn't sure — from what I'd heard of Pam's sense of humour I'd have put nothing past him. And yet it would have been folly, surely, with me on the point of setting off for India, ostensibly to undo IgnatiefFs work, to have let him come face to face with me. And then, the wildest thought — was it possible Ignatieff knew about my mission?
"Never!" trumpets Ellenborough. "No, that couldn't be! The decision to send you out was taken a bare two weeks since — it would be to credit the Russian intelligence system with super-human powers — and if he did, what could he accomplish here? — dammit, in the Queen's own home! This isn't Middle Asia — it's a civilised country —"
"My lord, that's not a civilised man," says I. "But what's to be done? I can't meet him!"
"Let me think," says he, and strode about, heaving his stomach around. Then he stopped, heavy with decision.
"I think you must," says he. "If he has seen you — or finds out that you were here and left before your time … wait, though, it might be put down to tact on your part … still, no!" He snapped his fingers at me. "No, you must stay. Better to behave as though there was nothing untoward — leave no room to excite suspicion — after all, former enemies meet in time of peace, don't they? And we'll watch him — by George, we will! Perhaps we'll learn something ourselves! Hah-ha!"
And this was the port-sodden clown who had once governed India. I'd never heard such an idiot suggestion — but could I shift him? I pleaded, in the name of common sense, that I should leave at once, but he wouldn't have it — I do believe that at the back of his mind was the suspicion that Pam had known Ignatieff was coming, and Ellenborough was scared to tinker with the Chief's machinations, whatever they were.
"You'll stay," he commanded, "and that's flat. What the devil — it's just a freak of fate — and if it's not, there's nothing this Russian rascal can do. I tell you what, though — I'm not going to miss his first sight of you, what? The man he threatened with torture and worse — disgusting brute! Aye, and the man who bested him in the end. Ha-ha!" And he clapped me on the shoulder. "Aye — hope nothing happens to embarrass the Queen, though. You'll mind out for that, Flashman, won't you — it wouldn't do — any unpleasantness, hey?"