Sex

Sex provides a continuous undercurrent to Flashman in the Great Game, as narrator Harry Flashman, writing in his eighties, recalls his lovers fondly. Flashy remains physically attracted to his wife, the comely if dim-witted Elspeth, whom he suspects is as unfaithful as he. Summoned to Balmoral Castle by the Prime Minister, Flashy takes time to make love with Elspeth, who is waiting for him naked in bed, waving a feather fan.

In Bombay, Flashy visits a whorehouse, not only to assuage his passions but also because it is the best place to here gossip. He wants to know more about the Queen of Jhansi than he has heard at Balmoral. Official word is that she is old at the time she marries and has become an embittered widow stripped of her fortune and sovereignty. Flashy hears variously that she is skinny and pious and that she is beautiful...