He reached out and grasped Macharius’s arm in a gesture of comradeship.
I saw the look of shock on Drake’s face and the look of triumph on Macharius’s. The Space Wolves had given his actions the seal of approval of the Adeptus Astartes, one Chapter at least.
‘Now, bring us drink!’ Grimfang bellowed. ‘And meat. We must celebrate this glorious day.’
With a sweep of his mighty arm, he cleared the table. Sejanus shrugged and produced a hip-flask. Servants were dispatched. Raw and bloody grox was brought.
The celebration began.
‘Drink, little man,’ said Grimfang. He offered me a goblet with his own hands. I was later to learn this was a great honour. Apparently he had been impressed by the way I had got between him and Macharius.
I looked at him. I looked at Macharius, and then I looked back at the goblet. The Space Wolves were gulping down some foul-smelling spirit from the massive brandy glasses that were full to the brim. Even those looked like shotglass tumblers in their hands.
Macharius nodded. I accepted the goblet and took a mouthful. The spirit was so strong it burned. I gulped it down and then drank some more. It was like having half a bottle poured down my throat. If I had drunk any faster I would probably have died. As it was, I was not sure I could feel my legs.
Grimfang slapped me on the back. I am sure he was being as gentle as he could, but the force of the blow almost knocked me face first onto the table. ‘You can drink, even if you are not a Son of Russ,’ he said.
‘If I drink any more I will fall head first into that bucket of amasec over there,’ I slurred. My vision was blurry. My throat felt raw. I looked around. The generals were all drinking save for Arrian. Sejanus was playing hook-knife with some massive Space Wolf warrior, a very dangerous game when sober, a good way to lose a finger when drunk.
Grimfang threw his arm around my shoulder, drew me closer like an old drinking comrade, and leaned forwards and murmured into my ear.
‘You have the smell of an evil woman on you,’ he said. ‘An assassin and something worse. Be wary,’ he said. He pushed me away again, his face as jovial as a Space Wolf’s ever got, leaving me to wonder about the words he had said, or whether I had imagined them.
And that’s the last clear memory I have of that evening.
‘Kill me now,’ I said. The room seemed to be whirling around as if someone had placed a gravitic rotator under my bed. It felt like one of the Adeptus Astartes was banging on my head with a thunder hammer. My throat felt raw. My stomach churned as if I had the Brontovan trots.
‘You saw Space Wolves,’ said Anton. ‘You drank with Space Wolves.’
‘You pointed a shotgun at Space Wolves,’ said Ivan. ‘Your stupidity is impressive.’
‘Don’t worry. They got their revenge. They decided a bolter shell was too quick, so they tried to kill me with alcohol poisoning. I think they are on the verge of success. Ivan, if I die, you can have my shotgun.’
‘I wanted that,’ said Anton.
‘Ivan, you have my permission to give Anton the shotgun – full bore in the face,’ I said. ‘Make sure it’s loaded with manstopper rounds. You’ll need them to breach his thick skull.’
‘Hark at the man who tried to outdrink a Space Wolf,’ said Anton. ‘He is calling me stupid.’
‘I wasn’t trying to outdrink him,’ I said, pausing to throw up in the bucket that Ivan had helpfully placed near my head. ‘I just decided it would be more dangerous to refuse than to drink. Of course, I might have been wrong about that.’
‘I hope you did not let the side down,’ said Anton. ‘I would not want them thinking the boys from Belial cannot hold their liquor.’
‘Anton,’ I said, dry heaving for a bit before continuing. ‘Compared to a Space Wolf, a mastodon can’t hold its drink. One of them could outdrink an alcoholic ogryn and its inbred cousin, probably its whole alcoholic clan.’
I had flashbacks to last night’s drinking session, just images really, because after I had accepted Grimfang’s proffered glass my memory of things shattered into a thousand glittering booze-soaked pieces. I recalled the High Command of Macharius’s army drinking toasts to the Adeptus Astartes, sensibly using thimble sized shot-glasses of spirit, while the Space Wolves guzzled tankards of the stuff.
I remembered speeches being given and songs being sung, and over everything a looming sense of unreality hovering. It seemed so unlikely that we could be in the presence of these creatures of legend, that they would be present on the crusade. I remembered howling war cries and tales of battle and a skald singing something in an odd chant that told of ancient battles under bloody suns against foes worthy of Wolves.
I remembered Macharius reeling to his feet and speaking of the wars of his youth, not boasting, simply talking about old comrades, now gone and battles long won. I remembered Drake of all people toasting Macharius and their friendship.
Most of all I remembered what Grimfang had whispered, about the way Anna’s scent clung to me. The Great Wolf knew about the Imperial assassin. He suspected her. Not without good reason. The question troubling me was how right was he?
I pushed that aside as something to be worried about another day and lay there and groaned until it was time to take up my duties again.
The meeting chamber was large, but the Space Wolves made it feel small. They had a presence out of all proportion to their surroundings, bristling with an energy that was superhuman, studying us with eyes that were as alien as any xenos.
I looked at them and wondered what they had in common with us. They seemed to have stepped out of an earlier age, one more barbaric and heroic. I have spent most of my adult life fighting the Emperor’s wars, and I like to think that few things daunt me, but the Space Wolves did. It was not just their size and strangeness. It was the suggestion that at any moment they were capable of erupting into violence, and that it came as naturally to them as breathing. They made me nervous just by being what they were. Fine allies, I thought, but not people I would want to spend too much time around when I was sober. Now that I had had time to consider my actions I wondered at my temerity the previous day.
Macharius, of course, gave no sign of being intimidated. Of all the people in the room, he was the closest to the Adeptus Astartes. It was not hard to imagine that in a different time or different place he might have been one of them. He had something of their hair-trigger quickness, their supreme self-confidence, their savage capacity for violence. You looked at Macharius and you looked at the Wolves, and you felt their kinship. War was the element they had been born for. A man fights because he has been chosen or because he must. Macharius and those savage demigods would fight because they loved it.
He sat now on his dais and studied the Space Wolves. They studied him back. They did not need thrones to appear regal. Their natural presence made them seem greater than any noble or any general. Ulrik Grimfang had about him the aura of a particularly savage saint. He stood flanked by a Dreadnought, an ancient living war machine, and a selection of his captains. There was just Macharius and Drake and myself. I had no real idea why I was there. There was nothing I could do to protect Macharius from the Adeptus Astartes if they turned violent. Perhaps my willingness to intervene even with the Adeptus Astartes had impressed Macharius. The cynical part of my mind thought that perhaps they wanted to be sure that what I heard was reported to Anna.
Grimfang cast his eyes around the chamber. ‘It is sealed,’ he said. His harsh, rasping voice carried through the room easily.
‘It is sealed,’ said Macharius. ‘What is spoken here goes no further.’