‘It’s “S” for shut your hole,’ replied Cardass. Men laughed.
‘One word of advice,’ Hark shouted over the hooting and thumping. ‘Don’t screw this up.’
‘Would we, sir?’ replied Varl. ‘Would we screw anything up? Ever?’
‘We screw some things up,’ said Bonin.
Varl frowned. ‘Yes, we do,’ he admitted. He looked at Hark and grinned. ‘We’ll try really hard not to do that this time, sir,’ he said.
‘I don’t know what I was worried about,’ said Hark. He started to walk towards the exit. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Your first duty shift starts tonight. You take over when the prisoner is transferred for embarkation.’
‘Wait!’ Rawne called after him. ‘If you’re our liaison officer, Commissar Hark, you ought to witness the whole of our little founding.’
The men had quietened down.
‘Whose “founding”?’ Hark asked, turning back.
Rawne smiled, and picked up an empty ammo box that had been standing on the floor at his feet. He shook it, and metal objects inside it clinked together.
‘The Suicide Kings,’ Rawne said.
The men whooped and hollered again.
‘That’s a card game, major,’ said Hark.
‘Lots of versions of that game around the sector,’ Rawne said. He handed the ammo box to Cant, who reached in, rummaged, and took something out. The box then passed to Varl.
‘Lots of versions,’ Rawne repeated, watching the box get passed around, each man taking something out. ‘Lots of variations. The version we call Suicide Kings, that came from Tanith in the first place, you know.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Hark.
‘The Suicide King himself,’ said Rawne, ‘in a standard deck, that’s the King of Knives.’
‘The King of Knives!’ Brostin echoed lustily as the box reached him and he took something out of it.
‘You see,’ Rawne continued, ‘the Tanith called the game Suicide Kings because of that card. The King of Knives. You know why?’
‘No, but I am convinced you’re about to tell me,’ said Hark.
Rawne smiled. ‘Back in the old times, ages past, the ruler of Tanith, the High King, was protected by a bodyguard company. The finest warriors, Nalsheen. They were his close protection, his last line of defence. Instead of blade-tipped staffs, they used straight silver blades, just warknives, so they could close around the High King and protect him with their bodies, and not endanger him with the swings of long reach weapons. It was a great honour for a man to join the bodyguard company, but the chances were he’d die in that service. So when a man took up the duty, the Tanith granted him the powers of king in his own right. The High King was protected by men who had the authority of kings themselves. Absolute power in return for absolute service.’
Rawne looked at Hark.
‘They were known as the Suicide Kings,’ he said. ‘They lived the lives of kings because their lives could end at any second, and they never questioned the sacrifice.’
The box had come back to him. There was one item left in it. Rawne took it out and held it up.
It was a Tanith cap badge, the skull and daggers, but it was dulled down matt black to hide its glint, and the side daggers had not been snapped off, as was the Tanith custom. A letter ‘S’ had been etched onto the forehead of the skull. Every man in the room apart from Hark had one.
‘That’s what we’ll be,’ Rawne said. ‘Suicide Kings. That’s what the “S” stands for, and this’ll be our mark.’
‘You’ve left the side blades on,’ said Hark.
‘For this mark,’ Rawne nodded. ‘Surrounded by straight silver, the way a high king should be.’
‘You surprise me with your sentimentality sometimes, major,’ said Hark.
‘Open the bottles,’ Rawne said to Brostin. ‘We’ll celebrate. Except for the four men who have drawn a badge with a cross scratched on the back.’
The men turned their badges over. Bonin, Mkaninch, Nomis and Laydly had drawn the crosses.
‘Water from the jug for you four, because you’ll be taking the first turn of duty,’ said Rawne. ‘Luck of the draw. Sacra for the other kings. And one for the good commissar, I think.’
Hark took the small glass of eye-watering sacra that Mktally passed to him.
‘Suicide Kings,’ he said, tipping it back.
Though not drunk, Jakub Wilder was by no means sober. The reception was dire and dull in equal measures, and he’d drunk a skinful to try to blot out the fool he’d made of himself with Gaunt. The man made him sick, made him angry. He should have landed that blow. He should go right back, take out his service pistol and shoot the arrogant bastard between the eyes.
They were serving junk too. Some kind of fortified wine. Wilder wanted a proper drink. A grown up drink.
He left the hall and stood in the open for a while to get some fresh air. When he started to feel cold, he went back inside. He bumped into a woman in the entranceway. A damn fine looking woman, damn fine, in a blue dress. An officer’s wife, probably. An officer’s woman.
‘I’m sorry, mam,’ he said, and realised he was slurring slightly.
‘Not at all,’ she replied.
There were stairs down into the undercroft. Wilder had seen the servers bringing bottles up from the cellars. Maybe he could find himself some amasec, some of the stuff that had run out so damn fast at the start of the evening.
He went down the stairs. It was cool and gloomy. He could hear the main reception party, and also the sounds of men celebrating something in one of the undercroft spaces. Some private drinking party, no doubt. He’d avoid them.
Wilder found his way to the cage sections of the pantry where the bottles were racked. He shook the bars, but the cages were locked. The storekeeper would have the key. Damn.
‘There’s always a way to open things,’ said a voice from behind him.
Wilder turned. There were three men behind him. They were sitting out of the way in a corner of the pantry area, crowded in around a small table under an arch. Coming in, he hadn’t seen them.
‘Excuse me?’ he said.
They were Tanith. Two were Tanith born and bred. They had the pale skin and the black hair. One was a red-faced, drunken-looking bastard, the other… well, he just looked like a bastard. Handsome but hard-faced, like there was a bad smell right under his nose. He was a captain from his pins, the red-faced sot a common trooper. The third man wore the black uniform of the regiment, but he was fair-skinned and blond. His eyes were watery blue and his hair was thin, like white gold. There was an aristocratic air about him, a slight snootiness. A cross between a haughty aristo and a deep sea fish that never sees the light and becomes translucent.
‘I said,’ the captain spoke cooly, ‘there’s always a way to open things.’
‘You got a key, have you?’ asked Wilder.
‘As it happens, I have.’ The captain reached into his pocket and held up a small brass key.
‘What are you… the pantry keeper?’ asked Wilder.
‘No,’ said the captain. ‘I’m the guy who knows how much money to pay the pantry master to get a second key cut.’
‘You were looking for a drink?’ asked the aristocratic fish, looking down his nose at Wilder with his milky blue eyes. That hair of his, it only looked white gold because it was so thin. It was pale, like his eyelashes. He’d probably been red-headed as a kid. A little snooty kid in the scholam.
‘I was looking for a drop of proper amasec,’ said Wilder.
‘Then you don’t even need the key,’ said the captain. ‘That is, if you’d care to join us.’
Wilder blinked. He realised he was swaying a little, so he steadied himself against the cellar arch. He realised there was a very expensive bottle of amasec on the table between the three men.