by Tim Waggoner
Harry Hart was a handsome man in his fifties, and he wore the Kingsman suit as if it were a second skin. He moved with precision and economy of motion, and he spoke the same way. His tone was emotionally balanced, even detached at times, but there were notes of warmth and good humor there, if you knew how to recognize them. His normal expression was one of benign politeness, but his eyes told a different story. They radiated a focused intensity that indicated a man of keen intellect who was deeply aware of his surroundings, and who always had a plan to kill everyone in the room if necessary.
There were a number of different types of glassware on the table, and Harry identified them as he pointed to each in turn.
“White wine, wedding wine, pudding wine, pop, and whatever tipple takes your fancy.”
Eggsy nodded to show he got it.
“Time to learn how to eat like a gentleman,” Harry said. “First thing you do is unfold your napkin and place it on your lap.”
Eggsy did so. He’d never used a fancy cloth napkin before, and he was surprised at how heavy it felt. He draped it across his lap. Evidently he did it right because Harry said nothing to correct him.
Harry then stepped over to Eggsy and picked up one of the knives at his place setting.
“This is a butter knife,” he said. “The only one to remember. The rest of the cutlery is easy: start on the outside, work your way in with each course. And never let anyone describe you as ‘H.K.L.P.’” He returned the knife to its proper place on the table.
Eggsy frowned. “What’s that?”
“‘Holds knife like pen.’ A habit erroneously believed to be upper-class dining etiquette. It is quite the opposite.”
There was a tureen in the middle of the table, and now Harry ladled some soup into a bowl and placed it in front of Eggsy.
“Do I wait ’til everyone’s been served to start eating?” Eggsy asked.
“Only if the dish being served is cold, or if the queen is present. Otherwise, tuck in.”
Eggsy picked up a spoon, dipped it into the soup, brought it to his lips and quietly sipped. Even he knew better than to slurp. The soup—which Harry would later tell him was a Moroccan soup called harira—contained lamb, tomato, chickpeas, lentils, and was flavored with harissa hot sauce. It was absolutely delicious.
“Other way. Always push the spoon away from you.”
Eggsy decided to have a little fun with his mentor. He put down the spoon, picked up the bowl, and brought it to his lips as if he planned to drink directly from it.
“This is okay, though, right?”
Harry smiled. “Actually, if you’re in Japan, it’s absolutely the done thing.”
Eggsy grinned and took a big slurp from the bowl.
* * *
Eggsy smiled wistfully at the memory.
“Gotta be honest,” he said, “I never thought the royalty bit would be relevant. Harry would’ve been chuffed.”
“I wish I could’ve met him,” Tilde said.
I wish that too, Eggsy thought. So much.
Harry’s dog Mr Pickle, or rather his taxidermied remains, sat on a shelf in the dining room. Kingsman gave recruits a dog to train and care for during the selection process. What recruits didn’t know was the final exam was a killer. Literally. The candidates who made it to the end of training were handed a gun and told to shoot their dog. If they refused, they were sent home. Harry had shot Mr Pickle, only to discover that the gun had been loaded with blanks.
A Kingsman only condones the risking of a life to save another, Harry had explained.
Mr Pickle lived out his natural lifespan, and when the dog died, Harry had had him stuffed—which Eggsy had found more than a little odd, but hey, who was he to judge? He loved little JB so much he might not be able to give him up either after he died. Harry had kept Mr Pickle in the downstairs bathroom, along with framed displays of butterflies he had collected over the years. Eggsy couldn’t get used to staring into Mr Pickle’s glass eyes every time he took a slash, so he moved the poor little fellow into the dining room. It was more than a little weird, he supposed, but having Harry’s dog here made him feel more like part of the family.
“You miss him too, Mr Pickle, don’t you?” He paused a moment, then turned to Tilde. “Mr Pickle says yeah.”
He was hoping to lighten the mood, maybe even make her laugh, but all he got from her was a sad, understanding smile.
Chapter Three
Eggsy entered the Kingsman dining room, which was located on the second floor of the tailor shop, accessible by a set of stairs in the back. The room served as the primary meeting space for agents, and seated at the grand dining table were Merlin, Roxy, and the new Arthur. The room practically reeked of age and tradition, and nothing communicated this more than the paintings hanging on the walls and the busts on pedestals in the corners. They depicted men in old-fashioned suits, tuxedos, or uniforms, their poses formal, their faces serious as death. These were the founders of Kingsman, upper-class men who’d lost their sons in World War One and who had decided to use the money those sons hadn’t lived to inherit to create an independent intelligence agency, one that would prevent the kind of evil their sons had died fighting.
“Galahad. You’re late,” Arthur said. “We were wondering if you’d had a second encounter with Charlie.”
This Arthur—a man in his sixties named Augustin Edmonds—had until recently been an agent like the rest of them. He’d taken over the mantle of leadership when the agency rebuilt itself after the events of V-Day. Eggsy liked him well enough. He was firm but fair, and although he could be a bit of a prig at times, all in all he was a good boss to work for. Eggsy had certainly worked for worse in his time.
Merlin and Roxy suppressed smiles, and Eggsy knew what they were thinking: Like mentor, like protégé. Harry had been infamous for being late to meetings. He’d considered them a chore at best and a waste of time at worst. Eggsy agreed.
“I wish,” he said, slipping into the seat next to Roxy. “I’m looking forward to finishing him off.”
Eggsy donned his eyeglasses, and now he could see that the remaining chairs at the table were filled with the ghostly holographic images of those agents who were on assignment and could only attend the meeting in virtual form. He acknowledged them with a nod, which they returned in kind.
“’Bout time,” Roxy whispered, teasing. Eggsy kicked her gently beneath the table as a way of getting her back, and she grinned. They’d met when they were both recruited to join Kingsman, and they’d become friends right off. They’d each had the other’s back throughout the training period, and they’d learned that not only did their personalities complement each other, but they worked together so effectively it was as if they’d been partners for years. They’d been the last two recruits standing at the end of the training process, and ultimately they’d both become agents. Eggsy admired her enormously. He thought of her as a model agent, the absolute best that Kingsman had to offer, and he was proud to be her friend.
She was an attractive brunette with long straight hair, and she wore a woman’s version of a Kingsman suit: a slim tailored dark-gray blazer over a light gray blouse, with gray trousers and black shoes. While her outfit might look different to those of the men in the room, it possessed the same qualities: it moved so that it didn’t constrain physical activity, no matter how extreme, and best of all, it was bulletproof—the latter an absolute must for the modern, well-dressed spy.
“Well, no further business,” Arthur said to the assembled agents. “Galahad and Lancelot, please remain for Merlin’s debrief. Everyone else—reconvene at nineteen hundred hours. Dismissed.”
The other agents nodded their goodbyes and their images winked out.
Arthur gave Merlin a nod. “Merlin, please begin.”
Merlin stood and tapped a command on his computer tablet, and the mirror above the fireplace behind him revealed itself to be a hi-tech video display.
“This is CCTV footage from our encounter with Charlie—re
jected Kingsman applicant turned bad—back at Richmond Valentine’s HQ,” Merlin said. “We’ve never had reason to go back over this before.”
Eggsy watched himself join the traitorous Swedish prime minister at his booth table. The man was surfing the Net on a laptop, and Merlin needed Eggsy to find him a Wi-Fi connection to Valentine’s mainframe so he could hack into the man’s system. Eggsy tranquilized the prime minister by shooting a small fast-acting sleep dart from his watch into the man’s neck. The prime minister slumped over, Eggsy inserted the USB drive Merlin had given him into the computer, and voilà! Connection established.
That’s when Charlie came up behind Eggsy and pressed a wickedly long knife to his neck. There was no sound with the video, but Eggsy remembered what they’d said to each other.
Nice and slow, Charlie said.
The fuck are you doing here? Eggsy asked.
Charlie made a face as if it was the stupidest question he’d ever heard. My family were invited, obviously. Get the fuck up—slowly.
Eggsy raised his hands and rose from the booth, Charlie holding the blade to his throat the entire time. The booth was located on a mezzanine in Valentine’s control center-slash-night club, and Charlie steered Eggsy over to the railing.
Valentine! Charlie shouted. I caught a fucking spy!
In a single swift motion, Eggsy had pressed his Kingsman sovereign ring to Charlie’s right temple, hitting the bastard with a 50,000 volt electric charge. Charlie’s body began convulsing instantly. He lowered the knife and took a step back, and he might have fallen on his own, but Eggsy—pissed—punched the asshole in the jaw and laid him out.
Eggsy then jumped over the railing, landed on the main floor, and—thinking his work was done—ran like hell to get out of there.
“Can we see that again?” Eggsy asked.
Merlin gave him a look, but he tapped his tablet, and everyone watched the scene play out once more.
When the footage was finished, Merlin spoke again. “Now, like everyone else there, Charlie had a security implant in his neck. A weakness we had no choice but to exploit.”
Merlin tapped his tablet and a different video came up on the screen. The assembled agents watched as the heads of all the revelers in Valentine’s self-proclaimed “ark” exploded in a series of sickening, yet somehow strangely beautiful, explosions.
“Still ‘fucking spectacular,’ eh, Merlin?” Eggsy said, doing a passable imitation of Merlin’s Scottish accent. When no one reacted to his impression, Eggsy scowled. “Bloody hell, loosen up, guys. We saved the world!”
“You also saved Charlie,” Merlin said.
He brought up new video. This footage showed Charlie regaining consciousness and rising painfully to his feet. He gazed upon the room full of headless bodies with wide-eyed horror. He then ran off, unsteady on his feet, grimacing as he rubbed the area where his security chip had been implanted with one hand, while his other arm dangled limply at his side.
“You shorted out his implant,” Merlin said. “He survived but lost his arm and vocal cords.”
Eggsy understood what had happened. “So me giving him a few volts saved him. Fucker should be thanking me.”
“And now he’s back for revenge?” Arthur asked.
“We don’t think so, sir,” Merlin said. “We believe he’s been recruited by an unknown organization. Lancelot?”
Roxy stood. “Got the police autopsy reports for Charlie’s colleagues in the SUVs. They’re not just goons-for-hire.”
One of the reports appeared on the screen, along with an image of a dead man, naked, with a gold circle tattooed on his chest.
Roxy continued. “Fingerprints removed. Teeth filed smooth. And I ran photo recognition—nothing.”
Arthur pointed to the gold circle on the man’s chest. “And this thing?”
“A cosmetic tattoo,” Roxy said, “made of twenty-four carat gold. They all had them. I suspect we’re looking at some kind of underworld organization.”
Eggsy didn’t care all that much about who was employing Charlie. He just wanted to get his hands on the fucker and this time make sure that when he put him down, he stayed down.
“While Roxy’s figuring that out, I’ll track Charlie,” Eggsy said.
“Good,” Arthur said. “Bring him in.” He paused and gave Eggsy a hard look. “Alive. Dismissed.”
Eggsy wasn’t happy about it, but he nodded. Of course, sometimes out in the field accidents did happen…
* * *
Eggsy was loading a steamer trunk—a quite heavy one, actually—into the back of a Kingsman taxi outside his house, while Tilde stood nearby, holding JB on a leash. Both of them were dressed casually: Eggsy in jeans, T-shirt, hoodie, and ball cap, Tilde in a peasant blouse (ironic since she was royalty, Eggsy thought) and black leggings. As Eggsy finished stowing the trunk, his friend Brandon came running up the mews to join them, out of breath. He was dressed much the same as Eggsy, but without the cap.
“About fucking time!” Eggsy said. “We’re late!” He instantly regretted snapping at Brandon, but despite the façade he’d been putting on for Tilde, he was quite nervous about having dinner with her parents. It was hard enough to meet your girlfriend’s folks, but when they were actual royalty, it added a whole other layer of tension to the event. And it didn’t help that he was on edge about Charlie. He had no way of knowing when the bastard might try to attack him again, and he was on high alert, not wanting Tilde to get caught in the crossfire if Charlie had another go at him.
Tilde frowned at Eggsy. “Stop that!”
“Sorry!” Brandon said. “Tube strike. Some of us still have to use public transport, bruv.” He patted the taxi’s hood, smiling to show that he meant nothing by the comment.
Eggsy’s life had changed drastically over the last few months, and he couldn’t tell Brandon the full truth about Kingsman, but none of that had hurt their friendship. They were still mates, and Eggsy hoped they always would be.
“Don’t worry, Brandon,” Tilde said. “It’s very nice of you to dog-sit.” She gave Eggsy a pointed look. “Isn’t it?”
Eggsy let out a long breath and forced himself to calm down. “Yeah. Cheers. We owe you one.” He fished the door keys out of his pocket and handed them to Brandon. “Make yourself at home. But don’t go in my office. And no friends, yeah?”
Eggsy didn’t want Brandon to think he didn’t trust him, but there were things inside the house that no civilian should see—and some of those things could be dangerous.
If Brandon took any offense at Eggsy’s words, he showed no sign. He slipped the keys into his trouser pocket, took JB’s leash from Tilde, and gave Eggsy a grin. “What about if ma bitch wants a booty call?”
“JB’s a boy. And he ain’t interested in your booty.” Eggsy knelt down and gave JB a kiss on the top of his head. “Are you, mate? No.”
JB barked and wagged his tail, and the three of them laughed.
* * *
Drottningholm Palace was located on the island of Lovön, only a half-hour drive from Stockholm’s city center, but to Eggsy, being here was like traveling back in time. It was a proper palace, built in the late sixteenth century, and it was absolutely huge, of course. The damn thing even had its own theater where the Royal Swedish Opera performed. The castle was surrounded by beautiful parks and gardens that were popular tourist attractions, and they enhanced the palace’s fairy-tale appearance. When Eggsy first laid eyes on the palace, he tried to imagine what it had been like for Tilde growing up here, but he couldn’t. This wasn’t just a different place to where he’d grown up in London—it was like a whole other fucking planet!
After they’d arrived and gotten settled, they dressed for dinner. Tilde wore a black dress designed to leave the left shoulder bare. Eggsy thought the dress looked classy and informal at the same time—an outfit that perfectly reflected Tilde’s personality, he thought. Eggsy wore a red velvet smoking jacket with a black bow tie, black trousers and—naturally—his Oxfords. He f
elt silly in the outfit, but Tilde had chosen it for him and, once he’d donned it, she’d assured him he looked quite handsome. He had added one touch of his own, though: his Kingsman eyeglasses.
Tilde held onto Eggsy’s arm as they made their way to the palace anteroom. Liveried footmen dressed in blue uniforms with white trim and silver epaulets bowed as they passed, and Eggsy acknowledged them with a serene smile, as if he were used to such treatment. But inside he felt like a complete poseur.
“Fuck me,” he said under his breath.
“Oh, I will,” Tilde said softly. “Later. Maybe in the throne room.”
They both giggled, and continued down a long corridor until they reached a large pair of double doors, flanked by more footmen. The men bowed, then opened the doors for Eggsy and Tilde to pass through. Eggsy told himself not to be nervous. Whatever the king and queen were like, he knew they were good people. After all, they’d refused to throw in their lot with Valentine, unlike so many other world leaders, wealthy businesspeople, and famous entertainers. A butler was waiting for Eggsy and Tilde just inside the room—a man in his sixties, wearing a black suit and a blank, slightly bored expression, as if he’d seen just about everything in his time and nothing impressed him anymore. He formally announced them.
“Prinsessa Tilde, och Herr…” He paused, as if having to force himself to say Eggsy’s name, but he soldiered on. “Gary ‘Eggsy’ Unwin.”
The king and queen stood stiffly nearby. Tilde’s mother and father were both in their sixties, having had their daughter later in life. The king was bald with a fringe of silver hair around the sides and back. The queen’s hair was blond—probably a dye job, Eggsy figured, but it looked natural enough. However, the way they were dressed came as a complete shock to him. Tilde had told him that her parents normally dressed professionally but simply: her father in suit and tie, her mother in dresses, accessorized with pearls and earrings. Nothing too fancy. But tonight they were dressed as if for an official royal dinner. The king wore a tuxedo with a light blue sash across his chest. The left side of his jacket was covered with medals of various shapes and sizes. Eggsy had no idea what they were for, but they looked impressive as hell. The queen wore a long-sleeved white lace dress—also with a blue sash across the chest—and diamond earrings and a diamond necklace. She wore jeweled bracelets and—he couldn’t believe it—a fucking silver crown.
