Training to be a spy isn't nearly as much fun as Roxy had expected.
Given how much fun she'd always had with all the training and extra classes and things Alastair had arranged for her over the years, this leaves her rather miffed. She's damn good with a gun and a knife and most any other weapon they throw at her, the bomb disposal training reminds her suspiciously of some of the pattern games Dog and Les used play with her, and she already speaks more languages than anyone else except Digby, whose father has had to be moved from five ambassadorial roles in ten years thanks to an array of sordid behaviour.
Terror of heights aside - although that thankfully hasn't come up just yet - only Eggsy and Charlie are on her level, and she's already beginning to wonder how in the world Charlie would ever manage an infiltration mission. He's very good, she won't deny that, but he's completely in love with his own competence. The idea of his playing any role but his own is ludicrous. Roxy's had to play five different roles just within her family all her life, so she's primed and ready. Eggsy is better at accents than she is, and he's a total chameleon with only a bottle of hair gel and five minutes in front of a mirror, but he's at an advantage.
Being the first female candidate to ever cross Kingsman's hallowed threshold means Roxy doesn't have a lot to work with.
She's managing well enough, all things considered. She's gotten quite good at chest binding, and none of the boys have her eye for facial contouring. She's even managed a reasonably realistic pair of socks down her jocks more than once. That's no good to her in circumstances that will allow her to really stand out, though, and so she isn't surprised when Merlin walks into the barracks and announces that she's to be farmed out for extra training.
She's not surprised. She is bloody furious.
"You're being a horrible bastard about this, Roxelana," Alastair shouts cheerfully, his hair whipping in the wind. He volunteered to drive her up to London for this specialised training she's being forced on, and by some unfortunate miracle it's a blindingly sunny day. That means the top is down on Agent Percival's car.
"I'm a Morton, aren't I?" she shouts back, hand clamped firmly against the silk scarf covering her own carefully tied up hair, because while she loves Uncle Alastair, and loves Uncle Alastair's car, she hates his driving. "I'm a bastard by birth, Al!"
The car is a dark green droptop 1964 Aston Martin DB5, which, in hindsight, is such a glaring cliché. It's Alastair's pride and joy, more even than Roxy is herself, which is saying something. He likes to tote her around at parties, introducing her as his favourite godchild - much to the chagrin of her army of cousins, because in the melée of Mortons, Alastair has no less than eleven godchildren - and showing off about her many achievements, prouder even than her own parents have time to be.
She feels a bit sour about that now, given he's been grooming her, but still. It's nice to be someone's favourite.
"The thing is, Roxelana," he shouts, waving enthusiastically at whatever wanker zooms past them in an ugly red Ferrari, "being Lancelot means being a horrible bastard. It also means you've got to get better at lying, which is why you need to be farmed out."
"As if you disgusting old farts can't lie-"
"It's different," he says, slowing down enough that they don't need to shout quite as much because the wind is no longer roaring, just shrieking. "We're men, and people let us away with more. You know that, Roxelana."
"They all think it's a huge fucking joke," she snips, "me being sent away for extra training that none of them have to do. It's all one big game to the likes of Charlie."
She knows that she's a bit hung up on besting Charlie. She isn't one to regret a one night stand, generally, but by God does she regret letting him into her poky little room at Cambridge. Ugh.
"This isn't a game, Rox," he says, and it really is serious, if he's not calling her Roxelana. He's called her that ever since she was a chubby little ginger, being teased by her phalanx of cousins for being chubby and ginger among a forest of slim blondes, rich in Nordic ancestry. She grew out of the puppy fat and the red hair (with help from a hairdresser), but she never grew out of Alastair's nickname - did you know that the most beautiful woman in history had red hair and round cheeks, just like yours? he'd said, picking her up from the bottom step of Grandmother's magnificent staircase and balancing her on his hip for the rest of the party, well past midnight, telling her a very child-safe version of Roxelana's story. Roxy had been thrilled, and it had spurred a fascination with Ottoman history that had left her, at six, asking her poor tormented mother all kinds of questions about things like harems and eunuchs.
"You've been teaching me to play this game since I was a child, Al," she points out, as evenly as she can. They've avoided this conversation entirely since he brought her down to HQ, but the way he shrinks down into his candystripe shirt is all she needs. That's a confession of guilt, a traditional Morton tell - she does the same thing herself. "You can't pretend to take it seriously now, and you know it."
She's been trying to figure out why her, specifically, for weeks now. She's not the oldest of Al's godchildren, and she's far from the oldest cousin, so it isn't that. She was a shy, plump little child, until she went to school and discovered hockey and made an enemy in Verity Thwaites, so it isn't that she stood out from a young age, either. Maybe Al just saw something of himself in her, but Roxy knows she's just her mum in a Morton-shaped box, so it isn't that, either.
"Trust me," he says, "when I tell you that you will eventually understand about all of that."
What a pathetic cop out. She'd be angry if there was any point.
It looks awfully like a bank.
"Yes, well," Alastair says. "Discretion is the better part of valour and all that. Off you pop."
Roxy slams the door of the car good and hard behind her, knowing it'll make him wince, and takes the granite steps at a tidy clip. She's met at the door by an intercom box - not unusual, for the discreet sort of banks in this end of the City - and a polite, slightly stiff sounding woman on the other side of it.
When the door opens, the face does not match the voice. Whether it's the high-waisted leather pencil skirt or the screaming pink lipstick, she isn't sure, but she finds herself a good deal more interested in these rivals now that she knows they aren't as bloody boring in their uniform requirements as Kingsman.
"I'm here for Lady M," she says. "From downstairs, I'm told."
"Beatrice," Tall, Dark, and Sharp-Eyed says, giving Roxy a once over that might have been flirty if it hadn't lingered on the gun hanging under her arm. "Follow me."
Roxy follows. The floors are marble, the paintings on the wall very elegant and very English - she recognises a Turner, maybe a Rosetti, almost definitely a Constable - and all the lights shaded in Tiffany.
"That one's a Wilkie, if you were wondering," Beatrice says, nodding at the last painting before the great double doors at the end of the hall. She's got a lollipop now, smiling around it when she half looks over her shoulder to Roxy while pushing open the doors into-
"Oh."
Roxy feels like crying. She hadn't realised how much she missed being around other women. She very sharply misses her sisters, all of a sudden.
"Welcome," Beatrice says, "to the Globe."
Roxy nods. She can't find her voice just yet. There isn't even a tiny hint of unwashed-socks-smell.
"You're a Cheltenham girl, aren't you?" Beatrice asks, leading Roxy through the busy main floor, where there are two neat rows of overflowingly messy desks. "Friend of Verity Thwaites?"
"An insult like that must make you a St. Trinian's girl," Roxy says, deeply offended at the idea of being mistaken for a friend of Verity's. "You wouldn't know happen to know Fritz, would you? I couldn't seem to get a hold of her after she moved schools, and I always wondered if she survived in your asylum or if it turned her as mad as the rest of you."
"She was head girl," Beatrice says, sounding smug. "And I know her very well."
Bloody good for Fritz. Roxy wouldn't have said she had it in her.
There are two women arguing in the middle of the room, one tall and one small, both with distinguished grey hair and glasses on chains around their necks. Roxy has a horrible feeling she's seen them both at parties in her grandparents' house.
"I'm telling you, Manny," says the tall one, in the stiff voice Roxy heard through the intercom, "you'll know as soon as you see her-"
"Ah, Kelly! Good girl, bring it in, let's see the fresh meat!"
The small one evidently isn't worried about making a good impression. Roxy likes her already.
"I'm Titania," she says, holding out her hand. It's small and strong looking, and she's wearing no rings or bracelets. "Call me Manny, everyone does. This is Melly - Lady M, if you don't mind."
"And I'm Kelly Jones," Beatrice says, rolling her eyes at the whole lot of them. "Nice to finally meet you off the hockey pitch, Roxy Morton."
Roxy wonders, not idly at all, what about her Manny would see as soon as she was brought in.
"You could stay with us," Nidge says, three days into Roxy's training at the Globe. She's a small woman with an immaculate, razor-sharp bob, and she's the first person Roxy's seen since she started training with skin darker than her own. Even the cleaning staff at Kingsman HQ were white. She hadn't really thought about it, until she sat down with Nidge. "You're not bad at this, you know."
Nidge is Ophelia, which Roxy has been told means she's the Globe's chemist. What that seems to translate to is poison, combustibles, and make up.
"Me and Gertrude are what the official spies would call Q Division," she says. "We're the best there are at this in Europe, no matter what MI6 or whoever's playing Merlin say now. And we say that you're very bloody good."
Nidge has shown Roxy how to contour her jaw. She's never really seen the point before, given she's got a square as it is, but by God she looks like an Elgin marble now.
"I haven't met Gertrude yet," Roxy points out, wondering if she can apply the same principle to her chest to make herself look bustier. Her boobs are in proportion to her height and build, but they're rubbish for the shitty seduction training Kingsman tried to give her.
Nidge tilts Roxy's chin up with the end of a paintbrush.
"Typical men," she grouses, rolling her eyes. "You'll be getting improvised interrogation training once we've taught you to paint your face and make a bomb, and not a moment sooner. Trust me when I say we won't be teaching you to lean over and squeeze your tits together at any point during your stay with us."
"Unless you'd like us to," Kelly points out cheerfully, today wearing black cigarette pants and a crisp white shirt with a tie loose under her collar. It looks suspiciously like a St. Trinian's tie. Hmm. "In which case, we'll need to fit you for a better bra."
"Hello, sexpot," Nidge says, grinning up at Kelly. Nidge's clothes are very office casual, and she gives Kelly a wink that manages to have no flirtatious edge whatsoever. Roxy had forgotten how nice it is, to not constantly feel at risk of sexual harrassment - or worse. "Come to steal away my new favourite, have you?"
"Flatterer," Roxy says, a little touched by the open appreciation. She's fairly sure that she's Merlin's favourite, for all that he'd rather undo his top button than offer individual praise, or do a damned thing about the constant, grinding abuse the Kingsman branch of the Bullingdon Club heaps on her and Eggsy at every opportunity. She's only known Nidge about four hours in total, and already she knows her new teacher's name, her rank and specific position within the organisation, and that she likes Roxy.
If she weren't so stubbornly pigheaded she'd consider defecting to the Globe. She's rapidly becoming convinced that Kingsman doesn't deserve her. Would the Globe take Eggsy, she wonders? He'd make a damned fine Viola, if she's got the system figured out.
She is pig-headed, though. A horrible bastard of a Morton, too stubborn for her own cursed good, and she'll be damned if she lets a little discomfort keep her from grinding Charlie under her heel.
"I am here to show her to the Bunker, though," Kelly admits, twirling her tie so it wraps around one long, red-manicured finger. "Guinevere was asking to see her."
Roxy keeps hearing about Guinevere, but no one will tell her anything. When she follows Kelly's clacking footsteps across the catwalk over the testing zone, and then down the ramp to Guinevere's Bunker. Every inch of the Globe was bomb-proofed to the point where Roxy's sure they'd survive being nuked in here, but even Nidge speaks of the Bunker in hallowed tones.
Because Guinevere handles their weaponry.
When Roxy was eleven, she met her Uncle Dog's girlfriend for the first time.
Celestine - Aunt Les - was sharp, mean, and absolutely fantastic, a wonderful contrast to round, laughing Dog in his hideous cardigans. Roxy had sort of ruined Christmas by asking if Dog and Les couldn't be her grandparents, since Grandmother and Grandfather never seemed to like her very much. Given that Grandmother has twelve children, fifty-seven grandchildren, and no patience for nonsense, that might not be surprising, but Grandfather is a jovial sort, very much like Dad but a bit steelier, and Roxy always seemed to be the only grandchild he didn't stuff full of sticky caramels and fairytales when they were small.
She's always wondered if it's because she's Alastair's favourite. Al's never been close to Grandmother and Grandfather.
Dog's really her granduncle, Grandfather's youngest brother but one, but she hadn't been able to say Granduncle when she was small, and his name isn't really Dog - it's Arthur, which he loathes. Roxy couldn't even remember why she'd started calling him Dog, only that she had, and it had stuck, and now Granduncle Arthur was Uncle Dog and he'll never be anything else.
But Aunt Les, she was the one who'd made the real impression that Christmas, because she'd arrived in the most incredible wheelchair, with elaborate chrome-fronted wheels and dozens of hidden compartments in the arms, from which she drew sweets, tissues, Uncle Dog's heartburn tablets, a spare hearing aid, pearl stud earrings for when she got tired of her diamond chandeliers, and, to Roxy's amazement, two hunting knives.
"Don't breathe a word," Aunt Les had said, knocking the hilt of one knife against the end of Roxy's nose and winking. "Especially not to your grandmother."
Les set aside the knives until she'd ferreted out the neatly wrapped little box that had been her real goal, a pretty little thing in deep blue paper and a gold ribbon, which she pressed into Roxy's hands with a conspiratorial wink.
"Don't you open this until the time is right, Roxelana," Les had said, and it had felt like a covenant, to have this amazing lady calling her by Alastair's special nickname, and so she had not opened the box.
Roxy had a pair of knives of her own, a secret present from Uncle Alastair - beautiful things, far too pretty to ever use to stab anything, with silvered blades and lovely rosewood fittings, wrapped around with deep oxblood leather for grip. He'd made her swear not to tell Grandmother or Dad, and Roxy had pressed her hand over her heart and sworn solemnly, just as Al had shown her, and then begged him to show her how to do cool tricks with her new knives. She'd proven damn good with the knives, and she has quite a collection of them now.
She told Aunt Les about the knives, because she didn't think Alastair would mind that very much, and Aunt Les promptly invited Roxy to spend New Year's at her and Uncle Dog's pile in Kent, which had been the start of a beautiful friendship.
Roxy thinks about that now, both that terrible Christmas and that wonderful New Year's. She thinks of the tiny little box that she still hasn't opened, fifteen years later, and the knives and dud grenades as paperweights, and the dancing classes and the visits to extremely exclusive boutiques where the stylists explained their choices in a way that Mum's personal shoppers never did. She thinks of Dog and Les and Al encouraging her frustrations with her grandparents and Dad, and she thinks of sitting down with Mum and a bottle of wine and being warned that maybe, given everything they've all heard about Dog and Les, she should question their motives.
She thinks about all of that very hard when Aunt Les turns a sheepish smile on her from the heart of Guinevere's Bunker.
She thinks, will I ever do anything on my own, or will there always be Mortons hiding in the shadows, smoothing the way?
She thinks, I wish I hadn't had that row with Dad.