Chapter 2 #2
“I have none. There was a mistake…”
“Yes, your family decided not to check which sister had been selected. Not a detail one bothers with, I understand. I imagine one girl is very much like another,” he snorts. “What a ridiculous excuse. I would be offended by your presence if I did not have so much trust in the Artifice to make the proper decision at the proper time.”
I should bite my lip and avoid speaking to him. I should stand up and dust myself off with dignity. But I stay where I am and I say what is on my mind.
“You are sarcastic, and you are rude, and I do not like you.”
There is a snort from another part of the room. I look around to see that there is a man sitting in a wheelchair. He looks older than the Archon-General Arthur Darken by a decade at least, but he has some family resemblance to him. An uncle, maybe? Whatever he is, he is not adding anything to the situation whatsoever.
My husband reaches down and pulls me up to my feet. “Stand up, girl,” he says, speaking to me as if I am some troublesome adolescent and not his wife.
I realize nobody is going to stand up for me. That’s quite alright. I am used to having to defend myself against Maraline’s jibes and complaints, so I know how to speak up when need be.
“It is not my fault nobody was here to meet me when I arrived, nor is it my fault that I was left to my own devices in the effort to find someone. I had been led to believe that the House of Darken was powerful and noble, but it seems you lack basic courtesy, Lord Darken. Shame on you.”
There is a moment of communal silence in which nobody speaks. The room is frozen. I can see an expression of pure shock on Lydia’s face, as if she has just heard something she never expected to hear in her lifetime.
“Lydia. Lance. Leave us.”
Arthur snaps the orders without taking his eyes off me. The man in the wheelchair rolls out of the room, and Lydia follows. They shut the door behind them, leaving me in the company of my new husband.
The moment we are alone, he lets out a sigh and crosses the room to pour himself a drink. Amber liquid splashes into a crystal glass, and is quickly imbibed.
“Not how I planned on my wedding night going,” he muses to himself, downing the tumbler of whatever foul liquid it is. It smells like the substance the servants use to strip grease in the kitchen.
I stand my ground, trying to think desperately. What am I supposed to do in such a situation? He is a powerful man, and he is my husband. The Artifice has given me to him.
I cannot imagine a worse meeting. And I cannot imagine a worse man. He has shown no interest in me whatsoever. My mere presence apparently causes him to need to turn to drink immediately.
“You certainly know how to make an entrance,” he says, turning back to me.
“You certainly don’t know how to perform a basic greeting,” I reply.
He makes me very nervous, but I won’t be bullied. My father often told me, when he was speaking to me at all, that the blood of kings flows in our veins, that we may not be the richest family, or the most powerful, and fate may have been somewhat cruel to us in many respects, but we would always have our nobility. Then he would go shoot something, just to prove it to himself, I think. I will not be shooting anything, but I will be standing up for myself even when I am afraid. Perhaps especially when I am afraid.
His eyes narrow at me. “You have a mouth,” he says. “And not enough wisdom to know when to use it, and when to stay silent.”
Ironically, I have nothing to say to that. I am beginning to become very concerned, remembering what they did to me in the Artifice medical clearance. I was confused at the time, but it was obvious that there would be something like that between a man and his wife, otherwise why would they have done it?
“Where is my room?” I ask. “I would like to freshen up.”
“Our room, you mean.”
I stare, horrified. I assumed I would have my own room. My mother and father have their own wings. In a place this big, it seems very odd that there would not be space for me to have my own room.
“I am not expected to share a room, am I?”
His lip curls in something like a smirk. “You are expected to share a bed. It is our wedding night.”
Arthur
This rather young woman has walked into my home, found one of the many secrets of the place, fallen into my inner sanctum and insulted me. My initial response is to whip her impertinent ass, but I wanted a drink first. She has not arrived at a convenient time, but she seems to think she takes precedence over a war.
But the horror that spreads over her sweet, very pretty face when I tell her she is expected to share a bed is so charming I very nearly forget the many misbehaviors that preceded it. She is rather beautiful, with curling blonde hair and deep brown eyes, creamy skin dappled with freckles across the bridge of her pert nose. If she were transported to some far-flung countryside this very moment, I would think her a milkmaid.
This little bird is as innocent as they come. Though she speaks with the vocabulary of a noble, her accent marks her as a country creature, simple and untouched. Her plain dress is actually quite charming, in its own way. If I were the sort of man to soften to a sweet, innocent girl, I might become quite attached to her.
Unfortunately, I am not that sort of man.
I have been broken, inside and out. I do not feel softness. I do not feel affection. I certainly never make the mistake of becoming attached.
I did not want a match, or a wife. I am certainly not suitable material for a husband. If I were to be matched at all, I had assumed the Artifice would have assigned me an independent fortune hunter type of woman. Someone with the fortitude to withstand the rigors of being married to a man like me, someone with enough self-interest to survive.
This girl is far too young, with a delicacy and a sweetness that exists in sharp contrast to my world.
The Artifice has thrown this lamb to the wolf.
Her innocence is obvious, and her reluctance is equally clear.
Once it was revealed that I had a match, I expected a certain level of enthusiasm and excitement in the chosen woman. I was previously ranked as one of the top ten eligible matches in The State. I am used to women throwing themselves at me, though their advances were pointless given there could never be any serious relationship between us. Still, that did not stop many of them from suggesting more casual dalliances, and it did not prevent me from accepting their generous offers.
Those days are over now, and I expected to have a mate who came to me with eager compliance, not this frightened yet sassy little thing who looks at me with more fear than lust in her pretty doe-eyed gaze.
“Come with me,” I tell her. “Where are your bags?”
“I didn’t bring any. I didn’t know I was coming.”
She truly did not. I cannot imagine how those on the other side of the proverbial ditch failed to read the right name, but it seems like an entirely avoidable and irresponsible mistake.
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen, sir,” she says. I like that she added the sir ; it is the first bit of respect she has shown since she arrived.
Nineteen is a ridiculous age. The Artifice has given me someone to babysit, not a wife.
I lead her through the halls to the bedroom. I did have a room prepared to receive my new wife. My actual private bedroom has none of the accouterments that this room has. There is a large bed covered in black silk sheets and coverlets, and an even larger wardrobe that stands empty and open, waiting to receive what I had assumed would be an extensive collection of clothing.
This is a bedroom for a sophisticate. It swallows my bride whole. Her trepidation becomes even more obvious as she pales and stares around herself. “There are no windows,” she says.
“I like to keep things dark,” I reply. “For my eyes.”
“Yes, you hurt your eyes. Can you even see me?”
Again she asks one of those overly blunt simple country questions.
“Yes, I can see you,” I reply. “My eye injury has resulted in a sensitivity. It has not diminished my ability to see, merely my ability to tolerate light.”
“What kind of injury does that?”
I am caught between the desire to chastise her for her bluntness, and the amusement at being questioned so boldly.
“A chemical one,” I say. “There is a bathroom through that door. Stay here and settle in. Are you hungry?”
“No,” she says. “I ate on the plane. They fed us a lot of food in little compartments. It was nice. I thought I would be afraid of being in the sky, but it turns out I’m not afraid… of that.”
She trails off at the end, not quite able to make the blanket statement that she’s not afraid. She is afraid of me, and of this place. In the confines of this room, I can smell her. She still has the scent of earth and meadow clinging to her. I wonder what I will do to her. I wonder what my world will do to her.
“I will be back,” I tell her. “Stay here.”
I need a drink.
I go to my private lounge to collect my thoughts. I find it occupied, after a fashion. Lance is there, having wheeled himself from my office to my lounge.
“You owe the Artifice thanks,” he snorts as I enter the room, striding to the drinks station to pour myself one, and take an electronic cigar from its port on the wall. “What are you doing here? You should be enjoying that sweet young thing.”
“She’s a mistake,” I say. “She’s too young.”
“The Artifice does not make mistakes,” Lance smirks as he says the old adage. In any other circumstance, he would be paying necessary lip service. In this case, he’s fucking with me. This room is shielded, yes, even from the Artifice. We need places to speak plainly, and this is one of them. I draw on my cigar, and exhale with a great deal of disdain.
The world regards the Artifice as the ultimate benign dictator, an artificial dictator capable of making decisions for the greater good. It replaced the governments and monarchies that humans had been attempting to make work for our entire history.
The Artifice was supposed to bring peace, and maybe it would—if everyone was to accept the Artifice. They haven’t, of course. There are entire countries that reject its rule, not to mention pockets of resistance dotted through The State, Angeland, and Utopia.
I am on the side of the Artifice, and that means I regard it as infallible, even when it fails—you could say, especially when it fails.
“Then the Artifice is a fucking pervert. She’s less than half my age. We have absolutely nothing in common.”
Lance waves a dismissive hand. “She is a pretty, well-bred girl with a presumably fertile womb. You’ve done well. Stop complaining.”
I’m not complaining. I’m concerned. Our world depends on the Artifice and the decisions it makes. Lately there are more reports about odd commands being issued. If faith is lost in the Artifice, then faith is lost in the very concept of order itself. Society can and will break down.
Fortunately, there is plenty of mental wriggle room around the interpretations of the Artifice’s actions. There are two tenets that encourage people not to question it:
The Artifice is a mystery that cannot be known.
The Artifice does not make mistakes.
If anybody insists on doubting the decisions made by the machine, there’s a law to handle the situation:
Questioning the Artifice is punishable by death.
I have served the Artifice for many long years. I have bled for it more than once. I carry scars that will follow me to the beyond in the service of the Artifice.
Perhaps this is its idea of a reward. Maybe it thinks the same way Lance does, that men want simple, unspoiled young women as wives.
Usually a match is a fairly obvious thing to interpret, a daughter and a son of warring houses joined in order to prevent further bloodshed, for instance. Or a female from a house suffering financial embarrassment matched to one of greater riches. Arguably, that has happened here. Mila’s family has fallen on relatively hard times, but I have not received any requests for aid. They may still be in the offing, I suppose. Perhaps once I have deflowered the Angelish rose, there will be some kind of payment in kind.
“Go and enjoy your bride,” Lance prompts me. “The poor thing does not deserve to be deserted on her wedding night. Remember, you have an obligation to the Artifice to attempt procreation.”
His smile is broad and a little too lascivious for my liking. She is my wife, and he should not be speaking that way about her.
“I had not forgotten my obligation. I wanted to have a drink before I deflowered the sweet, simple wench out there.”
“Lucky brute,” Lance grunts.
I hear sobbing as I approach the bedroom.
When I enter it, I see her perched on the edge of the bed, her face in her hands. Her shoulders are shaking as she cries, though she immediately makes the effort to stop as soon as she is aware I am there.
“What is wrong?” I ask the question, feeling the inadequacy of it. I can imagine everything is wrong from her limited perspective. She is a young woman very far from her home and all she has known, ripped unprepared from the bosom of her family and sent to be at my mercy.
“I am sorry I do not please you,” she says, her eyes immediately re-filling with tears. “I know you expected someone more sophisticated and worldly. I must be quite a disappointment. I know that you are obligated to be married to me, but we do not need to make a big fuss of it.”
I approach her slowly, not wanting to spook her. There is something of a skittish wild thing about her.
“My dear, being married to you will always be something worth making a fuss about.”
She blushes and smiles shyly. “Surely you can’t possibly mean those words.”
“I mean every single one of them.”
She deserves to feel loved, even if I am not actually capable of loving her. I know how to play a role, and I intend to do so with my young wife. I will be the perfect partner to her, an absolute gentleman. She will never know that I am unable to feel that which a man is supposed to feel.
The marriages of the Artifice are not always known to be love matches, of course, but this young woman seems to be of a romantic bent. I know the sorts of things that women her age and temperament like to hear.
“You are a beautiful creature,” I tell her, clasping her hand in mine. “And you deserve a beautiful life.”
She looks at me and pulls her hand away gently, but firmly. “I do not need to be lied to, thank you.”
“Lied to?”
“Please don’t make this worse by pretending you don’t know what I mean,” she says. “There is no need for pretense. I saw your opinion of me in your eyes when we met not an hour ago. You are not a capricious man, so I know you must still be in the throes of disappointment. I am not what you expected, or what you wanted. You would have much preferred my sister. I am sorry it was my name on that tablet.”
She’s intelligent.
That is a surprise, though I suppose it is to my shame that it is. Women can be just as intelligent as men. They simply rarely have any chance to express it in my world. The military is dominated by men, and of course, the Artifice makes the most significant of decisions. We are a patriarchy under a mechanical intellect.
There is something rude about the way she has expressed herself, but the underlying accuracy does make me hesitate. I do not like being called a liar. I have not lied. She is beautiful, and she does deserve an equivalent life. There is no reason for her to be broken by me.
“I am not accustomed to being spoken to that way,” I explain. “You may be my match, but…”
“I am your wife.”
There is a little hint of steel in her tone.
Again, I am surprised. She dares interrupt me. Dares correct me. I cannot remember the last time anybody had the nerve to do that.
“Is your wife not permitted to speak the truth to you? I can adjust my behavior if you like.”
My palm begins to itch. She speaks far too freely, and though she may be displaced and perhaps a little afraid of me, her natural impulse is clearly to speak her mind. It must be part and parcel of coming from the countryside and having lived with her family rather than having interacted with those outside her little world.
That habit will not serve her well in my world. She is going to have to interact with a great many people of power, and she will need to mind her words and hold her tongue from time to time.
I am going to have to teach her how to behave. She is my mate, and my wife. She will represent the House of Darken, and I cannot have her going around boldly stating simple facts this way. The entirety of society would collapse if we all did that.
“You, young lady, are about to find yourself over my knee.”
Mila
He seems displeased with me. I didn’t mean to offend him, but at the same time I did not want to play some game of pretend because he thought I needed it. Obviously he does not find me beautiful. Maraline always made it very clear that she was the beautiful one, and I the plainer sister.
I am trying very hard to be polite, but every word I say seems to somehow make things worse. Perhaps it is some kind of cultural difference. Or maybe it’s just that I lack the airs and graces that my sister had.
He is looking at me expectantly, as if there is supposed to be some kind of response.
I am not sure what to say. I know that this is our wedding night, sort of, and I know, from the whispered comments between my mother and sister, that something called sex occurs on this evening. The word itself was always uttered with a mixture of excitement and horror. I’ve long wondered what it means precisely, though again, the procedure at the Artifice office gave me something of a hint.
I decide to reference it, so I sound more worldly. Maybe that will impress him.
“Is that a sex thing?”
My husband stares at me, his eyes widening slightly, the muscle in his cheek twitching.
“No, you brat. It is not a sex thing , it is a punishment for disrespect thing.”
“I’ve disrespected you?”
“You sound surprised. Yes. You have. I am used to obedience from those around me. I give orders, and they are followed.”
“Soldiers,” I say. “You’re talking about soldiers. Not wives. I believe they’re different.”
He snorts. “They might be. Mine will not be. I expect to be obeyed. I expect to be spoken to with respect. And I expect you to mind what I say.”
He called me a brat. I haven’t been called that in a very long time, not since there was a stable hand who didn’t like me when I was a girl. He thought I was spoiled because my mother let me ride whichever ponies I liked. What he didn’t realize and what this man who calls himself my mate also doesn’t realize is that I have never been spoiled in any way, and I am not a brat. I say what I think because I don’t know what else to say. I have never understood Maraline’s little games of what she called tact, and which always seemed to somehow possess more cruelty than my own plainer speech.
I still don’t understand what he is annoyed about. I told him that he didn’t have to be romantic with me if he didn’t feel it, and I told him that I was his wife. Both of those things are true, and hardly cause to call me a brat.
“You’ve not said anything that makes sense,” I comment.
His brow furrows, and I know that I have yet again said the wrong thing.
“Maybe you could say it again. Try using longer words.”
His jaw clenches. Okay. That was worse. Oops.
“Come here, you little…” He reaches for me, and I do what any sensible creature does: I shy away. He misses his grip the first time, but not the second. He catches me by the back of my simple gown, right up near the nape of my neck.
Besides the doctor, I have never been touched by a grown man before. I had no idea that they were all so incredibly strong. Arthur handles me as though I weigh nothing more than a doll. I feel my feet leave the floor as he swings me around.