Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“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.