Day 101, 5:15 AM

By all means, get married: if you find a good wife, you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.

— Socrates

All hell has broken loose. The kitchen staff is screaming in panic, and those screams must be really loud, since the kitchen's not that close to my window. Apparently the special firewood for roasting quails is late.

Really? People can have problems like that?

Manny and I slept in separate rooms last night because “old customs”. A literal company of one hundred soldiers volunteered to guard her chambers, afraid I’d tear down the city or the world should anything happen to her. I don’t think any ruler ever had as large, earnest, and dedicated guard as Manny last night.

The screams outside grow louder.

“Bring me the sword!”

“Don’t freaking kill yourself over roast!” I shout at the sobbing woman whose dish was ruined before five in the morning. “Just use some other firewood! Everyone’s gonna be drunk anyway…”

I mutter the last bit, but it really is true. Wasted revelers have been crawling all over the place like resurrected tequila worms since yesterday evening. Last night, five hundred soldiers, some mercs, and some of the more easygoing nobles, around six hundred men in total, held a bachelor’s party of sorts for me, their representatives tried to drink me under the table while bards performed and scantily dressed women of all shapes and sizes danced.

I called it quits around midnight, after outdrinking the four champions the crowd had chosen to challenge me with three gallons of red wine, some of which was obviously spiked with what tasted like honeyfire. I wasn’t drunk, nowhere close, and that had me concerned, so I started slurring and pretending I’m tipsy. For some reason, humans idolize the strong, yet fear and ostracize those too far beyond them, and if I just kept drinking the night away, enjoying the vintage, I was afraid I’d label myself an alien or something more inhuman than I already am.

So, I bowed out, slept, and woke up to the chaos still escalating.

And it’s not even six in the morning.

“You woke the Noble Sir!” someone shouts outside, followed by a sobbing ‘Please pardon me, my Noble Sir.’

I massage the bridge of my nose.

“It’s gonna end. This day is going to end. Wedding days last no more than sixty-six hours and six minutes. Breathe. At least your drunk father-in-law won’t be dancing on the table, fall down, break his leg, and you spend your wedding night in the emergency room with a drunk, crying fatty and a furious, yet hysterical bride.”

However, wisdom immediately finds a scenario.

What if Vatten— No. That can’t happen twice to the same guy, right? There’s no way. I consider everything that’s happened to me in both my lifetimes.

“I should tie him up,” I mutter and put my clothes on, staring at my maimed arm.

It bends at the elbow now, and I have some limited use of it. The bandage has grown much thinner, thin enough to reveal the depression where my right is brimming with rock-solid muscles. Doc Thunderwax said she will never fully recover, and that I’m lucky she didn’t wither entirely.

I started agreeing some two weeks ago, when it became apparent redo wasn’t happening. The surrounding lords have yielded, the Arangels have closed down their city in preparation for a siege or to conceal the chaos of succession. We have won this stage. Way too easily. All it took was dying a couple of times.

I stop thinking of all the steps that brought me here, that had me marrying another wonderful woman and hopefully fathering another wonderful child. Instead, I focus on the frilly decorative collar I’m trying and failing to tie. The golden-yellow lace, intentionally colored like gliding fall leaves, slips through my numb fingers a dozen times before I finally give up.

“Martha, if you are awake, could you please have someone come here and help me dress up.”

“Yes, Noble Sir,” the elderly maid says, her shoes softly tapping against the wooden floor even before she’s done speaking.

Soon enough, Bord, a young male servant some three years older than Aang, ties the disgusting frilly contraption I’m wearing now and never again. My sleeves also end in frilly cuffs as do the legs of my puffy, clown trousers.

It’s not even seven in the morning, and I’m already fully dressed, hoping the getup is Manny’s prank. I look in the mirror, and the green and the golden-yellow suit me well. I almost look dashing, despite my baboon-butt pants looking like I’ve stuffed a pair of balloons in them.

I glance to the side, and there’s not a hint of amusement in Bord’s face or eyes.

Three more hours, I sigh as Bord the house-slave leaves. At least I’ve grown used to waiting these past few weeks.

Martha, Lord of Light bless her soul, brings me a large basket of pastries, which, due to aesthetic flaws, did not meet the standard for the feast. I enjoy chipped tarts and cracked dumplings filled with fried vegetables, cheeses, meats, and mushrooms. Martha also brought a sour cream based sauce with diced herbs. A holiday for my taste buds.

The food occupies my attention for the better part of an hour, and I somehow wind up planning to introduce yogurt in the coming months and years.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I need to construct some sort of fridge too. How do you even do that? There’s a pump that circulates a fluid, making it take the heat out of the fridge and release it outside, but how the hell do you make the fluid do that? Can I use water? Can I do it without electricity?

“Noble Sir, it’s time.” Martha knocks on the door. I glance out the window, and the sun is way too high in the sky.

“Coming,” I say, wondering what I’ve been doing for almost an hour and a half that seems to have passed in silent contemplation.

Was I that focused on conceptualizing a stone-age fridge?

It’s possible. I had all sorts of crazy thoughts devouring my attention even before reincarnating. For instance, the most efficient way of murdering hateful clerks.

Funny thing, when you’re a commoner you’re a murderer for killing the clerks, yet a ruler doing the exact same thing is fighting corruption.

Where does anarchy fit into all that? Can a ruler be an anarchist? Can an anarchist become a ruler and remain what he is?

I open the door and leave my one-night BnB, sweeping the philosophical questions under my brain’s metaphorical rug, hoping I trip on them later. I have a feeling those questions are not just empty philosophy. In fact, they might be the key to understanding my class and what I am really meant to do with it.

I might be giving the universe or whoever created BSD too much credit. Judges in hell were drunk and disorderly after all.

“Noble Sir.” I can hear the concern in Martha’s voice, I must have been making faces or something. Maybe Blunt had a soliloquy?

“Thank you for the snacks. I’m still thinking of how tasty they were. Please thank the kitchen staff in my name.”

She smiles, relieved and proud. “They will be honored, Noble Sir.”

Having a woman old enough to be Aang’s grandmother constantly address me in Arborea’s most formal speech feels weird, but I never asked Manny to replace my maid. Martha is meticulous, zealous, and always knows what she should be doing. Besides, good help is hard to find.

She leads me down several halls, and we walk out into an inner garden with a modest house. Dozens of men of high standing wait there, including Phill, Master Thunderwax, Master Dorigund, and, naturally, Vatten, who holds a peach.

“May your marriage be fruitful,” he says and hands me the season’s fruit.

I’m supposed to throw it over the house in which Manny and I would spend our wedding night, striving for fruitfulness. A silly custom, considering our circumstances, but since the opportunity has presented itself, I change the pointless script and flex.

I take the apricot, turn around, and hurl it over the castle. It flies well over a hundred feet up, easily passing above the tallest twin towers and disappearing behind the castle.

“I prefer sleeping in my own bed,” I say, earning several nervous chuckles, a few headshakes, and a dark frown from Master Thunderwax, who glares at my maimed left.

“I guess you will sleep in your bedroom tonight,” Vatten agrees, and we head for the grand dining hall.

Vatten leaves the group and enters a side chamber guarded by a press of armored bodies solemnly saluting me.

I stop and salute back, distinctly aware of my baboon ass.

“Thank you.”

Jeorge, Galliat, Varren, Ron, Jude, Garny, Bibby, Krid, Schalk, and many others choke their ‘Oorah’, nodding instead, banging fists against their shiny mail armor.

My entourage and I proceed another fifty yards and walk into the vast dining room bustling with people. The guards watching the door fan out, but there’s no need. The crowd parts before me like the sea, revealing a small wooden platform erected at the center of the chamber.

The platform stands empty. The duke is supposed to act as an officiant for his heir and sons, the king for his dukes, but my father-in-law is dead, the king wants us dead, and while Manny is a believer, the virgin nuns of Lord of Light do not perform marriage ceremonies for religious reasons.

That being the case, we decided we would officiate our wedding ourselves.

A light, serene humming fills the air. I glance left, noting the house of song’s chorus headed by the major voice himself. He sees me looking at him, and gives a polite half-bow, one he is not required to perform even before the king.

Several people notice, and I bet his minor gesture will spawn gossip blazing its way around the duchy, possibly even the kingdom. I take it as making peace and an apology, but it could also be honest gratitude for all the songs I’ve given his house that day we visited.

I climb the dais and step onto the platform, looking at several hundred people who came to witness Manny’s wedding. A servant in green and gold livery rushes into the room, heading for the chorus. The major voice sees him and nods, raising his hands and the wordless song changes from serene to call for attention.

The conversation dies in two beats, but they keep singing until the song transforms into a beckoning, then into something oddly similar to an acapella version of “Here Comes the Bride”. The similarity is striking enough for me to wonder whether someone else reincarnated with their memories, but then she appears.

Manny’s beaming a smile. Her short, chestnut hair adorned by a golden tiara with a single large emerald set at its center. The host of soldiers runs, making a path for her and freezing in a saluting stance like statues.

When the crowd surrounding her thins, I see her wearing a gold and green dress, pressing against her torso, but flowing below the waist. I clench my teeth, sensing Blunt stirring, words eager to flow out of my mouth.

Think nicer thoughts, think nicer thoughts, I repeat the mantra, trying to follow Manny’s advice, but what could be nicer than firm, juicy— Think nicer thoughts, think nicer thoughts. Think Decent Thoughts!

Manny focuses on the stairs, her burning gaze leaving mine. That’s when I notice Vatten walking next to her, holding her arm, and staring death at me.

I realize there’s a problem and close my mouth. It was only open a tiny crack, and everyone’s attention was on Manny, but still, drooling over your wife on the wedding day before your future subjects and retainers is almost certainly a faux pas.

Manny reaches me and looks me in the eye before Vatten steps in between us.

“Dear and honorable guests,” he says, “we have gathered together today to witness the union in body and soul of my dear late friend’s daughter, Manuella Eagleeye, with Aang of Ree, the man she has chosen for her husband.”

He pauses for a moment, but there’s nothing but silence. Even the chorus stopped singing at some point.

“There is no doubt of Aang’s worth. His achievements are known to all, and I believe he will make a fine consort. If anyone here objects, speak now.”

I am certain nobody will have the balls to utter a word—

“I object,” I nearly jump out of my skin when Manny shouts right next to my ear. “Aang is not a consort. We are equal. He will be king, I will be queen. Together we will conquer this country, avenge my father, and bring justice to our subjects.”

Vatten is shocked, and I can tell Manny blindsided him as well.

I clear my throat.

“We are equal. You will be queen, I will be king. Together we will conquer this country, avenge your father, and bring justice to our subjects.”

They are some strange wedding vows. I originally planned to sing Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything for Love”, have Manny and the major voice fall down on their asses, but I guess making it short and anarchistic also works.

END OF BOOK 1