Maria had been wrong. She didn't particularly like being wrong, far from it, but in this instance, she was… not pleasantly surprised, but more like mildly befuddled.
"Lady Maria-dono, I have finished," Rin said. She was wearing an armband on her plain green Ashina robes, a wooden sword tucked into the cloth belt around her waist. The paper was held in both hands, and she bowed as she offered it out and reverently placed in on Maria's In tray as if it was something significantly more important than it was than the last week's Nightflower Workshop inventory.
Maria nodded, taking the paper to review it. She had already done the inventory herself, and now she compared Rin's work with what she had. "Well done Rin. Go and help Stolfo with the payroll."
The Ashina woman bowed low, walking backwards from Maria's desk for three steps before turning and heading towards the corner where the extremely feminine-looking man with pink fair was lying face-down on Maria's carpet, propped up on their elbows, knees bent back and feet swinging in the air as they looked over the last months payroll to reconcile the pay with the time sheets. Maria had been planning to have chairs and a table brought in for them to work on, but the Ashina women had seemed aghast at the notion. Instead, the seven of them sat down on their heels on her office carpet, arrayed in two lines leading up to her desk. The plain wooden chairs were in front of them as impromptu writing desks. Even the two Gerudo women who had shown up to volunteer their services—Lenatali had apparently been an educated woman, possibly a minor merchant of some sort before she had been enslaved, while Mifa might have been more, but the latter was closed-mouthed about the details—had bemusedly gone along with it, though they sat crossed-legged on the floor instead of on their heels.
So far they were all proving as capable as they claimed, going over the papers thoroughly and adding up the columns properly. Despite her misgivings, they seemed capable of doing what they needed, and like Sadako were volunteering to do the job, so she gave them a chance. She was dreading discussing what she would pay them, though. Trying to get Sadako to accept souls for her services has been arduous, and the woman had continually insisted on not being paid, and then being paid only a pittance when she seemed to realize that Maria would pay her no matter what. Hopefully these women would be less unreasonable…
In the end, Maria had to insist that they be paid at least as much as Sadako, but only for their first month, and their wages would have a mandatory increase after that. It was… well, it was definitely the strangest employment negotiation she had ever done. Only Stolfo didn't resist being paid, but Maria suspected he might no longer understand what it meant to be paid for his services. She exasperatedly told that if they didn't want the money, they were free to spend it on anything they wanted… though she got the strange feeling they might not do that either…
It was all very strange, but… well, at the very least, she could be assured they wouldn't be spies from other nobles or anyone trying to learn the secrets of her nightflowers. And she only needed to employ them for the period of the International Assembly, so after that, she would be able to dismiss them with a hearty bonus as a reason to give them all the souls she believed they deserved.
Lady Sophia and Lady Selena starred at her strangely as she explained the employment of the women (and one effeminate man) and her difficulties.
"So, just to make sure we understood correctly," Lady Selena said, "these women—"
"And one man," Maria corrected.
"And one man," Lady Selena allowed, "are capable, hard working, loyal, and willing to work for practically nothing… and so you had to insist on paying them wages appropriate to the job they would be doing, and still need to trick them into getting the money from an unspoken bonus, but you only plan to employ them for two months?"
"That's… I don't even… " Sophia said, sighing. "How does this even become a problem for you, Maria? Most people would have taken them up on their offer and called it at day."
"I'm their protector," Maria said. "I swore I would protect them and I will. In this case, against unfair employment and insufficient wages."
"They wanted the unfair employment and insufficient wages!" Sophia said, sounding disbelieving she was arguing this.
"Yes, well, as the employer and wagegiver in question, I could not allow that," Maria said.
The other two nobles looked at each other. "Maria…" Selena said delicately, "at the very least I don't think they should be dismissed. We could always do with capable, trustworthy people capable of doing paperwork."
"Especially if they work for cheap!" Sophia said, grinning.
"You are not having my wards work for cheap," Maria said sternly. "They will be paid as appropriate for the work they will do and not a soul less."
"They're a bit too old for wards, aren't they?"
"I am NOT listing them as concubines on my taxes!"
"Wait, what?" Selena said, confused.
"I'll explain later," Sophia told the other woman. "Look, if they're not going to accept that much money, what can we do?"
"Perhaps it's because Maria is the one offering to pay them?" Selena said. "Perhaps if we were the ones to offer to employ them, they would be more amenable to being paid?"
"Selena!" Sophia whined.
"Sophia," Maria said sternly. "If you insist on taking advantage of the women under my protection, women who have already been ill-used, we can no longer be friends."
Sophia winced. "All right, all right, I was just joking. But still… so cheap…!"
Maria rolled her eyes. "Should you find people who are willing to be employed for those wages, then you may hire them at those wages as you see fit, as long as they are not under my protection. As they are under my protection…"
"Yes, yes, we'll treat them well on pain of you," Sophia said, sighing. "Well, are they at least willing to work hard?"
Maria nodded. "Yes, I can safely say they are diligent in their duties." She frowned. "Perhaps too diligent. They would have worked through dinner had I not told them it was required they attend, and a few wanted to sleep in the office so they could continue working into the night and as soon as they woke up in the morning…" It was honestly quite disturbing. Were they having nightmares again? Maria had thought that her Katarina-suggested treatment of sleeping next to the women, unorthodox as it was, had actually been working…
Actually, she had stopped that ever since Rafael had started ravishing her… Oh dear. Perhaps she had better gently imply to her dear Rafael that she couldn't sate his lustful needs so wantonly every night, as it interfered with this duty. She would have to try bringing it up… hopefully he would not insist on continuing and nocturnally ravishing her anyway, forcing himself on her night after night despite her duties, sating himself on—
"Maria? Maria?"
Maria blinked. "I apologize, I was distracted."
Sophia gave her a skeptical look, but Selena merely nodded. "Ah, I quite understand. I'm sometimes distracted thinking about my dear prince as well." She turned her head slightly so that one eye was facing away from Sophia and winked at Maria.
Maria coughed. "Yes, I suppose."
"Well then, we'll employ Maria's wards in our name so that they will be more willing to actually be paid for their work," Lady Selena said as Sophia merely looked wistful, gazing as if watching souls fly away on the talons of giant ravens. "Hopefully this will allow us to at least continue with maintenance operations during the International Assembly, though we'll need a few days to see how capable they are. Is there anything else?"
"Actually, I will need a day off later this week," Maria said, sliding the paperwork for it forward. "I have a needful errand to run."
"What now?" Sophia asked. "Giant spiders have escaped from a silk farm and are terrorizing the countryside? An ancient artifact was unearthed and is wreaking havoc across the land? The paledrake has come back and is hopefully making everyone who ruined my childhood eat their words with violent death? Someone claimed the Unbreakable One kicked them down a hole and now you're being sent out to find the Last Immortal?"
"I have to get Lady Katarina a sword," Maria said. "As she will also be attending the International Assembly, as a squire in training, protocol allows her to carry a weapon. While she has not yet chosen to specialize yet, a sword as a formal sidearm is perfectly acceptable, and she knows how to use it already, in case she is somehow attacked or assaulted by an unscrupulous party."
Selena frowned. "I don't think anyone at the castle would be unscrupulous save for Susanna Randall—"
"Yes, you should definitely get Lady Katarina a sword!" Sophia declared, wide-eyed and seeming to see something beyond the room. "Hmm… Lady Katarina with a sword… then, if some busybody tries to pressure her, she can take her sword… and cut it off!" Her head was bobbing up and down as she nodded mechanically, still enraptured by whatever personal vision of Katarina cutting off something she was having.
Maria stared at her, then shook her head and turned to answer Selena instead. "This will be Lady Katarina's first encounter with foreign nobility," Maria said. "Even without need for self-defense, at the very least she should be presentable as she represents her duchy and her kingdom. Her preferred sword, while reliable, is an old wooden sword that is at least ten years old and certainly looks the part."
Selena shrug. "Well, you would probably know best. Take the day off you need."
"Take two!" Sophia said. "Three even!"
"One will be enough," Maria said. "We're going to have her measured for a sword, not going off to get the paledrake's soul to forge her a Moonlight weapon. We're not even going crystal lizard hunting, since a sword that will mostly be decorative, if functional, won't really need titanite reinforcement."
"Lady Katarina can have my soul if she needs a Moonlight weapon," Sophia said. "She can have anything she wants!"
"I think Lady Katarina would rather have a friend than a Moonlight weapon," Maria said dryly. "Weren't you just complaining about the people who ruined your childhood?"
"Well, Lady Katarina saved my childhood, so she can have anything she wants," Sophia repeated. "My soul, my books, my big brother, my body…"
"As she can't eat any of those and only read one of them, I don't think she'll want them."
Selena frowned. "Her body?" she repeated, bemused.
"Well, we'd better get to work," Sophia said loudly. "Come on Selena, let's offer Maria's women jobs and see if they'll take it." She paused thoughtfully, then turned towards the blonde. "What are you going to do if they just turn around and give all of their money to you?"
Maria blinked. She hadn't considered that, but it seemed ludicrously plausible. "I might have to insist on taking them shopping for new clothes and other things they can spend their money on for themselves," Maria said, shaking her head and sighing. Being a protector was harder than she thought…
Sophia and Selena exchanged glances and rolled their eyes. "Maria problems," Sophia said, shaking her head as she no doubt sympathized with Maria.
"Indeed," Selena agreed, also shaking her head, surely in commiseration at her difficulties.
Well, it was nice to have two sympathetic friends to listen to her problems…