After her declaration, Katarina clearly put the subject out of her mind. Or it fell out of her head, pushed aside by Maria giving her permission to get some of the things Miss Shelley was keeping for her and make I Scream, it could have been either way.
Maria definitely wasn't using this free day as an excuse to finally get Katarina to make a food for her. Nope. Not at all.
Unfortunately, others were more stubborn and persistent.
"What did you do to Lady Katarina!?" Lady Hunt demanded, all but grabbing Maria's lapels after Katarina left the room to get her I Scream magic tool. Her cousin had gone with her, since she apparently knew what dark and sinfully delicious alchemy Katarina did to make it taste like that, and had offered her assistance.
Maria raised an eyebrow. "I didn't use Dark Magic on her, if that's what you're wondering," she said.
"I wasn't, but I am now," the Third Prince said.
"Please don't project your desires onto me," Maria said. "I must reiterate, but not everyone in the world desires Katarina Claes. Some of us have other tastes."
"Lies! Lady Katarina is the best!" Sophia declared. Lady Hunt, the Third Prince and Lord Keith all nodded. Lord Ascart made a studied non-committal sound.
"I have a fiancée," Alan said, in what was the most perfunctory way possible.
"And I'm sure Lady Hunt is heartened for your regard for her," Maria said blandly.
"Yeah, thanks Alan," Lady Hunt said absently.
Prince Alan muttered something Maria was barely able to catch. Something about Lady Hunt being bad at… something.
"That doesn't answer my question," Lady Hunt said. "What did you do to Lady Katarina?! She never refuses reading time! Or eating time! Or farming time!"
"Obviously, she found something she wanted more than those things," Maria said. She wasn't proud and smug. No, definitely not. It wasn't her accomplishment after all, no reason to be smug or proud in any way.
"She looks half-dead!" Sophia cried. "That can't be because she was only studying like she said!"
"Well, to be fair," Lord Keith said. "You've never seen Katarina have to do her summer homework."
"I must say though, I'm proud of how mature you all have become this past few months," Maria said. "You would all much rather be in here with me, and interrogate me because of your concern for Katarina, than spend time with her to satisfy your own desires, since today is her only free day."
There was a pause.
The door to her sitting room slammed open as a group of young nobles ran out, heading for the kitchen, leaving Maria, Lord Ascart and Prince Alan behind.
Lord Ascart rose smoothly to his feet. "We should make sure they behave," he said, walking smoothly out the door, unhurried.
Then it was just Prince Alan and Maria.
"Lady Maria," Alan said. "You know all those times you mutter about being worried for this country?"
"Yes?"
"To be honest… I'm starting to see where you're coming from," Prince Alan sighed.
"It's said in jest," Maria said, shuffling nervously about all the times it wasn't.
"Lady Maria, Katarina is acting more mature than my brother," Prince Alan said. "That might not worry you, but it sure scares the swamp out of me."
Maria blinked and realized the youngest prince was right. "Oh. How worrying."
The two of them exchanged a glance and set out after the others, Sadako falling into step beside Maria…
They found everyone else and Katarina in the kitchen as she was finishing putting in jam– blueberry, this time– into her magic tool and beginning to seal it shut. Maria disapproved at this disruption to her household's routine. She'd had enough trouble getting the kitchen staff to not linger nervously when she was down there making snacks and sweet for everyone. Having several ladies, the Third Prince, the most beautiful non-female in Sorcier, and the duke's son down there had the work at a standstill.
Maria tsked in disapproval as she saw one of her Ashina wards who liked to help in the kitchen and had taken over leading cooking the Ashina food like that soup with noodles – and who was of course young, beautiful, exotic and heavily traumatized by most men– curled into a ball and rocking in the corner where the nobles couldn't see her, eyes clenched shut, one hand over her mouth as if she was about to regurgitate her last meal. "Out, all of you," she snapped. "You're interfering in the meal preparation. You and you," she pointed at Lord Keith and the Third Prince, "pick that up and take it out of here to the dining room so my staff have room to work!"
"Ah! Sorry L– Dame Campbell," Katarina said. "She's right guys, help me pick this up and take it outside."
Fortunately, the door was wide enough to admit the magic tool as well as those carrying it. Unfortunately, the Third Prince and Lord Keith were both very atrocious at coordinating and not used to carrying heavy loads together. Maria eyed the jugs of milk, plural, that had been removed from her ice room. Well, it was worth it for the I Scream, but…
Sighing, Maria waited for the rest of Katarina's retinue to trail after her and leave the kitchen. Only Dame Matthew lingered, looking at her inquisitively and then flicking her gaze towards the her Ashina ward, but Maria shook her head, and made a gesture using both thumbs to point at herself, indicating she would deal with this. Once they were gone, Maria looked around the room.
"You may resume," Maria said, and there was… not a sigh, but a feeling like there should be a sigh, and the kitchen staff started getting back to their meals. Some eyed the collapsed young woman, but Maria waved them away. Walking closer, Maria raked her memory for the girl's name. What was it…
"Renge-chan," she said gently as she knelt next to the girl, "daijobu?" She was fairly confident she said that properly.
"Gaijin gone?" the girl asked fearfully.
"Gone," Maria confirmed. Once more, she resisted the urge to use Dark Magic to lock away whatever terrible memories and feelings haunted one of her wards. Instead, she reached around and held the girl.
Renge buried her faced, shoulders shaking as the tension of the panic began to drain out of her. Maria sat with her for several minutes, letting her ward recover from her encounter. The armsmen knew not get near her now after a few unfortunate incidents, and they worked with the staff to prevent any more, but this had been a sudden surprise. Maria would have to do something to keep it from repeating.
"Can sleep instead, rest," Maria offered in her almost passable Ashinago as the girl suddenly shivered again. "If Renge-chan want."
"H-hai…" the girl said.
Maria gestured over the girl's head, and Sadako stepped forward, bowing dutifully. She and Renge worse similar dark Ashina clothes, with the difference being the other girl wore a simpler apron and a tied handkerchief around her head to keep her hair back as opposed to Sadako's frilly headband. "Help Renge-chan back to her room," Maria said, still patting the girl on the back. "Avoid the young lords. And inform her roommate of what happened and tell her she was permission to leave her duties to be with her lover."
Renge twitched at that, but it wasn't exactly a big secret. Maria had long known that some of her older wards had turned to each other. Chiharu had reported so, and she had heard it herself on some of her nocturnal walks burning of energy that Rafael would still not help to ravish out of her. Renge was one of those women.
"Hai, Lady Maria-dono," her maid said, bowing dutifully. Still, she waited until Renge left Maria's embrace on her own before helping support the other ward to go back up to her room.
Straightening, Maria turned to the head cook. "Will you need to change the menu with Renge's incapacitation?"
The head cook, a matronly older woman who seemed about her mother's age shook her head, her dark red hair wobbling on its bun. "No, we can handle it, my lady," she said. "Won't be as good as Renge's but we can make it."
Maria nodded. "Excellent. See that Renge is given proper chore credit for dessert calculation, if you will."
"Yes, my lady," the head cook said.
"And I shall have to see about authorization badges for the kitchen," Maria said. "Until then, please see that Squire Katarina makes her I Scream somewhere else, in case her horde follows her in future."
Her head cook nodded in acknowledgement, and Maria went to see to her guests.
When she reached the dining hall, she had a brief flashback to Cainhurst. She remembered going to the lavatory and not having someone follow her to corner her. She had been mildly constipated, and it had taken some time. When she had returned, the tables of the dining hall had been full of fallen bodies, both living nobles and dead peasants, and she had been disappointed to realize all the blood had been consumed, and she was looking at the aftermath.
That scene came back strongly to her as she entered her dining room and found Katarina's horde strewn about on the chairs at one end, sitting bonelessly as if collapsed, some clutching their heads, most with blue stains around their mouths. She was clearly coming in at the tail end of sound great and hedonistic indulgence.
Squire Katarina was, of course, still up and eating. So was her cousin, although Dame Mathew was eating from her bowl with the slow and deliberate savoring of a practiced connoisseur or long-term addict.
"Oh, L– Dame Campbell," Katarina greeted. Maria was glad to hear she was using the correct address, even if she kept stumbling over it the start. "You're late. Ah, but don't worry, there's still plenty left in the I Scream Machine. Enough for the children, the maids, the Ashinajin, and even the knights too!" Katarina said. "I made sure to make enough for everyone. Er, I might have used a lot of milk and jam though."
"I shall need you to give the recipe and amounts you used so I can ensure I have proper stores in the future," Maria said, graciously accepting a bowl. Though she looked at the little dessert spoon in annoyance. Argh, why did the spoon have to be so small? Surely this was a confection that needed big spoons and big bowls? "Perhaps you can do this again on your next free day."
"Um… when will that be? Er, Dame Campbell?" Katarina said.
Though they were still collapsed from I Scream indulgence, Maria felt the horde's ears perk up at this.
"I will inform you," Maria said. "Your training will have to come first."
Katarina didn't sigh, but she clearly wanted to. "Yes, Dame Campbell," she said instead.
It called to her. Maria had a spoonful on the teeny-tiny spoon and nearly bit through the stem when she put it in her mouth. She clenched her eyes shut for strength. "We shall speak more of it tomorrow," Maria said, resisting to just dump the contents of the bowl into her mouth and gulp down like it was a maid with a torn carotid artery. She kept herself to another spoon. "For now, rest, relax, have fun. You deserve it. And you may go back to calling me Lady Maria."
"Okay Dame Maria," Katarina said. "Do you want more I Scream?"
The bowl was completely empty. Huh? When had that happened? "Please," Maria said.
"Me too Lady Katrina…" Sophia groaned like one rising from the grave, holding her bowl high.
"Please give me more of your delicious creamy stuff lady Katarina!" Lady Hunt cried.
"Me first! Big sister, I'm your brother, right? Family comes first, right?" Lord Keith said hungrily.
"Marry me, Katarina," the Third Prince groaned. "Marry me and please make this every day!"
"More please," Prince Alan said gruffly, vibrating with eagerness.
"…!" Lord Ascart declared with bowl held out.
Katarina smiled and had a pleasant morning with her friends.
A/N: So, my Pat-reon is up now at P.A.T.R.E.O.N.C.O.M -/-SCM2814. If you want to support this fic, that would be great, but no pressure. But if you do, you'll also get advanced access to my new original fiction series about a wizard on the frontier, her dungeon, and the idiots around her...