The Emperor and the Knightess

The mysterious stew made of old jerkies, flour, and water continued to boil ominously. Poliana ladled some onto a bowl and let it cool for a while before trying a bite. After tasting it, she became angry.

“This doesn’t taste right!”

‘What is wrong with her?’

‘She made it herself and now she is angry at the food?’ What was going on here?

People around her had no sympathy for her. After all, their landlord didn’t even greet her vessels when she arrived. Instead, she immediately ran to the pantry and the kitchen and began to make a pot of her disgusting stew. Everyone looked at her coldly.

But Poliana didn’t care about how they felt. She ignored them, especially because she found it hard to control her anger over the content of the pot.

“This doesn’t taste the same as before!”

‘What does she want?’

No one could understand what Poliana was trying to accomplish. She made the appalling stew herself and now she was getting angry over it. It was not a surprise that the stew tasted awful. The vessels watched her make it and there was no way that it would taste good. The ingredients and her cooking method were both terrible.

Poliana chewed on her lips and tried to figure out what went wrong.

The ingredients? They were the worst kind. Her cooking method? It was the simplest one out there, and yet the taste seemed different from before.

Why?

Poliana was still a soldier. She was on vacation, but this did not change who she was. Then suddenly, her eyes twinkled. Poliana pointed at the large metal pot in the corner and ordered, “Get me that pot.”

The servant took out the giant pot, which was only used when there was a large banquet. Poliana began a fire from scratch in the castle garden. She gathered the firewood herself and began to go through the same process again.

She found even more inedible things such as molded jerkies, awful-smelling cheese, and the grain flour that looked like it was about to go bad. Poliana also added some salt and spices.

The final result looked like normal stew, but those who witnessed how it was made knew that it couldn’t be edible. Surrounded by the knights and the vessels, Poliana tried it.

“Yes, this is it!”

She nodded in satisfaction. She used the same method and ingredients for the first try, but Poliana realized that what makes the difference was the portion size and the size of the fire. During the war, that one time when she cooked, she was given a large pot and an equally large fire to feed the men. According to her, this was the secret to the successful military cooking.

Poliana, clearly looking pleased, continued to stir the pot. This was the remake of her infamous “dog stew.”

The stew not even the dogs would eat.

This was the food she has been craving desperately for some reason. Poliana smiled happily and the knights wondered, ‘Does that stew really taste that good?’

The story of the “stew that not even the dogs would eat” was legendary. The young knights, who have only heard of this story but never tasted the stew before, became curious. One of them, unable to stop himself, asked her, “Boss, may I try it?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you.”

“Me too!

“I want to have a taste too!”

The other knights also seemed eager to try. They filled a few bowls with the stew excitedly. The knights, every one of them, were young, naïve, and inexperienced.

When they had one taste, all of them began to gag.

“Blarghh!”

“Boss! I can understand why it’s called the dog stew! No dog would ever eat such a thing!”

Poliana glared at them and asked, “Have you ever actually seen a dog refuse to eat it?”

“Pardon?”

“I asked you if you’ve actually seen a dog refusing to eat it! Are you a dog? Is that how you know?”

“N-no, Sir Poliana.”

The knights became scared when Poliana overreacted and seemed furious. When they shivered in fear, Poliana grinned and replied, “It’s true that even the dogs won’t eat it. Anyway, you should never throw your food away, so you better finish your bowls.”

Now that she ate what she craved, Poliana felt more generous. She was full now, which helped her in finding her manners. Unfortunately, it was too late. The vessels were staring at her in confusion. Poliana cleared her throat and greeted them, “Long time no see.”

“Welcome, Mistress.”

It was obvious the vessels did not really mean what they said.

***

The Sitrin vessels expected their landlord’s stay to be short.

There were noblemen who preferred to be hands-on with the running of their lands while there were others who were happy to just receive the income. In this case, Marquess Poliana Winter was the latter.

Poliana clearly did not have any emotional attachment to her land, but the locals still loved her. The people of Sitrin were abused badly from their previous lord that they were extremely happy with Poliana, who was, although absent, very generous. The locals hoped that Marquess Winter’s family would rule their land for many generations.

Marquess Winter was greatly respected and admired. Unfortunately, the people of Sitrin knew that as the head of the Second Division, Poliana wouldn’t stay in their little town forever.

This meant that this might be their only chance to meet their landlord!

Only

The locals wanted her to tour the land of Sitrin. The vessels and the officials wanted their landlord to review their paper works because they wanted her approval and be free of further scrutiny from her.

The butler and the castle maids wanted their mistress to rest, which was her reason for this visit. The merchants of Sitrin wanted Poliana to get to work and approve and renew the trade permits. The city guards, although they technically belonged to the kingdom, didn’t hesitate to make various requests to Poliana.

The result was Poliana working as hard as before. It was impossible to ignore the requests of the locals. There were many things she needed to take care of as the landlord. She had an excuse not to get involved in person when she lived in Yapa, but now that she was here, she could not ignore her duties.

“Marquess, what should we do with the goods we confiscated from the bandits of the surviving enemy soldiers?”

“There are many vagabonds who are pretending to be refugees to get into our town. What should we do?”

“You also need to decide on the trade list for this town.”

Their landlord, Marquess Winter, was an infamous knightess during the war. She was known to be ruthless, which scared the Sitrin vessels enough to work with perfect transparency. They knew that based on the rumors they heard that if they made a mistake, they would end up losing their manhood.