Sacrificed to the Dragon

2. Mishaps in the kitchen

After a long and sleepless night, Katherine wakes up at dawn. There is someone pounding on her door and she can hear her name being called, too. The headache threatening behind her eyes doesn’t help either. She groans out loud and slips from her bed. Padding over to the door, she opens it and glares daggers at the cheerful grounds keeper.

“What? And why so loud? I hardly slept two hours.” Katherine protests.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Your highness.” Agneta sings and the sarcasm behind her words drips like acid on Katherine’s nerves. “I told you last night. Everybody works, so will you. Work starts at dawn.”

“Must I?” Katherine whines.

“Yes!” Agneta shouts at her. “Get dressed. I’m done waiting. You’ll start in the kitchen and we’ll see how it goes.”

Katherine yawns loudly and picks the simplest dress in her wardrobe. It is too big for her, but a wide belt can solve that. At least it’s new and clean and she doesn’t look like a reject from up close. A dash of cold water in her face wakes her up for good. Her hair will have to be braided in a simple braid, since she has no time to do anything with it. And honestly, she can’t do much, she always had maids to do her hair.

“You look fine. Come on!” Agneta rushes her out. “The kitchen is on the ground floor. We prepare food there for the whole castle. That is three meals a day. The field workers have their own kitchen and they supply the miners, too.”

“Fields and mines? You mean to tell me that life up here is the same as down in Loredan?” Katherine inquires and wonders how wrong is everything they are told about Eiry. Is there any truth in the teachings at all?

“There are differences, I’m sure.” Agneta says. “I have no idea what you did all day in the palace, but for all of us, it’s life as usual, just in a different place.”

The castle kitchen is a huge room with long tables and wood burning stoves. Katherine is intimidated by the sheer number of pots and plates. She freezes in her spot, but Agneta has no time to just idle around. She grabs her hand and drags her to a table full of chopping boards and sharp looking knives. 

“You will start here. The bread will be out of the ovens soon and you will slice it up and arrange the slices in the baskets. Lory will show you how to churn butter. You won’t believe how much of it we use around here till you help make it.” Agneta tells her before she leaves. “I’ll see you in two hours for breakfast.”

Katherine stands there by the table and thinks this can’t be real. She must be dreaming. She is not a kitchen maid. She can’t churn butter, she will get dirty and sweaty. Besides, she has no idea how to even start. She looks at the knives and boards and she has the faint idea that nothing here is for making butter. The heat from the ovens behind her is becoming uncomfortable and she moves to the other side of the table. 

“Hey there!” A blond and blue eyed girl greets her. “I’m Lory. I saw you last night at the party. Are you really a princess?”

“Yes. Does everybody know that? Will they all ask me?” Katherine answers.

“Probably. It will be interesting for a while.” Lory smiles. “Let me show you the butter station. The loaves still need a few minutes in the ovens. They don’t smell done yet.”

“You know when the bread is baked just by smelling it?” Katherine wonders.

“Yes!” Lory laughs. “I’m a baker's daughter. I was forming bread before I could walk right. Oh, by the way! You’re a royal. Can you just do your magic and we have butter?”

Katherine looks at the girl and she must be hilarious right now. She opens and closes her mouth like a fish on land before she reminds herself that it’s unbecoming for a princess to gape. Oh great, she thinks. They expect her to use magic. Is there a place to hide and die of embarrassment? Will the earth open up and swallow me alive? Please!

She shakes her head and looks at the ground and the tiles are fascinating in the royal blue color. She would not expect such exquisite flooring for a kitchen. Thank you for that, my wandering mind, she thinks. I better come up with an explanation why I suck at magic.

“Can you do magic?” Katherine inquires.

“No.” Lory shakes her head. “I was tested as a child. I can’t do even the simplest tricks. My sister got all the magic in our family. She even went to the healer's school.”

“Oh.” Katherine says. “I can do tricks. Sadly, I never learned any useful things.”

“We’ll work around it, but we have to hurry. I’ll show you how to start with the butter and I’ll go get the loves out.” Lory beckons Katherine to the pots with fresh cream. “What kind of tricks can you do? Can you levitate things?” 

“Oh!” Katherine exclaims all happy. “Levitating is easy. Look.”

She lifts her arm and the pot of cream floats up for Lory to grab it out of the air. Lory pours the cream in the wooden butter churn. The top is fixed on and she shows Katherine how to gently press and pull to get the cream moving.

“Can you levitate the loaves out of the oven? You can do it one by one and set them on the cloth to cool. Then we can do the next batch of butter together.” Lory asks.

Katherine shrugs and nods. She has never done anything like it, but how different can it be to what she has just done with the cream pot? She turns her attention to the ovens and starts on one end. The loves levitate one by one to the table. She thinks she has the hang of it and dares to speak while she’s getting the bread out. It’s more comfortable to be on the other side of the table and not in the direct heat of the ovens.

“Are there any magic users here?” She asks Lory.

“A few. Anery is one of them. That is why she can sleep in.” Lory answers. “She will be down here in an hour and still have four different pastries ready for breakfast. It’s amazing to watch her when all the pots just dance around her.”

A crash sounds out and Katherine sucks her breath in. She was careless. She thought it was easy to levitate the loaves out and talk with Lory at the same time. Now she’s got a mess. She dropped a loaf of bread on the plates and knocked them off the table. The porcelain is all over the floor and Lory has rushed over to her. 

“I have to rescue the rest from burning up. Go finish the butter. It will fall apart if it’s not done to the end now.” Lory orders and Katherine rushes over to the churner. She has no idea what to do and tries the moves Lory showed her before. It is hard to move the stick at all. The butter is harder than the cream was. 

Will she mess this up, too? And her stomach is protesting as she smells the freshly baked bread. She glances over to Lory and she can see the girl taking the bread out with a long spatula. The broken plates are crunching to smaller pieces under the boots of the baker and Katherine cringes at the sound. And things can go from bad to worse in a second. Katherine only closes her eyes and hangs her head at the angry voice from the door.

“What the hell happened here?” Anery shouts.

“Sorry for the mess. Katherine had an accident with the plates.” Lory apologises.

“Well, Katherine can clean it up!” Anery snaps. “Since she has no intention of actually churning the butter. Who assigned you to the kitchen anyway?” 

“Agneta.” Katherine whispers and gets the broom from the corner. At least she has seen the maids use it and she knows this is one thing she won’t mess up.

“I will save the butter, but that means one less pastry for breakfast.” Anery glares at her and Katherine has the feeling that the older lady doesn’t like her at all. 

She sweeps up the broken shards and deposits them in a tub with various broken things. She glances in the direction of the butter station and the churn is working on it’s own. Anery really does it by magic. The pots and pans are dancing around her with flour and sugar bags. Lory is cutting up the bread and Katherine goes to her to help. The amount of bread is staggering and she thinks there must be a lot more people living here than she saw last night.

A few moments later the door opens again and a few more girls walk in. Each with a basket of fresh produce. From eggs to vegetables and fruit. Now the flurry of activity really begins in the kitchen and all the excitement of last night is gossiped about in great detail. That is, until one of the girls spots Katherine at the bread table.

“It’s the princess!” A girl shouts and Katherine drops her knife to the table. She cringes in fear of what will follow, but nothing much does.

“Stop fooling around!” Anery sounds angry. “Katherine, you can start setting the tables. You need 90 settings!”

A sudden silence envelops the kitchen as all the girls return to what they were doing and Katherine grabs the first stack of plates and starts setting them out. Lory shows her where the spoons are kept and that every setting gets a cup, too.

“The spares are in the cupboard.” Lory whispers. “Count well, or twice. Breakfast and lunch are here, dinner is served in the hall like last night.”

“Thank you.” Katherine smiles sadly and Lory winks at her.

The next hour actually went by without another accident. The castles inhabitants flowed through the kitchen and got their breakfast. Katherine noticed that Anery didn’t eat with them. She took a tray of food and two cups and left. 

The cleaning up part was again Katherine’s job. She is standing by the huge sink, filled with hot water and dish soap, cleaning the multitude of plates and cups. Her hands sting because of the hot water and her fingers are slipping on the suds and porcelain. She needs to be extra careful not to break any more plates. And she does exactly that when she hears her name and Anery’s complaint to Agneta. 

“See?” Anery points at her and the shards at her feet, where she dropped a plate. “She is useless. She is a nuisance. All she does is damage. We will run out of plates in one day.”

“I see.” Agneta smirks. “I will find her something else to do.” 

“Great! I don’t want her here, except to eat.” Anery states and turns to leave.

Katherine hangs her head in defeat and shame. She is useless. She can’t even clean the plates without breaking one. There is a warm hand on her back and the grounds keeper whispers softly at her.

“We will find something else. Just keep in mind that nobody is born knowing how to do it all. We had to learn, too.”

“You’re not angry about the plates I broke? And I almost burned the bread and ruined the butter.” Katherine whispers on the brink of tears, but she promised herself that she won’t cry anymore and she holds them back.

“No.” Agneta tells her. “I’m not angry. I’m disappointed.”