Herald of Steel

After some deliberation, Alexander ultimately decided to drop the culinary school idea, understanding he did not have the required instructors or even the culture.

Parents just did not want to send their boys to such places, preferring far more prestigious institutions, while girls and female cooks were heavily discriminated against, never being allowed any significant position in a professional kitchen.

Which was certainly odd given cooking was thought to be largely a woman's job.

But Alexander guessed it probably had to do with the fact that the position of a head chef of a noble was a prestigious rank, one with significant power and authority- after all, they literally controlled what the lord ate for the day.

They also had many subordinates under them and so most nobles probably did not think women were capable of leading such a large group of men. Stay tuned to My Virtual Library Empire

Thus Alexander did not think employing female chefs would be a good idea, a lot of customers would shun the place just due to that singular fact.

Hence due to all these hurdles and obstacles, Alexander at last thought to himself,

'Hmmm, well for now I guess I will focus on training some men in my own kitchen, maybe buy some skilled slaves, and then think about them in the future. I can also write a few proper cookbooks.. but I wonder how many cooks can even read. Most can surely read a few simple words… but a whole book… that might be too much.'

The reason for Alexander thinking like that was because literacy in Adhania was naturally very low, with almost the entirety of it belonging to the nobles and clergy.

Regular people at best could read only a very limited range of words, such as the most widely used ones like inns, bars, taxes, grains, etc. and some small number, just enough to get by in their everyday lives.

Anything beyond, such as writing a letter to a loved one and they needed help.

That could mean paying a local priest or going to a part time scribe, most villages had one.

This could be an acolyte in training, a failed meister exam candidate, or even someone who was smart enough to learn the basics of the language on his own. Writing letters was a sort of side income for them.

Most regular cooks fell into the first category of novice writers- people who could maybe barely read or guess the ingredients written in a list but not anything more.

Hence Alexander quickly found out that if he wanted to open a 'modern' restaurant, he needed to wait a few more years.

In the meantime….

'Hmmm, maybe I can start with something simple- burgers, shawarmas, milkshakes, sandwiches, and chicken fries… all these junk foods are relatively easy to make.'

Alexander figured he had the ingredients to make all these items- now it only remained to be seen how many trained cooks he could get and how well they could execute his vision.

….

Thus despite the obstacles, Alexander suddenly began to feel excited and finally having had a solution, brought his attention back to the present.

Then suddenly feeling hot after the heavy lunch and the scorching summer heat bearing down, started looking around the table for something cool and refreshing,

"Won't we have any ice cream or yogurt?" He then turned to ask one of the serving maids, after being unable to find what he was looking for.

This girl, standing left him was his personal aid for the meal, responsible for things like serving food and drinks, cutting his meat, passing any dish that was too far away and even washing his hands before and after the meal.

She looked to be eighteen or nineteen, with large doe eyes and an innocent, freckled face, dressed in a traditional black and white French maid dress.

The dress was naturally designed by Alexander, with a lot of frills and black embroidered designs.

The top was half sleeved, made to outline the chest and show the delicate elbows, while the skirt just went below the knees, occasionally revealing the cute leg joint and emphasizing the creamy calves covered with linen stockings as well as the beautiful black leather shoes.

All young maids of the house wore this, while the older, married staff were offered a far more modest long full sleeved and full skirt version of the dress.

And looking at his own design, Alexander once again could not help but admire it longingly, as if he had a hard time believing he was actually having a French styled maid serving him in his home.

He even got the black and white headdress.

This was one of his greatest dreams.

While the smartly dressed young girl sensing Alexander's scalding gaze seemed to quickly turn very, pale, half stammering,

"My… my lord, the kitchen… we ran out of cream yesterday. And the servants… they were a little late in getting us the milk. So the ice cream has not been set yet. The food testers hence advised us not to serve it. I.. I.. we apologize.. umm…"

The girl's face seemed to flush harder with every finished sentence, and she kept lowering her head until the lightly built girl seemed to almost bury it into her chest, thus avoiding eye contact.

The reaction quickly caused Alexander to receive some weird looks from the two attending ladies, who were naturally surprised by such an intense response.

It had been a relatively innocuous question and was certainly not supposed to get such an extensive apology. So this made the two unwilling to think of the worst possibilities, such as Alexander being a very demanding lord.

The problem was that Alexander also had no idea what he had done to scare the girl so much.

He was generally very mild tempered with his staff, rarely even raising his voice, much less scolding them.

And he was certainly not going to say anything when she had such a good reason.

In fact, now that Alexander had a good look, he even recognized this maid- she was one of the newer maids they had recently hired as Alexander's manor took in three new guests- Arrya, Lady Miranda's aunt Pandria and her just newly born son- Pandrius.

She was the daughter of a relatively senior blacksmith working in Alexander's workshops, who managed to pull some clever strings to get his daughter into the lord's manor.

Mean had told Alexander all about it, even asking whether to take the girl.

And Alexander saw no problem with it because such types of petitions were the norm and the father had not really done anything illegal by the rules of the time.

He had simply invited the chief workshop supervisor who was responsible for overseeing the whole area to his home for dinner and showed off his daughter's skills, in cooking, serving, and even singing.

Then he promised to owe the man a huge favor if he could somehow get her as one of Alexander's maids.

The supervisor also seemed to have been impressed by the blacksmith's daughter's demeanor and so passed this news on to Gelene whose sewing shops were inside the workshop area, who then relayed it to Mean when she started looking for a few new maids.

The entire process was a really good example of how things worked in Adhania- the people you knew and the various personal relationships you had were almost the single deciding factor on where you ended up in life.

But that story was also not exactly why Alexander remembered this maid girl, her tale was hardly unique.

No, the reason why he remembered her face was because he had been 'woken' up by her yesterday morning.

Alexander was sleeping next to Mean, clasping her small, tight, naked butt in his palms, when he suddenly felt a sloppy, wet, hot sensation in his lower half waking up, he looked under the sheets to find this very same freckled face girl going to town on his little brother, her cute, rosy cheeks puffed up struggling to fit the huge member.

This sight…. did not really shock Alexander, because by this point he was used to it.

His mornings usually opened like this, and believe it or not, this was not his doing, in fact, it was all arranged by his four wives!

Now this might sound absurd as you would think they would be the ones most against these opportunistic 'hoes', wanting to kick them out of the house if possible, but the reality was stranger than fiction as Alexander could have never imagined the four's jealousy taking such a twisted turn.

It seemed somewhere along the line the four had come to the understanding that they could never stop Alexander from sleeping around, and so decided to do the next best thing- restrict his choices.

Which basically meant tempting him with relatively low grade women, such as maids and other servants, ones whose status would never match them.

They did this as a way to ward off deadly women like Lady Parthia, Lady Nanazin, and even Mikaya, ones whose status made three of the four feel deep inside quite inferior.

They were legitimately afraid of what would happen if Alexander truly fell in love with one.

So they tried to veer his attention using such 'at home' distractions.

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