The Wizardwar - Elaine Cunningham [35]
Whendura, a small, plump woman who looked as if she ought to be plying grandchildren with honeycakes, met Keturah at the door with a warm smile. She ushered her visitor up two flights of stairs to a small room, chatting cozily as she pounded herbs and mixed them with watered wine. Keturah stripped down to her shift and set aside all her spell bags and charms and wands, so that nothing magical might confuse the greenmage's tests. She drank the green sludge Whendura offered, then endured a long list of questions and much magical poking and prodding.
At last Whendura nodded and began to gather up her wands and crystals.
"So much magic within you," she said respectfully. "It is a great gift that you give Halruaa!"
Keturah frowned. "I don't understand."
The greenmage's busy hands stilled, and a flash of compassion lit her eyes. "Don't fret over it," she all but crooned. "It is often so. The potions can bring confusion."
"Potions," Keturah echoed without comprehension. "Confusion?"
Whendura gave her a reassuring smile. "It will be different when the babe is born," she said gently as she continued to gather up her tools. "May Mystra grant," she added under her breath.
Keturah realized that she was gaping like a carp. "Babe? What babe?"
It was the greenmage's turn to be astonished. "You are not with child?"
"No," she said flatly. "It is not possible." How could it be, when her "husband" had never once crossed the threshold of her bedchamber?
"Then why have you come for testing?"
"I told you," Keturah said impatiently. "My magic is diminishing in power and reliability. To whom should I come but a greenmage?"
Pity and comprehension flooded the woman's face. "It is always so, for a jordain's dam. Do not look so shocked, child," she said, clearly distressed by what she saw in Keturah's face. "You were told all of this, but sometimes a woman loses memory along with magic."
The truth slammed into Keturah with the force of a monsoon gale. She was being prepared to give birth to a jordain!
Keturah forced calm into her reeling mind and brought forward what she knew of such things. Though jordaini births did occur unaided from time to time, it was more often a rare and highly secret procedure, involving potions that stopped the hereditary transfer of magic from mother to child.
So that was the reason why Dhamari was content to leave her at her door each night! Their match had been granted because it had the potential of producing a jordaini child. Keturah thought of the spiced wine they drank during their shared evening meal. No doubt he'd been slipping her potions to shape the destiny of their eventual child. He would not risk disrupting the process before it was completed.
Why would he do such a thing? Never was this fate imposed upon a woman without her knowledge and consent!
Wrath, deep and fierce and seething, began to burn away her confusion.
The parentage of the jordaini counselors was held in secret, but great honor was afforded wizards who gave a counselor to the land. It was a sure way for a wizard to advance in rank and status, and none need know the reason. Despite the vast power of Halruaa's magic-or perhaps because of it-many children died in infancy. A potential jordain was taken from his mother's arms and listed in the public records as a stillbirth, lost among the many babes born too frail to carry the weight of Halruaan magic. Never would the parents know the name or the fate of their child, and never would the public know why certain wizards acquired rare spellbooks, choice assignments, or even positions on the Council of Elders.
All this Keturah's friend Basel had told her late one night, shortly after the death of his wife and newborn child. His description of this secret process had carried the bitter weight of a confession.
Keturah heard the greenmage's voice in the next room and the soft, mellow chimes that opened the scrying portal. She crept to the door, pushed