October 8, 1183
"Arydath.""Hello, Alsina," Arydath greeted her caller of the day, as heralded by Tarien's steward a few minutes prior. Alsina wasn't someone Arydath had expected to see any time soon--not so soon after her husband had knocked up Aydelle Ildaras--but she was still young, and it had been a reasonable amount of time since her youngest had been born, so Arydath had dismissed the unexpected visit as not too unusual.
Oddly enough, though... well, whether a woman was showing or not, Arydath could sense a pregnancy within minutes, and rarely was she wrong. It wasn't impossible that she was, of course. That said, she'd seen Alsina during all of her previous pregnancies, carried to term and otherwise. She'd never had an issue telling before.
"What seems to be the problem?"
"Uh, well..." The younger woman clasped her hands together, wedding band spinning between her fingers. Angry as she might have been at Aldhein, she must have had some hope if she was still wearing it at all. "I haven't had a course in a while, so I assumed I was pregnant, but I haven't been sick or gotten bigger or anything."The stress of Aydelle's baby, perhaps? Aydelle had said she'd told Aldhein near the end of August, which was plenty of time for Alsina to have missed a course if Aldhein hadn't wasted any telling her. "Sometimes stress can cause missed courses. With your husband's situation, that seems like the most likely explanation."
Alsina swallowed. "Yes, well... it's been a bit longer than that..."
Well. That was odd. "When was your last course?""I don't know. Beginning of June, end of May? They'd been a bit sporadic for a while before that too."
Huh. That sounded strangely like the latter part of the previous year for Arydath herself. Things had not exactly been pleasant since. "How old are you?"
"Thirty-four." That... wasn't unheard of. But surely there must have been some other explanation... "Is it possible that Aldhein caught something from some other woman, then passed it along to me?""I haven't heard of anything like that stopping courses, but I suppose it's not impossible."
In this business, sometimes it seemed there was little that was. "I have a few more questions, but do you mind if I fetch my mother for a second opinion? If it's bad news, then I don't want to trouble you before I know for sure."NEXT CHAPTER:
