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there was nothing to do save attending some oligarch’s wife, seeing to an important female visitor, or serving dainties at a feast or function. In truth, she and the others were nothing more than glorified serving wenches themselves, and but slight the glorification at that. Meleena flushed with indignation as she thought about how she had been ordered about, humiliated, and often degraded during that time.
    Then, one day, Wanno had summoned her to his own quarters and questioned her at length. There were many bubbling retorts and smoking pots and braziers in the place. The fumes muzzied her. Meleena recalled, and the bloodshot eyes of Wanno had bored Into her brain.
    Afterward the mage had been kinder still, and certainly friendlier. During this meeting, Wanno had informed Meleena that she was soon going to have to care for the little son of her deceased cousin Ermantrude. Try as she might, Meleena could not recall ever having heard of Ermantrude-nor, for that matter, of her mother’s sister, someone whom Wanno referred to as her Aunt Una. However, Wanno convinced Meleena that he had researched her family history, through means that only an accomplished mage such as he could command, and he had found that she was assuredly the infant’s only known relative. Meleena could hardly remember her own mother, who had died when she herself was a babe, so she scarcely wondered that she had trouble recalling her Aunt Una and her cousin Ermantrude. Once she had gotten over the surprise of hearing all this information for the first time, Meleena readily assented to taking charge of the child-and Wanno had been mightily pleased at that.
    As part of his final preparations for Meleena’s assumption of her new responsibility, Wanno had sent word to another official in the Citadel, and soon she had been moved from a waiting maid to a position as Lady and Ward of the Lord Mayor. No more daily drudgery, only occasional summonses to official functions where Meleena would sit at table with those of rank and high station. This very night was her first such occasion-her coming-out, as it were.
    Good things come in threes, it was said. Meleena was convinced that, for her, it was so-the babe, her newly exalted station, and the means to maintain and enjoy that status. And all of it revolved around the efforts of the kindly old mage. Wanno told her that he had taken the time and trouble to personally investigate the circumstances surrounding her cousin’s death, and the case was worse even than her own, where property rightfully hers had been taken by the powers that governed Greyhawk.
    In Meleena’s own case, Wanno told her, he had come on the scene too late to help. But luckily, he had found out about Ermantrude’s demise in time to act swiftly. It seemed that the woman had been very wealthy. The officials of Hardby had meant to seize that wealth and make the Infant a ward of the state, but Wanno’s intervention had saved the situation. The mage, being one whose abilities and influence were respected even where his name was not known, demanded to be recognized as the infant’s official guardian, and could not be refused that right since he had come forth before any judgment had been rendered. To the dismay of the court officials. Wan-no’s status also carried with it the right to administer Ermantrude’s considerable fortune, so long as It was disbursed with the infant’s welfare in mind.
    Fortunately for both Meleena and Wanno (whose life was not one that could easily accommodate the raising of a child), he was permitted to delegate the responsibility for the day-to-day care of the infant. Since he was later able to identify and then locate Meleena, the babe’s only relation, she became the logical-and from an ethical standpoint, the only-choice for a nursemaid.
    Getting a chance to be a mother was wonderful enough in itself. Having her station in life elevated (in the interest of giving the babe a decent upbringing) was an exciting