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to refuse him.
    Still, she had glimpsed in his eyes a deep vulnerability, and real kindness. His concern for the child stirred her sympathy. She wanted to help the girl, but she could never agree to—or accomplish—what he asked of her.
    Beside her, Jean shifted again, still restless. Michaelmas leaned forward and took the old woman’s arm, placing her fingertips lightly over the pulse in the wrist. She counted silently, feeling the weak, erratic pattern of beats.
    Jean opened her eyes. “Lady—” she whispered.
    Michaelmas smiled and set her arm dow. “How do you feel?”
    Jean flexed her fingers uneasily on the blanket. “My arm hurts...and my chest....” She rubbed at her breastbone uneasily.
    “Let me listen.” Michaelmas bent forward and placed her ear against Jean’s chest, listening to the sounds inside: an uncertain heartbeat and faint crackling noises in the lungs. “I’ll fetch the infusion that Master James has prescribed for you,” she said. “You’ve had a dose already this night, but another will not harm, and may help.”
    Jean touched her arm. “Och, lass,” she said. “Someday soon the medicines willna help me, and I will go, and be glad.” Her dark eyes were vivid. “My husband went long ago. I miss him.”
    Michaelmas watched her uncertainly. “Jeanie—”
    “Give me yer hand,” the woman said, and Michaelmas held her hand out. Cool, fragile fingers covered her own. “Listen to me—ye’ve a gift for healing, lass. I’ve felt it often in yer touch. Lady Miracle. 'Tis a proper name for ye.”
    “Jeanie, hush. Rest.”
    “I want to say this,” Jean whispered. “I heard what they told ye today. Dinna let them frighten ye. I have a feeling about ye, lass. I think ye have a gift from heaven, and if so, it must be used.”
    “The only gift I have is my education and my training,” Michaelmas replied. “I will fetch the medicines.”
    Jean squeezed her hand. “Deny it, but I know ye have it.
    My mother had a healing gift. She used to say that she always let heaven guide her in her healings. Remember that.” She smiled, then drew a breath. “I’m tired, lass. And thirsty.”
    “I’ll fetch water.” Michaelmas rose, her thoughts whirling. How had Jean known about the healing touch? She crossed the room to a cupboard, where she took out a painted ceramic pot. Master James had prescribed an electuary for Jean, several herbs blended in syrup; to that, Michaelmas added a few drops of an infusion of foxglove. She ladled water from a bucket into a wooden cup, and returned to Jean’s side. After Jean sipped the water and took the medicine, she laid back and soon slept.
    Michaelmas sat silently beside her friend, aware that death would come soon, and she knew Jean would welcome it peacefully. No method she knew, no herb would heal a failing, aging heart. Only time and heaven decided how much time remained. Ibrahim himself had told her what could be done—and what could not.
    He had reminded her often that wisdom resided sometimes in doing little. A physician must be a careful judge, he had told her, and an extention of God’s mercy. Death was not always to be feared, for it was sometimes a blessing.
    She wished that her husband, with his calm ways and his great knowledge, was here beside her. But he had been even older than Jean when he had succumbed to a similar disease of the heart. He had been ready—though Michaelmas had not been ready to lose her dearest friend.
    Jean’s words echoed in her mind, strangely in keeping with what had occurred already today. The Highlander had wanted a miracle from her hands, and the prioress had cruelly reminded her that she had once been accused of heresy for that very act.
    Michaelmas had possessed the healing gift since childhood, inherited from her Scottish mother through an ancient Celtic bloodline that went back to Saint Columba. Gavin had the same unusual ability, although none but his wife and closest family members were aware of