Lady Miracle by Susan King Page A

Most of our spices come from Venice.”
    “Ah, pepper and cloves,” she said approvingly. “A fine place, Italy.”
    “How is Brigit?” Diarmid asked.
    “Sweet as the soul of an angel,” Lilias said, her gap-toothed smile joyful. “Eat now, both of you, and then rest. Mistress Physician, tell me what you know about joint aches. My knees and hips hurt me so much at night I can hardly sleep.”
    “Let the woman eat, now, Mother, and come to your bed,” Angus said, taking her arm.
    “I am not tired,” Lilias insisted. She pointed to her hip. “I have a pain just here, like a knife, and another here—”
    “Mother,” Angus groaned.
    “Are you taking medicines for the pain?” Michaelmas asked.
    “Willow only. What would you suggest?”
    “Come ahead, Mother,” Angus said, steering her away. “You can talk to the Mistress Physician another time. She is tired.”
    He tugged on her arm and she snapped at him, but left, bowing her head to Michaelmas.
    “Good night, Lilias,” Diarmid said as they left.
    Michaelmas looked at Diarmid. “I did not mind talking to her about her aches,” she said.
    “You would if you wished to sleep this night,” Diarmid said. “She has a multitude of aches, and a description for each one.”
    Michaelmas smiled and sipped at the claret, feeling its warmth slip inside of her and spread agreeably. Gilchrist began a song, and she settled back in the comfortable chair to listen.
    She glanced at Diarmid, who leaned his head on his hand as he listened to the music. She felt herself beginning to relax in both body and spirit, in part from music and food, in part from the warm welcome that she had received at the castle of storms.
    As the low light of a peat fire flickered in his bedchamber, Diarmid sank down in the wooden tub left in its usual place near the hearth. While he and Michael had eaten, Diarmid had asked Angus to bring buckets of steaming water to fill tubs in both his bedchamber and in a small antechamber beside Brigit’s room, where Lilias had decided Michael would sleep.
    He sluiced warm water over his head and shoulders and scooped up soft ash and herb soap from a wooden dish by the tub, scrubbing his head and chest. He soaped his whiskered jaw and accomplished a needed shave, using the sharpest edge of his dirk. Exhausted, he sat back, wanting collapse into bed after the bath. But he wanted to see Brigit first, though he knew she was asleep.
    He sank lower in the tub. He hoped that Brigit would like to Michael as she disliked the other healers who had examined her. He could not blame the child for her previous reaction. The two wise-wives from the Isle of Mull had irritated him with their strings and stones, chants and smoke. He shook his head at the memory, sure their rituals had been of no use.
    He had also cut short the visit of an elderly physician he had met in Ayr. The man boasted of his Paris education and began daily bleedings for Brigit, put her on a strict diet of almonds and chicken broth, gave her a course of laxatives, all meant to balance her bodily humors. The man studied the curious charts he had with him, claiming the child’s natal horoscope advised that the legs simply be amputated, since Saturn conflicted with the moon in three configurations.
    Within a few days, Brigit was weaker than a newborn. Horrified, Diarmid had dismissed the physician angrily, with Lilias adding a punitive commentary and Angus and Mungo escorting him to a departing boat, making sure that the man fell into the loch at least once.
    Finally, just before Diarmid had left to join Robert Bruce, he consulted with an Argyll herb-wife who advised heat treatments, a good diet and herbal infusions from plants with which he was familiar. He appreciated her suggestions, and since then she had supplied prepared medicines. Brigit was more comfortable, but a cure did not seem to be in her future.
    He sank against the side of the tub and sloshed water over his soapy chest. He was certain