Each month we will be featuring a guest writer and this month's contribution is from Susan King, a Ph.D candidate in medieval art history at the University of Maryland, who took time of from her dissertation to write her first historic romance, The Black Thorne's Rose. With Raven's Wish, The Angel Knight, The Raven's Moon and Lady Miracle, she has turned her storytelling talents to the wonderful, magical and sublimely romantic setting of Scotland. She is a native of New York, and currently lives in Maryland with her husband and their three sons. We will be presenting the prologue to her novel Lady Miracle in two segments beginning with the first this month. The prologue will conclude in October's issue unless you are so curious you buy the book.

Galloway, Scotland
Summer, 1311

She walked among the wounded like sunlight gliding through shadow. Mists floated over the field, obscuring the bodies of those who had fallen in that morning's battle, but Diarmid Campbell saw the young girl clearly. He watched her, his fingers still as they gripped the scalpel, his attention captured for an instant.

Her pale gown and golden braids seemed to shimmer in the veiled light as she moved. Surrounded by mist and mud, she looked ethereal and graceful as she bent toward a wounded man and touched his forehead.

Like an angel come to find the dying souls, Diarmid thought. Then he shook his head to clear his battle weary mind. No blessed vision on this cursed field, he thought, just a fair, slight girl carrying a basin of water and a handful of bandaging cloths. Obviously she had come with the local women to help in the aftermath of the battle between English and Scots.

Diarmid wiped the back of his hand, red with other men's blood as well as his own, over his sweaty brow. Then he bent to examine an arrow wound in a Highland man's shoulder.

The man grimaced. "Does a beardless lad do the work of healing women?" he asked in Gaelic. "I saw you fight lad. That I know that you can do and your brother with you."

"I have not yet reached my majority, that's true," Diarmid said mildly, "though I did study with the infirmarian at Mullinch Priory. And I have repaired hundreds of wounds more serious than yours."

"Ach," the man growled. "Do the work and be quick."

Diarmid grasped the wooden shaft, set his mouth in determination, and swiftly yanked out the embedded iron tip. As the man gasped, Diarmid drenched the fresh wound with wine poured from a flask. Then he readied a silk thread and a needle of gold, cleansed them and his fingers in a trickle of wine, and stitched the flesh together rapidly. Wrapping the shoulder with a strip of linen torn from the man's shirt, he looked up.

"Change the bandage often and pour wine or uisge beatha over it when you can," he said. "And pour yourself a dram too." The Highlander nodded his thanks.

Diarmid stood, swiping again at the blood that seeped from the cut over his left eye. He would have to ask Fionn to stitch it closed for him, though his brother had no gentle hand for such work. For now, he would continue to ignore that as well as the aching gash on his left forearm, injuries received in the battle.

He ignored too the lurking fear that he did not know enough about treating these wounded men, the fear that he could cause severe pain or even death through error or ignorance. He flexed his hands tightly as he walked across the field, and resisted the fatigue that dragged his steps.

He had not treated hundreds of battle wounds, although he had told the Highlander that to reassure him. He had learned some herbal lore and the ways of the body in illness and injury from a capable infirmarian. But Brother Colum had had scant experience with battle wounds, and he had died before Diarmid had been able to absorb all that his curiosity urged him to learn about healing and the design of the body.

Most of what he had learned since had been gleaned through experience, in grim circumstances outside the peaceful monastery infirmary. During the past year, while fighting beside fellow Highlanders for King Robert Bruce, Diarmid had routinely helped the wounded. Despite his youth, he had earned a reputation as a capable surgeon. Necessity had proven a demanding teacher.

That morning, his skills had been in constant demand. An English patrol had routed the small band of Highland men, whom Diarmid had accompanied, leaving many of the Scots injured or dead on the damp ground. Some of the men were Diarmid's own Campbell kin, though he and his brother Fionn had been spared.

He had done his best to repair flesh and set broken bones swiftly and efficiently, but he had not been able to save every man who needed his skills. A quick hand, a keen eye, and a little training were hardly enough against the power of death. He shoved a hand through his tangled brown hair in mute frustration.

Glancing around, he saw the girl again. She glowed like a shaft of pale sunshine in the gray mist, a fragile thing, far too innocent and pure to be in such a sad, bloody place. As Diarmid watched, some of the wounded men called out to her or stared, as if she was a saint drifted down from heaven.

But Diarmid had no such illusions. The monks of Mullinch Priory had believed in miracles, but they had been sheltered men. At nineteen, Diarmid was well acquainted with the harshness of the temporal world. He had been educated by monks, but his father had trained him to be a warrior and a laird. He had witnessed death and devastating injury, and had dealt them himself. Wielding a broadside, was as familiar to him as using a scalpel. Just now he wanted to use neither. he thought of Dunsheen Castle in the western Highlands, standing proud on its green isle, surrounded by water and mists and 'mountains. His new role as the laird there was challenge enough. His kin, his tenants, his herds, and his late father's trade business all needed his guidance m one way or another; he dreamed of being at Dunsheen again, and also longed to sail a new, sleek galley on trading voyages. But those matters would have to wait while war raged.

Diarmid sighed as he walked across the field. Others moved through the wispy fog too: injured men, whole men, and a few women who had come with a priest to offer help and succor. The cries of the wounded echoed in the mist, chilling his soul.

He saw the blond girl kneel in the mud and lean forward to cleanse a man's bleeding arm. She had a serene, assured manner, as if raw wounds and agony did not frighten her. Diarmid stopped and watched from a distance.

"If angels exist, they look like her," a voice murmured behind him.

"Ah, but angels are rare on battlefields, brother," Diarmid said, and turned.

Fionn Campbell nodded, his profile handsome and strong, framed by rich waves of brown hair. Diarmid knew, from images in still streams and polished steel mirrors, how much he and his younger brother resembled each other.

Fionn glanced at Diarmid, his gray eyes somber. "We have no time to contemplate the heavenly host. Come look at Angus MacArthur over here. When one of the local wise women tried to repair his leg wound, it began to bleed heavily."

Diarmid followed Fionn's tall, spare form, and knelt in the damp grass. beside Angus MacArthur, their father's distant cousin. The older man groaned and shifted as Diarmid examined the. deep wound in his thigh, made from the wide sweep of an English broad-sword. Angus had once been his father's gille-ruith, his runner; the man's legs were as strong as iron. But the blade had bitten deeply into the tight muscle, nearly cleaving the bone.

Frowning, Diarmid wadded the cloth that Fionn handed him and pressed it against the gushing wound for a few minutes. When he saw little improvement, he sighed heavily and glanced at Fionn.

"Steady his leg," he directed. "I need to search the wound. If an artery is torn, I must attempt to repair it."

Fionn supported the thigh while Diarmid probed. "After this, you should tend to your own wounds," he told Diarmid. "The gash in your arm is bleeding through the bandage. And that cut over your eye is wide open again."

"My wounds will do for now. Later you can sew them shut."

"You will risk your life twice in one day, then," Fionn said wryly. "Ask the angel to tend them, if you would survive." Fionn said wryly. "Ask the angel to tend them, if you would survive."

Diarmid huffed a flat, humorless laugh and worked silently.

Fionn gazed over the field. "I've been watching the girl. She seems to know how to help these men. Perhaps she is an herb-healer, or even a nun. Now that would be a shame. She's truly fair, that one."

"She's too young to be a nun, or a skilled healer," Diarmid said as he bent over his task. He worked quickly and gently, but Angus MacArthur passed out with a heavy sigh. Although that made Diarmid's work easier, it increased his concern.

"I mean to speak with her," Fionn said. "I wonder who she is. She has a sweet way about her. I will need a wife soon enough, you know. A fair one who could tend my battle wounds would be a blessing."

"Mm," Diarmid answered distractedly. He concentrated on applying heavy pressure, but the folded cloth grew red tar too quickly. He swore under his breath. "I need a strip of linen. No!"

Fionn tore a long piece from the hem of his own shirt and handed it to him. Diarmid wrapped the cloth high on the leg, twisting it and holding it tight.

"If I cannot halt the flow---" He stopped, gazing at the unconscious man's pale face. The outcome was obvious.

"What did Brother Colum teach you in such cases?"

"Not enough before he died." Diarmid loosened the bandage, then tightened it again. "Pressure will do, or a tight band. Certain herbs will ease bleeding, but I have no simples or potions. I should have found a wise-wife to beg a few herbs."

"None of us knew that an English patrol would attack us out here. We were assured that we could pass through this part of Galloway without threat. But we had the assurance of Englishmen," Fionn added. "Will the blood band work?"

"I will make it work," Diarmid said fiercely. After a moment, he nodded. "It seems to be slowing some, thank God." He lifted the wineskin that hung at his belt, pulled the wax stopper free, and trickled wine over the wound. "Hold the leg," he said quietly.

As Fionn complied, Diarmid readied the needle with silk and dribbled wine, and began to pull together the deepest layer of muscle. He swore as blood pooled freely where he worked, making it difficult to see what he attempted to repair.

Leaning over his patient, he did not notice at first the slight figure who knelt beside Fionn. When he glanced up, he saw the girl.

"Be gone," he said curtly.

"Let me help," she said. Her voice was young and soft, and she spoke in Gaelic, as he had, but he hardly noticed. A mix of voices floated over the field: Gaelic, northern English, French, and the droning Latin of the priest. He understood them all.

"You can do nothing here," he said. He drew. the needle in and out, in and out. Fionn and the girl watched.

If you would like to reach Susan you can email here You can also purchase her novels by just going to her page.

You can find more articles in the archive under Guest Writer's Corner