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 this is the second installment. First installment found here

Galloway, Scotland
Summer, 1311

The girl leaned forward suddenly and laid her slender hands over the gaping, ugly slash. She drew in a deep breath.

"Girl!" Diarmid snapped. "Stop!"

"Hush." At her firm command, he glanced at her in surprise.

Small and slight next to Fionn's muscular, plaid draped physique, she spoke like a queen. Eyes closed, back straight, she lifted her delicate golden head to the dreary, misted light.

She looked like a shining sword, beautifully shaped, hilted in gold and bladed in silver. Flawless and strong, an angel come to earth. Diarmid blinked in astonishment.

Then he recovered his wits. Angus's wound required urgency from him, not awestruck dreaming. He reached out, meaning to lift the girl's hand away. But he paused, his hand hovering.

Heat radiated from her fingers. She appeared to be praying, or in some sort of meditative trance, her eyes closed, her thick gold-tipped lashes still. Her small hands were cupped over the wound, fingertips and palms staining deep red.

"Holy Mother of God," Fionn breathed after a moment.

The girl withdrew her reddened fingers;sliding them into her lap. Diarmid looked at the wound. The gushing flow had slowed considerably. He could see the slice in the artery.

Diarmid stayed silent, uncertain what he had seen, and lacking time to wonder at it. He repaired the tear and asked Fionn to heat the tip of his dirk so that he could cauterize the sealed artery. Then he closed the wound, easing the layers of muscle back together.

While he worked, he focused on what he saw now, what he must do next, until he finished the task. Finally, he accepted the clean cloth that the girl handed him and wrapped it over Angus's leg.

He looked at the silent girl, who knelt an arm's length from him, her bloodstained hands in her lap. "He will live," he said quietly.

She nodded, a vulnerable little shake, as if her delicate head were a trembling flower on a slender stem. She rose to her feet, and wavered unsteadily.

Diarmid stood too, taking her arm to offer his support. "What was it you did?" he asked.

Her eyes were wide and round as she looked up, blue as a summer sky and fringed by gold-tipped lashes. Innocent, youthful eyes. Yet he saw wisdom in their depths, awareness, as if the bright soul that looked out at him had lived a long, long time.

"What is your name?" he asked softly. "I am Diarmid Campbell of Dunsheen."

"Michaelmas," she said. "Michaelmas Faulkener."

He frowned at the odd English name, but recognized that her surname belonged to an English knight who was now one of Robert Bruce's most loyal advisers. "Are you kin to Gavin Faulkener?"

She nodded. "He is my half brother. I came out here this morn with my mother and our priest to help. Kinglassie Castle is but a mile from this place. We heard the shouts of battle just after dawn," she added. "I must go. My mother will be looking for me."

Diarmid did not let go of her arm, his long fingers rust-red against her pale sleeve. Her bones felt fragile beneath his touch. "Micheil," he said in Gaelic, unfamiliar with the sound of her strange English name. Michaelmas. He realized that she must be named for Saint Michael's Mass, a feast day, the twenty-ninth of September. Your name is Micheil?"

She nodded at the Gaelic equivalent. "Michael will do."

"Tell me what you did, Michael. I have never seen the like."

"You're hurt." She reached up and touched the cut above his eye gently. He felt her fingertips tremble against his brow.

He looked down at the pale golden crown of her head, with its silky parting, and felt a distinct heat seep into his wound, like the warmth of sunlight or wine. A moment later he felt the heat throughout his body, as if he sat close to a fire.

As if this girl had fire in her touch.

She took her hand away. He lifted a finger to the cut and looked, seeing only a thin line of blood on his fingertip. The stinging ache had diminished. He exchanged a quick glance with Fionn, who watched them intently.

"Sweet Mary," Diarmid breathed. "Girl, how do you come by such a gift?" "My mother calls me," she said. He heard a voice sound from a far corner of the field. "I must go." "Michael-" Diarmid reached out, but she stepped away.

"I must go," she said.

Diarmid saw the stocky priest walking toward them, accompanied by a slender, dark-haired woman who called out the girl's English name.

Michael glanced up at Diarmid. "You must never tell what you saw me do," she whispered. "My family knows, and our priest. But I want no one else to know. Promise you will never speak of this."

Diarmid blinked in surprise. "You have the word of the laird of Dunsheen," he said.

"And his brother," Fionn added.

"Michael-" Diarmid began.

"God keep you, Dunsheen." she said. Then she spun away from them and ran lightly through the muddy field, lifting her skirts high, her thin legs nimble as she skimmed over rocks and tufted grasses.

"What in all this world and the next just happened?" Fionn asked after a moment. "I feel as if I' been struck by lightning."

Diarmid did too. He watched silently as the greeted the slender woman and the priest, and walk away with them.

"We've seen the making of a saint, brother," Fionn continued. "Ach, she will not wed me or any man. She'll become a nun, that one, and be beatified one day."

"Then she's better off in a convent, if what we saw is real."

"Real? For a lad taught by monks, you're a thorough skeptic. You should see the cut over your eye I swear on my life and soul, it looks like it's be healing for days. We've seen a saint, man."

"Perhaps," Diarmid said. He touched the tend spot over his eye. "Her family is wise to protect her. If others witness what she can do, she could be named a saint-or a heretic."

"Pray, then, that her family keeps her well hidden. Fionn clapped his hand on Diarmid's shoulder. "But before she left, you should have asked her to tend to your arm. Now you have none but me to sew for you."

Diarmid shot him a wry glance. "Let me find some strong wine first." Fionn grinned.

Diarmid turned as someone called out for him. he walked away, he glanced across the field or again. The girl had disappeared into the shifting mists, but he would not forget her.

She had shown him a golden miracle on this bloody field.

To be continued next month.

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