The one-roomed cottage was small and cozy. Next to the doorway a sturdy wood table was burdened with all sorts of trinkets and odds and ends: bits of yarn, some loose nails, a few heart-shaped rocks. Pots, jars, and baskets crammed the shelves that lined the back wall. A well-loved doll dangled limp legs from the top shelf's corner; a trinket from back when young children lived here, filling the four walls of this home with laughter.

Now, Alice lay under a pile of blankets, weak and moaning. Her husband, Jameson, kept worrying at the fraying edge of the top quilt. His liver-spotted hands were in constant motion.

"How long has she been like this?" Tilly asked, her soothing voice a balm for anxious ears.

"I sent word to The Order last night that she was getting worse, but this morning... she's just been making that noise, can't even speak, the pain's been so bad," Jameson replied, voice heavy. He ran his fingers through his thin graying hair, the lines around his eyes deepening with concern.

As Tilly spoke with Jameson, Marin turned and examined the patient. All thoughts of their previous conversation pushed aside. There was no room for Jocelyn or pennyroyal tea or what that might mean about her fight with Albert. When he was healing he had to clear everything away to allow his powers to work.

He closed his eyes, reaching his mind out, searching for what was at the root of this disease, to sense where there was an imbalance in her humors. Had evil possessed a part of her body? A venom seeped into her blood? He pulled back the covers, causing Alice to shiver, but he placed his hands directly on her shoulders. She was cold, her skin clammy. What he discovered wasn't a surprise, given Alice's age and history with inflammation: she had become phlegmatic. Her brain and lungs were producing too much phlegm, which caused this new and severe pain-induced apathy.

"I need to use your fire," Marin announced while digging into his satchel for supplies.

"Yes, of course," Jameson obliged, gesturing across the cottage, but not leaving his wife's side.

Finding what he needed, Marin carefully removed and then unwrapped four glass cups and placed them on the hearthstones. As he waited for them to heat, he started with the rest of his preparations.

"Tilly, can you help me position Alice?"

"Where did you sense infection?" she asked.

With a quick glance up, he replied, "Too much phlegm. We will need to absorb the excess water from her lungs. I need to access to her back."

Together they rolled the thin, frail woman over. Tilly brushed aside Alice's long white hair with her hand. Jameson watched, helpless. His lips moving in silent prayer.

Marin took metal tongs out from his satchel and picked up the first cup and walked it over to where Alice lay.

"Is it going to hurt?" Jameson asked.

"Maybe a little at first, but her pain will be drawn out along with the phlegm," Tilly answered as Marin placed the first glass cup just below Alice's right shoulder.

Alice flinched and let out a high-pitched yowl, sounding more like a distressed cat than a woman. Tilly reached over to squeeze Jameson's forearm.

By the time Marin had placed the second cup on Alice's left shoulder, the skin under the first cup was already red and puckered. As the cup cooled it created a seal that sucked at the phlegm. Beads of condensation formed on the inside of the glass, showing that the excess liquid was already being removed.

After several minutes, Marin had placed all four cups strategically on Alice's back. Liquid seeped out of her skin, the cups working to restore balance.

While Marin waited for the cups to cool, Tilly gathered herbs from various pouches. She took out hemlock flowers, which reduced pain, lavender stems, which disinfected, and musk mallow leaves, which helped to reduce swelling. With mortar and pestle, she ground them together into a healing paste.

"Is it ready?" Marin asked.

And when Tilly replied that it was, he removed each cup, leaving four red tender circles to decorate Alice's back. Tilly wasted no time spreading the light green ointment all over the woman's back.

"Oh, Lord," Alice sighed. "Such relief."

"Love, are you feeling better?" Tears brimmed Jameson's eyes at the sound of his wife's voice.

"Yes, even if only a little."

Tilly kept massaging the healing herbs into a woman's back. Marin watched as he wiped down the cups and repacked them into his satchel. When he had put all the glass away, he walked back over and knelt beside the bed. He felt Alice's forehead with the palm of his hand and closed his eyes, reaching out again to sense her humors.

"The cupping worked," Marin proclaimed. "It has drained the excess phlegm."

"She's still in pain," Jameson said. "I can't thank you enough for giving her some relief, but please, is there any more that you can do?"

Marin couldn't always control his miracles, he knew, but he laid his hands on the Alice's forehead again, summoning his gift, praying to God. He could feel a warmth building inside him, it filled his chest and radiated down the length of his arms. Heal, he thought. Please heal this woman.

Alice's eyes startled open, her head lifting slightly. "I just felt a lightening bolt run through me," she exclaimed.

Tilly withdrew her hands from the woman's back and wiped the paste residue onto a rag. "That was Marin. He has a special touch."

Marin kept his head down upon hearing the compliment, not wanting to seem too prideful. But he was proud. And also grateful that he had the talent to take away suffering.

Tenderly, Alice rolled over and sat up. She placed her thick-knuckled hand on her husband's knee. The smile that passed between the pair sent a pang through Marin's heart.

As though she was reading his mind, Tilly commented, "Actually, I think Jameson's love had just as much a hand in healing you as Marin's special touch."

"Love is powerful." The woman smiled.

"Indeed, it is," Marin agreed, his voice just above a whisper.

"Find someone who loves you for who you truly are. That's our secret," Alice continued as she gazed at her husband.

Jameson shook his head with a laugh, and before either Marin or Tilly could respond, he corrected his wife, "Medics and nutrixes can't marry, my love, you know that."

"Well, that's a silly rule."

"Rest," Marin ordered. "I think the best thing now would be rest."

"But I slept most of the day. I think it's time to take a walk through the garden, smell the flowers. I think you two should go do the same thing." She winked, causing Marin's ears to flare up again.

"Fitful rest is not the same as healing rest," Tilly reassured the woman. "Marin is right. Your body needs peaceful sleep so that this healing is maintained."

With many thanks from Jameson and Alice, Marin and Tilly packed up their supplies and left the cottage.

"So, do you want to go take a stroll through the garden with me? Smell the flowers?" Tilly joked as they walked back down the dirt path that had led them to the cottage.

"As much as I love gardens..." his voice trailed off. He did love gardens. They reminded him of his mother, who had died many years before. His mother had taught him the way of plants back when he was young. She had been the wise woman of the small town where he and his family had lived, and had been the one who first taught him about healing. The one who had given him this purpose in life. As her only daughter, Marin had been expected to know the way of these things.

He shook the memory from his head. "I told my father that I would bring him some oils from the apothecary, so I'm going to head back into town before returning to the monastery. Are you okay to walk back alone?"

For a second he thought she looked disappointed, a dark cloud passing over her features. But when he blinked, she was smiling again. "Of course, Marin, I was only teasing you."

"I know you were." He smiled back at her. "Maybe another time, okay?"

"Yes, I look forward to it."

When they reached the fork in the path, they parted ways. Tilly turned toward the hills, where the buildings of The Order stood behind stone walls, the convent and the monastery, two large structures separated by a garden of medicinal plants. Marin turned back toward the town. He really had promised his father some oils. That hadn't been an excuse. But he also was curious to walk back past Greggory's tavern, to see if Jocelyn was in any better of a mood. To see if there was something he could do to ease whatever ailed her, the way that he had healed Alice. Even if it didn't work, it couldn't hurt to try.