Who would read my writings? I wondered. Not only the casebook, but the small book of domestic medicine that I’d had published in Edinburgh two years before? That one had a number of helpful remarks on the importance of handwashing and cooking one’s food thoroughly—but the casebook had more valuable things: my notes on the production of penicillin (crude as my efforts were), drawings of bacteria and pathogenic microorganisms with a brief exegesis on Germ Theory, the administration of ether as an anesthetic (rather than an internally applied remedy for seasickness, its principal use at the moment), and …

“Oh, there ye are, Sassenach.” Jamie’s head poked into the surgery, wearing an expression that made me shut Merck abruptly and sit up.

“What on earth’s happened?” I said. “Is something wrong with one of the Crombies?” I was making a quick mental inventory of my first-aid kit as I got to my feet, but Jamie shook his head. He came all the way in and shut the door carefully behind him.

“The Crombies are thriving,” he assured me. “And so are all the Wilsons and the Baikies. And the Greigs, too.”

“Oh, good.” I sank back into my rocking chair. “What did Hiram want, then?”

“Well,” he said, with a resumption of the odd expression, “Frances.”

“SHE’S TWELVE, FOR God’s sake!” I said. “What do you mean, he wants permission for his brother to court her? What brother, for that matter? I didn’t think he had one.”

“Oh, aye. Half brother, I should ha’ said. Cyrus. The tall one that looks like a stem of barley gone to seed. They call him a’ Chraobh Ard. D’ye not have anything drinkable in here, Sassenach?”

“That one,” I said, pointing at a black bottle with a menacing skull-and-crossbones marked in white chalk. “It’s rhubarb gin. A’ Chraobh Ard?” I smiled, despite the situation. The young man in question—and he was a very young man; I didn’t think he could be more than fifteen himself—was indeed very tall; he topped Jamie by an inch or two—but spindly as a willow shoot.

“What can Hiram be thinking?” I asked. “His brother surely isn’t old enough to marry anybody, even if Fanny was, which she isn’t.”

“Aye.” He picked up a cup from the counter, looked suspiciously into it, and smelled it before putting it down and pouring a measure of gin into it. “He admits as much. He says that Cyrus saw the lassie at kirk and would like to come a-visiting—in an official way, ken?—but Hiram doesna want his attention to be misunderstood or taken for disrespect.”

“Oh, yes?” I got up and poured a small splash of gin for myself. It had a lovely fragrance to match its flavor—sweet but with a noticeably tart edge. “What does he really have in mind?”

Jamie smiled at me and clicked the rim of his wooden cup with mine.

“The militia. Other things, too, but it’s mostly that.”