Malcolm Forrester, a physician from Edinburgh, and Elspeth MacLeod, a healer from the Isle of Skye, were both educated in European universities but only men are permitted to practice medicine in the Scotland of 1705. The two collide in Torrport, a small town near Edinburgh, Elspeth stubbornly seeking recognition as a physician, and Malcolm searching for a cure for smallpox amid the swirling vortex of war, politics, religion and disease. Poverty and misadventure are ever-present and medicine a curious blend of old beliefs and new discoveries. Elspeth delivers a beautiful young woman of her bastard child and suspects she was poisoned. When the Laird's Second-inCommand is found dead, kneeling face down in a tub at the laundry, the two find themselves entangled in murder, smuggling, and espionage, amid powerful opposition that resists change.