Riley, Judith Merkle

Margaret of Ashbury, a fourteenth-century English midwife with healing powers, sets out across Europe with her friends herbalist Mother Hilde and alchemist Brother Malachi to rescue her new, third husband from an evil alchemist holding him for ransom.

The mysterious Madame de Morville rules high society and even the throne of seventeenth century Paris with her fortune telling, not foreseeing herself falling in love.

In 1355, Margaret of Ashbury has clerics refuse to help her write a book. Starvation persuades Brother Gregory to take on the task and we discover a very resourceful woman.