I have grown accustomed to the way others look at me: with pity, with fear, with reverence born of distance. No one touches a king made of wasting flesh.

The throne room stands cold tonight. Courtiers keep to the far walls, whispering behind linen veils. They think I cannot hear them, but leprosy does not dull the ears—only the body.

The doors open.

She enters flanked by knights of Saint Lazarus, their green crosses stark against white cloaks. She wears no gloves. No sleeves drawn over her hands. Bare-skinned, unafraid—an offense to every frightened physician who begged me to keep the world at a distance.

So this is the woman whose name has traveled ahead of her like a banner of impossible hope.

My advisors bow. “Your Majesty,” one says, “this is the healer spoken of in Antioch and Tripoli. She has studied the affliction for years. The Hospitallers claim her methods keep the sores from spreading. She has devised ways to cleanse diseased flesh, to prolong breath in the dying. Some say she has stayed death itself.”

The court watches her as though daring the disease to leap from me to her.

I rise—slowly, stiffly. Bones complain beneath silk and steel.

“You fear nothing,” I say, voice low behind the silver mask. “Even now, when every man and woman in Jerusalem would rather kneel than stand at my side.”

She bows, but not out of fear. There is steadiness in her posture—deliberate, practiced, familiar with the sick and the dying.

They told me she is immune. They told me she has touched the afflicted with her naked hands and bears no mark.

For a moment—just a breath—I let myself imagine that such a thing is possible.

I step down from the dais. My guards tense, but I ignore them.

“Show me,” I murmur. “Show them all you are what they claim.”

A late-stage leper is brought forward—skin broken, bandaged, trembling. The court recoils. She does not.

Bare hands. No gloves. No hesitation.

She kneels and begins her work.

I watch every movement. The way she wipes the lesions with a solution she carries in a glass vial. The way she cleans the wounds instead of hiding them. The way the dying man settles under her touch, unafraid.

This is no miracle. This is knowledge. Study. Practice. Courage.

When she finishes, she stands and meets my eyes—as if daring me to believe in something again.

The room is silent. My heartbeat is not.

If God still grants grace to kings of rotting flesh, perhaps He has sent it wearing the cross of Saint Lazarus.