1982; 200 pages. Book 6 (out of 21) in the Brother Cadfael Chronicles series. New Author? : No. Genres: Cozy Mystery; Historical Fiction; Murder-Mystery. Overall Rating : 8*/10.
It’s the winter of 1139 AD and civil war rages across
England. The Empress Maud controls sizable
areas near the abbey in Shrewsbury, where Brother Cadfael dwells, but King
Stephen is on his way with a huge army and a short temper. Loyalties can change overnight and no one is safe from attacks by those on either side, or from the
brigands roaming the countryside robbing, burning, looting and killing anyone they come across.
Refugees fleeing from one town
to another are particularly vulnerable, especially if they are young, female, highborn, or any combination thereof. So when a brother and sister, both teenaged, flee the fighting around Worcester, people become worried about their safety, since he's the heir to a barony and she's...well... a headstrong sort.
They were last seen headed in
the general direction of Shrewsbury, accompanied by a nun in her twenties, presumably headed to Cadfael's abbey. They should
have arrived by now, but neither the abbey staff nor the local sheriff have seen or heard of
them.
Still, the authorities promise to ask around. Hopefully the missing youths will be found holed up in someone's abode. And it would be prudent for Brother
Cadfael to be part of the search party; he is skilled in administering medicines
and treating the wounded.
Because bandits care little about royal loyalties when it comes to preying on poor, weak wayfarers, two of which are young and female.
What’s To Like...
This is my eleventh Brother Cadfael book and,
although admittedly Ellis Peters (the pen name
of Edith Pargeter) always adheres to a formulaic plotline, The Virgin in the Ice is unusual in a couple
ways. First, almost the entire story
takes place away from Shrewsbury, in and around the village of Bromfield, about twenty miles
to the east. Second, there’s a greater
emphasis on armed conflict here, which means less attention is paid to
Cadfael’s sleuthing. Third, a
13-year-old boy plays a major part in the story here, getting almost as much
attention as Brother Cadfael and deputy sheriff Hugh Beringar, the two main
protagonists.
But those who like the usual formula, and that includes me, need not
worry. There’s still the requisite “amor vincit omnia” romance, and Brother
Cadfael does stumble across a mystery to solve, involving the book's title.
In addition to finding the three
missing travelers, Cadfael and Hugh have other plot threads to
investigate. Someone beat another monk,
Brother Elyas, to within an inch of his life, leaving him for dead, and Brother
Cadfael has to nurse him back to health and find the dirty-deed-doer. Meanwhile, Hugh’s top priority is to find and
eliminate a marauding band of brigands that have been operating with impunity in the surrounding hills.
Ellis Peters (1913-1995)
was an English author, so British spellings are used here, including; sombrely, rumours, ageing, wilful, lustre, clangour, and languor, as well as a fair amount of medieval terms, such as assart, castellan and croft. A church relic being transported by Brother Eylas caught my eye: the
finger-bone of Saint Eadburga, but when I consulted Wikipedia to learn more, no
less than four Saint Eadburgas popped up.
I had to look up the meaning of the Latin phrase “nunc dimittis” and was thankflu that the author included a
map of the Bromfield environs at the start of the book. I referred to it often.
The ending unfolds in a stepwise manner. First the problem of the brigands is resolved, then Brother Elyas’s assailant is determined. The fate of
the three refugees comes next, and finally the romance thread is tied up. But just when you think it's all over, Ellis Peters
throws one last major plot twist into the mix that I guarantee you won’t see
coming.
The Virgin in the Ice
is a standalone story, as well as part of a series. All the plot threads get tied up neatly, and
while the series has an overarching storyline, both personal (Brother Cadfael’s life at the Shrewsbury abbey)
and historical (the series accurately complies
with some astounding historical events of twelfth-century England),
there is no need to read this series in chronological order.
Kewlest New Word ...
Hale (v.) : to compel someone to go; to haul;
to pull.
Others: Benighted (adj.); Thrapple (n.).
Ratings…
Amazon:
4.7/5
based on 659 ratings.
Goodreads: 4.14/5 based on 8,195
ratings and 437 reviews
Excerpts...
“He must be son or nephew to one of my
father’s friends. I never paid him much
attention, nor he never noticed me, I
was too young. But I do remember his
face, and I think . . . I think he has been visiting Ermina now and then
in Worcester.” (…)
“You think she sent him word to come and
fetch her?” asked Hugh. “This was no
abduction? She went willingly?”
“She went gaily!” Yves asserted
indignantly. “I heard her laughing.” (pg. 42)
“Who are you?”
He meant to know. And for all his present easy mood, if he was
baulked he would not mind by what means he got what he wanted. Yves spent a few seconds too long considering
what he had better say, and got an earnest of what might follow obduracy. A long arm reached out, gripped him by the
forearm, and with a casual twist dropped him wincing to his knees. The other hand clenched in his hair and
forced his head back to stare into a face still calmly smiling.
“When I ask, wise men answer. Who are you?” (pg. 110)
“Truth is never a
wrong answer. We will find it.” (pg. 177)
There’s not much to gripe
about in The Virgin in the Ice. Reading books written in English instead of
American is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I happen to enjoy it. Ditto for wading through all those technical
terms from the Middle Ages.
There seemed to be a
higher-than-expected number of typos in the book, given that this was the mass-market paperback edition published by Fawcett Crest, and including things like winderness/wilderness, stiarway/stairway, and even a misspelling of
one of the characters’ last name: Durel/Druel. Proofreaders apparently could get away with
sloppy efforts back in 1982.
Last of all, and by far the
most serious, I am appalled that it was worthy to note that the main bad guy
was left-handed. Even his name (this is not a spoiler) alluded to this: Alain le Gaucher.
The fact that I also am left-handed is purely coincidental. 😉
8 Stars. I should note that The Virgin in the Ice is incredibly “clean”. I didn’t note any cussing and most of the violence takes place off-screen. There are a couple “adult situations” alluded to, but nothing that would perturb anyone looking for an entertaining cozy mystery set a millennium ago in England.
