Whose Side are You On?

 The Virgin in the Ice is my last read in the Brother Cadfael series.  The books were written by Ellis Peters.  The setting is England during a Civil War between cousin contenders to the throne: Stephen and Maud.  In the middle is Cadfael's monastery.  Cadfael is not a priest.  He is a Benedictine brother.  He is the gardener, specifically of herbs, which makes him the medical person.

A boy and his older sister are lost on their way to Cadfael's monastery.  Cadfael is sent to another monastery, they could have gone to.  The siblings were accompanied by a nun and a monk.  Cadfael finds the monk, beaten close to death and nurses him at that monastery.  Retracing the monk's steps, still looking for the siblings, he comes across the virgin in the ice.  It turns out to be the nun chaperoning the girls.

It turns out that the girl is too head strong.  She set out on her own looking for her boyfriend.  Her brother comes to the monastery, grief stricken.  He tends to the ill monk.

To complicate matters, a band of vicious marauders is burning and looting the farmers.  Did they kill the nun?  What did they do with the girl she was chaperoning?

The girl makes it to her boyfriend, but he turned out to be a lout and she stabs him and runs away.  Fortunately, she finds refuge with a forester.

Oh, another mystery.  It seems a stranger seems to be looking for the sister and brother.  It can't be their uncle because he is on the other side, in this Civil War, and would be killed on sight.  

That ill monk gradually realizes that he was responsible for the group and feels guilty.  He gets out of his sick bed and leaves, presumably to find the girl.  The brother is charged to take care of him, so he accompanies him.

The kid brother thought he found help, but it turns out that the help was the band of bandits.  They take the boy for ransom because they could tell by his clothes that someone would pay to get him back.

In the background is Cadfael and the sheriff looking for the girl and the bandits, and possibly the stranger.

The boy is kept prisoner.  That stranger turns out to be working for the uncle.  He sneaks in where the boy is kept.  The two try to escape in the confusion when Cadfael and the sheriff attack the bandits.  Thrown in the confused, is the ill monk who is in a delirium and runs in like the mad man he has become, and the boy and his rescuer escape.

The boy and his rescuer make plans to go to his sister, who by now has found her way to the monastery.  They are to secretly meet and at a certain time to go home to their uncle.  Remember the rescuer cannot be caught because he's on the other side of the Civil War.  

Cadfael catches this strange rescuer and when he listens to his story, he realizes that he is his son.  The three make good their escape and Cadfael says prayers of thanksgiving, both for meeting his son, and for the children's return to their uncle.

Who Did This to You?

 The Potter's Field by Ellis Peters is another Brother Cadfael mystery.  A body has been found buried in a field.  Who was she, takes up about half of the story.  The reader figures out that she can only be one of two people and gradually, the name is known.

She had been murdered and buried with care.  Her arms were crossed over a wooden cross.  Her buriel place was safely away from anyone finding her.  But her grave was found when a plow unearthed some remains.  Her husband seemed the obvious suspect, but he was a monk, now.  He played innocent; he was kind of oblivious being very wrapped up in his religiosity.  A young monk professed that he loved the deceased, and she rejected him.  That's why he entered the monastery.  So, he was suspect.

Then there was a traveling peddler.  There was even another woman who could have killed her, but she moved on and was a help to Brother Cadfael.  But still.

The mystery is eventually solved by someone coming forward with a confession, but I won't spoil the story by telling you "Who done it."  

I found this book to be one of the best in the Brother Cadfael series.  It is a true medieval mystery. 

He/She

 

An Excellent Mystery (The Cadfael Chronicles, #11)
by 

Ellis Peters

Faith Flaherty's review

Aug 17, 2022  ·  edit

it was amazing

bookshelves: mystery

Read 2 times. Last read August 11, 2022 to August 17, 2022.

3 highlights (Private)

An Excellent Mystery by Ellis Peters is another Brother Caedfael mystery. I found this one different than the others. The protagonist is female. She was engaged to a crusader but he came home from the Crusades mortally wounded and broke the engagement off, so that his fiancee was free.

Her name was Julian. However, she didn't want to be free. She took her engagement as vows and finagled her way into his life. He joined the Benedictines and took the name Brother Humilus. Julian, with the help of a devoted servant, dressed as a young male and joined also, taking the name Brother Fidelis and consequently became the faithful caretaker of Brother Humilus.

Meanwhile, Brother Humilis' old lieutenant is seeking Julian to marry her. Of course, since Brother Fidelis is always beside Brother Humilis, he/she knows what's going on. Once Brother Humilus dies, in an accident, Brother Fidelis turns back to Julian in an ingenious way. (No spoilers)

A satisfactory conclusion.

Sortes Bibliae

The Holy Thief by Ellis Peters is the best one yet in the series.  The Brother Cadfael mysteries are set in medieval times and always seem to teach history interwoven throughout the story.  In this particular story, I learned about sortes Biblicae.  This is simply Bible roulette, where you open the Bible and blindly pick out a verse and use it to give you an answer.  When I've seen people use it, they fit whatever they want it to be, but in this story, it led to solving a murder.

The monks were using it to see who would win the relics of Saint Winifred.  The relics belonged to Cadfael's monastery in Shrewsbury.  However, the monks from Ramsey Abbey came on a mission to solicit funds to restore their Abbey.  While the monks were visiting, a flood threatened the abbey.  Furniture, etc. were moved to higher ground and the Ramsey Abbey monks rushed to leave before they were stuck in Shrewsbury.  After the monks departed, it was discovered that the relics of St. Winifred were stolen.  Also, the Ramsey Abbey monks were ambushed and robbed on their way home.  All the money they had collected was stolen, along with St. Winifred.

The robbers were only interested in the money and just tossed St. Winifred's reliquary aside.  When it was found it was brought to the nearby home of the Earl of Leicester.  The Earl brought it back to Shrewsbury.  The monks from Ramsey came back to Shrewsbury embarrassed and apologetic that one of their party must have stolen St. Winifred's reliquary.

There is a witness who can identify who took the reliquary.  Aldheim helped load the cart for the monks and he can point out the monk who was supervising the loading of the baggage.  But Aldheim is a shepherd and will come to identify the monk after his work in the pasture is done.  Unfortunately, Aldheim is murdered on his way.

The "holy thief" was a young novice by the name of Brother Tutilo, who claims he was told to move the reliquary to Ramsey by St. Winifred, herself.  Did she?  Tutilo's superiors believe him.  Tutilo, himself, is sincere.  This is where sortes Bibilae comes in.  The Shrewsbury insisted that St. Winifred's relics belonged to them.  But the Ramsey monks claimed that St. Winifred asked to be moved to their abbey.  Lastly, the Earl of Leicester pointed out that St. Winifred ended up at his estate.  Perhaps, that was her choice of residence?

While the sortes Bibilae was happening, the news of Aldheim's demise is learned.  So the Bible verses that are chosen include references to his murder.  It does seem evident that Brother Tutilo murdered Aldheim so he wouldn't finger him as the monk who took the reliquary.  But if not Tutilo then who?

Another Brother, enraged that Tutilo stole St. Winifred tried to kill him.  He thought he did, but it wasn't Tutilo he attacked but Aldheim, by mistake.  Tutilo was in the barn with a girl.  Yes, our "holy thief" was not a professed monk, yet.  He was still discerning his vocation.  It is obvious he doesn't have a vocation to consecrated life.  The girl Tutilo was with is a slave.  Yes, the author points out that slavery was frowned upon but did exist.  The slave girl and Tutilo make a sympathetic couple and the reader will root for them to be together.

Aldheim would have recovered if it weren't for another deadly blow on the head by the real thug who had actually stole the original money the Ramsey monks had collected for their abbey.  I'm not
spoiling the mystery by telling who committed the murder and how he was discovered.  Snitching is against the rules.

Claiming Sanctuary

"God's reach is longer than man's; it had better be, otherwise we are all lost."

The Sanctuary Sparrow is a Brother Cadfael mystery. I enjoy medieval settings and Brother Cadfael circuitous solving of mysteries, plus seeing the hand of God in the solution. Ellis Peters, the author, manages to provide me with many hours of enjoyment with her Brother Cadfael mysteries.

In The Sanctuary Sparrow the protagonist is described as a hunted sparrow. He is a small, delicate man who races into the abbey, pursued by an angry mob intent on hanging him. The poor man races up the sanctuary steps and grabs hold of the altar cloth. 

 "...the great parish door suddenly hurled open to crash against the wall, and something unseen came hurtling and scrabbling and gasping down the length of the nave, reeling and fumbling and fending itself off from wall and pillar, heaving at breth as though run to death already...All Cadfael could see of the quarry was a thin arm and a fist hardly bigger than a child's that reached out of the chaos to grip the edge of the altar cloth with life-and-death desperation."


What the hunted man, Liliwin, was accused of was theft and attempted murder. As the story progresses, it certainly looks like he is guilty. There is romance too. In fact two romances are entertwined in the mystery, but one is ill fated. It is Cadfael's intuition and persistant investigatory techniques that lead to solving the crime.