From the first page of this marvellous story, I knew I was in the hands of a real mistress of the art of the medieval mystery. Pilgrims returning from Canterbury (but did pilgrimages really start so early? This is 1170, the year of Becket's death) are described in true Chaucerian style: "But," we are told, "one of them, as exuberant as all the rest, is a murderer of children. God's grace will not extend to a child-killer.'
And that refers to the first death, the murder of a little boy called Peter in Cambridge, with rumours flying about that the boy was crucified by the Jews and the Church trying to make a saint out of him and a local prioress already turning his bones into precious relics.
Meanwhile, Adelia Aguilar, a woman physican and pathologist from the great medical school at Salerno, with her companions, Simon of Naples, a Jewish investigator and diplomatic fixer working for the King of Sicily, and a muscular Saracen "minder" who happens to be a eunuch, arrive at Dover en route for Cambridge. They fall in with a party of pilgrims returning to Cambridge from the brand new shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury (the pilgrims we met in the Prologue), a motley and Chaucerian bunch including an unpleasant and worldly prioress, a couple of knights (ex-Crusaders), and an Augustinian Canon.
Now the Canon cannot, as he puts it, piss. Crisis. He is literally at death's door. The Prioress urges him to apply the knuckle-bone of "little St Peter" (the murdered child) to the offending organ. Predictably, it does not work. Adelia, the woman from Salerno, takes over – to the consternation of the canon himself and the horror of most of his companions. However, her system does work, and she wins herself an important and influential ally in Cambridge; one she is going to need, for the real reason she and her companions are in England is to discover the murderer of Little Peter of Trumpington and the other two children and prevent a pogrom against the Jews.
A great story, obviously meticulously researched yet narrated with lightness and humour. I particularly liked her Henry II (see for instance the Taster) while the heroine, Adelia, manages to be utterly adorable as well as by far the most intelligent and practical person around. Yet she has no idea who the murderer is, and nor will you, there is no way to guess – unless you cheat. I didn't. You mustn't. But if you like medieval mysteries (if you don't, what are you doing on this site?) you must read it.
MBG
