This is the second in a new series of books by Margaret Frazer in which Joliffe takes over from Dame Frevisse, and it follows straight on from A Play of Isaac. The players now Lord Lovell's Players are sent by their new patron to entertain the guests at the wedding of Sir Edward Deneby's daughter Mariena. A wedding gift.
But there is more to it than that. Mariena's previous fiancé had died in what may well have been suspicious circumstances, and Lord Lovell for one is suspicious enough to want to know more. So he commissions Joliffe, whose powers of observation and deduction he has come to respect, to see if all is as well beneath the surface as appearances may lead one to believe.
I have to say that I liked this book very much. I preferred it to her other, Dame Frevisse, novels. Not only is it well-written and beautifully constructed (as are they, of course) but it is a sexy book, which they definitely are not. Margaret Frazer seems to find Joliffe liberating. Is it just that things happen to him that would never - could never - happen to Dame Frevisse?
Mariena, Sia tells him, 'heats men to where they don't know whether they're coming or going. Never satisfies them, just heats them. They're easy to have then [...] These past few years, while she's had suitors here now and again, some of us have gathered a pretty lot of coins helping them ease their longings. If you know what I mean.'
He'd have to be both gelded and stupid not to know what she meant and he said, smiling, 'I'm no wealthy suitor come to woo. I've no coins to give you.'
'You're fair-bodied enough with a face I don't mind kissing' Sia slipped free of his hands, came close, and kissed him again to prove it 'that I'll have you for my own pleasure and no need for coins.'
Enough was enough - ' [When Dame Frevisse had decided enough was enough, that was it. This, however, continues -] and he'd not had nearly enough. 'Where?' he asked. 'And when?' Since here and now clearly did not suit.
'Tonight after supper. There's a loft above the cow-byre. Behind the stables. Can you find it?'
Or is it that identifying with her virile male hero, she sees the world quite differently. Suddenly the women are all (and they are!) sex-objects.
More like this, please, Margaret! Joliffe is great, and I love the detailed background of medieval drama and stagecraft and the lives of the players.
KB
