An Excellent Mystery, by Ellis Peters

An Excellent Mystery: The Eleventh Chronicle of Brother Cadfael
By Ellis Peters

If I have been feeling the surfeit of Cadfaels lately, this wonderful if somewhat obscure example dispelled that neatly. An Excellent Mystery, with its seemingly prosaic title, just moved into first place as my favorite of the Brother Cadfael mysteries. It is such a warm and loving story, with characters even more vivid and compelling than the many others, I can't but recommend it with all my heart.

During the period when Empress Maud is trapped in Winchester by King Stephen's queen's armies, two monks whose abbey there has been burned to the ground arrive seeking shelter at Shrewsbury. One is a former crusader, Brother Humilus, who has entered the cloister as a result of a devastating wound, and a mute companion, Brother Fidelis, young and devoted. The title, An Excellent Mystery, refers to a line in The Book of Common Prayer refers to marriage, and it is the "marriage" of Humilus and Fidelis that the story dramatizes so gently and with such eloquence. Though homosexuality is a theme of this novel, it is one of several which blend into a remarkably complex bit of poetry.

Humilus has been betrothed to a young woman named Julian since before he left for the Holy Land. She was only six years old when the betrothal was made, and now that he is, as they say, only a shadow of man due to his injuries, he has freed her and told her and her family of his decision to enter a monastery. Julian chooses to enter a convent herself, but when the Crusader's squire, Nicholas, smitten by her, goes to make sure she is well and truly dedicated to her vows, he discovers she never made it to the nunnery. The mystery begins, to discover what happened to her. Hugh Beringar, Cadfael and Nicholas all fear that one of her attendants on the journey robbed and killed her, and the evidence stacks up to support this fear. In the meantime, Humilus grows more and more ill. Cadfaael is impressed with Brother Fidelis's devotion to the older man. Another monk, who has forsworn the life of the body because of a painful betrayal buy a woman, finds his passions coming out for a couple of the young brothers, in particular Fidelis, and he threatens to reveal a secret if the young monk if he does not comply with his advances..

I figured out the mystery of what happened to Julian about halfway through the book, and I will not spoil it for you in this review. But I will say it only enhanced my pleasure in the reading knowing the truth. More than one marriage lends it goldenness, not only the one mentioned above, but Hugh Beringar's, Nicholas's longed-for with the missing Julian, and even the sad one that torments the blackmailing monk. The secret behind Fidelis's faithful devotion is what makes this book so moving however. I don't think I have ever read a sweeter love story. You will just have to read it to see what I mean. It is, indeed, an excellent mystery.