The Virgin In The Ice, by Ellis Peters

As the sixth novel [1] in the Brother Cadfael series, this novel adds some wrinkles to the series. For one, profoundly, it introduces a brave and gallant young liege-at-arms to an Angvin noble who happens to be Cadfael’s own illegitimate son that he never knew he had, and there is some father and son bonding in this novel that is deeply touching and full of mutual love and respect, as both father and son are portrayed as gallant and honorable men. On a slightly more chilling side, the title of the novel makes a strong moral statement about the issue of rape. The virgin in the ice is a young nun murdered by a rapist upset that his previous rape victim, a headstrong and flirtatious young beauty, refused to marry him. By making it plain that a rape survivor (or, the titular victim of a rape/murder) is still a virgin, the author is making a bold statement about virtue even in the face of brutality, which makes Cadfael’s efforts to help encourage the young woman and his unknown son even more touching.

At its core, this novel is about the breakdown of societal structure, and the way in which people use anarchy in the larger scale as a way of providing a space for their own rapacious conduct and their own brutality in the absence of a strong central government. Likewise, this is a novel about the redemptive power of love, even in a world where trust is difficult. With the loyalties of people hard to determine, and the temptation to betray trust ever present, the characters of this novel who are worthy of loyalty have to prove that loyalty in extreme ways, including a willingness to face death in order to fulfill their responsibilities and attempt to retrieve their honor. It is a novel about the struggle that people have to claim an identity, or to avoid crippling feelings of guilt for past mistakes. Even Cadfael himself is not immune to this struggle for self-justification, as when he muses to himself: “There had been other women, before her and after. He remembered them with gratitude, and with no guilt at all. He had given and received pleasure and kindness. None had ever complained of him. If that was a poor defense from the formal viewpoint, nevertheless he felt secure behind it. It would have been an insult to repent of having loved a woman like Miriam (page 13).”

Despite the serious nature of this novel and presentation of Cadfael’s wandering and his struggle to overcome his past, even when he is reminded of it a bit forcefully and surprisingly, this is an immensely satisfying novel. It combines a skillful look at history, a thoughtful approach to mystery, and a deeply humane and uplifting view of legitimacy and love of several kinds. It also, touchingly, gives Cadfael the realization that he is a father, and that despite his own failures in love that his blood, and that of a beloved former lover, live on in a worthy and honorable son. This wrinkle, including the fact that his son is on the opposite side of the Anarchy from his close friend the assistant sheriff, whose wife gives birth during the course of this novel as well, suggests an expansion of Cadfael’s concerns as a monk and as a father in coming novels ahead.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/book-review-the-leper-of-st-giles/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/book-review-st-peters-fair/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/02/10/book-review-monks-hood/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/book-review-one-corpse-too-many/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/book-review-a-morbid-taste-for-bones/