Indeed, I initially thought, “This must be a spoof on the medieval mysteries I’ve come to know and love.” Unfortunately, Gellis was serious about this book.Ī papal envoy is murdered immediately after visiting Magdalene’s stew. The third whore is visually impaired, so she isn’t expected to embroider. Fortunately for Magdalene, she is both a skilled embroideress and sufficiently flexible in her life choices to open a brothel with the assistance of the Bishop of Winchester, choosing as her whores three sensory-impaired women, two of whom are, naturally, skilled embroideresses as well. We come to learn that Magdalene (not her real name) is likely of high birth (although the circumstances are not revealed), but that she has “fallen” after being involved in some terrible crime, perhaps murder (although never discussed in any depth). We are introduced to our heroine, Magdalene la Batarde, the madam of the Old Priory Guesthouse in Southwark – not an ordinary “stew,” mind you, but the highest class brothel perhaps in all of England, with the most desirable clientele. We are introduced to Southwark and London in 1139, caught in the tangle of the intrigues and conflicts precipitated by the civil war between King Stephen and his cousin, the Empress Mathilda, who many hold to be the legitimate queen of England. Gellis, acclaimed author of The Roselynde Chronicles, shifts gears dramatically in this, her first medieval mystery.
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