Ariana Franklin - Mistress of the Art of Death

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When Christian children are being kidnapped and murdered in 12th century Cambridge, England, Adelia is sent to seek out the truth, and hopefully absolve the Jews being blamed for the crimes, before the townspeople take matters into their own hands. During a time when women are second-class citizens at best, and the practice of scientific autopsies is considered blasphemous, Adelia is the most skilled “speaker for the dead” hailing from progressive Naples – yet she is forced to masquerade as the meek assistant to her colleagues during their frantic search for the real child killer.
From The Washington Post
It's hard enough to produce a gripping thriller – harder still to write convincing historical fiction that recreates a living, breathing past. But this terrific book does both, and does it with a cast of characters so vivid and engaging that you'd be happy to read about them even if they weren't on the track of a sexually depraved serial child-murderer.
Mistress of the Art of Death opens with a clever takeoff on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which introduces the central players, a group of pilgrims returning from the shrine of the newly canonized St. Thomas à Becket: a prior and a prioress (from rival abbeys); two knights, lately returned from the Crusades; an overweight but very shrewd tax collector; a gaggle of citizens; and three Gypsies, who are in fact secret investigators sent by the king of Sicily to discover the truth behind a series of gruesome murders near Cambridge.
Four children have been found dead and mutilated. The Jews of Cambridge have been blamed for the murders, the most prominent Jewish moneylender and his wife have been killed by a mob, and the rest of the Jewish community is shut up in the castle under the protection of the sheriff.
As the only group allowed to commit usury – that is, to lend money at interest – the Jews are prosperous, and thus the king of England considers them his prize cash cows. He wants them cleared of suspicion and released, so they can go back to paying him high taxes. To this end, he appeals to his cousin, the king of Sicily, to send his best master of the art of death: a doctor skilled in "reading" bodies. Enter Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar, 25, the best mistress of death that the medical school at Salerno has ever produced. With Simon of Naples, a Jewish "fixer," and Mansur, a eunuch with a mean throwing-ax, it's her job to find a murderer before he – or she – can kill again.
Adelia comes onstage when she meets the prior under dramatic circumstances on the road, saving him from a burst bladder caused by a swollen prostate by thrusting a hollow reed up his penis. Not every man would follow up on an introduction like this, but the prior wants the mystery solved, too – and if the solution happens to ace out the rival abbey, so much the better.
Adelia finds 12th-century England a barbarous place. England finds Adelia a jaw-dropping anomaly. And Franklin exploits the contrast brilliantly. We're on Adelia's side from the start, identifying with her quite modern sensibilities – but at the same time, as she begins to know the English inhabitants as people, we sympathize with them, too. And a small but nice romantic subplot develops as the celibate, married-to-science Adelia discovers to her horror that live bodies have minds of their own.
Though the story is set in Cambridge, the Crusades run through the culture. We see both the corruption and the idealistic faith of the period, and while the Jews come off by far the best, Christians and Muslims are portrayed with evenhanded understanding. Beyond this, the story's background is a wonderful tapestry of the paradoxes and struggles of the times: Christianity and Islam, Christians and Jews, science and superstition, and the new power of Henry II's rule of law versus the stranglehold of the Church.
There are also fascinating details of historical forensic medicine, entertaining notes on women in science (the medical school at Salerno is not fictional), and a nice running commentary on science and superstition, as distinct from religious faith. Franklin does this subtly, by showing effects, rather than by beating us over the head with her opinions. These are clear enough but expressed with artistry rather than political correctness.
Franklin likewise balances cynicism, humanity and objectivity well. Adelia feels horror, fury and sympathy on behalf of the victims and the bereaved, but she doesn't let that get in the way of finding the truth. And the story makes it clear that the motives of those who want a solution to the crime are not necessarily purer than the motives of those who want to conceal it.
Mistress of the Art of Death is wonderfully plotted, with a dozen twists – and with final rabbits pulled out of not one hat but two, as both the mystery and the romance reach satisfactorily unexpected conclusions. It's a historical mystery that succeeds brilliantly as both historical fiction and crime-thriller. Above all, though, Franklin has written a terrific story, whose appeal rests on the personalities of the all-too-human beings who inhabit it.
– Diana Gabaldon, author of a series of historical novels, including "Outlander" and "A Breath of Snow and Ashes."

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All this Adelia had reflected on, in anguish, but the result had been inexorable. Though she had fallen in love, nothing in the rest of the world had changed. Corpses would still cry out. She had a duty to hear them.

“I am not free to marry,” she said. “I am a doctor to the dead.”

“They’re welcome to you.”

He spurred his horse and set it at the bridge, leaving her bereft and oddly resentful. He might at least have seen her and Walburga home.

“Hey,” she yelled after him, “are you sending Rakshasa’s head back east to Hakim?”

His reply floated back: “Yes, I bloody well am.”

He could always make her laugh, even when she was crying. “Good,” she said.

MUCH HAPPENED IN CAMBRIDGE that day.

The judges of the assize listened to and gave their verdict on cases of theft, of coin-clipping, street brawls, a smothered baby, bigamy, land disputes, ale that was too weak, loaves that were short, disputed wills, deodands, vagabondage, begging, shipmasters’ quarrels, fisticuffs among neighbors, arson, runaway heiresses, and naughty apprentices.

At midday, there was a hiatus. Drums rolled and trumpets called the crowds in the castle bailey to attend. A herald stood on the platform before the judges to read from a scroll in a voice that reached to the town: “Let it be known that in the sight of God and to the satisfaction of the judges here present the knight yclept Joscelin of Grantchester has been proved vile murderer of Peter of Trumpington; Harold of Saint Mary Parish; Mary, daughter of Bonning the wildfowler, and Ulric of the parish of Saint John, and that the aforesaid Joscelin of Grantchester died during his capture as befitted his crimes, being eaten by dogs.

“Let it also be known that the Jews of Cambridge have been quitted of these killings and all suspicion thereof, whereby they shall be returned to their lawful homes and business without hindrance. Thus, in the name of Henry, King of England, under God.”

There was no mention of a nun. The Church was silent on that matter. But Cambridge was full of whispers and, in the course of the afternoon, Agnes, eel seller’s wife and mother to Harold, pulled apart the little beehive hut in which she had sat outside the castle gates since the death of her son, hauled its material down the hill, and rebuilt it outside the gates of Saint Radegund’s convent.

All this was seen and heard in the open.

Other things were done in secrecy and darkness, though exactly who did them nobody ever knew. Certainly, men high in the ranks of Holy Church met behind closed doors where one of them begged, “Who will rid us of this shameful woman?” just as Henry II had once cried out to be rid of the turbulent Becket.

What happened next behind those doors is less certain, for no directions were given, though perhaps there were insinuations as light as gnats, so light that it could not be said they had even been made, wishes expressed in a code so byzantine that it could not be translated except by those with the key to it. All this, perhaps, so that the men-and they were not clerics-who went down Castle Hill to Saint Radegund’s could not be said to be acting on anyone’s command to do what they did.

Nor even that they did it.

Possibly Agnes knew, but she never told anybody.

These things, both transparent and shadowed, passed without Adelia’s knowledge. On Gyltha’s orders, she slept round the clock. When she woke up, it was to find a line of patients winding down Jesus Lane, waiting for Dr. Mansur’s attention. She dealt with the severe cases, then called a halt while she consulted Gyltha.

“I should go to the convent and look to Walburga. I’ve been remiss.”

“You been mending.”

“Gyltha, I don’t want to go to that place.”

“Don’t then.”

“I must; another attack like that could stop her heart.”

“Convent gates is closed and nobody answering. So they say. And that, that …” Gyltha still couldn’t bring herself to say the name. “She’s gone. So they say.”

“Gone? Already?” Nobody dallies when the king commands, she thought. Le roi le veut. “Where did they send her?”

Gyltha shrugged. “Just gone. So they say.”

Adelia felt relief spreading down to her ribs and almost mending them. The Plantagenet had cleansed his kingdom’s air so that she could breathe it.

Though, she thought, in doing so, he has fouled another nation’s. What will be done to her there?

Adelia tried to avoid the image of the nun writhing as she had on the floor of the refectory but this time in filth and darkness and chains-and couldn’t. Nor could she avoid concern; she was a doctor, and true doctors made no judgments, only diagnoses. She had treated the wounds and diseases of men and women who’d disgusted her humanity but not her profession. Character repelled; the suffering, needy body did not.

The nun was mad; for society’s sake, she must be restrained for as long as she lived. But “the Lord pity her and treat her well,” Adelia said.

Gyltha looked at her as if she, too, were a lunatic. “She’s been treated like she deserves,” she said stolidly. “So they say.”

Ulf, for a miracle, was at his books. He was quieter and more grave than he had been. According to Gyltha, he was expressing a wish to become a lawyer. All very pleasing and admirable-nevertheless, Adelia missed the old Ulf.

“The convent gates are locked, apparently,” she told him, “yet I need to get in to see Walburga. She’s ill.”

“What? Sister Fatty?” Ulf was suddenly back on form. “You come along of me; they can’t keep me out.”

Gyltha and Mansur could be trusted to treat the rest of the patients. Adelia went for her medicine chest; lady’s slipper was excellent for hysteria, panic, and fearfulness. And rose oil to soothe.

She set off with Ulf.

ON THE CASTLE RAMPARTS, a tax collector who was taking a well-earned rest from assize business recognized two slight figures among the many crossing the Great Bridge below-he would have recognized the slightly larger one in the unattractive headgear among millions.

Now was the time, whilst she was out of the way. He called for his horse.

Why Sir Rowley Picot found himself compelled to ask advice for his bruised heart from Gyltha, eel seller and housekeeper, he wasn’t sure. It may be because Gyltha was the closest female friend in Cambridge to the love of his life. Maybe because she had helped to nurse him back to life, was a rock of common sense, maybe because of the indiscretions of her past…he just did, and to hell.

Miserably, he munched on one of Gyltha’s pasties.

“She won’t marry me, Gyltha.”

“’Course she won’t. Be a waste. She’s…” Gyltha tried to think of an analogy to some fabled creature, could only come up with “uni-corn,” and settled for “She’s special.”

I’m special.”

Gyltha reached up to pat Sir Rowley’s head. “You’re a fine lad and you’ll go far, but she’s…” Again, comparison failed her. “The good Lord broke the mold after He made her. Us needs her, all of us, not just you.”

“And I’m not going to damn well get her, am I?”

“Not in marriage, maybe, but there’s other ways of skinning a cat.” Gyltha had long ago decided that the cat under discussion, special though it was, could do with a good, healthy, and continual skinning. A woman might keep her independence, just as she had herself, and could still have memories to warm the winter nights.

“Good God, woman, are you suggesting…? My intentions toward Mistress Adelia are…were… honorable .”

Gyltha, who had never considered honor a requisite for a man and a maid in springtime, sighed. “That’s pretty. Won’t get you nowhere, though, will it?”

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