Virgin in ice
Audiobook
Virgin in ice
When war drives children from their home.
The year is 1139. The war between the supporters of King Stephen and Empress Matilda has driven more than half the population from the northern English city of Worcester. Among them are siblings Yves and Ermina Hugonin, accompanied by the young nun Hilaria. They were supposedly heading for Shrewsbury. But they never arrived…
Brother Cadfael decides to travel to the monastery in Bromfield to find out more about their fate. By a fortunate coincidence, he runs into Yves there, but he only knows that his sister has disappeared with Evrard Boterel, who had once courted her long ago.
On his way home, when Cadfael discovers the body of a young girl in a frozen stream, he begins to have a terrible suspicion. A gang of thugs is on the rampage in the area, taking advantage of the confusion caused by the war to enrich themselves. An exotic stranger, who reminds Cadfael of someone, also happens to be on the scene. But who? Does he have something to do with the crime? And whose body did the wise monk actually discover?
Ellis Peters
Ellis Peters, whose real name was Edith Mary Pargeter (1913–1995), was an English writer of Welsh descent whose work includes mainly war, historical, and detective prose. She also had a close connection to Czech and Slovak culture, fell in love with Prague, and as a Bohemianist, translated a number of books by recognised authors such as Jan Neruda and Bohumil Hrabal into English. She made her mark on world literature with The Heaven Tree trilogy, the twenty-part series of historical detective stories featuring Brother Cadfael, which is set in the twelfth century during the civil war in England, and also the cases of Inspector Felse and his son, which make up thirteen volumes. She lived almost her entire life—with a few exceptions, such as a short stay in Prague—in her native county of Shropshire. It was also where she died at the age of eighty-two.
