The Rose Rent

The Rose Rent (1986) Ellis Peters (The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #13)

Set in Shrewsbury in 1142

He had been in the cloister since he was three years old, and knew nothing outside it. Unacquainted with sin, he was all the more haunted by it, as by some unknown monster, and assiduous in confession, he picked to pieces his own infinitesimal failings, with the mortal penitence due to deadly sins.

No more oblates, the abbot was reflecting ruefully, and thanking God for it. No more taking these babes out of their cradles and severing them from the very sight and sound of women, half the creation stolen out of their world. How can they be expected to deal capably at last with something as strange and daunting to them as dragons? Sooner or later a woman must cross their path, terrible as an army with banners, and these wretched children without arms or armour to withstand the onslaught!

As so often happened in a late season, the summer had all but caught up with the laggard spring, flowers which had lingered shivering and reluctant to bloom suddenly sprang into fevered haste, bursting their buds overnight into a blazing prime. The crops, slower to take risks, might still be as much as a month late, but they would be lavish and clean, half their hereditary enemies chilled to death in April and May.

Characters: Hugh Beringar, Brother Cadfael, Judith Perle (Vestier), Edred Perle, Abbot Radulfus, Brother Anselm, Brother Vitalis, Brother Jerome, sub-prior Richard, Brother Edmund, Brother Denis, Brother Rhun, Sister Magdalen, Niall Bronzesmith, John Stury, Cecily Stury, Agatha Coliar, Miles Coliar, Alan Herbard, Will Warden, Vivian Hynde, William Hynde, Branwen, Bertred, Gunnar, Edwy Bellecote, Geoffrey Corviser, Philip Corviser, Madog of the Dead Boat

Publisher: Mysterious Press

Rating: 8/10

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