My favorite part of The Servant’s Tale, the second installment in Frazer’s excellent Dame Frevisse series, is when a member of a traveling troupe of players quotes a line from Geoffrey Chaucer, which contains an expletive, to a nun. He immediately apologizes but Dame Frevisse is not offended. When she tells him of her connection to the great author, the player is stunned. It’s moments like these that make reading Frazer so enjoyable.
She also gives us a wonderful view of a priory during the disastrous reign of Henry VI and the struggles and hardships faced by the peasants. She creates a plethora of colorful characters: a poor woman with a boozing husband, a self-effacing novice nun, a lusty laundress and an overbearing arrogant crowner. The number of characters alone could bog down a story, but Frazer’s writing style is amazing. She spins a wonderful tale of desperation during the post-Christmas season of 1434, the peasant woman desperate to raise money to right her husband’s wrong during his bouts of drunkenness, a group of travelers desperate for an audience and Dame Frevisse desperate to find the murderer before he or she strikes again and before the crowner arrests the wrong person.
What makes Frazer so enjoyable to read is her ability to pull the reader into the imagery she creates of fifteenth century England with its customs, beliefs and the lifestyle of its citizens. The reader is pulled into the story and feels like a part of the events. Frazer makes you feel the chill in your feet as Frevisse crosses the freezing courtyard or the stone cold floors of the sanctuary in her thin shoes. You feel the feeble warmth of a low fire as it tires to chase the coldness from your bones as the players do.
The second novel of the Frevisse sequence introduces the travelers who become the main characters of her spin-off ‘A Play of’ series. In both series, we see life from some of the humblest and destitute beings on earth; a nun with a vow of poverty and a group of players dependent upon the benevolence of equally impoverished people.
The Servant’s Tale opens with the players bringing a man seriously injured in a cart accident to the nuns. He is the husband of the peasant woman, a servant in the priory. Although he seems to be on the men, he dies suddenly. Then her oldest son, a chip off the old block, is killed after a brief barroom fight with a player.
Frevisse sees easily that the crowner will blame the player, especially after a nun is killed after a run-in with the members of the troupe. Dame Frevisse is eager to prove the innocence of the players because they remind her of the travels she took in her youth with her family.
The aging but worldly-wise prioress, Domina Edith warns her against being too anxious to clear their names that she becomes blinded to the truth.
Fighting a cold, the frigid weather and even an angry mob of townsfolk, Frevisse races against time to solve the murders before the crowner makes his own misguided conclusiosn.
Margaret Frazer has a growing number of novels in this series. With stories like these, one wonders why there haven’t been TV shows or movies from her works.
She also gives us a wonderful view of a priory during the disastrous reign of Henry VI and the struggles and hardships faced by the peasants. She creates a plethora of colorful characters: a poor woman with a boozing husband, a self-effacing novice nun, a lusty laundress and an overbearing arrogant crowner. The number of characters alone could bog down a story, but Frazer’s writing style is amazing. She spins a wonderful tale of desperation during the post-Christmas season of 1434, the peasant woman desperate to raise money to right her husband’s wrong during his bouts of drunkenness, a group of travelers desperate for an audience and Dame Frevisse desperate to find the murderer before he or she strikes again and before the crowner arrests the wrong person.
What makes Frazer so enjoyable to read is her ability to pull the reader into the imagery she creates of fifteenth century England with its customs, beliefs and the lifestyle of its citizens. The reader is pulled into the story and feels like a part of the events. Frazer makes you feel the chill in your feet as Frevisse crosses the freezing courtyard or the stone cold floors of the sanctuary in her thin shoes. You feel the feeble warmth of a low fire as it tires to chase the coldness from your bones as the players do.
The second novel of the Frevisse sequence introduces the travelers who become the main characters of her spin-off ‘A Play of’ series. In both series, we see life from some of the humblest and destitute beings on earth; a nun with a vow of poverty and a group of players dependent upon the benevolence of equally impoverished people.
The Servant’s Tale opens with the players bringing a man seriously injured in a cart accident to the nuns. He is the husband of the peasant woman, a servant in the priory. Although he seems to be on the men, he dies suddenly. Then her oldest son, a chip off the old block, is killed after a brief barroom fight with a player.
Frevisse sees easily that the crowner will blame the player, especially after a nun is killed after a run-in with the members of the troupe. Dame Frevisse is eager to prove the innocence of the players because they remind her of the travels she took in her youth with her family.
The aging but worldly-wise prioress, Domina Edith warns her against being too anxious to clear their names that she becomes blinded to the truth.
Fighting a cold, the frigid weather and even an angry mob of townsfolk, Frevisse races against time to solve the murders before the crowner makes his own misguided conclusiosn.
Margaret Frazer has a growing number of novels in this series. With stories like these, one wonders why there haven’t been TV shows or movies from her works.
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