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Margaret Frazer's 12th Dame Frevisse medieval mystery, The Bastard's Tale, is an easily ingested history lesson, in addition to being a good suspense story. It is based on solid history, taking place shortly before the War of the Roses broke out. The majority of the characters in the book are real people, and Frazer does an excellent job of capturing them on paper the way they are known to historians. Although the Yorkists and the Lancastrians, those two leading houses of cousins catalyzing the War of the Roses, are already at each other's throats, this story is more about the cousin rivalry within the house of Lancaster itself. The last of the Lancastrian kings, the young and ineffectual King Henry VI, is on the throne, and he is tugged on all sides by nobles vying for his favor and doing their damnest to destroy anyone who seems closer to the king. At the heart of the story is Humphrey, the "Good" Duke of Gloucester, who fought beside his brother King Henry V at Agincourt and helped save the throne for his son, Henry VI, during the latter's recent minority. Although the learned Duke Humphrey (the room at Oxford's Bodleian Library is named for him) has done no wrong, his enemies, led by the Marquess of Suffolk, try to convince the king that Humphrey is guilty of treason against him. The king has convened a parliament at Bury St. Edmunds, and to there travel the high and mighty with their conflicting interests. Arteys (Welsh for Arthur), Duke Humphrey's bastard son, goes ahead with some of the duke's closest supporters. Dame Frevisse of St. Frideswide's is requested by her prioress to hasten to Bury St. Edmunds also to assess the situation there on behalf of Bishop Beaufort of Winchester, a royal cousin. Frevisse is a cousin to Lady Alice, the wife of the Marquess of Suffolk, and thus in a good position to get close to the main actors. Beaufort also sends one of his retainers, Joliffe, to scout around. Very quickly Arteys, Frevisse, and Joliffe (the latter two being the main fictional characters; even Lady Alice is a real life granddaughter of famed poet Geoffrey Chaucer) learn that Suffolk has set a trap for Gloucester, who is arrested shortly after he arrives. Bishop Pecock sympathizes with our trio of Gloucester supporters, and Lady Alice, too, gives more and more aid to Dame Frevisse because she is aghast at her husband's plotting. All of these are frequently together during rehearsals for an amateur play to be given for the king, even Frevisse, who helps care for the 4-year-old Lord John, son to Suffolk and Alice, as he rehearses his role in the play. (Although John is necessarily young in the book, it's interesting to note that in real life when he eventually succeeds to his father's title, he marries a daughter of the Duke of York and becomes a Yorkist.) There's much suspense as the reader follows the Gloucesterites in their attempts to foil the plots of the Suffolk side, and even more so in their efforts to avoid becoming victims themselves of the plotters, who are not above murder. Arteys in particular is put in extreme jeopardy, and the story needs no embellishing of real life suspense as it follows him in his successive perils. Dame Frevisse with her analytical detective ability is instrumental in resolving the final solution, which, incidentally, even though Frevisse is fictional, is true to history. Margaret Frazer provides an enthralling story for buffs of historical mysteries. An historian herself, she knows her period and its intimate details. My only complaint is in the style, which seems uneven and at times unduly complex. Although much of the style might be thought of as conveying medieval ambience, such as "Despite it was Sunday ..." or "The mere fact he was there and dead, without Suffolk knew why, would be troubling enough," it is intermixed with incongruous 21st century language and phrases, such as "I'm willing to lay you odds ..." And it would be totally out of character for Bishop Pecock in real life to have felt a need for the explanation, "I say 'he' in the general sense of mankind, you understand, there being nothing to preclude a woman ..." -- his audience would have understood without the slightest blink that he meant "he" in the general sense of mankind. Too, the author's disposition toward long sentences can at times be jarring. The book begins with a mammoth 66-word sentence, although admittedly this one is not difficult to understand. But her following sentence (page 110-111, some 136 words) must be taken by anyone as a bit much: "After that came the ceremony of serving the meal, something Arteys always enjoyed because however harried and harrassed things might be in the kitchen, butlery, and pantry, with dishes being served forth and orders flying as to who should take what to where -- and why wasn't the venison ready -- and where were the pears in wine syrup -- and had someone taken the fish tart to the high table, they shouldn't have yet -- the moment he stepped over the threshold into the great hall bearing the broad serving platter or deep bowl or whatever was in his charge for each remove, everything took on order and grace, from his walk up the hall to the setting of the food before Gloucester to the serving of it to his withdrawal down the hall to bring whatever came next." However, I don't consider the above a serious fault, and it should not detract from the many virtues of the book. Indeed, since I had an ARC, some editor might make appropriate changes before the final version of the book comes out. The important thing is that the story holds one's interest from beginning to end. It's highly gratifying to see history presented in such a vivid way.
Reviewed by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, January 2002
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