Brother Fidelis: A Transformation in Trouble

*Spoilers*

Ellis Peters' An Excellent Mystery provides a female in disguise. Godfrid Marescot becomes betrothed to a young girl, Julian Cruce, before he leaves on Crusades. He behaves honorably but is severely and specifically wounded in the area of the groin. Subsequently, he breaks off his betrothal to the now-nineteen-year-old young woman and enters a Benedictine monastery. He adopts the name Humilis. 

Julian Cruce considers herself still betrothed (a not unlikely belief since betrothals had considerably more legal weight at the time). She enlists the aid of a servant to help her sell some jewels, change her guise, and enter the monastery as Brother Fidelis. She adopts muteness and becomes Humilis's companion. He is inevitably going to die and she helps him through those final days. 

The story is finely told. As with many of the Cadfael books, Peters ties the events into part of the civil war raging in England, specifically the attacks on the city of Winchester and destruction of nearby religious houses. 

And story is also infinitely touching and deeply romantic. Julian Cruce's disguise does not fundamentally alter her character, except to bind her more closely to her chosen spouse. 

What I appreciate with The Excellent Mystery is Peters' acknowledgement that the un-transformation must be handled in such a way to prevent dishonor and disgrace to all parties. 

There's no "but people mustn't react that way! how dare they! the good people--like Hugh and Cadfael--don't, so all the other good people won't either!" 

In fact, Cadfael does an excellent job at the end of the book summing up the "case" he had to solve: 

"There'll be no scandal, no aspersions cast on either Hyde or Shrewsbury, no legatine muck-raking, no ballad-makers running off dirty rhymes about monks and their women, and hawking them round the markets, no bishops bearing down on us with damning visitations, no carping white monks fulminating about the laxity and lechery of the Benedictines...And no foul blight clinging round that poor girl's name and blackening her for life. Thank God!"

I love how Peters retains Cadfael's personality. He doesn't want anyone's "social media" commentary--not the gossips, not the self-righteous tut-tutters. 

Cadfael solves the problem by taking advantage of an unexpected storm. It's a powerful example of how disguise and transformation can entail wit and sacrifice. If Brother Fidelis's transformation was a difficult matter to bring about, it needed to be a difficult matter to undo. Luckily, Brother Cadfael is there to help out!