Death at St. Vedast

Book 3: Bianca Goddard Mystery

by Mary Lawrence

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Historical Mysteries; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

“An inventive continuation of the Bianca Goddard series . . . a page-turner for all who appreciate fiction set in early Renaissance England.”— Mystery Maven During the tempestuous reign of Henry VIII, London alchemist Bianca Goddard has seen up close what keeps a man alive—and what can kill him. A good thing, for she will need all her knowledge to keep a friend away from the gallows . . . Bianca and her husband are delighted to share in the glad fortune of their friend, Boisvert, the silversmith, who is to wed Odile, the wealthy widow of a goldsmith. But a pall is cast over the upcoming nuptials when the body of a pregnant woman is found beneath the bell tower of St. Vedast, the very church where the betrothed are to be married. Tragedy strikes again at the couple’s reception, when Odile suddenly drops dead in the middle of the wedding feast. The constable suspects Boisvert poisoned his new bride for her money, but there’s not a trace of poison in her food or wine. Could the two deaths be connected? To prove their friend’s innocence, Bianca will need to employ her knowledge of alchemy—for if she can determine how the bride was killed, she may find the person responsible for her murder—before another victim is added to the death toll . . . Praise for The Alchemist’s Daughter “Unique characters, a twisty plot and a bold, bright heroine . . . Mystery and Tudor fans alike will raise a glass to this new series.”—Karen Harper, New York Times bestselling author

Release date: December 27, 2016

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

London, December 1543

She would touch the moon.

Her bare feet met the hard earth, and the cold shot through her legs and spine. The shock alone would have startled most to their good sense. Yet she seemed oblivious to her feet turning blue against the ground. The linen smock she wore was of thin service against December’s breath—a breath blowing in gusts and catching her hair, twisting it like ribbons. Her neck bent at an unnatural angle and she saw the road slant like milk being poured from a jug. She adapted her steps to this tilted horizon—a toe striking the road, then the flat of her foot, so that she appeared to be dancing to a tune only she could hear.

No one was out at this devilish hour—save for a man burying the corpse of his beloved dog and a drunk cursing the cold as it bit at his face. Most slept huddled beneath layers of wool and fur, their bed curtains pulled tight. Heated stones at the feet of beds grew cold and were irritably kicked to the floor. Tallows guttered in pewter holders, snuffling from a draft through a window.

Though the silence of the night was broken with the occasional lowing wind, only a few heard the loud intrusion of the woman’s discordant singing. Her raucous song was mostly nonsense, neither patter nor sea shanty, but instead was an eerie chorus, ranging higher than the screech of a gull and just as shrill. Thinking her drunk, those restless enough to bother shouted from opened windows.

“Stupid trug! Are ye mad with French pox?” yelled one.

“Stop your mouth! It reeks like a common sewer,” yelled another. Playwrights grew imaginative when roused from dreams.

But to these insults she gave not a care.

Indeed, she did not seem to give a care about anything.

She dipped and careened, angled toward a front door and curtsied low before it. The door was closed and remained so. This she found comical, and she burst out laughing.

If only her laugh were as pleasant as her song.

She found amusement in her own hilarity and shrieked loud enough to set dogs baying two streets over. But then she tired, ran out of breath, and resumed her macabre dance down the road—toe to heel. Toe to heel.

Turning the corner, she spied the Queen Moon peering down from above. Such ethereal beauty should not be ignored. A shame that man preferred the company of the sun over her sublime charm. Not many chose to keep court with her celestial grace. Think on what they missed!

The woman could not bear to shun her lovely companion. She wished to climb to the heavens and kiss her round face. And why not? Had her mistress moon not kept her company on many a sleepless night?

Her shoulder spasmed, then rose to her ear and stayed there. She continued her dance, and when a dog stepped from the shadows to growl at her, she growled back.

A man, hearing that song, hearing the dogs bark, sought the source of the commotion. He came upon the woman and the dog and stopped. He stood a moment, glanced down at his feet to make sure they had ceased walking, and waited for his body to obey and cease swaying. He knew better than to finish off the dregs of any barrel left behind the Crooked Cork, but it was a cold night and he had no woman to go home to. Indeed, he had no home. His gaze returned to the snarling pair in front of him.

“What is this? A dog on four and one on two? This is not the song of maids,” he said, hoping the young woman might desist her gnarring and notice him.

Alas, she did not, and she thrust her jaw forward, trying to out-menace the slobbering cur. With arms outstretched and fingers curved like claws, she redoubled her efforts, growling ever louder.

The man took a tentative step forward. “For whatever bones the two of you must chew, I beg do not subject me to that grisly sight. It is too late for such sport, and you stand between me and my rest.” He wobbled where he stood, waiting for the maid to reply.

It appeared that the dog possessed better judgment. The animal probably sensed that this woman was a bizarre creature better left alone. Besides, she produced more saliva, and though she lacked long canines, probably the dog knew humans often possessed longer knives. The dog backed away and at a safe distance turned tail.

The poor sot breathed a sigh of relief. He was just about to speak when she turned her back on him and lurched forward. Down the lane she ambled, her unusual gait making him wonder if she might be a hunchback, the way her spine curved like a fisherman’s hook. His curiosity niggled him to follow. He hurried to catch up but trailed a few steps behind in case she decided to suddenly turn and gnarl at him.

Four parish churches abutted Foster Lane, not counting the ones tucked behind yards and chantry chapels. The woman stopped beside St. Vedast and leaned back, running her gaze up its exterior. Near the top, the Queen Moon peeked from behind the steeple.

The woman found the limestone less luminous than her mistress’s face, but it was smooth and cool to her touch. She rested against the building. In so doing, she finally noticed the drunk.

She did not voice a thought or start from surprise. Intrigued by his presence, she simply stared.

“Where is your cloak, m’lady?” he asked. “It is not such a balmy night.”

She did not answer.

He tried again. “Are you lost? I know well these parts, having slept many a night on the cobbles with stone stoops for my pillow. Tell me from whither you be, to yonder you go, and I shall assist you.”

Again he was met with wordless stupefaction. He wasn’t sure if she was drunk or just daft. She offered no proof one way or the other. Her eyes held a vacant stare and a lack of comprehension. He gestured at the church. “Ye take some comfort here, I see.” Perhaps she was possessed—bewitched. Once he’d seen a woman so strange that it took six men to carry her to a church and hold her down while the priest gibbered Latin and shook a crucifix at her. But that sort usually shrank from the sight of a church. That sort wouldn’t lean against its walls, admiring the façade, like this pitiful Bess.

Without prompt, she began moving along its exterior, muttering and caressing the stone. She yammered nonsense, giggling at her jest. He decided she had definitely lost her wit, until she turned and smiled at him—a smile that could melt the ice on the Thames. The wind caught her tangled hair and blew it in front of her face, across her forehead and neck. She fixed him with eyes that beguiled, and she recited a rhyme. The words sounded innocent enough, a verse of childish song and simple meter. It was the first intelligible utterance she had managed.

Unable to stem his interest, he followed when she ducked around the corner of the church and disappeared in its shadows. Normally he would have gone his separate way and left her to her own fate. But he could not resist knowing what she might do next. Even a bracing slap of December wind did not rouse him from her spell.

A beech tree grew beside the church, its branches arching toward the eaves of the roof. Before his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he heard the sound of scrambling and the snap of a brittle limb.

“Fair maid, what are you about?”

She giggled, then implored, “You are not so far. Let me stroke your face. Have you no one to love?”

The man, thinking as a man, blushed as a man grown hopeful. “It has been a long time, but if you wish . . .”

He was interrupted by an unnerving laugh. His eyes adjusted to the dark in time to see her step onto the roof. Blinking twice, he watched her scale its incline like a monkey.

“Are you raving mad? What are you about? Quit this folly at once!” he cried, and when her foot slipped and she fell forward, he gasped.

She slid down the roof, her fingers clawing for a handhold. Down she slid, the pads of her fingers rubbed raw, her bare feet seeking purchase. To his relief, she grabbed on to a protruding edge. Pausing a second, she then pulled herself to her knees. Stunned, the man could not wrest his eyes from the sight. She knelt, silhouetted against the moon, tenuously clinging to the roof, her hair and night smock buffeted by the wind.

The slurry of ale in his belly made quick his decision (which was not based on better judgment). He scurried toward the tree. He did not want to be party to her lunacy any more than he wanted to set foot next to her, but he believed he could coax her to safety.

He jumped for a limb, and, as he hung there, he gathered his strength and swung a leg over it. He hauled himself up and straddled the branch. With no small measure of grunting and cursing, he climbed the tree to the height of the roof. The dark obscured the distance between his perch and the ground, and for this he was grateful. He shinnied along the limb, feeling it dip from his weight, until he touched the roof of the church. Wrapping his arm around the branch’s girth, he reached out to the woman.

“M’lady, take my hand.”

She studied his proffered palm as if it were a fascinating device, then shouted her childish rhyme at the top of her lungs. He startled and fought to keep his balance as she serenaded the steeple and the moon behind it. Such a loud, screechy rendition was surprising coming from such a thin-boned maid, but her jubilance spurred her on and she rose to a crouched stand. Fearlessly she scampered up the slope and pranced along the ridgeline.

The man drowned the woman’s singing with pleas to stop. He could barely watch as she danced along the peak of the church, her feet slipping, her body tottering, but neither could he drag his eyes away. She was beyond his help. If she fell, he had no way to break her fall.

She paused to croon at the moon, then galloped toward the steeple. The drunk held his breath until she reached the bell tower. He wondered if she had the sense to cling to the structure while he went for help. If he started shouting, perhaps someone might rouse from his bed. But the wind blew in whistling gusts, and even the woman’s clamorous song got lost in its howl.

To his wonderment, she did cling to the tower. She spread her arms and flattened herself against it. Her head tilted to spy the moon with one eye.

“Stay you,” he cried when the wind calmed. “I shall enlist an army of men to help!”

What would become of her once she was rescued? Would she be tossed in the Clink with other nattering fools? Perhaps a loved one might find her and soothe her wretched soul. If that were true, thought the man, where was her lover now? Perhaps she needed his love and once he had delivered her to safe ground she would shower him with affection. The man grew suddenly warm. A woman would give his life purpose. He would right his wrongs for a woman’s love. Besides, she was not so fearsome in appearance if he ignored those vacuous eyes.

Again he shouted that he would soon return. He inched his bottom down the limb toward the trunk. When he met the bole of the tree, he paused for a last look at her before his final descent.

Ignoring his plea, she climbed the belfry toward the spire. Her rhyme carried to his ears as she pulled herself onto the tower’s ledge. Wrapping her arms around the spire, she began to scale the tapered structure, inching her way to the pinnacle.

The man could not move or shout. Did she wish to touch the moon? At the top, she cooed and spoke to the celestial queen as if she expected a reply. She held tight with one hand, and with the other she reached over her head.

He glanced down, thinking of the dangerous distance between himself and the ground. Where she held reign, it was doubly high. His toes tingled from the fright of it. His false bravado, from guzzled swill, disappeared.

Was she a sylph—a creature of his imagination—a vaporous woman inhabiting the air? He rubbed his eyes to remove the vision. He dug at them as if to pluck them from their sockets. It was a man’s noble duty to save a lady fair. And was she not a woman in distress? He blinked hard, then realized he was just a drunk sitting in a tree watching a gibbering madwoman. What spell had she tried to cast on him? He returned his gaze and saw her pull herself onto the peak, as if she meant to stand on its very top. Whether the woman was real or not, he shouted in panic, “Nay, leave it!”

Did his words give her pause? He blamed himself when her grip missed. She swiped in vain at the spire as her weight carried her away from it. Her arms and legs flailed. She was falling.

She hit the roof of St. Vedast, and the man felt the jolt of impact rip through his own body, as if he, too, had fallen and cracked every bone in his spine. She slid down the incline toward the eave. Nothing would break her fall now. Not even the branches where he sat reached that far.

He would remember her eyes, wide with terror as she screamed and tumbled past. Even as witless as she appeared to be, he knew she sensed the approach of her final moment. Her body met the ground with a sickening thud. A sound he would never forget.

And the Queen Moon watched, as was her pleasure, cold and distant.

If there was one benefit to sitting outside the Stone Gate in December, it was that the cold wind carried away the smell of rotting flesh and dispersed it somewhere over the Thames. Bianca gazed up at the display of heads on pikes and watched one miscreant swivel dangerously close to coming loose.

“I should not like it if he lands in my lap.” Bianca rearranged a blanket over her knees as she sat on the narrow seat of a dray between her husband, John, and Meddybemps, their streetseller friend.

“It cannot be much longer,” said Meddybemps, looking east at the faint, burnished glow on the horizon. He handed over the reins to John and hopped off the wagon to stand at the gate and holler for a guard.

“He seems to think they will answer,” said John.

“He is ever hopeful.” Bianca turned to tuck in the flapping corner of a blanket covering her wares. When one was moving alembics and the accoutrements of her science, it was best to travel at night, but since that was not an option, they made do with traveling just before dawn.

Meddybemps bellowed into the arched entrance of London Bridge and rattled the iron portcullis, which refused to yield. After a moment, a guard toting a halberd ambled up to the bars. He glared at the streetseller.

“It is day’s first light. Can you give us entrance to cross?”

The guard looked past Meddybemps to the dray. “What is your hurry?” he asked suspiciously.

“We want to start across the bridge before the road becomes clogged. Besides, it is not so pleasant waiting in this cold.”

“It is no concern of mine if ye haven’t the sense to arrive after curfew ends.”

“Man, look to the east. The sun is broaching the horizon.” Meddybemps tipped his chin in its direction. He stomped his feet to get his humours flowing and blew in his hands.

The guard walked back through the gatehouse, disappeared from sight for a minute (presumably to confirm Meddybemps’s claim), and returned. “What’s that ye got in your wagon?”

Meddybemps knew there was no use in leading the man astray. He could easily inspect the cart and prevent their passage. Delay would prove only more challenging for them. “We have the stuff of alchemy.”

“Do ye, now?” The guard looked past the streetseller and eyed Bianca. “Which one of ye is the alchemist?”

“He is.” Meddybemps waved an arm at John. He ignored John’s startled look and hoped the lad had enough sense to lie when asked. Not only did the streetseller wish to deflect attention off Bianca, but if he had called her an alchemist, he would have been subjected to another one of her diatribes explaining why she was most assuredly not an alchemist. He was not in the mood.

Spending half the night obtaining a horse and dray had left him in a foul temper. Meddybemps was an inexperienced driver, and to entrust him with the means to a man’s livelihood required an act of faith. But the threat of ruin from unsavory gossip persuaded Arthur Milbourne to part with his conveyance—at least until noon.

Not only did Meddybemps have to back the horse and cumbersome wagon down the narrow alley where Bianca had her room of Medicinals and Physickes, but he had to help Bianca and John load all of their belongings—including several cages of live rats—into the bed under dark of night. He’d nearly expired from the smell of chicken manure from her neighbor’s coop in Gull Hole, and the odor clung stubbornly to his clothes. Then the nonstop howling of Hobs, their cat, in a box behind the seat had rubbed his patience raw.

“So’s the dabbler got any gold?” asked the guard, leaning in.

“It’s a rare alchemist who can hold on to anything of worth,” replied Meddybemps.

“That’s a sorry state. Then I guess the alchemist will have to wait a while more. It may be dawn fast upon us, but it will be a while ’til the curfew is lifted.”

Meddybemps irritably tromped back to the wagon. “He needs some encouragement. Have you an incentive?”

Bianca and John looked at each other and shrugged.

“Perhaps we should offer him your immortal cat?” he suggested after Hobs voiced a particularly pathetic yowl.

Bianca’s eyes flashed. “I think not!” She reached under the blanket and withdrew her purse. She searched through it and pulled out a half crown. “Offer him this.”

“That’s more than I make in a month,” John protested. “You’ll have to do a keen business with your salves to make up for it.”

“We’ll save that much in rent living at Boisvert’s. It will even out. Besides, my feet are nearly frozen.”

Meddybemps didn’t wait for them to come to an agreement but strode back to the guard, holding up the coin.

“Wells,” said the man, “that gets me interested.” He stuck his arm through the gate, but Meddybemps held the coin beyond his reach.

“Either you are interested enough to give us leave or you are not. We’ve nothing more to offer.”

The guard’s mouth turned up in a lopsided grin. He glanced around and, seeing no one to object, agreed. “Close enough.” He took the money and pocketed it. “Mind ye keep your counsel. I’ve a memory for faces.”

Meddybemps hastened back to John and Bianca, his errant eye rolling with annoyance. The streetseller had an eye that could best be described as “loose.” At rest, its focus veered west, as if perpetually looking at his ear. “He would have had us sit until someone wanted out.”

“Then it is coin well spent,” said Bianca.

The squeal of chain and pulley broke the morning quiet as the iron bars lifted. Meddybemps urged the mare on. The wagon bumped up the cobbled ramp, and they rode under the Stone Gate.

The three nodded to the guard as they passed, and he watched stoically as they lumbered by.

The road across London Bridge was damnably narrow. If they had left later in the morning, it would have taken hours to reach the other side. There were no turnouts, only areas where two average-sized carts might squeeze past if they were perfectly aligned. Even this was fraught with difficulty, as jutting axle nuts could lock with a passing wagon and stall traffic until the two vehicles were maneuvered or rocked free.

Overhangs and abutting buildings afforded little light to see by as they trundled along. Meddybemps was thankful the mare was unexcitable. He preferred her plodding pace to a more spirited and probably unmanageable animal. At least one part of this endeavor was going smoothly.

“I’m certain you will like living in Boisvert’s rent,” said John. “Aldersgate is a short walk, and you can collect plants in Smithfield. Or you could walk along the city wall to Morefield.” It had been a week since Bianca had agreed, but John still felt the need to convince her that this move was to her benefit.

“My only misgiving is where I shall set up my chemistries.” For Bianca, that was a major concern. She had entered into marriage with John eight months before and had nearly lost him to the sweating sickness only a couple of months later. He blamed his illness on the foul airs of her rent in Gull Hole in Southwark. Bianca was not so sure; the sweat seemed to pick its victims at random. It didn’t matter whether one lived in a crowded neighborhood near the Thames or on a country estate.

“Perhaps if you limit your dabbling to a few unobtrusive decoctions until we figure out where you could work.”

Bianca didn’t reply. “A few unobtrusive decoctions” meant anything that wouldn’t offend the French metalsmith’s sensibilities—meaning his nose.

John’s acquaintance with Boisvert had begun several years ago with a kidney pie. John had lived the life of an orphan, sleeping in a barrel behind the Tern’s Tempest, surviving on table scraps from the tavern. One night, he watched from the safety of his dark drum while Boisvert insulted his attackers, then puked on them. The Frenchman was thoroughly trounced for the indiscretion.

Once the Frenchman had been left for dead, John emerged from the cask to search the man’s pockets. The battered snail eater surprised John when he opened his eyes and asked the boy to help him home. Always the opportunist, John saw his chance to pinch a few valuables once he helped the swaggering outlander inside his residence.

However, it was not to be. The balding Frenchman had enough of his faculties about him that he declined John’s offer to see him to his bed, and once he’d stumbled over the threshold, he ungraciously slammed the door in the boy’s face.

Nothing came of the incident except John’s growing dislike of all things French, until one day Boisvert sought John on Olde Fish Street Hill. He needed an apprentice, and if the boy could tolerate living in a proper rent, then he could use the help. “Of course, if you prefer a barrel,” he had told John, “we could move one into the alley behind the shop.”

So John became Boisvert’s disciple, confidant, and surrogate family. His apprenticeship was nearing its end, and soon he would be able to set up shop on his own. But that required more money than he and Bianca had. When Boisvert announced he was marrying the wealthy widow Odile Farendon and would be moving into her home, John offered to look after the forge and adjoining rent.

The arrangement made sense to Boisvert. Leaving a silver shop vacant was ill-advised no matter what safeguards were in place. The silversmith agreed on condition that Bianca forgo her chemistries. Boisvert claimed he did not want to incite his neighbors, but, in truth, he could not tolerate the thought of his immaculate rent being turned into a workshop for the dark art. Boisvert had seen Bianca’s domestic skills and did not want his walls, painted with murals of Provence, coated with soot and stink.

John knew there was little chance that Bianca would completely abandon her work. He arranged a compromise, convincing Boisvert that not all of Bianca’s efforts resulted in smoke and chaos.

Eventually, Bianca relented to John’s pleas and pondered how she might skirt Boisvert’s restrictions. Her room in Southwark was too far to travel to on a daily basis, especially in the winter. So, with regret, she abandoned the dilapidated rent. But as yet she had not thought of any way she might remain useful on Foster Lane. She envisioned long days of creating only simple infusions and balms. If she could not pursue her passion, how would she relieve her boredom? Her enthusiasm for the move remained subdued, and with every cheery reminder from John of how much she was going to like living there, Bianca grew more sullen.

However, she did agree that the money they would save might be worth the upheaval. Certainly she could make a few decoctions to sell at market. Decoctions that were not offensive smelling, and it might keep her busy over the winter. But the long months of inclement weather were Bianca’s most productive. She tried not to dwell on how much she would miss her work.

She reminded herself that marriage was a partnership and there were some advantages. Living alone with a cat and the trappings of what appeared to be an alchemy room looked suspiciously diabolical for a woman. Bianca was well aware that her interest in experimentation and chemistries could be misconstrued. Perhaps moving to London with her husband might temper any rumors that might be hop-frogging on the tongues of wary neighbors and malcontents. For the time being at least, she would put aside her own interests for the benefit of furthering John’s. However, she would keep an eye out for a discreet vacancy where she might be able to work her chemistries inconspicuously.

At the other end of the bridge, a steady stream of pedestrians began to enter through the opened gate. The wagon squeezed past, and just as it merged onto Thames Street, a rooster announced the new day.

“How do you find Boisvert’s betrothed?” asked Bianca, distracting herself from brooding. The courtship had been brief, and to John’s surprise the wedding announcement had been a sudden, unexpected outcome.

“Odile Farendon is a generous woman. She is also blessed with wealth. I can think of no argument against his marrying her.”

“I never thought Boisvert would marry anyone. He seemed content to advise you about love from a safe distance.” Bianca unwound her scarf and draped it over her head to keep her cap from blowing off. It was difficult to squash her thick waves flat enough to keep her coif on, even on a calm day.

John sat on his hands to warm them. “I don’t expect he will ever stop advising me. It will be interesting to see how he manages.”

“This is his first marriage?”

“It is. For a man who loves his creature comforts, I would have thought matrimony a necessit. . .