We are delighted to welcome author Mary Lawrence to Omnimystery News today.
Mary's third historical mystery in her Bianca Goddard series is Death at St. Vedast (Kensington; December 2016 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we are so pleased that she has agreed to share an excerpt from it with us.
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TWO CARLS, COUNTRYMEN, BUT PERHAPS OF more rascally intent, walked into view. They stopped at the fork, crept around the precipice, clinging to its stony face, and took a gander up the road intersecting with the one they had just traveled. Listening and hearing nothing, they stepped back into the road.
“I hear no hooves or glupping mud of men,” said one.
“Aye that,” said the other. “I thought I heard voices.”
“Just the antics of your craven mind, Horatio.” The first man uncorked a flagon and pulled long on it.
Horatio took the opportunity to water a patch of earth within spitting distance of Bianca. She could see the steam rise and flattened herself as much as she was able, imagining herself part of the ground.
“Ho, what is this?” Horatio’s companion touched his toe to the skull, then picked it up. “This is not where you belong,” he said to the cranium. He leaned back and looked up at the cairn on the precipice. “It must have fallen.” He sighed. “Alas, poor donkey! I knew him, Horatio. An ass of infinite vigor, of most excellent hocks. He hath born me on his back a thousand times. And now how abhorred my imagination is. My gorge rises at it.” He turned the skull to face his companion. “Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.”
Horatio cringed. “It is a boast better whispered.”
“We should set him on his perch. He should not be stamped upon and buried in mud.”
“It is too dark to climb, you doddypoll. Set it at the base; his purpose will be seen and understood.”
The man sized up the climb as his friend spoke.
“See that night has fallen?” said Horatio. “It is cold and your dead donkey knows no suffering. Cuds me, it knows nothing of my numb feet or the abuse I suffer traveling with you. Put your silly skull there and let us be gone. We have far to travel.”
Reluctantly, the ass kisser laid the skull at the foot of the crags and gave it a pat.
The two slogged on, muttering to each other and cursing.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Mary Lawrence
Mary Lawrence lives in Maine and worked in the medical field for more than twenty-five years. She stumbled upon a book about alchemy and came up with the idea for a daughter of an alchemist who lived during the reign of Henry VIII, which became the basis for her mystery series. Her articles have appeared in several publications, including the national news blog The Daily Beast.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at MaryLawrenceBooks.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Death at St. Vedast by Mary Lawrence
A Bianca Goddard Mystery
Publisher: Kensington
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 John 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 …
— Death at St. Vedast by Mary Lawrence
