The Beautiful Mystery

FOURTEEN

After a breakfast of eggs and fruit, fresh bread and cheese the monks left and the Chief and Beauvoir lingered over their herbal teas.

“This is disgusting.” Beauvoir took a sip and made a face. “It’s dirt tea. I’m drinking mud.”

“It’s mint. I think,” said Gamache.

“Mint mud,” said Beauvoir, putting his tea down and pushing the mug away. “So, who do you think did it?”

Gamache shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. It seems likely to be someone who sided with the abbot.”

“Or the abbot himself.”

Gamache nodded. “If the prior was killed over the power struggle.”

“Whoever won the struggle got to control a monastery that was suddenly extremely rich, and powerful. And not just because of the money.”

“Go on,” said Gamache. He always preferred to listen than to talk.

“Well, think about it. These Gilbertines disappear for four centuries, then suddenly, and apparently miraculously, walk out of the wilderness. And as though that wasn’t biblical enough, they come bearing a gift. Sacred music. A New York marketing guru couldn’t have come up with a better gimmick.”

“Only it isn’t a gimmick.”

“Are you so sure, patron?”

Gamache put his mug on the table and leaned toward his second in command, his deep brown eyes thoughtful.

“Are you saying this was all manipulated? By these monks? Four hundred years of silence, then a recording of obscure Gregorian chants? All to put themselves in a position of wealth and influence. Quite a long-range plan. A good thing they didn’t have shareholders.”

Beauvoir laughed. “But it worked.”

“But it was hardly a slam-dunk. The chances that this remote monastery filled with singing monks would become a sensation is minuscule.”

“I agree. A bunch of things had to come together. The music had to grab people. But that probably wasn’t enough. What really ignited it was when everyone found out who they were. A supposedly extinct order of monks who’ve taken a vow of silence. That’s what grabbed people.”

The Chief nodded. It added to the mystery of the music, and the monks.

But was it manipulated? It was all true, after all. But wasn’t that what good marketing was? Not lying, but choosing what truths to tell?

“These humble monks become superstars,” said Beauvoir. “Not only rich, but way more than that. They’re powerful. People love them. If the abbot of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups got on CNN tomorrow and announced he was the second coming, you can’t tell me millions wouldn’t believe it.”

“Millions will believe anything,” said Gamache. “They see Christ in a pancake and start worshipping it.”

“But this is different, patron, and you know it. You even felt it yourself. The music does nothing for me, but I can see that it does something to you.”

“True again, mon vieux,” Gamache smiled. “But it doesn’t drive me to murder. Just the opposite. It’s very calming. Like the tea.” He picked up his mug again, and toasted Beauvoir, then relaxed back into his chair. “What are you saying, Jean-Guy?”

“I’m saying there was more at stake than another recording. And there was way more at stake than petty squabbles and the right to boss around two dozen singing monks. Whether the monks like it or not, they’re very influential now. People want to hear what they have to say. That must be pretty intoxicating.”

“Or sobering.”

“And all they have to do is get rid of an inconvenient vow of silence,” said Beauvoir, his voice low and intense. “Go on tour. Do concerts. Do interviews. People would hang on their every word. They’d be more powerful than the pope.”

“And the only one standing in the way is the abbot,” said the Chief, then shook his head. “But if that was true then the wrong man was killed. Your argument would make sense, Jean-Guy, if Dom Philippe was dead, but he isn’t.”

“Ahhh, but you’re wrong. Sir. I’m not saying that the murder happened to lift the vow of silence, I’m just saying there’s a whole lot at stake. For the prior’s camp it’s power and influence, but for the other? There’s a motive just as potent.”

Now Gamache smiled, and nodded.

“To keep their peaceful, quiet life. To protect their home.”

“And who wouldn’t kill to protect their home?” asked Beauvoir.

Gamache thought about that, and remembered collecting the eggs that morning, in the soft light of dawn, with Frère Bernard. And the monk’s description of the planes overhead, and the pilgrims pounding on the door.

And the abbey laid to waste.

“If Frère Mathieu had won the battle he’d have made another recording, ended the vow of silence and changed the monastery forever,” said the Chief. He smiled at Beauvoir and got to his feet. “Well done. Though there’s one thing you’re forgetting.”

“I can’t see how that can possibly be true,” said Beauvoir, also getting up.

The two men left the dining hall and walked down the deserted corridor. Gamache opened the book he’d carried everywhere. The slim volume of Christian meditations. From it he drew the piece of yellowed paper found on the body, and handed it to his second in command.

“How do you explain this?”

“Maybe it’s meaningless.”

The Chief made a not very encouraging face. “The prior died curled around it. It sure meant something to him.”

Beauvoir opened the large door for the Chief and both men entered the Blessed Chapel. They stopped while Beauvoir studied the page.

He’d glanced at it when it was first found, but hadn’t spent the time with it the Chief had. Gamache waited, hoping maybe fresh, young, cynical eyes might see something he’d missed.

“We don’t know anything about it, do we,” said Beauvoir, concentrating on the script and the strange markings above the words. “We don’t know if it’s old, or who wrote it. And we sure don’t know what it means.”

“Or why the prior had it. Was he trying to protect it when he died, or was he trying to hide it? Was it precious to him, or was it blasphemy?”

“That’s interesting,” said Beauvoir, examining the page. “I think I’ve figured out what one of the words is. I think this,” he pointed to a Latin word written in script and Gamache leaned toward it, “means ‘ass.’”

Beauvoir handed the page back.

“Merci.” Gamache returned it for safekeeping, and snapped the book shut. “Very enlightening.”

“Frankly, patron, if you have a monastery full of monks and you come to me for enlightenment, you deserve what you get.”

Gamache laughed. “C’est vrai. Well, I’m off to find Dom Philippe and see if there’s a plan of the abbey.”

“And I want a word with the soloist, Frère Antoine.”

“The one who challenged the abbot?”

“That’s him,” said Beauvoir. “Must be one of the prior’s men. What is it?”

Gamache had grown very still. Listening. The monastery, always quiet, seemed to be holding its breath.

But with the first notes of the chant, it breathed.

“Not again,” sighed Beauvoir. “Didn’t we just have one? Honestly, they’re worse than crackheads.”

Up and down. Bow. Sit. Stand.

The postbreakfast service called Lauds went on and on. But now Beauvoir found himself less bored. Probably, he told himself, because he knew some members of the band. He was also paying more attention. Seeing it as more than just a waste of time between interrogations and collecting evidence.

The prayer service itself was evidence.

The Gregorian chants. All the suspects lined up, facing each other.

Was the rift obvious? Could he see it, now that he knew? Beauvoir found himself fascinated by the ritual. And the monks.

“This was the prior’s last service,” whispered Gamache, as they bowed then straightened. Beauvoir noticed the Chief’s right hand was steady, no tremor today. “He was killed almost immediately after Lauds, yesterday.”

“We still don’t know for sure where he went after Lauds,” whispered Beauvoir as they briefly sat. It was, he’d grown to realize, a tease. Within moments they were back on their feet.

“True. When this is over we need to watch which monks go where.”

The Chief kept his eyes on the rows of monks. The sun was rising and, as Lauds went on, more and more light descended from the windows high up in the central tower. It hit the imperfect old glass and refracted. Split. Into all the colors ever created. And those tumbled to the altar and lit the monks and their music. So that it seemed that the notes and the cheerful light mixed and merged. Playing together on the altar.

Most of Gamache’s experience with the Church had been fairly grim, so he’d sought, and found, his God elsewhere.

But this was different. There was delight here. And not by pure chance. Gamache took his eyes off the monks for a moment and looked to the ceiling. The beams and buttresses. And the windows. The original architect of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups had deliberately created an abbey that was a vessel for light and sound.

Perfect acoustics married playful light.

He lowered his gaze. The monks’ voices seemed even more beautiful than yesterday. Tinged with sorrow now, but there was also a levity to the notes, a lift. The chants were both solemn and joyous. Grounded and winged.

And Gamache thought again about the page with the old neumes that he’d slipped for safekeeping into the book of meditations. The neumes looked, at times, like wings in flight. Was that what the composer of the ancient chants had tried to get across? That this music wasn’t really of this earth?

Beauvoir had been right, of course. The music both touched Gamache and transported him. He was tempted to lose himself in the gentle, calming voices. So in tune with each other. To drop the worries he carried and drift away. To forget why he was there.

It was infectious, insidious.

Gamache smiled and realized to blame the music was ludicrous. If he drifted away, lost focus, it was his fault. Not the monks’. Not the music’s.

He doubled his efforts and scanned the rows. Like a game, but not a game.

Find the leader.

With the prior gone, who now led this world-famous choir? Because someone did. As he’d said to Beauvoir, choirs don’t direct themselves. One of the monks, with movements so subtle as to be lost on even a trained investigator, had taken charge.

When Lauds ended the Chief and Beauvoir stood in their pew, watching.

It was, thought Beauvoir, a bit like taking the break in a game of pool. Balls heading off in all different directions. That’s what this looked like. Monks going here, there and everywhere. Scattering, though not actually bouncing off the walls.

Beauvoir turned to say something sarcastic to Gamache, but changed his mind when he saw the Chief’s face. It was stern, thoughtful.

Jean-Guy followed the Chief’s gaze and saw Frère Luc walking slowly, perhaps reluctantly, toward the wooden door that would take him down the long, long corridor. To the locked door. The gate. And the tiny room marked “Porterie.”

He was all alone, and looked it.

Beauvoir turned back to the Chief and saw in his eyes a look that was both sharp, and concerned. And he wondered if the Chief was seeing Frère Luc, but thinking about other young men. Who’d gone through a door. And not returned.

Who’d followed Gamache’s orders. Followed Gamache. But while the Chief had come back, with a deep scar near his temple and a tremor in his hand, they hadn’t.

Was the Chief looking at Frère Luc, but thinking about them?

Gamache seemed worried.

“OK, patron?” whispered Beauvoir.

The acoustics in the Blessed Chapel picked up the words and magnified them. Chief Inspector Gamache didn’t answer. Instead he continued to stare. At the now-closed door. Where Frère Luc had gone, and disappeared.

Alone.

The other black-robed monks went through all the other doors.

Finally they were alone in the Blessed Chapel and Gamache turned back to Beauvoir.

“I know you want to speak with Frère Antoine—”

“The soloist,” said Beauvoir. “Yes.”

“That’s a good idea, but I wonder if you’d mind joining Frère Luc first?”

“Sure, but what’ll I ask him? You’ve already spoken to him. So have I, in the shower this morning.”

“Find out if Frère Antoine knew he was about to be replaced as soloist on the next album. Just keep Frère Luc company for a while. See if anyone else shows up at the porter’s door in the next half hour.”

Beauvoir looked at his watch. The service had started bang on seven thirty, and ended exactly forty-five minutes later.

“Oui, patron,” he said.

Gamache’s eyes hadn’t left that dim part of the church.

Beauvoir willingly followed Frère Luc, just as he willingly followed all of Gamache’s orders. He knew it was a waste of time, of course. The Chief might make it sound like more interrogation, but Beauvoir knew what it really was.

Babysitting.

He was happy to do it, if it gave the Chief some peace. Beauvoir would have burped and diapered the monk, had Gamache asked. And had it helped ease the Chief’s mind.

“Would you mind having a look, Simon?”

The abbot smiled at his taciturn secretary, then turned to his guest.

“Shall we?” The abbot raised an arm and pointed, like a good host, to the two comfortable armchairs by the fireplace. The chairs were covered in a faded chintz and seemed to be stuffed with feathers.

The abbot was about ten years older than Gamache. Mid-sixties, the Chief guessed. But he seemed sort of ageless. The shaved head and robes, Gamache supposed, did that. Though there was no disguising the lines in Dom Philippe’s face. And no attempt to disguise them.

“Brother Simon will find you a plan of the monastery. I’m sure we have one somewhere.”

“You don’t use one?”

“Good heavens, no. I know every stone, every crack.”

Like a commander of a ship, thought Gamache. Coming up through the ranks. Intimately aware of every corner of his vessel.

The abbot seemed comfortable in command. Apparently unaware a mutiny was under way.

Or probably supremely aware there had been one, and it had been thwarted. The challenge to his authority had died with the prior.

Dom Philippe smoothed his long, pale hands over the arms of his chair. “When I first joined Saint-Gilbert one of the monks was an upholsterer. Self-taught. He’d ask the abbot to get the ends of bolts and bring them back. This’s his work.”

The abbot’s hand stopped moving and rested on the arm, as though it was the arm of the monk himself.

“That was almost forty years ago now. He was elderly then, and died a few years after I arrived. Frère Roland was his name. A gentle, quiet man.”

“Do you remember all the monks?”

“I do, Chief Inspector. Do you remember all your brothers?”

“I’m an only child, I’m afraid.”

“I put it badly. I meant your other brothers, your brothers-in-arms.”

The Chief felt himself grow still. “I remember every name, every face.”

The abbot held his gaze. It wasn’t challenging, it wasn’t even searching. It felt, to Gamache, more like a hand to the elbow, helping him keep his balance.

“I thought you probably did.”

“Unfortunately none of my agents is quite this handy.” Gamache also smoothed the faded chintz.

“If you lived and worked here, believe me, they’d become handy even if they didn’t start that way.”

“You recruit everyone?”

The abbot nodded. “I have to go get them. Because of our history, we’ve taken not just a vow of silence but a vow of invisibility. A pledge to keep our monastery…”

He searched for a word. It was clearly not something Dom Philippe had had to explain very often. If ever.

“… secret?” offered Gamache.

The abbot smiled. “I was trying to avoid that word, but I suppose it’s accurate. The Gilbertines had a happy, uneventful life for many centuries, in England. And then with the Reformation all the monasteries were closed. That’s when we first started fading. We packed up everything we could carry and disappeared from sight. We found a fairly remote plot of land and rebuilt in France. Then, with the Inquisitions, we again came under scrutiny. The Holy Office interpreted our desire for seclusion as a desire for secrecy, and judged us badly.”

“And you don’t want to be judged badly by the Inquisition,” said Gamache.

“You don’t want to be judged at all by the Inquisition. Ask the Waldensians.”

“The who?”

“Exactly. They lived not far from us in France, a few valleys over. We saw the smoke, inhaled the smoke. Heard the screams.”

Dom Philippe paused, then looked down at his hands clasping each other in his lap. He spoke, Gamache realized, as though he’d been there himself. Breathing in his brother monks.

“So we packed up again,” said the abbot.

“Faded further.”

The abbot nodded. “As far as we could get. We came over to the New World with some of the first settlers. The Jesuits were the ones chosen to convert the natives and head out with the explorers.”

“While the Gilbertines did what?”

“While we paddled north.” The abbot paused then. “When I say we came across with the first settlers, I meant that we came across as settlers. Not as monks. We hid our robes. Hid our holy orders.”

“Why?”

“Because we were worried.”

“Does that explain the thick walls and hidden rooms and locked doors?” asked Gamache.

“So you’ve noticed those?” asked the abbot with a smile.

“I’m a trained observer, mon père,” and Gamache. “Hardly anything gets by my keen eye.”

The abbot gave a soft laugh. He, like the chants themselves, seemed lighter this morning. Less burdened. “We appear to be an order of worriers.”

“I notice that Saint Gilbert doesn’t seem to have a calling,” said Gamache. “Perhaps he can become the Patron Saint of Fretters.”

“It would certainly fit. I’ll alert the Holy Father,” said the abbot.

While recognizing the joke, the Chief Inspector suspected this abbot wanted little, if anything, to do with bishops, archbishops or popes.

The Gilbertines, more than anything, just wanted to be left alone.

Dom Philippe moved his hand back to the arm of his chair, his finger probing a hole worn in the fabric. It seemed new to him. A surprise.

“We’re used to solving our own problems,” he said, looking at the Chief. “From roof repairs, to broken heating, to cancer and broken bones. Every single monk who lives here will die here too. We leave everything up to God. From holes in the fabric to harvests to how and when we die.”

“Was what happened in your garden yesterday God’s work?”

The abbot shook his head. “That’s why I decided to call you in. We can handle God’s will, no matter how harsh it can sometimes appear. But this was something else. It was man’s will. And we needed help.”

“Not everyone in your community agrees.”

“You’re thinking of Brother Antoine last night at dinner?”

“I am, and he was clearly not alone.”

“No.” The abbot shook his head, but held Gamache’s eyes. “I’ve learned in more than two decades as abbot that not everyone will agree with my decisions. I can’t worry about that.”

“What do you worry about, mon père?”

“I worry about telling the difference.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Between God’s will and my will. And right now, I’m worried about who killed Mathieu, and why.” He paused, worrying the hole in the upholstery. Making it worse. “And how I could’ve missed it.”

Frère Simon arrived with a scroll and unrolled it on the low pine table in front of the men.

“Merci, Simon,” said the abbot, and leaned forward. Frère Simon made to leave but Gamache stopped him.

“I have another request, I’m afraid. It would be helpful to have a schedule of the services and meals and anything else we should be aware of.”

“An horarium,” said the abbot. “Simon, would you mind?”

It seemed Simon, while looking as though he minded breathing, in fact was willing to do anything the abbot asked of him. One of the abbot’s men, without a doubt, thought Gamache.

Simon withdrew and the two men leaned over the plan.

“So,” said Beauvoir, leaning against the doorjamb. “Do you spend all day here?”

“All day, every day.”

“And what do you do?”

Even to his ears it sounded like a lame pickup line in a dingy bar. “Come here often, sweet cheeks?” Next he’d be asking this young monk what his sign was.

Beauvoir was Cancer, which always annoyed him. He wanted to be Scorpio, or Leo. Or even that ram thing. Anything other than the crab that, according to the descriptions, was nurturing, nesting, and sensitive.

Fucking horoscopes.

“I read this.”

Frère Luc lifted the huge book an inch off his lap then dropped it again.

“What is it?”

Frère Luc gave him a suspicious look, as though trying to assess the motives of the man he met in the shower that morning. Beauvoir had to admit, he’d be suspicious of himself too.

“It’s the book of Gregorian chants. I study it. Learn my parts.”

It was the perfect “in.”

“You told me this morning that the prior had chosen you to be the new soloist in the next recording. You’d be replacing Frère Antoine. Did Frère Antoine know that?”

“Must have,” said Luc.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because if Frère Antoine thought he was the soloist, he’d be studying the chants. Not me.”

“All the chants are in that one book?” Looking at it, balanced on Frère Luc’s thin knees, Beauvoir had an idea. “Who else knows about that?” Beauvoir nodded toward the old volume.

If knowledge was power, thought Beauvoir, that book was all-powerful. It held the key to their vocation. And now, it was also the key to all their wealth and influence. Whoever possessed this book had everything. It was their Holy Grail.

“Everyone. It’s kept on a lectern in the Blessed Chapel. We look at it all the time. Take it to our cells, sometimes. No big deal.”

Merde, thought Beauvoir. So much for the Holy Grail.

“We also copy out the chants ourselves,” Frère Luc pointed to a workbook on the narrow table. “So we all have our own copies.”

“It’s not a secret, then?” asked Beauvoir, to be sure.

“This?” The young monk laid his hand on it. “Many monasteries have one. Most have two or three, and far more impressive ones than ours. I guess because this is such a poor order we only have one. So we have to be careful with it.”

“Not read it in the bath?” asked Beauvoir.

Luc smiled. It was the first one Beauvoir had seen from the grim young monk.

“When were you supposed to do the new recording?”

“It wasn’t decided yet.”

Beauvoir thought about that for a moment. “What wasn’t decided? The timing of the recording, or if there’d even be one?”

“It wasn’t absolutely decided if there’d be another recording, but I don’t think there was much doubt.”

“But you led the Chief to believe the recording was going ahead, a fait accompli. Now you’re saying it wasn’t?”

“It was just a matter of time,” said Luc. “If the prior wanted something, it happened.”

“And Frère Antoine?” asked Beauvoir. “How do you think he took the news?”

“He’d have accepted it. He’d have to.”

Not because Frère Antoine was humble, thought Beauvoir. Not as a reflection of his faith, but because it was useless to argue with the prior. Easier, probably, to just kill the man.

Was that the motive? Had Frère Antoine smashed the prior’s head in because he was about to be replaced as soloist? In an order dedicated to Gregorian chant, the soloist would hold a special place.

More equal, as Orwell had it, than others. And people killed for that all the time.