The Tenth Chamber

ONE

It began with a spark from a mouse-chewed electrical wire deep within a thick plaster wall.

The spark caught a chestnut beam and set it smouldering. When the old dry wood broke out in full combustion the north wall of the church kitchen started spewing smoke.

If this had happened during the day, the cook or one of the nuns, or even Abbot Menaud himself, stopping for a glass of hot lemon water, would have sounded the alarm or at least grabbed the fire extinguisher under the sink, but it happened at night.

The abbey library shared a common wall with the kitchen. With a single exception, the library did not house a particularly grand or valuable collection, but it was a part of the tangible history of the place, just as much as the tombs in the crypt or the markers in the cemetery.

Alongside five centuries of standard ecclesiastical texts and Bibles were chronicles of more secular and mundane aspects of abbey life: births, deaths, census records, medical and herbal books, trading accounts, even recipes for ale and certain cheeses. The one valuable text was a thirteenth-century edition of the Rule of St Benedict, the so-called Dijon version, one of the first translations from the Latin to Old French. For a rural Cistercian abbey in the heart of the Périgord, an early French copy of their patron saint’s tome was special indeed, and the book had pride of place in the centre of the bookcase that stood against the burning wall.

The library was a generously sized room with tall leaded windows and a grouted stone floor of squares and rectangles which was far from level. The central reading table required shims to prevent it from wobbling and monks and nuns who pulled up to the table had to avoid shifting their weight lest they bother their neighbours with clopping chair legs.

The bookcases which lined the walls and touched the ceiling were centuries old, walnut, chocolatey in colour and polished with time. Billows of smoke poured over the top of the cases on the afflicted wall. Had it not been for Brother Marcel’s enlarged prostate the outcome that night might have been different. In the brothers’ dormitory, across the courtyard from the library, the elderly monk awoke for one of his usual nocturnal visits to the water closet and smelled smoke. He arthritically shuffled up and down the halls shouting ‘Fire!’ and before all that long, the SPV, the volunteer fire brigade, was rumbling up the gravel drive to the Trappist Abbey of Ruac in their venerable Renault pumper.

The brigade served a coterie of Périgord Noir communes along the River Vézère. The chief of the brigade, Bonnet, was from Ruac and he knew the abbey well enough. He was the proprietor of a café by day, older than the others on his crew, with the imperious air and ample gut of a small-business owner and a high-ranking officer of the SPV. At the entrance to the library wing he blew past Abbot Menaud who looked like a frightened penguin in his hastily donned white robe and black scapular, flapping his short arms and muttering in guttural spasms of alarm: ‘Hurry! Hurry! The library!’

The chief surveyed the smoke-filled room and ordered his crew to set the hoses and drag them inside.

‘You’re not going to use your hoses!’ the abbot pleaded. ‘The books!’

‘And how do you suggest we fight this fire, Father?’ the chief replied. ‘With prayer?’ Bonnet then shouted to his lieutenant, a garage mechanic with wine on his breath, ‘The fire’s in that wall. Pull that bookcase down!’

‘Please!’ the abbot implored. ‘Be gentle with my books.’ Then, in a flash of horror, the abbot realised the precious St Benedict text was in the direct path of the encroaching flames. He rushed past Bonnet and the others and snatched it off the shelf, cradling it in his arms like an infant.

The fire captain roared after him melodramatically: ‘I can’t do my job with him interfering. Someone, take him out. I’m in charge here!’

A group of monks who were gathered around took hold of their abbot’s arms and silently but insistently pulled him away into the smoke-tinged night air. Bonnet personally wielded an axe, drove the spiked end into an eye-level bookshelf, right where the Dijon version of the Rule had been a few moments earlier, and yanked back as hard as he could. The axe ripped through the spine of another book on its way to the wood and sent scraps of paper fluttering. The enormous bookcase tilted forward a few inches and spilled a small number of manuscripts. He repeated the maneouvre a few times and his men imitated him at other points along the wall.

Bonnet had always struggled with reading and harboured something of a hatred for books so for him, there was more than a little sadistic pleasure in this venture. With four men simultaneously hooked on, they wrenched their axes in unison and the large bookcase leaned, and in a torrent of falling books that resembled a rock slide on one of the local mountain roads, reached its tipping point.

The men scrambled to safety as the case crashed down onto the stone floor. Bonnet led his men onto the back of the fallen case which rested atop piles of volumes. Their heavy boots crashed onto, and in Bonnet’s case, through the walnut planking as they made their way to the burning wall.

‘Okay,’ Bonnet shouted, wheezing through his exertions, ‘Open up this wall and get some water on it fast!’

When the dawn came, the firefighters were still hosing down the few remaining hot-spots. The abbot was finally let back inside. He shuffled in like an old man; he was only in his sixties but the night had aged him and he appeared stooped and frail.

Tears came when he saw the destruction. The shattered cases, the masses of soggy print, the soot everywhere. The burned wall was largely knocked down and he could see straight through into the kitchen. Why, he wondered, couldn’t they have fought the fire through the kitchen? Why was it necessary to destroy his books? But the abbey was saved and no lives were lost and for this, he had to be grateful. They would move forward. They always did.

Bonnet approached him through the rubble and offered an olive branch. ‘I’m sorry I was harsh with you, Dom Menaud. I was just doing my job.’

‘I know, I know,’ the abbot said numbly. ‘It’s just that… oh well, so much damage.’

‘Fires aren’t dainty affairs, I’m afraid. We’ll be away soon. I know a company that can help with the cleanup. The brother of one of my men in Montignac.’

‘We’ll use our own labour,’ the abbot replied. His eyes were wandering over the book-strewn floor. He stooped to pick up a soaking wet Bible, its sixteenth-century boards and leathers already possessing the ever-so-faint sweet smell of rekindled fungi. He used the folds of his habit sleeve to blot it but realised the futility of the act and simply placed it on the reading table, which had been pushed against an intact bookcase.

He shook his head and was about to leave for morning prayers when something else caught his attention.

In one corner, some distance from the piles of pulled-down books, was a distinctive binding he failed to recognise. The abbot was a scholar with an advanced degree in religious studies from the University of Paris. Over three decades, these books had become his intimates, his comrades. It was akin to having several thousand children and knowing all their names and birthdays.

But this book. He’d never seen it before; he was certain of that.

One of the firefighters, an affable, lanky fellow, watched closely as the abbot approached the book and stooped to inspect the binding.

‘That’s a funny-looking one, isn’t it, Father?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘I found it, you know,’ the fireman said proudly.

‘Found it? Where?’

The fireman pointed to a part of the wall that was no longer there. ‘Just there. It was inside the wall. My axe just missed it. I was working fast so I threw it into the corner. Hope I didn’t damage it too badly.’

‘Inside the wall, you say.’

The abbot picked it up and straight away realised its weight was disproportionate to its size. Though elaborate, it was a small book, not much larger than a modern paperback and thinner than most. Its heft was a result of waterlogging. It was as soaked and saturated as a sponge. Water leaked onto his hand and through his fingers.

The cover was an extraordinary piece of leather, distinctively reddish in hue with, at its centre, a beautifully tooled depiction of a full-standing saint in flowing robes, his head encircled by a halo. The binding was embellished with a fine raised split-cord spine, tarnished silver corners and endbands, and five silver bosses, each the size of a pea, one on each corner and one in the middle of the saint’s body. The back cover, though untooled, had five identical bosses. The book was firmly held closed by a pair of silver clasps, tight around wet leaves of parchment.

The abbot sorted through first impressions: thirteenth or fourteenth century, potentially illustrated, highest quality.

And hidden. Why?

‘What’s that?’ Bonnet was at his side, thrusting his stubbled chin forward like the prow of a ship. ‘Let me see.’

The abbot was startled by the intrusion into his thoughts and automatically handed over the book. Bonnet dug the thick nail of his forefinger into one of the clasps and it easily popped open. The second clasp was more stubborn but only slightly. He tugged at the front cover and just as he seemed to be at the point of discovery, the board stuck firm. The waterlogging made the covers and pages as adherent as if they’d been glued together. In frustration he exerted more force but the cover stayed put.

‘No! Stop!’ the abbot cried. ‘You’ll rip it. Give it back to me.’

The chief snorted and handed the book over. ‘You think it’s a Bible?’ he asked.

‘No, I think not.’

‘What then?’

‘I don’t know, but there are more urgent things this morning. This is for another day.’

However, he was not cavalier about the book. He tucked it under his arm, took it back to his office and laid a white hand cloth on his desk. He placed the book onto the cloth and gently touched the image of the saint before hurrying off to the church to officiate at the Prime service.

Three days later, a hired car pulled through the abbey gates and parked in a visitor space just as its dashboard GPS unit was informing the driver he had arrived at his destination. ‘Thank you, I know,’ the driver sniffed at the female voice.

Hugo Pineau got out and blinked from behind his designer sunglasses into the noon sun which hovered over the church tower like the dot on an i. He took his briefcase from the back seat and winced with each step on gravel, irritated because his new leather soles were getting a premature scuffing.

He dreaded these obligatory visits to the countryside. Ordinarily he might have been able to pawn off the job to Isaak, his business development manager, but the wretch was already on his August vacation. The referral to H. Pineau Restorations had come directly from the Archbishop of Bordeaux, an important client, so there was no question of snapping to and providing first-class service.

The abbey was large and fairly impressive. Set in a verdant enclave of woodlands and pastures, well away from the D-road, it had clean architectural lines. Though the church tower dated to the tenth century or earlier, the abbey, as it existed today was primarily built in the twelfth century by a strict Cistercian order and up to the seventeenth century periodically it had been expanded in stages. Of course, there were twentieth-century accoutrements in the realm of wiring and plumbing but the complex was remarkably little changed over hundreds of years. The Abbey of Ruac was a fine example of Romanesque architecture fashioned of white and yellow limestone quarried from the nearby outcroppings prevalent above the Vézère plain.

The cathedral was well proportioned, constructed in a typical cruciform plan. It was connected, via a series of passageways and courtyards, to all the other abbey buildings – the dormitories, the chapter house, the abbot’s house, the manicured cloister, the ancient caldarium, the old brewery, dovecote and forge. And the library.

Hugo was escorted by one of the monks directly to the library, but he could have found it blindfolded; he’d sniffed enough days-old fires in his career. His mild attempt at small talk about the fineness of the summer day and the tragedy of the blaze was politely deflected by the young monk who delivered him to Dom Menaud and bowed goodbye. The abbot was waiting amidst the piles of sodden, smoky books.

Hugo clucked knowingly at the sight of devastation and presented his card. Hugo was a small, compact man in his forties with no excess body fat. His nose was broad but otherwise his features were chiselled and quite handsome. He looked elegant, perfectly coiffed and urbane in a closely fitted and buttoned brown sports jacket, tan slacks and an open-necked white shirt made of the finest Egyptian cotton which shimmered against his skin. He had the musky scent of good cologne. The abbot, on the other hand, wore traditional loose robe and sandals and gave off the odours of a sausage lunch and sweaty skin. It seemed like a time warp had brought the two men together.

‘Thank you for coming all the way from Paris,’ Dom Menaud offered.

‘Not at all. This is what I do. And when the archbishop calls, I run.’

‘He is a good friend to our order,’ the abbot replied. ‘We are grateful for his help and yours. Very little was burned,’ he added, gesturing around the room. ‘It’s all water damage, and smoke.’

‘Well, there isn’t much we can ever do about flames but water and smoke: these can be rectified – if one has the correct knowledge and tools.’

‘And money.’

Hugo laughed nervously. ‘Well, yes, money is an important factor too. If I may say, Dom Menaud, I am pleased I can converse with you so normally. I haven’t worked with Trappists before. I thought there might be, well, a vow of silence that was followed here. I imagined having to pass notes back and forth.’

‘A misconception, Monsieur Pineau. We endeavour to maintain a certain discipline, to speak when needed, to avoid frivolous and unnecessary discussion. We find that idle chat tends to distract us from our spiritual focus and monastic pursuits.’

‘This concept suits me fine, Dom Menaud. I’m eager to get to work. Let me explain how we do business at H. Pineau Restorations. Then we can survey the task and set ourselves an action plan. Yes?’

They sat at the reading table while Hugo launched into a tutorial on the salvage of water-damaged library materials. The older the book, he explained, the greater its water absorbency. Material of the antiquity of the abbey’s might absorb up to two hundred per cent of its weight in water. If a decision was taken to address, say five thousand water-laden volumes, then some eight tonnes of water must be removed!

The best method for restoring soaked books was to freeze them followed by a process of vacuum freeze drying under carefully controlled conditions. The outcome for parchment and paper might be excellent but, depending on the specific materials and the amount of swelling, bindings may have to be redone. Fungicidal treatments were essential to combat the spread of mould growth but his firm had perfected successful approaches to killing the microbes by introducing ethylene oxide gas into the drying cycles of their industrial-sized freeze-drying tanks.

Hugo answered the abbot’s well-reasoned questions then broached the delicate subject of cost. He prefaced the discussion with his standard speech that it was invariably more cost-effective to replace volumes that were still in print and apply restoration techniques only to older irreplaceable ones. Then he gave a rough estimate of the typical price tag per thousand books and studied the abbot’s face for a reaction. Usually at this stage of his sales pitch, the curator or librarian would start swearing but the abbot was impassive and certainly did not spew oaths.

‘We’ll have to prioritise, of course. We can’t do everything but we must salvage the sacred history of the abbey. We will find a way to pay. We have a roofing fund we can tap. We have some small paintings we can sell. There’s one book, an early French translation of St Benedict we’d be loathe to part with but…’ He sighed pathetically. ‘And you can help too, Monsieur, by offering us a price that reflects our ecclesiastical status.’

Hugo grinned. ‘Of course, Dom Menaud, of course. Let’s have a look around, shall we?’

They spent the afternoon poking through the piles of wet books, making a rough inventory, and setting up a ranking system based on the abbot’s assessment of historical value. Finally, the young monk brought them a tray of tea and biscuits and the abbot took the opportunity to point out one small book wrapped in a hand cloth. It was set apart from the others at the far end of the reading table.

‘I’d like your opinion about this one, Monsieur Pineau.’

Hugo thirstily slurped at his tea before putting on another pair of latex gloves. He unwrapped the towel and inspected the elegant red-leather bindings. ‘Well, this is something special! What is it?’

‘In truth, I don’t know. I didn’t even know we had it. One of the firemen found it inside that wall. The cover was stuck. I didn’t force it.’

‘A good decision. It’s a cardinal rule unless you really know what you’re doing. It’s very saturated, isn’t it? Look at the green smudge on the edges of the pages here and here. And here’s a spot of red. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are coloured illustrations. Vegetable-based pigments can run.’

He applied light pressure to the front cover and remarked, ‘These pages aren’t going to come apart without a good freeze-drying but I might be able to lift up the cover to see the flyleaf. Are you game?’

‘If you can do it safely.’

Hugo retrieved a leather clutch from his briefcase and unbuttoned it. It contained an assortment of precision tools with points, wedges and hooks, not unlike a small dissection or dental kit. He chose a tiny spatula with an ultra-fine blade and started working it under the front cover, advancing it millimetre by millimetre with the steady hand of a safe cracker or a bomb defuser.

He spent a good five minutes freeing the entire perimeter of the cover, inserting that spatula a centimetre or so all around, and then with gentle traction, the cover peeled away from the frontispiece and hinged open.

The abbot leaned over Hugo’s shoulder and gasped audibly as together they read the boldly written inscription on the flyleaf, rendered in a flowing and confident Latin script:

Ruac, 1307

I, Barthomieu, friar of Abbey Ruac, am two hundred and twenty years old and this is my story.