The Beautiful Mystery (44 page)

Then the Dominican stopped humming, opened his eyes, and turned to Gamache.

“I’d like to know, Chief Inspector, where you heard that tune.”

TWENTY-NINE

“I need to speak to you,
Père Abbot,
” said Frère Antoine.

From inside his office, Dom Philippe heard the request. Or demand. Normally he’d have heard the old iron knocker against wood. But these were far from normal times. The rod had been declared the weapon that had killed Frère Mathieu, and taken away.

And word had spread that the prior had been alive when Simon had found him. Had received last rites, while alive. It gave Dom Philippe immense peace of mind to know that. Though he wondered why Simon hadn’t mentioned it before.

And then he found out.

Mathieu had not only been alive, but he’d spoken. Said one word. To Simon.

Homo.

Dom Philippe was as baffled as anyone by that. With one word left to say in this world, why would Mathieu say “homo”?

He knew what the congregation suspected. That Mathieu was referring to his sexuality. Asking for some sort of forgiveness. Some extreme unction. But the abbot didn’t believe that was true.

Not that Mathieu wasn’t a homosexual. He might well have been. But Dom Philippe had been his confessor for many years, and Mathieu had never mentioned it. It might, of course, have been latent. Deeply buried, and only came roaring to the surface with the blow to his head.

Homo.

Mathieu had cleared his throat, struggled to get the word out, Simon had said, and finally rasped, “Homo.”

The abbot tried it. Clearing his throat. Saying the word.

He repeated it. Over and over.

Until he thought he had it. What Mathieu had done. What Mathieu had said. What Mathieu had meant.

But then Frère Antoine had entered and bowed slightly to the abbot.

“Yes, my son, what is it?” Dom Philippe rose to his feet.

“It’s about Frère Sébastien, the visitor. He says he was sent from Rome, when they heard about the death of the prior.”

“Yes?” The abbot indicated a seat next to him and Frère Antoine took it.

The choirmaster looked worried and had dropped his voice. “I don’t see how that can be.”

“Why do you say that?” Though the abbot had himself already worked it out.

“Well, when did you inform the Vatican?”

“I didn’t. I called Monsignor Ducette at the archdiocese in Montréal. He informed the archbishop of Québec, and presumably the archbishop told Rome.”

“But, when did you call?”

“Right after we called the police.”

Frère Antoine thought about that for a moment. “That would make it about nine thirty yesterday morning.”

It was, thought the abbot, the first civil exchange he’d had with Frère Antoine in months. And the abbot realized how much he missed this monk in his life. His creativity of thought, his passion, the debates over scripture and literature. Not to mention hockey.

But now it seemed restored, their common ground the death of Mathieu. And the arrival of the Dominican.

“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Dom Philippe admitted, and looked into the small fire in his small rooms. With the new geothermal they had central heating. But the abbot was a man of traditions, and preferred an open window and the warmth of the hearth.

“It was six hours later in Rome,” said the abbot. “Even if they reacted immediately it seems unlikely Frère Sébastien could make it here this quickly.”

“Exactly,
mon père
,” said Antoine. It had been a long time since he’d called Dom Philippe that, having used the more stilted, more formal, colder “
Père Abbé
” for the past few months. “And we both know the archdiocese moves like continental drift, and Rome as fast as evolution.”

The abbot smiled then grew serious again.

“So, why is he here?” Frère Antoine asked.

“If not because of Frère Mathieu’s death?” Dom Philippe held Antoine’s anxious eyes. “I don’t know.”

But for the first time in a long time the abbot felt his heart calm. Felt the crack that had caused him so much pain, closing.

“I’d like your thoughts on something, Antoine.”

“Certainly.”

“Frère Simon says that Mathieu said one word before he died. I’m sure you’ve heard that by now.”

“I have.”

“He said ‘homo.’” The abbot watched for the choirmaster’s reaction, but there was none. The monks were trained, and accustomed, to keeping their feelings and their thoughts to themselves. “Do you know what he might have meant?”

Antoine didn’t speak for a few moments, and broke eye contact. In a place with few words, the eyes became key. To break contact was significant. But his eyes found their way back to the abbot.

“The brothers are wondering if he was talking about his sexuality…”

There was clearly more Frère Antoine wanted to say, and so the abbot folded his hands in his lap and waited.

“And they’re wondering if he was referring specifically to his relationship with you.”

The abbot’s eyes widened just a little, to have heard it expressed so boldly. After a moment, he nodded. “I can see how they might think that. Mathieu and I were very close for many years. I loved him very much. I always will. And you, Antoine? What do you think?”

“I loved him too. Like a brother. I’ve personally never seen any reason to believe he felt any differently, about you or anyone.”

“I think I know what Mathieu might have said. Simon mentioned that he cleared his throat before speaking, then said ‘homo.’ I tried it a few times…”

Frère Antoine looked both surprised and impressed.

“… and this is, finally, what I came to. What Mathieu might have been trying to say.”

The abbot cleared his throat, or appeared to, then said, “Homo.”

Antoine stared, shocked. Then he nodded. “
Bon Dieu
, I think you’re right.”

He himself tried it, clearing his throat and saying, “Homo.”

“But why would Frère Mathieu say that?” he asked the abbot.

“I don’t know.”

Dom Philippe held out his right hand, palm up. And Frère Antoine, after the slightest of hesitations, took it. The abbot laid his left hand on top of that and held the young hand as though it might be a bird.

“But I do know it will be all right, Antoine. All manner of thing shall be well.”

“
Oui, mon père
.”

*   *   *

Gamache held the Dominican’s eyes.

Frère Sébastien looked curious. In fact, he looked deeply curious. But not anxious, thought Gamache. He seemed like a man who knew the answer would come, and he could wait.

The Chief liked this monk. In fact, he liked most of them. Or, at least, he didn’t dislike them. But this young Dominican had a quality that was disarming. Gamache knew it was a powerful and dangerous quality and it would be folly in the extreme to allow himself to be disarmed.

The Dominican exuded calm and invited confidences.

And then the Chief Inspector realized why he was at once attracted and guarded. Those were, he knew, the qualities he used in an investigation. While the Chief was busy investigating the monks, this monk was investigating him. And he knew the only defense against it was, perversely, complete honesty.

“The tune I hummed at dinner comes from this.”

Gamache opened the volume of mystical writing he’d carried with him since the murder, and handed the yellowed vellum to Frère Sébastien.

The monk took it. His young eyes needed no help reading it, even in the weak light. Gamache looked away for an instant, to catch Beauvoir’s eyes.

Jean-Guy was also watching the monk, but his eyes seemed almost glazed. Though that might have been the light. All their eyes looked odd in this secret little room. The Chief turned back to Frère Sébastien. The Dominican’s lips were moving, without sound.

“Where did you find this?” the monk finally asked, looking up briefly from the page before his eyes dropped, yanked back to the paper.

“It was on Frère Mathieu when we found him. He was curled around it.”

The monk crossed himself. It was rote, and yet he managed to invest it with meaning. Then Frère Sébastien took a huge, deep breath. And nodded.

“Do you know what this is, Chief Inspector?”

“I know those are neumes,” he moved his index finger over the ancient musical notes. “And the words are Latin, though they seem to be nonsense.”

“They are nonsense.”

“Some of the Gilbertines seem to think the words are deliberately insulting,” said Gamache. “And the neumes a travesty of a chant. As though someone took the form of Gregorian chant and deliberately made it grotesque.”

“The words are silly, but not an insult. If this,” Frère Sébastien held up the page, “belittled the faith then I’d agree, but it doesn’t. In fact, I find it interesting that the words never once mention God or the Church or devotion. It’s as though whoever wrote this deliberately stayed away from that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but I do know it isn’t heresy. Murder might be your specialty, Chief Inspector, but heresy is mine. It’s what the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith does, among other things. We track down heresy and heretics.”

“And did the track lead you here?”

The Dominican considered the question, or more likely, he considered his answer.

“It’s a long trail, covering tens of thousands of miles and hundreds of years. Dom Clément was right to leave. In the archives of the Inquisition there’s a proclamation signed by the Grand Inquisitor himself, ordering an investigation into the Gilbertines.”

“But why?” asked Beauvoir, focusing his attention. It seemed akin to investigating bunnies, or kittens.

“Because of who they sprang from. Gilbert of Sempringham.”

“They were going to be investigated for extreme dullness?” asked Beauvoir.

Frère Sébastien laughed, but not long. “No. For extreme loyalty. It was one of the paradoxes of the Inquisition, that things like extreme devotion and loyalty became suspicious.”

“Why?” asked Beauvoir.

“Because they can’t be controlled. Men who believed strongly in God and were loyal to their abbots and their orders wouldn’t bend to the will of the Inquisition or the inquisitors. They were too strong.”

“So Gilbert’s defense of his archbishop was seen as suspicious?” asked Gamache, trying to follow the labyrinthine logic. “But that was six hundred years before the Inquisition. And he was defending the Church against a secular authority. I’d have thought the Church would consider him a hero, not a suspect. Even centuries later.”

“Six hundred years is nothing to an organization built on events millennia old,” said Sébastien. “And anyone who stands up becomes a target. You should know that, Chief Inspector.”

Gamache gave him a sharp look, but the monk’s face was placid. There seemed no hidden meaning. Or warning.

“If the Gilbertines hadn’t left,” said the Dominican, “they’d have gone the way of the Cathars.”

“And what was that?” asked Beauvoir. But one look at the Chief’s face told him it probably wasn’t to Club Med.

“They were burned alive,” said Frère Sébastien.

“All of them?” asked Beauvoir, his face gray in the dim light.

The monk nodded. “Every man, woman and child.”

“Why?”

“The Church considered them free thinkers, too independent. And gaining in influence. The Cathars became known as the ‘good men.’ And good men are very threatening to not good men.”

“So the Church killed them?”

“After first trying to bring them back into the fold,” said Frère Sébastien.

“Wasn’t Saint Dominic, your founder, the one who insisted the Cathars weren’t real Catholics?” asked Gamache.

Sébastien nodded. “But the order to wipe them out didn’t come until centuries later.” The monk hesitated and when he spoke again his voice was low, but clear. “Many were mutilated first, and sent back to frighten the others, but it only hardened the Cathar resolve. The leaders gave themselves up, in an effort to appease the Church, but it didn’t work. Everyone was killed, even people who just happened to be in the area. Innocents. When one of the soldiers asked how he was supposed to tell them from the Cathars, he was told to kill them all, and let God sort them out.”

Frère Sébastien looked as though he could see it. As though he’d been there. And Gamache wondered which side of the monastery walls this monk from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would have been on.

“The Inquisition would’ve done that to the Gilbertines?” Beauvoir asked. He no longer looked dazed. The monk had hauled him back from whatever reverie he’d found.

“It’s not a certainty,” said Sébastien, though that seemed more wishful than real. “But Dom Clément was wise to leave. And wise to hide.”

Sébastien took another deep breath.

“This isn’t heresy,” he looked down at the paper in his hands. “It speaks of bananas and the refrain is
Non sum pisces
.”

Gamache and Beauvoir looked blank.

“I am not a fish,” said the Dominican.

Gamache smiled and Beauvoir looked simply confused.

“So if it isn’t heresy,” said the Chief, “what is it?”

“It’s a singularly beautiful tune. A chant, I think, though not Gregorian and not a plainchant. It uses all the rules, but then adjusts them slightly, as though the old chant was the foundation, and this,” he tapped the page, “a whole new structure.”

He looked up, first at Beauvoir then over to Gamache. His eyes were excited. The smile on his face back to its radiance.

“I think far from being a mockery of Gregorian chant, it’s actually a homage, a tribute. A celebration, even. The composer used the neumes, but in a way I’ve never seen before. There’re so many of them.”

“Frère Simon made copies so that he and the other monks could transcribe the neumes into notes,” Gamache explained. “He seemed to think the neumes were for different voices. Layers of voices. Harmonizing.”

“Hmmm,” said Frère Sébastien, again lost in the music. His finger rested, awkwardly it seemed to Gamache, on one place on the page. When the monk finally moved it, Gamache saw that the finger had covered a small dot at the very beginning of the music. Before the first neume.