The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8)

So if it wasn’t to meet the abbot, then why had the prior been here? Who was he meeting?

His killer, obviously. Though equally obviously, the prior couldn’t have known that was on the agenda. So what had brought Frère Mathieu to this garden?

“Why did you want to see the prior yesterday?”

“Abbey business.”

“An argument could be made that everything is abbey business,” said Gamache. The two men continued their stroll around the garden. “But I’d rather you didn’t waste my time making that argument. I understand that you and Frère Mathieu met twice a week to discuss abbey issues. The meeting you wanted to set up yesterday was extraordinary.”

Gamache’s voice was reasonable, but firm. He was tired of this abbot, of all the monks, giving them facile answers. It was like copying someone else’s neumes. It might be easier, but it got them no closer to their goal. If their goal was the truth.

“What was so important, Dom Philippe, that it couldn’t wait until your next scheduled meeting?”

The abbot took another few steps in silence, except for the slight swish as his long black robe brushed the grass and dried leaves.

“Mathieu wanted to talk about making another recording.” The abbot was grim-faced.

“The prior wanted to talk about it?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You said Mathieu wanted to talk about it. Was the meeting his idea, or yours?”

“The topic was his idea. The timing was mine. We needed to resolve the issue before the community met again in Chapter.”

“So it wasn’t yet decided if there’d be another recording?”

“He’d decided, but I hadn’t. We’d discussed it in Chapter, but the outcome was—” The abbot searched for the right word. “Inconclusive.”

“There was no consensus?”

Dom Philippe took a few paces and slipped his hands into his sleeves. It made him look contemplative, though his face was anything but thoughtful. It was bleak. An autumn face, after all the leaves had fallen.

“I can ask others, you know,” said the Chief.

“I suspect you already have.” The abbot took a deep breath then exhaled with a puff in the early morning chill. “As with most things in the monastery, some were for it, some against.”

“You make it sound as though this was just one more issue to be resolved. But it was more than that, wasn’t it?” said Gamache. His words pressed but his tone was gentle. He didn’t want the abbot to put up his defenses. At least, not any higher than they already were. Here was a guarded man. But what was he guarding?

Gamache was determined to find out.

“The recording was changing the abbey,” the Chief pressed further, “wasn’t it?”

The abbot stopped then, and cast his eyes over the wall, to the forest beyond and a single, magnificent tree in full autumn color. It shone in the sunlight, made all the brighter for the dark evergreens surrounding it. A living stained-glass window. More magnificent, surely, than anything found in a great cathedral.

The abbot marveled at it. And he marveled at something else.

How he’d actually forgotten what Saint-Gilbert had been like just a few years ago. Before the recording. Everything now seemed measured by that. Before and after.

Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups had been poor, and getting poorer. Before the recording. The roof leaked and pots and pans were put out by hurrying monks every time it rained. The woodstoves barely gave off enough heat. They had to put extra blankets on their cots in winter and wear their robes to bed. Sometimes, on the bitterest of nights, they’d stay up. In the dining hall. Gathered around the woodstove. Feeding it logs. Drinking tea. Toasting bread.

Warmed by the stove, and by each other. Their bodies.

And sometimes, waiting for the sun to rise, they’d pray. Their voices a low rumble of plainchant. Not because some bell had tolled and told them they had to. Not because they were afraid, of the cold, or the night.

They’d prayed because it gave them pleasure. For the fun of it.

Mathieu was always beside him. And as they sang Dom Philippe would notice the slight movement of Mathieu’s hand. Privately conducting. As though the notes and words were part of him. Fused.

Dom Philippe had wanted to hold that hand. To be a part of it. To feel what Mathieu felt. But, of course, he never took Mathieu’s hand. And never would now.

That was before the recording.

Now, all that was gone. Killed. Not by a stone to Mathieu’s head. It had, in fact, been killed before that.