The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8)

The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8) Page 54

“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.