Louise Penny - The Beautiful Mystery

“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.