*
Gamache watched the plane until it disappeared from sight, then he turned to the abbot, who’d just joined him.
“I know how horrendous this has been for you.”
“For all of us,” the abbot agreed. “I hope we learn from it.”
Gamache paused. “And what’s the lesson?”
The abbot thought about that for a few moments. “Do you know why we’re called Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups? Why our emblem is two wolves intertwined?”
Gamache shook his head. “I assumed it dated back to when the first monks arrived. That it was symbolic of taming the wilderness, or making friends with it. Something like that.”
“You’re right, it is from when Dom Clément and the others came here,” said the abbot. “It’s a story one of the Montagnais told them.”
“A native story?” asked Gamache, surprised the old Gilbertines were inspired by anything they’d have considered pagan.
“Dom Clément relates it in his diaries. One of the elders told him that when he was a boy his grandfather came to him one day and said he had two wolves fighting inside him. One was gray, the other black. The gray one wanted his grandfather to be courageous, and patient, and kind. The other, the black one, wanted his grandfather to be fearful and cruel. This upset the boy and he thought about it for a few days then returned to his grandfather. He asked, ‘Grandfather, which of the wolves will win?’”
The abbot smiled slightly and examined the Chief Inspector. “Do you know what his grandfather said?”
Gamache shook his head. There was a look of such sadness on the Chief Inspector’s face, it almost broke the abbot’s heart.
“The one I feed,” said Dom Philippe.
Gamache looked back at the monastery that would now stand for many generations to come. Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. He’d mistranslated it. Not Saint Gilbert among the wolves, but between them. In that place of perpetual choice.
The abbot noted the gun in Gamache’s belt and the grim expression on his face. “Would you like me to hear your confession?”
The Chief Inspector looked into the sky and felt the north wind on his upturned face. Some malady is coming upon us.
Armand Gamache thought he could just hear the sound of a plane, way far off. And then that too disappeared. And he was left with a great silence.
“Not just yet, I think, mon père.”
ALSO BY LOUISE PENNY
A Trick of the Light
Bury Your Dead
The Brutal Telling
A Rule Against Murder
The Cruelest Month
A Fatal Grace
Still Life
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LOUISE PENNY is the New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author of seven previous novels featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Her debut, Still Life, won the John Creasey Dagger and the Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys Awards, and was named one of the five Mystery/Crime Novels of the Decade by Deadly Pleasures magazine. Penny was the first author to win the Agatha Award for Best Novel four times—for A Fatal Grace, The Cruelest Month, The Brutal Telling (which also received the Anthony Award for Best Novel), and Bury Your Dead (which also won the Dilys, Arthur Ellis, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero Awards). Her most recent novel, A Trick of the Light, received an Independent Literary Award and was named one of the Best Crime Novels of 2011 by The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and Publishers Weekly. Louise lives with her husband, Michael, in a small village south of Montréal.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY. Copyright ? 2012 by Three Pines Creations, Inc. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein Cover photograph by Bryan Carnathan e-ISBN 9781250015273
First Edition: September 2012