*
“Would you mind having a look, Simon?”
The abbot smiled at his taciturn secretary, then turned to his guest.
“Shall we?” The abbot raised an arm and pointed, like a good host, to the two comfortable armchairs by the fireplace. The chairs were covered in a faded chintz and seemed to be stuffed with feathers.
The abbot was about ten years older than Gamache. Mid-sixties, the Chief guessed. But he seemed sort of ageless. The shaved head and robes, Gamache supposed, did that. Though there was no disguising the lines in Dom Philippe’s face. And no attempt to disguise them.
“Brother Simon will find you a plan of the monastery. I’m sure we have one somewhere.”
“You don’t use one?”
“Good heavens, no. I know every stone, every crack.”
Like a commander of a ship, thought Gamache. Coming up through the ranks. Intimately aware of every corner of his vessel.
The abbot seemed comfortable in command. Apparently unaware a mutiny was under way.
Or probably supremely aware there had been one, and it had been thwarted. The challenge to his authority had died with the prior.
Dom Philippe smoothed his long, pale hands over the arms of his chair. “When I first joined Saint-Gilbert one of the monks was an upholsterer. Self-taught. He’d ask the abbot to get the ends of bolts and bring them back. This’s his work.”
The abbot’s hand stopped moving and rested on the arm, as though it was the arm of the monk himself.
“That was almost forty years ago now. He was elderly then, and died a few years after I arrived. Frère Roland was his name. A gentle, quiet man.”
“Do you remember all the monks?”
“I do, Chief Inspector. Do you remember all your brothers?”
“I’m an only child, I’m afraid.”
“I put it badly. I meant your other brothers, your brothers-in-arms.”
The Chief felt himself grow still. “I remember every name, every face.”
The abbot held his gaze. It wasn’t challenging, it wasn’t even searching. It felt, to Gamache, more like a hand to the elbow, helping him keep his balance.
“I thought you probably did.”
“Unfortunately none of my agents is quite this handy.” Gamache also smoothed the faded chintz.
“If you lived and worked here, believe me, they’d become handy even if they didn’t start that way.”
“You recruit everyone?”
The abbot nodded. “I have to go get them. Because of our history, we’ve taken not just a vow of silence but a vow of invisibility. A pledge to keep our monastery…”
He searched for a word. It was clearly not something Dom Philippe had had to explain very often. If ever.
“… secret?” offered Gamache.
The abbot smiled. “I was trying to avoid that word, but I suppose it’s accurate. The Gilbertines had a happy, uneventful life for many centuries, in England. And then with the Reformation all the monasteries were closed. That’s when we first started fading. We packed up everything we could carry and disappeared from sight. We found a fairly remote plot of land and rebuilt in France. Then, with the Inquisitions, we again came under scrutiny. The Holy Office interpreted our desire for seclusion as a desire for secrecy, and judged us badly.”
“And you don’t want to be judged badly by the Inquisition,” said Gamache.
“You don’t want to be judged at all by the Inquisition. Ask the Waldensians.”
“The who?”
“Exactly. They lived not far from us in France, a few valleys over. We saw the smoke, inhaled the smoke. Heard the screams.”
Dom Philippe paused, then looked down at his hands clasping each other in his lap. He spoke, Gamache realized, as though he’d been there himself. Breathing in his brother monks.
“So we packed up again,” said the abbot.
“Faded further.”
The abbot nodded. “As far as we could get. We came over to the New World with some of the first settlers. The Jesuits were the ones chosen to convert the natives and head out with the explorers.”
“While the Gilbertines did what?”
“While we paddled north.” The abbot paused then. “When I say we came across with the first settlers, I meant that we came across as settlers. Not as monks. We hid our robes. Hid our holy orders.”
“Why?”
“Because we were worried.”
“Does that explain the thick walls and hidden rooms and locked doors?” asked Gamache.
“So you’ve noticed those?” asked the abbot with a smile.
“I’m a trained observer, mon père,” and Gamache. “Hardly anything gets by my keen eye.”
The abbot gave a soft laugh. He, like the chants themselves, seemed lighter this morning. Less burdened. “We appear to be an order of worriers.”
“I notice that Saint Gilbert doesn’t seem to have a calling,” said Gamache. “Perhaps he can become the Patron Saint of Fretters.”
“It would certainly fit. I’ll alert the Holy Father,” said the abbot.
While recognizing the joke, the Chief Inspector suspected this abbot wanted little, if anything, to do with bishops, archbishops or popes.