Page 101 of The Grey Wolf
“The Pope?”
“Not even him,” said Gamache, with a smile.
“Dom Philippe?”
He thought for a moment and nodded. “Only if he’s alone.”
“Sébastien?”
Gamache shook his head. “No. Keep the doors closed and locked. Even if the Sûreté comes calling.”
That made the monk raise his brows in what other monks would recognize as a scream.
“Are we in danger?”
“I’m not sure. Best to be careful.”Just in case, he thought but did not say. “What is it?”
“If someone is in distress, I have to let them in.” He smiled. “Welet you in. Casual visitors will stay outside the walls. But someone in need, we will help. We were denied sanctuary once. We would never do the same to others.”
He made it sound as though it were yesterday and not centuries ago, to monks long dust. And ash. Jean-Guy was right. There was a long memory here.
“Just so you’re warned.”
“Merci.We’ll do as you ask.” Roland looked at Frère Simon, climbing awkwardly into the seaplane. “He’s not a bad man, you know. But it’s possible his place is in the world and not here. God willing, he’ll discover where he belongs. It’s what we all want.”
As the monks watched, their hands up the drooping sleeves of their robes, the officers squeezed, albeit with a certain reluctance, into the small plane. Even the pilot seemed nervous, which did not help.
In the back seat, beside Simon, Jean-Guy was muttering.
Armand turned around from his place in the copilot seat. “Are you praying?”
“Only if there’s such a person as a Saint-Merde.”
“Patron saint of homicide investigators,” said Armand, and heard Jean-Guy laugh.
Frère Simon only scowled, convinced now that he was indeed in the company of heathens. Beside him, Inspector Beauvoir went back to his incantations.
Armand was pretty sure he saw Jean-Guy cross himself.
They glided down the lake, gaining speed. Then the craft lifted off and left the lake and land, no longer earthbound, in an event that would have been deemed by the Inquisition proof of demonic possession. A burning offense.
As the float plane banked and headed south to Montréal, Armand forced himself to look down at the vast, seemingly endless stretches of forests and water. And once again thanked God his children and grandchildren lived in Québec, where the resources, while increasingly vulnerable, were still plentiful.
Canada might not be the most powerful nation on earth, but powerwas shifting from weapons to resources. And Canada was resource-rich. Which was tipping the balance of power.
Where once the population had been dismissed as hewers of wood and drawers of water, servile and menial, now, in this climate of change, that description turned out to be a very good thing. Canada had plenty of wood to hew and fresh water to draw. To drink.
They just had to do a much better job of protecting it.
What was that quote the Abbot had said as he’d hidden Langlois’s map?
In a dry and parched land where there is no water.
There were more and more of those lands, those nations, suffering terrible droughts. And while climate change had hit Canada, especially in the form of terrible wildfires, it had been felt less forcefully than in most other areas. Even in the nation to the south, once green and fertile land had become dry and parched. Roaring rivers had withered to a trickle.
Times were becoming desperate. People were becoming desperate.
A few minutes earlier, while the pilot was preparing the plane and Simon had been saying his goodbyes, Armand and Jean-Guy had stood on the dock and stared out at the vast freshwater lake.
