It was the battle every Québec school child learned about, dreamed about, fought again with wooden muskets and imaginary horses. The dreadful battle that would decide the fate of the city, the territory, the country and the continent. The Battle of Québec that in 1759 would effectively end the Seven Years’ War.
Ironic that after so many years of fighting between the French and the English over New France, the final battle should be so short. But brutal.
As Gamache spoke the two men imagined the scene. A chil y September day, the forces under
Général Montcalm a mix of elite French troops and the Québécois, more used to guerril a tactics than formal warfare. The French were desperate to lift the siege of Québec, a vicious and cruel starvation. More than fifteen thousand cannonbal s had bombarded the tiny community and now, with winter almost upon them, it had to end or they’d al die. Men, women, children. Nurses, nuns, carpenters, teachers. Al would perish.
Général Montcalm and his army would engage the mighty English force in one magnificent battle. Winner take al .
Montcalm, a brave, experienced soldier, a frontline commander who led by example. A hero to his men.
And against him? An equal y bril iant and brave soldier, General Wolfe.
Québec was built on a cliff where the river narrowed. It was a huge strategic advantage. No enemy could ever attack it directly, they’d have to scale the cliff and that was impossible.
But they could attack just upriver, and that’s where Montcalm waited. There was, however, another possibility, an area just slightly further away. Being a cunning commander, Montcalm sent one of his best men
there,
his
own aide-de-camp,
Colonel
Bougainvil e.
And so, in mid-September 1759 he waited.
But Montcalm had made a mistake. A terrible mistake. Indeed, he’d made several, as Armand Gamache, a student of Québec history, was determined to prove.
“It’s a fascinating theory, Armand,” said Émile. “And you real y think this little library holds the key? An English library?”
“Where else would it be?”
Émile Comeau nodded. It was a relief to see his friend so interested. When Armand and Reine-Marie had arrived a week before it took Émile a day to adjust to the changes in Gamache. And not just the beard, and the scars, but he seemed weighed down, leaden and laden by the recent past. Now, Gamache was stil thinking of the past, but at least it was someone else’s, not his own. “Did you get to the letters?”
“I did, and have some to send back,” Gamache retrieved the parcel of correspondence. Hesitating for a moment, he made up his mind and took one out. “I’d like you to read this.”
Émile sipped his wine and read, then began
laughing. He handed the letter back to Gamache.
“That Ruth clearly has a crush on you.”
“If I had pigtails she’d be pul ing them,” smiled Gamache. “But I think you might know her.
“Who hurt you, once,
so far beyond repair
that you would meet each overture
with curling lip?”
Gamache quoted.
“That Ruth?” asked Émile. “Ruth Zardo? The poet?”
And then he finished the astonishing poem, the work now taught in schools across Québec.
“While we, who knew you well,
your friends, (the focus of your scorn) could see your courage in the face of fear, your wit, and thoughtfulness,
and will remember you
with something close to love.”
The two men were quiet for a moment, staring into the mumbling fire, lost in their own thoughts of love and loss, of damage done beyond repair.
“I thought she was dead,” said Émile at last, spreading pâté on the chewy bread.
Gamache laughed. “Gabri introduced her to Reine-Marie as something they found when they dug up the basement.”
Émile reached for the letter again. “Who’s this Gabri? A friend?”
Gamache hesitated. “Yes. He lives in that little vil age I told you about. Three Pines.”
“You’ve been there a few times, I remember.
Investigating some murders. I tried to find the vil age on a map once. Just south of Montreal you said, by the border with Vermont?”
“That’s right.”
“Wel ,” Émile continued. “I must have been blind, because I couldn’t see it.”
Gamache nodded. “Somehow the mapmakers missed Three Pines.”
“Then how do people find it?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it suddenly appears.”
“I was blind but now I see?” quoted Émile. “Only visible to a wretch like you?”
Gamache laughed. “The best café au lait and
croissants in Québec. I’m a happy wretch.” He got up again and put a stack of letters on the coffee table. “I also wanted to show you these.”
Émile read through them while Gamache sipped his wine and ate cheese and baguette, relaxing in the room as familiar and comfortable as his own.
“Al from that Gabri man,” said Émile at last, patting the smal pile of letters beside him. “How often does he write?”
“Every day.”
“Every day? Is he obsessed with you? A threat?”
Émile leaned forward, his eyes suddenly keen, al humor gone.
“No, not at al . He’s a friend.”
“Why would Olivier move the body?” Émile read from one of the letters. “It doesn’t make sense. He didn’t do it, you know. He says the same thing in each letter.” Émile picked up a few and scanned them.
“What does he mean?”
“It was a case I investigated last autumn, over the Labor Day weekend. A body was found in Olivier’s bistro in Three Pines. The victim had been hit once on the back of the head, kil ed.”
“Once?”
His mentor had immediately picked up on the significance of that. A single, catastrophic blow. It was extremely rare. A person, if hit once, was almost certainly hit often, the murderer in a rage. He’d rain blow after blow on his victim. Almost never did they find just one blow, hard enough to kil . It meant someone was fil ed with enough rage to power a terrible blow, but enough control to stop there. It was a frightening combination.
“The victim had no identification, but we final y found a cabin hidden in the woods, where he lived and where he’d been murdered. Émile, you should have seen what was in there.”
Émile Comeau had a vivid imagination, fed by decades of grisly discoveries. He waited for Gamache to describe the terrible cabin.
“It was fil ed with treasure.”
“Treasure?”
“I know,” smiled Gamache, seeing Émile’s face.
“We weren’t expecting it either. It was unbelievable.
Antiques and artifacts. Priceless.”
He had his mentor’s ful attention. Émile sat forward, his lean hands holding each other, relaxed and alert. Once a hunter of kil ers, always that, and he could smel blood. Everything Gamache knew about
homicide he’d learned from this man. And more besides.
“Go on,” said Comeau.
“There were signed first editions, ancient pottery, leaded glass thousands of years old. There was a panel from the Amber Room and dinnerware once belonging to Catherine the Great.”
And a violin. In a breath Gamache was back in that cabin watching Agent Paul Morin. Gangly, awkward, young, picking up the priceless violin, tucking it under his chin and leaning into it. His body suddenly making sense, as though bred to play this instrument. And fil ing the rustic, log cabin with the most beautiful, haunting Celtic lament.