A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny Read Free Book Online Page A

under the lamp.
    They’d gathered at Clara’s place this wintery night for a dinner of bouillabaisse, with fresh baguette from Sarah’s boulangerie.
    Clara and Gabri were in the kitchen just putting the final ingredients into the broth. Scallops and shrimp and mussels and chunks of pink salmon, while Myrna sliced and toasted the bread.
    A delicate aroma of garlic and fennel drifted into the living room and mingled with the scent of wood smoke from the hearth. Outside, the night was crisp and starless as clouds rolled in, threatening yet more snow.
    But inside it was warm and peaceful.
    â€œImbecile,” mumbled Ruth.
    The fact was, despite Ruth’s comments, it wasn’t obvious what the paper was.
    At first glance, it didn’t look like a map at all. While worn and torn a little, it was beautifully and intricately illustrated, with bears and deer and geese placed around the mountains and forests. In a riot of seasonal confusion, there were spring lilac and plump peony beside maple trees in full autumn color. In the upper-right corner, a snowman wearing a tuque and a habitant sash, a ceinture fléchée, around his plump middle held up a hockey stick in triumph.
    The overall effect was one of unabashed joy. Of silliness that somehow managed to be both sweet and very affecting.
    This was no primitive drawing by a rustic with more enthusiasm than talent. This was created by someone familiar enough with art to know the masters, and skilled enough to imitate them. Except for the snowman, which, as far as Gamache knew, had never appeared in a Constable, Monet, or even Group of Seven masterpiece.
    Yes, it took a while to see beyond all that, to what it really was, at its heart.
    A map.
    Complete with contour lines and landmarks. Three small pines, like playful children, were clearly meant to be their village. There were walking paths and stone walls and even Larsen’s Rock, so named because Sven Larsen’s cow got stuck on it before being rescued.
    Gamache bent closer. And yes, there was the cow.
    There were even, faint like silk threads, latitude and longitude lines. It was as though a work of art had been swallowed by an ordnance map.
    â€œSee anything strange?” asked Ruth.
    â€œYes, I do,” he said, turning to look at the old poet.
    She laughed.
    â€œI meant in the map,” she said. “And thank you for the compliment.”
    Now it was Gamache’s turn to smile as he went back to studying the paper.
    There were many words he’d use to describe it. Beautiful. Detailed. Delicate yet bold. Unusual, certainly, in its intersection of practicality and artistry.
    But was it strange? No, that wasn’t a word he’d use. And yet he knew the old poet. Ruth loved words and used them intentionally. Even the thoughtless words were used with thought.
    If she said “strange,” she meant it.
    Though Ruth’s idea of strange might not be anyone’s. She thought water was strange. And vegetables. And paying bills.
    His brow furrowed as he noticed the celebrating snowman seemed to be pointing. There. He bent closer. There.
    â€œThere’s a pyramid.” Armand’s finger hovered over the image.
    â€œYes, yes,” said Ruth impatiently, as though there were pyramids everywhere. “But do you notice anything strange?”
    â€œIt’s not signed,” he said, trying again.
    â€œWhen was the last time you saw a map that was?” she demanded. “Try harder, moron.”
    On hearing Ruth’s querulous voice, Reine-Marie looked over, caught Armand’s eye, and smiled in commiseration before going back to her own conversation.
    She and Olivier were discussing the blanket-box finds that day. A layer of Vogue s from the early 1900s.
    â€œFascinating reading,” she said.
    â€œI noticed.”
    Reine-Marie had long marveled at how much you could tell about a person by what was on their walls. The art, the books, the decor. But until