A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(71)

And then Charpentier smiled and handed it to Gamache. “I think I know.”

“It told you?”

“In a way. May I have some tisane? It helps me sleep.”

As Gamache walked to the kitchen to put on the kettle, Charpentier called after him. “Chamomile, if you have it.”

“We do.”

There was the sound of water running into the kettle, then quiet. Into the silence Charpentier placed a question.

“You say you gave them the assignment at one of your soirées? But I thought you said the senior cadets were Leduc’s people.”

“They are,” came the answer from the kitchen. “He had them appear to attach themselves to me so they could report back.” Gamache leaned out of the kitchen door and his face broke into a smile. “I’m smarter than I look.”

“Thank God for that,” said Charpentier.

Gamache walked back in with their tisanes and a jar of local lavender honey.

Charpentier placed the spoon in the tea and looked up into the intelligent eyes.

“You were going to tell me why the map was in the boy’s satchel,” said Gamache.

“Oui. It’s because maps are magic.”

If he didn’t have the Commander’s full attention before, he did now. Gamache lowered his tea to the table and stared.

“Magic?”

“Yes. They’ve become so mundane we’ve forgotten that. They transport us from one place to another. They illuminate our universe. The first maps were of the heavens, you know. What the ancients could see. Where their gods lived. All cultures mapped the stars. But then they lowered their sights. To the world around them.”

“Why?”

“Ahhh, monsieur,” nodded Charpentier with approval and growing excitement. “Exactly. Why. And how? It seems easy, now, but can you imagine the first person who figured out how to represent something three-dimensional in two dimensions? How do you draw distance and time? And why go through the trouble? It’s not like they didn’t have enough to do. So why did they create maps?”

“Necessity,” said Gamache.

“Yes, but what drove that necessity?”

Gamache thought about it.

“Survival?”

“Exactly. Maps gave them control over their surroundings, for the first time ever. It showed how to get from one place to another. It sounds simple now, but thousands of years ago it would have been an incredible feat of imagination and imagery. All maps are drawn as though looking down. From a bird’s point of view. From their god’s point of view. Imagine being the first person to think of that. To be able to wrap their minds around a perspective they’d never seen. And then draw it. Incredible. And think of the advantage.”

Gamache had never in his life thought of these things, but now he understood how a master tactician would revere maps. As a tactical tool, they were revolutionary and second to none. They would give whoever possessed them an insurmountable advantage.

They would be magic.

“It meant they could plan, they could strategize,” said Charpentier. “They could see into the future. Where they were going. And what they’d find. The tribe, the nation, the enterprise with the most accurate maps won.”

“Is that how you became a tactician?”

“It started with maps, yes. I was an awkward child,” he said, as though that might be in doubt. “I found the world chaotic. Unsettling. But there was order in maps. And beauty. I love maps.”

It did not seem an exaggeration. He looked down at the paper on the coffee table with affection. A newfound friend.

“Even the word is interesting. Map. It comes from mappa mundi. Mappa is Latin for napkin. Mundi is world, of course. Isn’t that wonderful? A napkin, with their world on it. The mundane and the magnificent. Map.”

He said the word as though it was indeed magic. And in the young man’s drenched face, Gamache saw the world opening up for an unhappy boy.

Map.

“Monks did some of the first European maps,” said Charpentier. “Gathering information from mariners and merchants. They’re sometimes called Beatine maps because some of the earliest were done by a monk called Beatus in the eighth century. They were for his work on the Apocalypse.”

“Not that again,” muttered Gamache.

Charpentier glanced at him, but returned to the paper on the table.

“Every map has a purpose,” he whispered. “What’s yours?”

“Can you guess?”

“I can give you my educated and informed opinion from years of studying maps and tactics,” offered Charpentier.

“Fine,” said Gamache. “I’ll take that instead.”

“This was done by a cartographer. A mapmaker. It’s not the work of a hobbyist. Whoever drew this was probably a professional.”

“Is it the cow that gave it away, or the pyramid?” asked Gamache.

“Neither,” said Charpentier, missing the humor. “You can tell by the contours.” He pointed to the thin lines denoting elevation. Hills and valleys. “I suspect if we investigate, we’ll find this is extremely accurate.”

“Not completely. The cow was rescued and the snowman would’ve melted a hundred years ago, and I can guarantee you there’s no pyramid nearby.”