Part 1 (2/2)

3

A few miles from the Xplore offices, the guest of honour was leaving the McNally Auditorium on the Lincoln Campus of Fordham University, the Jesuit university of New York. The priest had stayed as long as he had needed to at the conference and was satisfied that he had discharged his duties. Now he was impatient to get away. After thanking his hosts and dismissing his entourage he walked so fast to his official limousine that his limp was barely noticeable.In the back seat, concealed behind tinted gla.s.s, he checked his watch. He had plenty of time before his return flight to Rome tonight. 'Yale University,' he told the driver. 'The Beinecke.'As the car drove north towards Henry Hudson Parkway, he turned his mind to what had occupied him since he had arrived in America a few days before. He opened his attache case and began to study the photocopy of a 450-year-old trial doc.u.ment that his office had discovered in the Inquisition files of the Vatican's secretum secretorum secretum secretorum, the archive of the Church's most sensitive secrets. As he read the hand-written Latin, one of five languages he spoke fluently, his mind whirled with the threats and opportunities it presented.If what he had heard was true.An hour and a half later, the limousine pulled up outside Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Ma.n.u.script Library, one of the largest buildings in the world devoted entirely to rare books. A white oblong structure covered with translucent marble 'windows', which resembled the indentations on a golf ball, it contrasted sharply with Yale's more traditional buildings. The priest, however, ignored the unusual architecture as he climbed the steps.They were expecting him at the front desk and a senior researcher escorted him to the main hall.'It's not very busy,' said the priest.'No.' A flush of excitement suffused the researcher's face. 'But it will be this evening. We're expecting quite a turnout for the open seminars. One of the talks promises to be dynamite.' He pointed to a Plexiglas box, displayed prominently on a plinth in the centre of the hall. It was empty. 'All this week the book's been displayed here, but we've arranged for you to study it in one of the reading rooms for half an hour. If you need more access, digital copies of the pages can be studied on the Internet, on one of the terminals over there.' The man led him to a small, subtly lit room and handed him a pair of white gloves. 'You may only touch it when you're wearing these.'The priest approached the reading table. 'Thank you.'The researcher cleared his throat. 'The Voynich is one of my specialist areas. What can I tell you about it?''Nothing.' As the priest put on the white gloves, he doubted there was anything the man could tell him that he didn't know already. 'I just need some time alone to see it in the flesh, as it were.''Right.' The man hovered, then moved to the door. 'I'll leave you to it, then. Call me if you want anything.'But the priest was no longer listening. He was staring, transfixed, at the book. The yellowing doc.u.ment looked unremarkable. Only when his gloved hands slowly turned the pages did its mystery become apparent. They were filled with unrecognizable text, and decorated with crude colour ill.u.s.trations of bizarre plants that resembled known flora but were actually like nothing on Earth. Other pictures included naked women with unnaturally rounded bellies floating in green liquid.[image][image][image]The ill.u.s.trations were no more sophisticated than a child's, but that didn't detract from their power. The Beinecke Library's catalogue entry lay beside the book: 'Almost every page contains botanical and scientific drawings, many full-page, of a provincial but lively character, in ink washes and various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue and red. Based on the subject matter of the drawings, the contents of the ma.n.u.script fall into six sections.''Botany' contained drawings of 113 unidentified plant species, accompanied by text. The astronomical, or astrological, section had twenty-five astral diagrams. 'Biology' included drawings of small-scale female nudes, most with bulging abdomens and exaggerated hips, immersed or emerging from fluid, interconnecting tubes or capsules. The pages dealing with pharmaceuticals contained drawings of more than a hundred herbs, while the remaining two sections were composed of continuous text and an ill.u.s.trated folding page.The world had been fascinated by it since 1912, when the book dealer Wilfrid Voynich had come across the 134-page volume at the Villa Mondragone, a Jesuit college in Frascati, Italy. A letter dated 1666 had been tucked inside it; the rector of the University of Prague had asked a well-known scholar to attempt to decipher the text. According to the letter, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II of Bohemia had bought it for six hundred gold ducats.A faded signature on the first page of the ma.n.u.script read 'Jacobus de Tepenec'. Records showed that Jacobus Horcicky had been born into a poor family and raised by Jesuits to become a wealthy chemist at Rudolf 's court. In 1608 he had been granted the n.o.ble name 'de Tepenec' for having saved the emperor's life. His role in the ma.n.u.script's history, however, was less clear. Some believed that Rudolf had given it to him to decipher, others that when the emperor abdicated in 1611, and died a year later, the ma.n.u.script had come into Horcicky's possession 'by default'. Whatever had happened, the ma.n.u.script had found its way somehow to the Jesuit college where Voynich rediscovered it. Many claimed it had come originally from Italy, where it had been stolen from one of the Jesuit libraries and sold to Emperor Rudolf, and that agents of the Catholic Church had eventually reclaimed it, then allowed it to fall into obscurity once more.The ma.n.u.script's ill.u.s.trations were bizarre but it was the text that had most intrigued Voynich and the countless others who had tried in vain to decipher it. The symbols were teasingly familiar, often resembling roman letters, Arabic numerals and Latin abbreviations. Elaborate gallows-shaped characters decorated many beginnings of lines, while an enigmatic swirl, like '9', could be found at the end of many words.When Voynich had brought the ma.n.u.script to the United States he had invited cryptographers to examine it, but to no avail. In 1961 H. P. Krause, a New York antiquarian book dealer, had bought it, and in 1969 he donated it to Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Ma.n.u.script Library. In the 1960s and 1970s the National Security Agency had put their best crypta.n.a.lysts to work on it, but even they failed.In the last ten years, researchers employing a battery of statistical methods, including entropy and spectral a.n.a.lysis, discovered that Voynichese as the language of the text became known displayed statistical properties consistent with natural languages, which suggested that it was unlikely to be the random writings of a madman or fraud. They also discovered that the text read from left to right and employed between twenty-three and thirty individual symbols, of which the entire ma.n.u.script contained around 234,000, which amounted to about 40,000 words, with a vocabulary of perhaps 8,200. Most words were six characters long and showed less variation than those of English, Latin and other Indo-European languages. But still no one was any closer to knowing what the ma.n.u.script said, who had written it, or why.Until now. Apparently.There was a discreet knock at the door. His half-hour was up. He lingered a moment longer, mesmerized, sensing that the book was about to change his life for ever, and that G.o.d was guiding him. He removed the gloves, and allowed his bare fingers to brush the ma.n.u.script.When the door opened and the researcher entered, the priest thanked him, stole one last look at the Voynich, then went back to the lobby.He paused by a poster announcing that evening's open seminar: 'Solving the Riddle'. Billed as the highlight of Voynich Week, there would be three presentations. A British mathematician from Cambridge University and a computer specialist from MIT were to present the latest techniques for decoding the text. But it was the third that interested the priest: 'The Voynich Ma.n.u.script: A Doomed Quest for Eldorado?'He clutched his attache case tighter and thought of the photocopied doc.u.ment within it. The original recorded the trial and testimony of a Jesuit priest burnt at the stake for heresy. It also recorded the existence of a book that should have been burnt with him: The Devil's Book The Devil's Book.He confirmed the time of the last presentation, satisfied he could still make his flight, then checked the name of the academic giving it: Dr Lauren Kelly.

4

Sitting on the New Haven line train from Grand Central to Darien, Ross Kelly was preoccupied with thoughts of his career. Geology had not been a popular or easy choice for a schoolboy growing up in the Bible Belt. His mother had believed the Earth was created a few thousand years ago and that the Great Flood was the major geologically related event in human history. Creationism might have morphed into Intelligent Design, but things hadn't changed much and not only in the Bible Belt: the new pope had recently rejected Darwinian evolution in favour of G.o.d's guiding hand in all aspects of creation.But Ross had always fought for his pa.s.sions. Ever since he was a boy, growing up on his father's farm in the shadow of the Ozark mountains, he had seen geology as a romantic, magical science that charted Earth's history over an unimaginably deep chasm of time. He could still remember the hairs standing up on the back of his neck when he'd first read that Mount Everest was made of rock that had once formed the floor of the oceans. How could anyone not marvel at the sheer pressure and time involved in pus.h.i.+ng the Himalayas from the bottom of the sea to the top of the world?A scholars.h.i.+p to study geology at Princeton, a PhD from MIT and his first years with the earth-sciences division of the mighty Alascon had fuelled his wonder. It was quickly apparent, though, that the oil industry cared more about making profit than exploring the world's treasures. When Xplore, then a lean, progressive search consultancy, had headhunted him, their desire for fresh ideas had rekindled his pa.s.sion.But his career there was over now: the visionaries who had recruited him had gone, swept away by men like Underwood and Kovacs, who had more in common with accountants than with explorers. And he had no illusions that other companies in the industry would be any different in embracing anything new.On the short taxi drive home from the station, Ross contemplated his future. He tried not to think about whether he had made the right decision, or what his wife would say. As the driver pulled into the kerb he saw his ancient Mercedes convertible parked next to Lauren's economical Prius. He had acquired the so-called cla.s.sic car after he'd joined Xplore. Back then it had seemed to symbolize his success. Now, like his career, its l.u.s.tre had faded and it looked what it was an old car covered with bird s.h.i.+t. A third car, small and boxy, was parked alongside. Ross groaned: he was in no mood for visitors. His work took him all over the world, but when he came home he wanted to be alone with his wife. He enjoyed nothing better than a bottle of Pinot Noir, pizza, making love and squabbling over the TV remote he'd never understand why someone as smart as Lauren preferred reality makeover shows to cla.s.sic comedies, a good movie or anything by David Attenborough on the Discovery channel. He paid the man, got out and crunched across the gravel to the white clapperboard house he had mortgaged himself to the hilt to buy.The front door opened and Lauren appeared. In the early-afternoon light, her honey-blonde bob gleamed, her soft green eyes sparkled and her skin glowed. Just seeing her made him feel better. The door opened wider, to reveal another striking woman. While his wife was conventionally beautiful, her a.s.sistant at Yale was the opposite. Elizabeth 'Zeb' Quinn resembled a strange blend of punk and geek. Her long, curly hair was dyed henna-red and she wore thick gla.s.ses, second-hand jeans, a shapeless hemp jacket and a T-s.h.i.+rt proclaiming: Gaia's Your Mother! So Stop Killing Her! Gaia's Your Mother! So Stop Killing Her!Lauren rushed to kiss him. 'Ross, you're back G.o.d, I'm so happy to see you.''Not as happy as me.' He held her tight, enjoying the smell of her hair, then looked over her shoulder. 'Hi, Zeb.'Elizabeth Quinn smiled and raised a hand in greeting. Ross and she had as civil a relations.h.i.+p as any oilman could have with an ecowarrior who believed everybody in his industry was raping the planet. 'Don't worry, I'll leave you two alone. I was just helping Lauren with her presentation tonight.''Presentation?'Lauren rolled her eyes. 'You know, the Voynich. The translation. My big night.''Oh, yes . . .' He'd pushed it to the back of his mind because he hadn't planned to get back from Uzbekistan until the end of the week just in time for them to fly off on their first vacation in years: two weeks' caving in the jungles of Borneo followed by a week on the beach in Malaysia. He had fought for the time off work but that, of course, was no longer a problem.'Welcome home, Ross,' said Zeb, and got into her little hybrid car. 'See you both later. Good luck tonight, Lauren, and whatever Knight says, don't give away any more than you need to.''I won't. Thanks.' They waited for her to drive away, then Lauren put her arm through Ross's and led him indoors.He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small rock. Its opaque metallic surface made it look like gold in the sunlight streaming into the hall. He always brought Lauren an unusual specimen from a field trip. 'It's Schreibersite, a rare meteor stone.''It's beautiful. Thank you.' She smiled, eyes bright with excitement. 'I'm glad you had to rush back I've got amazing news.''Great.' He paused. 'I've got some news, too, about the takeover I mentioned on the phone.''Tell me.''I've resigned.'Ross wasn't sure what reaction he'd been expecting but it wasn't the one he got. Lauren burst out laughing.'What's so funny?' He had always admired and envied her relaxed approach to money. She came from a relatively wealthy New York family and didn't equate it with security as he did. Nevertheless, even she had to understand the implications for the mortgage. Then again, she had always counselled him against buying such an expensive house and would probably downgrade quite happily.She shook her head, trying to control herself. 'I'm sorry, Ross. I'm not laughing at you, just the timing.''Why? What's your amazing news? Don't tell me your career's taken yet another stellar turn as I've flushed mine down the drain.''It's our our amazing news. I saw the doctor today. We're having a baby.' amazing news. I saw the doctor today. We're having a baby.'For a second he didn't know what to say. They had been trying for a child for years, but after three unsuccessful rounds of IVF, they had virtually given up. He swept her into his arms. 'That's fantastic! How long?''I'm almost three months.''Three months.' He stroked her belly, imagining his child growing inside her. 'Why didn't you tell me before?''I only just found out. Must have happened when you came back from that long trip to Saudi you remember how we made up for lost time?'He smiled.'And don't worry about your job, Ross. You always feel so responsible for providing us with everything everything. But we're fine. More than fine. If the faculty members don't make me a full professor after tonight, they're bound to when I translate the final section of the Voynich. A Yale professors.h.i.+p might not pay as much as selling your soul to Big Oil but it's enough.'He kissed her. 'I'm not worried. The only real problem is our vacation. We'll have to cancel the caving expedition far too strenuous for a woman in your condition and spend the whole time on the beach.''That suits me fine.''I bet it does.' He laughed. She always preferred to laze on a beach and read while he got bored after a few days and wanted to explore. Right now, though, spending a few weeks on a beach with Lauren sounded pretty good. He checked his watch. 'What time's your presentation? I was going to get some shut-eye before you shared your other other amazing achievement with the world but now I'm too excited to sleep.' amazing achievement with the world but now I'm too excited to sleep.'

5

Yale UniversityThat evening as they arrived at the Beinecke Library, Lauren squeezed Ross's hand and kissed him. 'I want to know you're in the audience,' she whispered, as they got out of his car, 'but don't sit too close to the front or you'll make me nervous.'Rooms thirty-eight and thirty-nine of the Beinecke had been combined to form a lecture theatre capable of sitting seventy, and Ross took a seat at the back. The room filled fast and he saw Zeb Quinn's red curls at the front. A man in a tweed jacket sat next to her: Bob Knight, Yale's professor of linguistics and Lauren's head of faculty. Ross didn't like him. He had a reputation as a ruthless self-publicist who shamelessly took credit for other people's work. Lauren had tried to keep hers under wraps until she was ready to discuss it, but he had pressured her into revealing details of her initial findings tonight, during Voynich Week.A priest with sharp features and dark, hooded eyes took the seat beside Ross. Any member of the public could attend the open seminar, but it was obvious from all of the cord and tweed jackets that most of the audience were academics, researchers and Voynich aficionados. Kelly wondered what a priest was doing there.The lights dimmed and the first two speakers spoke at such length about spectral a.n.a.lysis, number sequences, polyalphabetic ciphers and other esoteric aspects of the crypta.n.a.lyst's dark arts that they made the world's most mysterious ma.n.u.script sound tedious and obscure. Torpor descended on the stuffy room and Ross, exhausted and jet-lagged, struggled to stay awake. To his surprise, the priest sat tense and expectant, radiating energy.Then Lauren stood up and the mood in the room changed. For all her gravitas, she exuded warmth, her full lips constantly on the verge of smiling. Her blonde hair and emerald dress set off her eyes as she gazed confidently at the audience. This was what they had come to hear. The priest took a notebook and pen out of his pocket. As Ross watched Lauren arrange her notes and introduce herself, he felt a surge of fierce pride that she was his wife and would soon be the mother of his child. He was no dullard but he felt ordinary compared to Lauren. Her PhD had been about conserving dying languages, but for the last few years she had focused on the riddle of the Voynich Cipher, and had succeeded where all those before her had failed. Where they had crunched numbers and a.n.a.lysed sequences on a computer, she had used her expertise in her own field.As a child, Lauren had once written to her parents, 'I don't like this school. It's boring,' in fifty different languages. Her parents had moved her. She still cherished the knowledge that in Amazonia there was a dialect called Tariana, which required a speaker to include a supporting suffix after everything they said, or their listener would a.s.sume they were lying; that there was a Caucasian language with no vowels, and a South Asian dialect whose innumerable verbs included gobray gobray (to fall into a well knowingly) and (to fall into a well knowingly) and onsra onsra (to love for the last time). It upset her that of the six thousand languages left in the world more than half would be extinct by the end of the twenty-first century. (to love for the last time). It upset her that of the six thousand languages left in the world more than half would be extinct by the end of the twenty-first century.Lauren cleared her throat and the room fell silent. She began to read.' ”Welcome, fellow scholar, your efforts have not been in vain. Though your name and mine are insignificant this story is not. Know this: discoveries may excite our blood but mysteries sustain our soul. When we're strong and arrogant, mysteries remind us how little we know of G.o.d's world. And when we are weak and desperate, they encourage us to believe that anything is possible.” ' Lauren looked up and smiled. 'You've just heard the opening lines of the Voynich, expressed for the first time in English.'A low murmur rippled through the audience, like wind through a field of barley. Text from the Voynich flashed up on the screen behind Lauren. She continued, 'With my a.s.sistant Zeb's help I've now translated all of the ma.n.u.script, except the astrology section. I won't present a verbatim transcript until I've completed it.' She glanced meaningfully at Knight. 'Having been asked to share a synopsis of its contents, however, I can tell you that I found no no code.' The audience's murmuring grew to a buzz and people were scribbling notes. 'I'm now convinced that Voynichese is a synthetic language. Those linguists among you will know that there are two types: a code.' The audience's murmuring grew to a buzz and people were scribbling notes. 'I'm now convinced that Voynichese is a synthetic language. Those linguists among you will know that there are two types: a posterior posterior language, which is based on existing languages, the most famous example being Esperanto, and a language, which is based on existing languages, the most famous example being Esperanto, and a priori priori language, which is created from scratch. The latter is virtually impossible to translate without knowledge of the creator's rules of grammar and vocabulary, which in this case we don't have. Luckily for us, however, Voynichese appears to be of the language, which is created from scratch. The latter is virtually impossible to translate without knowledge of the creator's rules of grammar and vocabulary, which in this case we don't have. Luckily for us, however, Voynichese appears to be of the posterior posterior variety: a blend of two ancient languages, which have then been transliterated into the unique symbols we see in the text.' variety: a blend of two ancient languages, which have then been transliterated into the unique symbols we see in the text.'A hand shot up from the audience. 'Which two languages?'The priest's fingers were working at a string of rosary beads.Lauren shook her head. 'I'm not prepared to reveal the root languages until I've completed the translation. Then I'll make a full announcement and publish all my supporting work.''Are you sure there's no code in the text?' asked a woman at the front.The priest's fingers moved faster on the beads.'With Zeb's computer models, we realized early on that a code was unlikely,' Lauren said. 'Given the age of the doc.u.ment and the intractable nature of the text, any code would have had to be a polyalphabetic cipher. But our entropy a.n.a.lyses, which looked at the pattern of symbols in the text, showed that it was too regular, too much like a proper language, to be a code.'The priest's hand shot up. 'Dr Kelly, before you share with us how you translated the Voynich, perhaps you could tell us what your translation has revealed?' His English was perfect but held the faint trace of an Italian accent.Lauren nodded. 'First, let me apologize to all those who, like me, hoped the ma.n.u.script contained some secret. Contrary to certain claims, the Voynich Cipher wasn't written by the medieval monk Roger Bacon and, sadly, it's not an ancient Cathar text, a wizard's treatise on alchemy, a mystic's vision, a message from G.o.d, written in the language of angels, or any of the other fanciful things many believed.'There were audible sighs of disappointment.'The Voynich is simply the story of a mythic quest in the cla.s.sic tradition, an allegory of man's greed that shows a prescient awareness of today's environmental concerns. I've purposely translated it without trying to reproduce the archaic language of the time to highlight the sense. It tells of a scholar priest who accompanies a troop of soldiers into a vast jungle in search of Eldorado the fabled city of gold. His mission is to chronicle their adventure and to claim the souls of the conquered for his church. The gruelling quest decimates the soldiers, leaving them lost in the middle of the forest. Just as they abandon hope, they stumble across a garden filled with strange plants and inhabited by even stranger nymphlike women and other bizarre creatures. It turns out to be both an Eden and h.e.l.l. They find wonders and miracles there, but something terrible too. Only the scholar priest lives to tell the tale.'As Lauren recounted the story in more detail she used the screen to punctuate her narrative with disturbing ill.u.s.trations from the ma.n.u.script. The audience listened politely. Her synopsis was only a theory until she published and her full findings were accepted. The priest, however, appeared transfixed, his sharp features expressing a blend of incredulity, wonder and concern.'Our unknown author provides one final twist. Not only does he employ a unique language, present us with bizarre ill.u.s.trations and an even more bizarre story, but he and I a.s.sume it's a he claims that the fabulous garden ill.u.s.trated and described in the ma.n.u.script actually exists, and that his story is true. This is how he concludes: ”Congratulations, fellow scholar, you have read my story and so proved your dedication, intelligence and wisdom. Whatever your faith, G.o.d has now chosen you to do what I cannot: keep His garden safe and ensure its miraculous powers are used for His glory. One day, mankind will doubtless need these powers. I only pray it deserves them. Amen.” ' She smiled. 'Because of the extraordinary pains he took to tell his story, it's tempting to think it might be true, and that he created his ingenious language to guard its secret.'The room was buzzing again.'You have no idea of the author's ident.i.ty?' asked the priest.'No. He doesn't give his name.''What do you expect to find in the astrological section you haven't yet translated?' demanded another voice.'A map?' someone shouted.Lauren raised her hands for calm. 'Before we get too excited, we must remember that at the time the Voynich was written, in the late sixteenth century, encrypting doc.u.ments was extremely fas.h.i.+onable. So, sadly, I'm afraid the likelihood is that the author simply possessed an extraordinary intellect, a mischievous sense of humour and the leisure time to indulge both.'She waited for the audience's laughter to subside. 'Nevertheless, the Voynich is still a work of genius and if you want to read my synopsis of the translated story I suggest you visit the Beinecke pages on Yale's website.'In the hallway outside the meeting room, members of the audience besieged Lauren with questions.Watching her, Ross felt a stab of regret and envy. After his PhD he, too, could have carved out a career in academia. Harvard and three other good colleges had offered him positions to continue his studies, but he had declined them. If, after graduating from high school, you tell your parents that their only child their only son son has no interest in taking over the struggling farm that's been in the family for generations, but is leaving to take up a scholars.h.i.+p at Princeton, you'd better be successful. To Ross, that meant making money. A lot of it. So he had joined Big Oil. And, if he was honest, he had never wanted to be an academic. He has no interest in taking over the struggling farm that's been in the family for generations, but is leaving to take up a scholars.h.i.+p at Princeton, you'd better be successful. To Ross, that meant making money. A lot of it. So he had joined Big Oil. And, if he was honest, he had never wanted to be an academic. He liked liked the buccaneering cut and thrust of oil exploration, journeying to the more inhospitable parts of the world and finding what no one else could. the buccaneering cut and thrust of oil exploration, journeying to the more inhospitable parts of the world and finding what no one else could.How quickly things had changed, though. He had once been the s.h.i.+ning star with the glittering career ahead of him, while Lauren had been the dedicated academic destined to spend her career in worthy obscurity. Now her star was in the ascendant and, as he watched her fielding questions, he realized she had no idea of how huge her achievement was. She hoped her translation of the Voynich would bring her promotion within her faculty but it was clear to Ross that, once she had completed it, she could take her pick of any job in her field across the world. Suddenly he had a vision of himself as a house-husband, looking after their baby, while Lauren ascended to even greater heights. He consoled himself with the thought of their three-week holiday. He would worry about finding another job when they got back.Lauren smiled and beckoned to him, but the priest suddenly engaged her in conversation. Though not a big man he had a commanding presence. Ross watched him introduce himself and, above the hubbub, heard him say: 'I asked if you knew the author's name because I've seen confidential Vatican files that may reveal his ident.i.ty and help to unlock the final astrological section.'Lauren's eyes widened. 'Really?''Yes. I rather hoped we might collaborate.''I'd certainly love to see the files.''We'll happily show you everything in exchange for certain conditions.''Such as?''The Vatican needs to retain some control over publication to restrict circulation of anything that might be injurious to the Church.'Lauren flashed her most polite and dangerous smile, from which Ross knew the priest would leave empty-handed. 'I'm sorry but I must decline your kind offer,' she said.'I'm speaking on behalf of the Society of Jesus,' the priest said, as if it was unthinkable anyone could refuse. 'This is for the Holy Mother Church.''That's as may be, Father, but this is a personal project and I don't believe in putting any any restrictions on academic scholars.h.i.+p.' restrictions on academic scholars.h.i.+p.'There was an awkward pause. Then the priest reached into his robes and handed her a card. 'I have to respect your decision, Dr Kelly, but if you change your mind please don't hesitate to contact me.'As she took the card, Bob Knight intervened smoothly: 'If Dr Kelly's tight-lipped, Father, don't take it personally. She guards the privacy of her work fiercely, keeping most of her files at home. I'm her head of faculty and I barely knew the detail of what she was presenting tonight.' He took Lauren's arm and steered her away. 'Now, if you'll excuse us . . .'As Knight led Lauren to the end of the corridor the priest stared after them. He was older than Ross had first thought, although his blue-black hair contained little grey and his face was unlined but for the frown marks between his eyes. Suddenly the man turned, and as the priest's dark eyes met his, Ross saw that he was seething with rage and frustration.When Lauren returned, beaming with excitement, Ross put his arm round her and escorted her to the exit. 'Congratulations. You certainly got everyone around here buzzing. That priest seemed pretty intense, though.'She grimaced. 'He said the Vatican had files that might interest me, but he wanted some kind of gag, so I pa.s.sed.''And Knight? He looked pretty excited.''He is.' Outside in the cool night air, she gave him a strange pleading smile. 'You want the good news or the bad?'Ross had never been a fan of bad news. 'The good.''Knight's promising me whatever I want at the faculty. I'll be a full professor, significant salary rise, everything.''That's great.''He wants me to translate the last section as soon as possible. Says there's a lot of interest out there right now.'Ross knew where this was heading. 'But we're going on vacation for three weeks.'Again the pleading smile. 'I know. That's the bad news.'

6

Rome, the next dayBecause of their power it is said that there are three popes in Rome: the White Pope, the pontiff; the Red Pope, the Grand Inquisitor, now known as the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and the Black Pope, the head of the Jesuits, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus.The evening after Dr Lauren Ross's seminar at Yale, all was quiet within the walls of the Vatican, and even the surrounding bustle of Rome seemed muted. However, the Black Pope's mind was jangling as he entered the labyrinth of rooms and corridors that adjoined the Apostolic Library. On last night's flight from JFK to Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport, Father General Leonardo Torino had been unable to sleep, thinking through the implications of Dr Ross's findings. Though exhausted, he had been desperate to rush to the Inquisition Archives and recheck the original doc.u.ment against the photocopy in his case, but first he had had to debrief his staff on his visit to the New York Province of the Society of Jesus and their conference at Fordham University. Then he had had to sit through interminable meetings with the Curia as they discussed plans to set up a second Vatican state in the developing world. Finally, he had updated the Holy Father on the work of the Inst.i.tute of Miracles even though all it seemed to do was disprove their existence in the modern age.Torino had only convinced the new pope to reinstate the ancient inst.i.tute because the last pontiff had devalued their currency, approving more miracles and canonizing more saints than at any other time in the Church's history. As the largest and most intellectually rigorous order in the Roman Catholic Church, the Society of Jesus was uniquely qualified to prove miracles to support the canonization of saints and reveal to the world incontrovertible proof of the hand of G.o.d. Since its reinstatement, however, the inst.i.tute had not validated a single one. In fact, Torino had been personally responsible for reversing at least six previously established miracles.But that might change if what he'd heard at Yale was genuine.As he reached the secretum secretorum secretum secretorum, the Church's most sensitive archive, the curator was locking the door for the night. 'Don't close it yet,' Torino ordered. 'I need to check something.'The old man, head down, continued to turn the large key in the lock. 'It's late. Can't you come back tomorrow?' He looked up, recognized Torino's black robes and his face flickered with fear. 'Father General, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was you.'Torino strode into the dusty, unprepossessing network of rooms and headed for the back chamber. Since the Vatican had opened the Inquisition Archives in 1998 most scholars had focused on celebrated trials, particularly that of Galileo, the scientist who famously shook the Church by claiming and proving that the Earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa. However, the obscure case that Torino wished to re-examine was potentially no less controversial.A year after the reinstatement of the inst.i.tute, he had despaired of finding a genuine miracle. In this media age, claimants had nothing to lose and everything to gain by falsifying them, so he had instructed the scholars charged with running the inst.i.tute to look back into the past, to the Inquisition Archives, and seek out those who had braved torture and death to proclaim their miracles. One case they found had fired Torino's imagination: the testimony and trial of Father Orlando Falcon, a fellow Jesuit, who had not just experienced one miracle but discovered a wondrous and terrible place filled filled with them. with them.The file was tucked away in a corner. Until his scholars had found and photocopied it a few months ago, the contents had probably not been read for hundreds of years. Ignoring the watching curator, and the large sign forbidding the removal of original doc.u.ments from the archive, the Superior General placed the four-and-a-half-centuries-old ma.n.u.script in his briefcase, left the room and headed for his apartment in the Curia Generalizia, the International Headquarters of the Society of Jesus.

7

The high ceilings, antique furniture and ornate rugs afforded the official residence of the Jesuit Superior General a faded splendour, but the ancient air-conditioning made it claustrophobically warm. Exhausted, Torino dismissed his staff, retired to his bedroom and opened the windows.There were two framed photographs on the bedside table. One, of himself as a child at the Jesuit orphanage in Naples, reminded him of where he had come from, and the other of what he had achieved: in it, Torino stood in the black robes of his office beside the Holy Father. Above the bed hung a crucifix and beside the desk two gilt-framed diplomas: a medical degree from the University of Milan and a PhD in theology. He placed his laptop on the bed and emptied his briefcase beside it.Torino's hand trembled as he poured himself a gla.s.s of cold water from the jug on the table. He gulped it, then sat at the desk and opened the ancient file.As he turned the yellowed vellum, the Latin text seemed to greet him like an old friend:On the day of Thursday 8th of the month of July 1560 in the presence of His Excellency, the Grand Inquisitor, Cardinal Prefect presence of His Excellency, the Grand Inquisitor, Cardinal Prefect Michele Ghislieri. Being summoned to the Holy Inquisition, there Michele Ghislieri. Being summoned to the Holy Inquisition, there appeared Father Orlando Falcon, a Jesuit Priest, charged with appeared Father Orlando Falcon, a Jesuit Priest, charged with heresy. heresy.. . . It was asked him, 'Father Orlando, what was the mis

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