The Source - Michael Cordy [31]
'I thought the Voynich was an allegory – a piece of fiction.'
The nun shook her head. 'It was an account of what Orlando Falcon found. When he returned from the New World, the papal Inquisition was at its height. No less than three Grand Inquisitors became pope during the second half of the sixteenth century. The second, Pius the Fifth, was in power when Father Orlando returned to Rome, claiming to have found a miraculous garden that challenged the story of Genesis. Obviously this disturbed the pope and his cardinals. The story went against the prevailing dogma and undermined the scriptures. It threatened everything they and the Church stood for. There could only be one Eden and that must be in the Holy Land, or in Christendom. A second Garden of God couldn't exist in the New World among heathens and savages unless it was the Devil's work. They couldn't ignore Father Orlando, though, because he was a respected Jesuit, a one-time protégé of the great Ignatius Loyola. So they pronounced him a heretic. A once fine priest who had become possessed while in the New World.'
'What did they do to him?'
'They demanded he recant. When he refused they handed him over to the torturers, who burnt his feet on hot coals. The next morning his feet had healed. He claimed this miracle was proof of his discovery, but it only confirmed the Grand Inquisitor's conviction that Satan had possessed his soul. The torturers then placed his feet in a wooden vice and crushed the bones. This time his body didn't heal and the Grand Inquisitor concluded the Devil had been driven out. But Father Orlando still refused to recant. For many months they held him in a cell while they decided what to do with him. He was not idle during that time.'
She paused to sip some coffee. Despite his scepticism, Ross was impatient for her to continue.
'When he realized that even the Church couldn't be trusted, and his miraculous discovery might die with him, he decided to record it for a time when it would be better appreciated and understood.' She stared into her cup. 'You must understand one thing. Father Orlando Falcon was an exceptional man. To record his discovery and protect it from those who would exploit it, he created a hybrid language, complete with its own characters. Apart from a few meaningless symbols, which he inserted to confuse those trying to decipher his work, most of his text and illustrations described the wonders he witnessed. And he did all this from memory, while lying in a tiny cell, crippled by torture, using materials smuggled in to him.
'Of course, they eventually found the manuscript, which sealed his fate. They called it The Devil's Book because of its unintelligible writing and pictures of a perverted Eden. He was sentenced to be burnt at the stake, the manuscript with him.'
'What happened?'
'He was executed, but an accomplice hid the manuscript in one of the Jesuit libraries. Father Orlando wanted the book hidden in plain view so that one day it would be found, deciphered and his miraculous garden rediscovered.'
'You really believe it existed?'
She looked at him as a patient teacher might at a slow pupil. 'It exists.'
'But what's this got to do with Lauren?'
'Father Orlando wrote most of the manuscript in a hybrid language of two existing tongues so it could eventually be translated. But only by a scholar who was intelligent, dedicated and wise enough to understand his mind and grasp the significance of his discovery. Someone worthy of the garden.'
Ross remembered the night of Lauren's talk at the Beinecke when she had recited the final words of the Voynich: 'Congratulations, fellow scholar, you have read my story and so proved your dedication, intelligence and wisdom. Whatever your faith, God has now chosen you to do what I cannot: to keep His garden