Michael Cordy - The Source

Torino had only convinced the new pope to reinstate the ancient institute 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 God. Since its reinstatement, however, the institute 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, 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 institute, 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 institute 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 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 documents from the archive, the Superior General placed the four-and-a-half-centuries-old manuscript in his briefcase, left the room and headed for his apartment in the Curia Generalizia, the International Headquarters of the Society of Jesus.

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 glass 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 Michele Ghislieri. Being summoned to the Holy Inquisition, there appeared Father Orlando Falcon, a Jesuit Priest, charged with heresy.

… It was asked him, 'Father Orlando, what was the mission of the one hundred conquistadors?'

'To conquer new lands, Your Excellency, and discover Eldorado for King Charles of Spain.'

'What was your mission in accompanying them?'

'To save the souls of the conquered and to claim a share of the gold for the Holy Mother Church.'

'But there was no City of Gold? You found something else instead?'

'Yes, Your Excellency.'

'Tell me again what you found, so we may record it here…'

Torino's excitement mounted as he read again the description of Falcon's discovery of a magical garden, the creatures he had encountered there. When he reached the finale in which the remaining conquistadors had met savage deaths, leaving only the scholar priest alive to tell the tale, he could barely contain himself. The story was virtually identical to Lauren Ross's synopsis of the Voynich. The only significant difference was that Falcon's Inquisition testimony contained an additional reference to something he called radix, which in Latin meant 'root' or 'source'. Although vague about it, Falcon had regarded it as potentially more powerful even than the miraculous garden. Torino wondered if it featured in Lauren Kelly's verbatim translation of the Voynich, or the yet-to-be-translated section.

He flicked through to the end of the file.

… After Father Orlando had recounted the full nature of his discovery, it was asked him, 'Why do you persist in this heresy? A miraculous Eden such as this cannot exist in the New World among heathens and savages. You must be mistaken, lying or possessed.'

Father Orlando replied, 'I am telling the truth. I want only to claim it for the Holy Mother Church.'

'You are a respected priest, a favourite of the founder of your order, the Blessed Ignatius Loyola. You must realize that your heresy threatens the Church.'

'How can the truth threaten the Holy Mother Church?'

'If you persist I can only express my regret and sadness that Satan should have claimed so fine a priest. I vow, however, to do everything in my power to reclaim your soul.' His Excellency instructed the clerks to present the heretic with a written confession, and said, 'Recant, Father Orlando. Renounce your claims. Sign the confession.'

The heretic refused and was taken to the cells where his feet were burnt over hot coals. He did not recant. The heretic was given into the care of a nun who was instructed to soothe his wounds and encourage him to choose again the path of righteousness. The next morning the nun reported that the heretic's feet had miraculously healed.

His Excellency asked the heretic, 'How do you explain this sorcery?'

He answered, 'It proves my claims are true.'

His Excellency replied, 'This proves only that Satan has taken possession of your body and soul.' Father Orlando was returned to the cells where wooden boot vices were placed round his feet and tightened until the bones broke. He still did not recant.

The next morning, the nun reported that the heretic's feet had not healed and that Father Orlando's bones remained broken. There was no more sorcery. After examining the priest, His Excellency concluded that the Devil had been driven from him. The heretic was again handed the document and again His Excellency asked him, 'Now, Father Orlando, will you sign the confession and recant your heresy?'

He again refused and was imprisoned for many months. After this time a manuscript was found in Father Orlando's cell, written in the Devil's language, bearing images of a perverted Eden. The heretic was condemned to death. Even at the end, moments before his execution, he still refused to recant. His book of the Devil was ordered burnt…

Torino read the last lines again:… a manuscript was found in Father Orlando's cell, written in the Devil's language, bearing images of a perverted Eden. The current Church authorities had long since forgotten Falcon's forbidden volume, but less than a hundred years ago the Curia had recorded its suspicions that it might be the document the world now knew as the Voynich Cipher Manuscript. Yesterday, in New York, he had stolen away to the Beinecke Library to see the original and hear Lauren Kelly's talk. The pre-publicity, including the sub-title of her presentation, 'A Doomed Quest For Eldorado?' had been enough to pique his interest and, having listened to her, he was now convinced that Falcon's Devil's book was indeed the Voynich.