CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Voynich manuscript: A mysterious, undeciphered manuscript dating to the 15th or 16th century.
—Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
British Museum
Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury
London
The cab pulled to the curb with a screech, throwing Roger Bannen forward. He looked at his watch. He was late. He quickly paid the driver and bounded out of the cab without a receipt. He’d deal with the expense report later.
He ran into the building and took the grand stairs into the foyer at a dead run. He hit his shoulder on the door as he entered, dropped his notebook, and tripped over his brolly trying to pick it up. He ignored the amused looks from the people nearby.
Would this day ever go right? He’d woken late—not his fault, his alarm clock was on the fritz—his coffeemaker had spit grounds into the carafe instead of coffee, and he’d stepped on the cat’s tail to get at the pot before it boiled over on the floor. He felt like a fool, he, one of the Sun’s best reporters. Well, he could be if he didn’t screw up. Maybe.
He gathered his things, looked up, and cursed once. The hall was full of reporters, some talking on their mobiles, others fiddling with the cameras and lights. What were they all doing here? This was his chance to get the boss’s notice. He had no idea what the topic of the press briefing was, only what Molly the stringer, a former girlfriend, had told him when she’d called his desk. “British Museum, rare discovery, special briefing, Rog, get yourself there at noon, could be a big story.”
Bless Molly’s heart. But how was he going to get an exclusive, with everyone else already here? And then it hit him. Everyone else had received the same call. From Molly? His Molly? Bollocks.
Roger pushed his way toward the middle of the reporters so he could see the head of the antiquities department, Dr. Persepolis Wynn-Jones, Persy, Roger had heard his friends called him. He was at the top of the stairs talking to a pretty young woman beside him, holding a laptop to her chest. Intern, he thought, dismissing her. So where were the big guns? Still, whatever this was all about, Dr. Wynn-Jones was a friend of Roger’s mother, so maybe he’d be willing to share a special tidbit with Roger after the briefing.
He fell in beside a few reporters he knew. “What’s this all about, you lot?”
Three heads turned, a few grins, a few frowns. Todd Benedict, who believed himself to be blindingly brilliant, shook his head. “No one knows anything, Rog. How’s, ah, tricks at the Sun?”
“All’s well, all’s well.” You toffee-nosed ass. “You still a stand out at the Guardian? Hey, maybe we could grab a pint after.” If he still had a bleeding job at the end of this day of disasters. “Oh, here we go.”
Dr. Wynn-Jones made his way to the landing, tapped the microphone three times to gather attention, then smiled at the gathered crowd.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice. We have a very exciting announcement, and we will be passing out supplemental papers to give you the full background on our newest find. Trust me when I say it’s capital.” Roger watched Persy’s eyes land on him, and Persy broke into a grin and nodded to him. Roger smiled back at the crazy old corker. Crazy like a fox, but still.
Dr. Wynn-Jones studied the hungry faces a moment, knowing they’d heard fantastical things about this briefing but had no idea. He wasn’t going to disappoint today. The library often made discoveries, but this one was going to change the world, he could feel it in his bones.
“It’s very exciting, very exciting indeed. As many of you know, we are sometimes very lucky in our discoveries, and today’s news is no different. I am talking about an inestimable treasure, one we will be spending a significant amount of time and energy on going forward. And so, I present to you Dr. Isabella Marin, our very own Oxford doctor of cryptology and our foremost expert in the Voynich manuscript. She will present our most exciting discovery. Dr. Marin? The floor is yours.” And he gave her a royal bow.
The Voynich? Roger couldn’t believe it. He stared at the young woman he’d believed of no importance. Well, she was as beautiful as a bloody foreign princess, dark sloe eyes, gold complexion. She had something to do with the Voynich? What had she found? Roger couldn’t believe his luck.
Dr. Isabella Marin squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and told her heaving stomach to calm down, it wouldn’t do to honk all over the mass of reporters staring up at her. She knew her boss was having the time of his life—put him in front of a microphone and an audience, and he positively bloomed. It was said, not within his hearing, of course, that he’d never met a microphone he didn’t like. But now he was giving her a chance to make her name in both the cryptology and antique manuscript world. Granted, she was presenting the find, but his presence beside her showed substance and gravitas to the world.
Still, there were so many cameras. Had any of these reporters ever even heard of the Voynich?
I hope this works, mixing truth and lies.
Her boss waved her to the mic. She walked out onto the stage, her laptop still clutched as tight as a newborn to her chest, and wondered for the twentieth time if she should have worn panty hose as a sign of respect. But then the mic was in her hand and the people in the front row were staring at her and she started to talk.
“Good morning. As many of you know, last year, the Voynich manuscript was stolen from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in the United States. Despite worldwide efforts, the Voynich is still lost. Not its contents, of course. Yale published the manuscript in its entirety online. But losing the precious original pages is a tragedy.
“All is not lost, though.” She leaned close in to the microphone, ready to share a secret. “Last month I found a quire of papers stuffed inside a manuscript in the upstairs library loft of the British Museum. This is not an unusual occurrence. It is a library, after all, and old paper is our business.”
Laughs, chuckles, and she relaxed a fraction. It was her boss’s phrasing—old paper is our business—something he was fond of saying all the time. He beamed at her, and she knew she’d pleased him, using his joke in her press-conference debut. She cleared her throat, continued in the same confiding voice.
“The quire, like the rest of the Voynich, is written in a language or a code that hasn’t yet been translated, even by experts in the cryptology field. Alas, that includes me.”
A few laughs, and she was tempted to tell the truth, but no, she had to keep to her script, mix the lies and truth.
She said, “When I found the pages, I immediately set out to determine if they were real.”
The reporters leaned forward as one. But one, a dark-haired gent in the middle, was staring at her as if she was about to announce the secrets of creation.
Isabella placed her laptop on a chair, hit a button, and the lights dimmed a bit. The huge screen behind her lit up with a series of photographs of the discovered pages.
“After extensive testing using radiocarbon dating, we have determined the papers I found are indeed a part of Beinecke manuscript 408—known colloquially as the Voynich manuscript, because of its rediscovery in 1912 at the Jesuit college of Frascati near Rome, by Wilfred Voynich. The quire in question is labeled as pages fifty-nine to sixty-four of the manuscript. These pages have been lost for centuries. And that, my friends, is not all.”
The reporters knew immediately Dr. Isabella Marin was about to drop a bomb on them. Roger sat forward now along with the rest of them, never taking his eyes off her.