“It’s absolutely fascinating!” Bernard settled into the other armchair. “The book—yes, it’s on Rupert’s wish list, but at first I thought it was a joke.” As with all Bernard’s customers, Rupert had left a hit file of targets for acquisition with the dealer. “To my certain knowledge, at least seventeen different pastiches purporting to be the Necronomicon were published in the last century. Most of them are novelty items or ephemera, targeting fans of the works of H. P. Lovecraft. The book itself is widely considered to be a fictional construct Lovecraft concocted, supposedly a fount of blasphemous wisdom relating to the so-called ‘Elder Gods’ and their—”
Eve’s smile became fixed. In a momentary lapse of attention she actually raised her mug and took a sip. To her credit, she managed not to spit it out again. She licked her lips: “I hardly think Rupert would be interested in a practical joke, do you?”
“Of course not.” Bernard’s eyes almost crossed as he took a scalding mouthful of his brew. “To cut a long story short: like all the best stories, there is a nugget of truth buried beneath a continent of lies.”
“Do go on.” Eve nodded encouragingly. “Please?”
Bernard needed little or no encouragement to mansplain. “The title of Necronomicon, or Book of Dead Names, has been assigned to at least three different manuscripts that circulated in Europe between the late thirteenth and early eighteenth centuries. One—the most likely candidate—originated as an Andalusian work of scholarship titled Al Azif, which found its way into the custody of the Dominican order in the 1590s—its existence may have been part of the impetus for the creation of the Spanish Inquisition—at any rate, it has a most foul reputation. There’s a copy in the obscene manuscripts collection of the Bodleian Library, but it’s been sealed since 1945. Apparently the three most recent readers committed suicide after working on the damned book.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. There were reports of delusions—hearing strange voices, paranoia, a conviction that certain dead things were controlling their limbs while they slept—the usual. One of the scholars was so upset he sought an exorcism; afterwards, the priest had a nervous breakdown. Another of them shot his mistress then hanged himself, leaving a suicide note that said she was pregnant with the anti-Christ. But the real clue that this might be the actual book is that it isn’t in the Bod’s sealed collection any more.”
“What happened?” Eve had noticed the tendency of Bernard’s gaze to track towards her chest, and adjusted her posture accordingly, leaning forward to present him with a better view.
“It was borrowed,” Bernard confided, with evident relish, “by the Prime Minister.”
“But the Bodleian doesn’t lend—” Eve bit her tongue before she could say too much. “Right.”
“Right.” He nodded emphatically. “So, that’s Rare Manuscript AW-312.4, the Third Candidate. There are two other known copies: one’s in the Vatican archives, the other is in the royal library in Riyadh, although it disappeared after the Salafi ascendancy in the 1980s. But that’s not what’s for sale. Oh no.” He took another mouthful, then put his mug down on the carpet, slopping tea, and leaned closer. “This is even rarer. It’s the concordance!”
“A concordance?” Eve forced a puzzled smile onto her face.
“Indeed.” Bernard gazed into her eyes. “If simply reading AW-312.4 is bad for you, how damaging would it be to try and index the thing? To read it and to comprehend the significance of every word, to study the interrelation of concepts and interplay of references within the manuscript, and then to map every single occurrence of every term?” His smile was bright, fey, and not entirely sane.
“Who was responsible?” Eve asked. If Bernard noticed the slight tension in her voice, he pretended not to.
“Various friars and monks, during the seventeenth century.” Bernard sat back and waved his hand dismissively. “It always ended in tears before bedtime. Well, there were also a couple of autos-da-fé and burnings at the stake as well, but what else would you expect of the Spanish Inquisition? At least, that’s how they usually ended. There was a final attempt in 1833 and that was successful.”
“How?”
“Technology and … determination? A fortuitous combination. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Vatican copy came into the custody of a librarian, an Archbishop Rodriguez, whose ambition was to index everything. After all, what use is a territory without a map? He had heard of AW-312.4 and the disastrous attempts to index it, and he decided he was going to finish the job, once and for all, so that future clergy might be vigilant for even the most fragmentary sign of these unholy scriptures. And he had access to three things that no previous indexer had been blessed with: an entire scriptorium of Dominican monks; the scholarly letters and published patents of Sir Charles Babbage; and an early punched-card-controlled jacquard weaving machine.”
Eve blinked. “Let me guess. One page per scribe, one punched card per index word, and he was familiar with Babbage’s difference engine? Perhaps how it might be used to drive a printer? Division of labor?”
“Not exactly. The monks all wore an eyepatch, so they still had one working eyeball after they finished their assigned page. And they didn’t build a Babbage printer like the one in the Science Museum: they just wove a, a demonic tapestry. Afterwards they burned the Jacquard loom and the card deck in a last, secret auto-da-fé. Then Archbishop Rodriguez went into seclusion for six months, fasting and praying as he un-stitched the embroidered cloth encoding the concordance and transcribed it by hand onto pages blessed by the Pope himself.” Bernard leaned forward again, and touched her right knee: “It didn’t save him, of course; the poor bastard gouged his eyes out and died raving about a month later. But at least he finished the job.”
Fascinating, Eve thought, resisting the impulse to break his fingers, one by one. “So what happened to the manuscript?”
“Oh, the usual. They made a couple of attempts to print copies for Inquisition
