It was the name of a man their predecessors had burnt at the stake four and a half centuries ago for claiming to have discovered a miraculous Garden of God in the Amazon jungle, a man whose Devil's book had become known as the Voynich Cipher Manuscript: Orlando Falcon.
Epilogue
The jungle surrounding the eye-shaped crater is a vibrant lush sea of green splashed with primary tints. The crater, however, is a patch of desert in the forest, a negative oasis devoid of life or colour – only grey and black.
As the sun penetrates its hidden depths, its rays reveal the desolation: white ash and black charcoal. It is said that the purging power of fire can revitalize life, encourage new, more vigorous growth. However, the ash is so thick on the ground it is hard to imagine anything ever growing there again. And the circular black lake in the centre, the pupil of the eye, looks stagnant, blind.
But all is not as it seems in the eye-shaped crater. Some parts of its soot-covered floor are blacker than others, particularly beside the fallen rocks blocking the caves at one end. Ironically, it is in these blackest sections, where a trickle of phosphorescent green water seeps out through the fallen rocks to darken the ash, that the first signs of life can be found.
Pushing up through the black ash is a small flower with unique leaves. It is unlike any other plant in the surrounding jungle, unlike any other plant in the world. Acknowledgements I plundered many books and periodicals to research the scientific and historical aspects of this novel, but I found the most inspirational source material in the pages of the Voynich Manuscript, which the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has generously reproduced and presented on its website.
I want to thank Patrick Walsh and Jake Smith-Bosanquet, at the Conville amp; Walsh Literary Agency in London, and Nick Harris at the RWSH film agency in Los Angeles for their sterling efforts in selling this novel around the world.
I also thank Bill Scott-Kerr for his perceptive editing and continued encouragement, and Hazel Orme for the final polish.
My greatest thanks, however, are reserved for my wife, Jenny, who has always been my most ruthless critic and most ardent supporter, and for our daughter, Phoebe, who makes everything worthwhile.
