"Well, this one did exist. It must have, for the Holy Office to list it in its Index. Don't you think?"
"It doesn't matter what I think. Lawyers who don't believe their clients are innocent still get them acquitted."
"That's the case here. I'm hiring you not because you believe but because you're good."
Corso turned more pages of the book. Another engraving, numbered I, showed a walled city on a hill. A strange unarmed horseman was riding toward the city, his finger to his lips requesting complicity or silence. The caption read: NEM. PERV.T QUI N.N LEG. CERT.RIT.
"It's in an abbreviated but decipherable code," explained Borja, watching him. "Nemo pervenit qui non legitime certaverit."
"Only he who has fought according to the rules will prevail?"
"That's about it. For the moment it's the only one of the nine captions that we can decipher with any certainty. An almost identical one appears in the works of Roger Bacon, a specialist in demonology, cryptography, and magic. Bacon claimed to own a Delomelanicon that had belonged to King Solomon, containing the key to terrible mysteries. The book was made of rolls of parchment with illustrations. It was burned in 1350 by personal order of Pope Innocent VI, who declared: 'It contains a method to summon devils.' In Venice three centuries later, Aristide Torchia decided to print it with the original illustrations."
"They're too good," objected Corso. "They can't be the originals: they'd be in an older style."
"I agree. Torchia must have updated them."
Another engraving, number III, showed a bridge with gate towers spanning a river. Corso looked up and saw that Borja was smiling mysteriously, like an alchemist confident of what is cooking in his crucible.
"There's one last connection," said the book dealer. "Giordano Bruno, martyr of rationalism, mathematician, and champion of the theory that the Earth rotates around the sun..." He waved his hand contemptuously, as if all this was trivial. "But that was only part of his work. He wrote sixty-one books, and magic played an important role in them. Bruno makes specific reference to the Delomelanicon, even using the Greek words delo and melas, and he adds: 'On the path of men who want to know, there are nine secret doors.' He goes on to describe the methods for making the Light shine once more. 'Sic luceat Lux,' he writes, which is actually the motto"—Borja showed Corso the printer's mark: a tree split by lighting, a snake, and a motto—"that Aristide Torchia used on the frontispiece of The Nine Doors.... What do you think of that?"
"It's all well and good. But it all comes to the same. You can make a text mean anything, especially if it's old and full of ambiguities."
"Or precautions. Giordano Bruno forgot the golden rule for survivaclass="underline" Scire, tacere. To know and keep silent. Apparently he knew the right things, but he talked too much. And there are more coincidences: Bruno was arrested in Venice, declared an obdurate heretic, and burned alive in Rome at Campo dei Fiori in February 1600. The same journey, the same places, and the same dates that marked Aristide Torchia's path to execution sixty-seven years later: he was arrested in Venice, tortured in Rome, and burned at Campo dei Fiori in February 1667. By then very few people were being burned at the stake, and yet he was."
"I'm impressed," said Corso, who wasn't in the least.
Borja tutted reprovingly.
"Sometimes I wonder if you believe in anything."
Corso seemed to consider that for a moment, then shrugged. "A long time ago, I did believe in something. But I was young and cruel then. Now I'm forty-five: I'm old and cruel."
"I am too. But there are things I still believe in. Things that make my heart beat faster."
"Like money?"
"Don't make fun of me. Money is the key that opens the door to man's dark secrets. And it pays for your services. And grants me the only thing in the world I respect: these books." He took a few steps along the cabinets full of books. "They are mirrors in the image of those who wrote them. They reflect their concerns, questions, desires, life, death ... They're living beings: you have to know how to feed them, protect them..."
"And use them."
"Sometimes."
"But this one doesn't work."
"No."
"You've tried it."
It was a statement, not a question. Borja looked at Corso with hostility. "Don't be absurd. Let's just say I'm certain it's a forgery, and leave it at that. Which is why I need to compare it to the other copies."
"I still say it doesn't have to be a forgery. Books often differ even if they're part of the same edition. No two books are the same really. From birth they all have distinguishing details. And each book lives a different life: it can lose pages, or have them added or replaced, or acquire a new binding.... Over the years two books printed on the same press can end up looking entirely different. That might have happened to this one."
"Well, find out. Investigate The Nine Doors as if were a crime. Follow trails, check each page, each engraving, the paper, the binding.... Work your way backward and find out where my copy comes from. Then do the same with the other two, in Sintra and in Paris."
"It would help if I knew how you learned that yours was a forgery."
"I can't tell you. Trust my intuition."
"Your intuition is going to cost you a lot of money."
"All you have to do is spend it."
He pulled the check from his pocket and gave it to Corso, who turned it over in his fingers, undecided.
"Why are you paying me in advance? You never did that before."
"You'll have a lot of expenses to cover. This is so you can get started." He handed him a thick bound file. "Everything I know about the book is in there. You may find it useful."
Corso was still looking at the check. "This is too much for an advance."
"You may encounter certain complications...."
"You don't say." As he said this, he heard Borja clear his throat. They were getting to the crux of the matter at last.
"If you find out that the three copies are forgeries or are incomplete," Borja said, "then you'll have done your job and we'll settle up." He paused briefly and ran his hand over his tanned pate. He smiled awkwardly at Corso. "But one of the books may turn out to be authentic. In which case, you'll have more money at your disposal. Because I'll want it by whatever means, and without regard for expense."
"You're joking."
"Do I look as if I'm joking, Corso?"
"It's against the law."
"You've done illegal things before."
"Not this kind of thing."
"Nobody's ever paid you what I'll pay you."
"How can I be sure of that?"
"I'm letting you take the book with you. You'll need the original for your work. Isn't that enough of a guarantee?"
The jarring sound again, warning him. Corso was still holding The Nine Doors. He put the check between the pages like a bookmark and blew some imaginary dust off the book before returning it to Borja.
"Before, you said that with money you could pay people to do anything. Now you can test that out yourself. Go and see the owners of the books and do the dirty work yourself."
He turned and walked toward the door, wondering how many steps he'd take before the book dealer said anything. Three.
"This business isn't for men of words," said Borja. "It's for men of action."
His tone had changed. Gone was the arrogant composure and the disdain for the mercenary he was hiring. On the wall, an engraving of an angel by Dürer gently beat its wings behind the glass of a picture frame, while Corso's shoes turned on the black marble floor. Next to his cabinets full of books and the barred window with the cathedral in the background, next to everything that his money could buy, Varo Borja stood blinking, disconcerted. His expression was still arrogant; he even tapped the book cover with disdain. But Lucas Corso had learned to recognize defeat in a man's eyes. And fear.