AS SOON AS HE FINISHED HIS CONVERSATION with Alissa, he returned to concentrating on transcribing the manuscript. He swapped vowels and discovered new paths in the cryptogram. He replaced everything that matched in the various sentences of the text.
The next letter in the frequency table, "L," didn't make sense when he tried to replace it with the number "9," which represented the fourth-highest probability character. He accepted this with a certain resignation, as he had already considered the possibility of a flaw in the contingency percentage.
The next letter on the list was "S." He was certain it would fit perfectly into the incomplete sentences of the text. And so it did. The puzzle took shape as new letters were added.
He stared at the computer screen with interest. His eyes burned from straining his eyes. Despite everything, he still found the strength to smile.
What he had before him was like one of those drawings made for children that gradually emerge as the blank spaces are colored in. He couldn't finish reading it, but he already sensed the content.
What he did next was select the nouns, articles, and prepositions, which were almost complete, and transcribe them into his notebook. Instead of risking adding to them, he found expressions like:
that... loyal... the... that... of... him... desirous... that...
but he was surprised to find some not used in everyday language. This disconcerted him at first, but he soon remembered that the manuscript was very old, five hundred years old, and therefore should be appropriate to the way people wrote and spoke at the time. He would not only have to decode the Gothic script, a rather difficult task, but also look for the most appropriate terms for today's use, instead of the obsolete ones common in the sixteenth century.
EXAMINING the manuscript again, he discovered that some words were almost complete and that it was easy to guess which characters to replace. And many others, which he wasn't so sure he'd gotten right.
One detail caught his attention: behind the word God — if he wasn't mistaken — the same unknowns always recurred. He recognized them instantly, because every time God was mentioned in a text from that time, the word was complemented by the formula: Our Lord.
He decided to try his luck. He would risk swapping the letters that, according to his imagined logic, should complete certain terms. If they correctly matched the characters, other words would be completed, providing, at the same time, enough vowels and consonants to complete the code.
Indeed, out of nowhere, miraculously, the outline of a story emerged that, despite being incomplete, seemed fascinating. The words appeared one by one, but working with numbers, Gothic, and Greek letters, and comparing them with those already transcribed was a tremendous puzzle, so much so that on more than one occasion, Gregory had to step away from the computer and take a breath of fresh air on the balcony, smoke a cigarette, and clear his head. Soon, however, he returned to his workstation, driven by curiosity.
Learning the story of this character, who had to resort to cryptography to hide what he believed to be a terrible secret, had ceased to be a task for Geovanna, becoming a strictly personal matter. One could say he was beginning to become obsessed with it. At noon, after twelve hours of intense work, Gregory felt like the happiest man in the world. He had before him a text by a stonemason — none other than Iacobus of Carthage himself — in which he claimed to know how to communicate with God. His words, though incomprehensible, still clearly indicated where to find a book that would lead them to the treasure they were supposed to seek. The only drawback was that it didn't indicate the exact location to complete the search. It did say that anyone interested in discovering its secret would have to travel to a region that, suddenly, they couldn't locate anywhere in the world. But there was something that had a profound impact on him: realizing that the manuscript mentioned The Widow's Children, as well as some chains, possibly the same ones from Nostradamus's stanza XXVII, and perhaps also those from the Vélez chapel.
It was crucial to call Alissa.