The young monk finished his work for the night and gathered together the encoded manuscript. The perforated vellum was not to be the complete presentation, but only a piece of the whole system that Anso envisioned.

The darkened corridors echoed with his softened footsteps as he made his way to the chambers of the Holy Office. Anso’s breath came quickly tonight, for his excitement was great at the potential this meeting had to bring greatness to the Order of St Augustine and to the Mother Church as a whole.

The system that brother Anso had created would enable the scattered dwellings of the Order to communicate almost instantaneously, as well as allowing them to store the sacred texts more efficiently, taking up less than a quarter of the space that was now being utilized in the libraries and storage houses. And the profane texts, those would be encoded so as to not tempt the weak of heart and faith.

Anso opened the door to the princely quarters of the Cardinal. Abbot Innocento had already arrived.