... Alexander Pope, friend and colleague...
"I guess 'modern' is a relative term," Sophie called to Gettum. "It's an old book. About Sir
Isaac Newton."
Gettum shook her head in the doorway. "No good. Newton was buried in Westminster
Abbey, the seat of English Protestantism. There's no way a Catholic Pope was present. Cream
and sugar?"
Sophie nodded.
Gettum waited. "Robert?"
Langdon's heart was hammering. He pulled his eyes from the screen and stood up. "Sir
Isaac Newton is our knight."
Sophie remained seated. "What are you talking about?"
"Newton is buried in London," Langdon said. "His labors produced new sciences that
incurred the wrath of the Church. And he was a Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. What more
could we want?"
"What more?" Sophie pointed to the poem. "How about a knight a Pope interred? You
heard Ms. Gettum. Newton was not buried by a Catholic Pope."
Langdon reached for the mouse. "Who said anything about a Catholic Pope?" He clicked on
the "Pope" hyperlink, and the complete sentence appeared.
Sir Isaac Newton's burial, attended by kings and nobles, was presided over by
Alexander Pope, friend and colleague, who gave a stirring eulogy before
sprinkling dirt on the tomb.
Langdon looked at Sophie. "We had the correct Pope on our second hit. Alexander." He
paused. "A. Pope."
In London lies a knight A. Pope interred.
Sophie stood up, looking stunned.
Jacques Saunière, the master of double-entendres, had proven once again that he was a
frighteningly clever man.
CHAPTER 96
Silas awoke with a start.
He had no idea what had awoken him or how long he had been asleep. Was I dreaming?
Sitting up now on his straw mat, he listened to the quiet breathing of the Opus Dei residence
hall, the stillness textured only by the soft murmurs of someone praying aloud in a room below
him. These were familiar sounds and should have comforted him.
And yet he felt a sudden and unexpected wariness.
Standing, wearing only his undergarments, Silas walked to the window. Was I followed?
The courtyard below was deserted, exactly as he had seen it when he entered. He listened.
Silence. So why am I uneasy? Long ago Silas had learned to trust his intuition. Intuition had kept
him alive as a child on the streets of Marseilles long before prison... long before he was born
again by the hand of Bishop Aringarosa. Peering out the window, he now saw the faint outline of
a car through the hedge. On the car's roof was a police siren. A floorboard creaked in the
hallway. A door latch moved.
Silas reacted on instinct, surging across the room and sliding to a stop just behind the door
as it crashed open. The first police officer stormed through, swinging his gun left then right at
what appeared an empty room. Before he realized where Silas was, Silas had thrown his
shoulder into the door, crushing a second officer as he came through. As the first officer wheeled
to shoot, Silas dove for his legs. The gun went off, the bullet sailing above Silas's head, just as he
connected with the officer's shins, driving his legs out from under him, and sending the man
down, his head hitting the floor. The second officer staggered to his feet in the doorway, and
Silas drove a knee into his groin, then went clambering over the writhing body into the hall.
Almost naked, Silas hurled his pale body down the staircase. He knew he had been
betrayed, but by whom? When he reached the foyer, more officers were surging through the
front door. Silas turned the other way and dashed deeper into the residence hall. The women's
entrance. Every Opus Dei building has one. Winding down narrow hallways, Silas snaked
through a kitchen, past terrified workers, who left to avoid the naked albino as he knocked over
bowls and silverware, bursting into a dark hallway near the boiler room. He now saw the door he
sought, an exit light gleaming at the end.
Running full speed through the door out into the rain, Silas leapt off the low landing, not
seeing the officer coming the other way until it was too late. The two men collided, Silas's broad,
naked shoulder grinding into the man's sternum with crushing force. He drove the officer
backward onto the pavement, landing hard on top of him. The officer's gun clattered away. Silas
could hear men running down the hall shouting. Rolling, he grabbed the loose gun just as the
officers emerged. A shot rang out on the stairs, and Silas felt a searing pain below his ribs. Filled
with rage, he opened fire at all three officers, their blood spraying.
A dark shadow loomed behind, coming out of nowhere. The angry hands that grabbed at his
bare shoulders felt as if they were infused with the power of the devil himself. The man roared in
his ear. SILAS, NO!
Silas spun and fired. Their eyes met. Silas was already screaming in horror as Bishop
Aringarosa fell.
CHAPTER 97
More than three thousand people are entombed or enshrined within Westminster Abbey. The
colossal stone interior burgeons with the remains of kings, statesmen, scientists, poets, and
musicians. Their tombs, packed into every last niche and alcove, range in grandeur from the
most regal of mausoleums— that of Queen Elizabeth I, whose canopied sarcophagus inhabits its
own private, apsidal chapel— down to the most modest etched floor tiles whose inscriptions have
worn away with centuries of foot traffic, leaving it to one's imagination whose relics might lie
below the tile in the undercroft.
Designed in the style of the great cathedrals of Amiens, Chartres, and Canterbury,
Westminster Abbey is considered neither cathedral nor parish church. It bears the classification
of royal peculiar, subject only to the Sovereign. Since hosting the coronation of William the
Conqueror on Christmas Day in 1066, the dazzling sanctuary has witnessed an endless
procession of royal ceremonies and affairs of state— from the canonization of Edward the
Confessor, to the marriage of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, to the funerals of Henry V,
Queen Elizabeth I, and Lady Diana.
Even so, Robert Langdon currently felt no interest in any of the abbey's ancient history,
save one event— the funeral of the British knight Sir Isaac Newton.
In London lies a knight a Pope interred.
Hurrying through the grand portico on the north transept, Langdon and Sophie were met by
guards who politely ushered them through the abbey's newest addition— a large walk-through
metal detector— now present in most historic buildings in London. They both passed through
without setting off the alarm and continued to the abbey entrance.
Stepping across the threshold into Westminster Abbey, Langdon felt the outside world
evaporate with a sudden hush. No rumble of traffic. No hiss of rain. Just a deafening silence,
which seemed to reverberate back and forth as if the building were whispering to itself.
Langdon's and Sophie's eyes, like those of almost every visitor, shifted immediately
skyward, where the abbey's great abyss seemed to explode overhead. Gray stone columns
ascended like redwoods into the shadows, arching gracefully over dizzying expanses, and then
shooting back down to the stone floor. Before them, the wide alley of the north transept stretched
out like a deep canyon, flanked by sheer cliffs of stained glass. On sunny days, the abbey floor
was a prismatic patchwork of light. Today, the rain and darkness gave this massive hollow a
wraithlike aura... more like that of the crypt it truly was.
"It's practically empty," Sophie whispered.
Langdon felt disappointed. He had hoped for a lot more people. A more public place. Their
earlier experience in the deserted Temple Church was not one Langdon wanted to repeat. He had
been anticipating a certain feeling of security in the popular tourist destination, but Langdon's
recollections of bustling throngs in a well -lit abbey had been formed during the peak summer
tourist season. Today was a rainy April morning. Rather than crowds and shimmering stained
glass, all Langdon saw was acres of desolate floor and shadowy, empty alcoves.
"We passed through metal detectors," Sophie reminded, apparently sensing Langdon's
apprehension. "If anyone is in here, they can't be armed."
Langdon nodded but still felt circumspect. He had wanted to bring the London police with
them, but Sophie's fears of who might be involved put a damper on any contact with the
authorities. We need to recover the cryptex, Sophie had insisted. It is the key to everything.
She was right, of course.
The key to getting Leigh back alive.
The key to finding the Holy Grail.
The key to learning who is behind this.
Unfortunately, their only chance to recover the keystone seemed to be here and now... at the
tomb of Isaac Newton. Whoever held the cryptex would have to pay a visit to the tomb to
decipher the final clue, and if they had not already come and gone, Sophie and Langdon intended
to intercept them.
Striding toward the left wall to get out of the open, they moved into an obscure side aisle
behind a row of pilasters. Langdon couldn't shake the image of Leigh Teabing being held
captive, probably tied up in the back of his own limousine. Whoever had ordered the top Priory
members killed would not hesitate to eliminate others who stood in the way. It seemed a cruel
irony that Teabing— a modern British knight— was a hostage in the search for his own
countryman, Sir Isaac Newton.
"Which way is it?" Sophie asked, looking around.
The tomb. Langdon had no idea. "We should find a docent and ask."
Langdon knew better than to wander aimlessly in here. Westminster Abbey was a tangled
warren of mausoleums, perimeter chambers, and walk-in burial niches. Like the Louvre's Grand
Gallery, it had a lone point of entry— the door through which they had just passed— easy to find
your way in, but impossible to find your way out. A literal tourist trap, one of Langdon's
befuddled colleagues had called it. Keeping architectural tradition, the abbey was laid out in the
shape of a giant crucifix. Unlike most churches, however, it had its entrance on the side, rather
than the standard rear of the church via the narthex at the bottom of the nave. Moreover, the
abbey had a series of sprawling cloisters attached. One false step through the wrong archway,
and a visitor was lost in a labyrinth of outdoor passageways surrounded by high walls.
"Docents wear crimson robes," Langdon said, approaching the center of the church. Peering
obliquely across the towering gilded altar to the far end of the south transept, Langdon saw
several people crawling on their hands and knees. This prostrate pilgrimage was a common
occurrence in Poets' Corner, although it was far less holy than it appeared. Tourists doing grave
rubbings.
"I don't see any docents," Sophie said. "Maybe we can find the tomb on our own?"
Without a word, Langdon led her another few steps to the center of the abbey and pointed
to the right.
Sophie drew a startled breath as she looked down the length of the abbey's nave, the full
magnitude of the building now visible. "Aah," she said. "Let's find a docent."
At that moment, a hundred yards down the nave, out of sight behind the choir screen, the stately
tomb of Sir Isaac Newton had a lone visitor. The Teacher had been scrutinizing the monument
for ten minutes now.
Newton's tomb consisted of a massive black-marble sarcophagus on which reclined the
sculpted form of Sir Isaac Newton, wearing classical costume, and leaning proudly against a
stack of his own books— Divinity, Chronology, Opticks, and Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica. At Newton's feet stood two winged boys holding a scroll. Behind Newton's
recumbent body rose an austere pyramid. Although the pyramid itself seemed an oddity, it was
the giant shape mounted halfway up the pyramid that most intrigued the Teacher.
An orb.
The Teacher pondered Saunière's beguiling riddle. You seek the orb that ought be on his
tomb. The massive orb protruding from the face of the pyramid was carved in basso-relievo and
depicted all kinds of heavenly bodies— constellations, signs of the zodiac, comets, stars, and
planets. Above it, the image of the Goddess of Astronomy beneath a field of stars.
Countless orbs.
The Teacher had been convinced that once he found the tomb, discerning the missing orb
would be easy. Now he was not so sure. He was gazing at a complicated map of the heavens.
Was there a missing planet? Had some astronomical orb been omitted from a constellation? He
had no idea. Even so, the Teacher could not help but suspect that the solution would be
ingeniously clean and simple— "a knight a pope interred." What orb am I looking for? Certainly,
an advanced knowledge of astrophysics was not a prerequisite for finding the Holy Grail, was it?
It speaks of Rosy flesh and seeded womb.
The Teacher's concentration was broken by several approaching tourists. He slipped the
cryptex back in his pocket and watched warily as the visitors went to a nearby table, left a
donation in the cup, and restocked on the complimentary grave-rubbing supplies set out by the
abbey. Armed with fresh charcoal pencils and large sheets of heavy paper, they headed off
toward the front of the abbey, probably to the popular Poets' Corner to pay their respects to
Chaucer, Tennyson, and Dickens by rubbing furiously on their graves.
Alone again, he stepped closer to the tomb, scanning it from bottom to top. He began with
