oldest symbols on earth. Used over four thousand years before Christ."
"And what does it mean?"
Langdon always hesitated when he got this question. Telling someone what a symbol
"meant" was like telling them how a song should make them feel— it was different for all people.
A white Ku Klux Klan headpiece conjured images of hatred and racism in the United States, and
yet the same costume carried a meaning of religious faith in Spain.
"Symbols carry different meanings in different settings," Langdon said. "Primarily, the
pentacle is a pagan religious symbol."
Fache nodded. "Devil worship."
"No," Langdon corrected, immediately realizing his choice of vocabulary should have been
clearer.
Nowadays, the term pagan had become almost synonymous with devil worship— a gross
misconception. The word's roots actually reached back to the Latin paganus, meaning country -
dwellers. "Pagans" were literally unindoctrinated country-folk who clung to the old, rural
religions of Nature worship. In fact, so strong was the Church's fear of those who lived in the
rural villes that the once innocuous word for "villager"— villain— came to mean a wicked soul.
"The pentacle," Langdon clarified, "is a pre-Christian symbol that relates to Nature worship.
The ancients envisioned their world in two halves— masculine and feminine. Their gods and
goddesses worked to keep a balance of power. Yin and yang. When male and female were
balanced, there was harmony in the world. When they were unbalanced, there was chaos."
Langdon motioned to Saunière's stomach. "This pentacle is representative of thefemale half of
all things— a concept religious historians call the 'sacred feminine' or the 'divine goddess.'
Saunière, of all people, would know this."
"Saunière drew a goddess symbol on his stomach?"
Langdon had to admit, it seemed odd. "In its most specific interpretation, the pentacle
symbolizes Venus— the goddess of female sexual love and beauty."
Fache eyed the naked man, and grunted.
"Early religion was based on the divine order of Nature. The goddess Venus and the planet
Venus were one and the same. The goddess had a place in the nighttime sky and was known by
many names— Venus, the Eastern Star, Ishtar, Astarte— all of them powerful female concepts
with ties to Nature and Mother Earth."
Fache looked more troubled now, as if he somehow preferred the idea of devil worship.
Langdon decided not to share the pentacle's most astonishing property— the graphic origin
of its ties to Venus. As a young astronomy student, Langdon had been stunned to learn the planet
Venus traced a perfect pentacle across the ecliptic sky every four years. So astonished were the
ancients to observe this phenomenon, that Venus and her pentacle became symbols of perfection,
beauty, and the cyclic qualities of sexual love. As a tribute to the magic of Venus, the Greeks
used her four-year cycle to organize their Olympiads. Nowadays, few people realized that the
four-year schedule of modern Olympic Games still followed the cycles of Venus. Even fewer
people knew that the five-pointed star had almost become the official Olympic seal but was
modified at the last moment— its five points exchanged for five intersecting rings to better
reflect the games' spirit of inclusion and harmony.
"Mr. Langdon," Fache said abruptly. "Obviously, the pentacle must also relate to the devil.
Your American horror movies make that point clearly."
Langdon frowned. Thank you, Hollywood. The five-pointed star was now a virtual clichéin
Satanic serial killer movies, usually scrawled on the wall of some Satanist's apartment along with
other alleged demonic symbology. Langdon was always frustrated when he saw the symbol in
this context; the pentacle's true origins were actually quite godly.
"I assure you," Langdon said, "despite what you see in the movies, the pentacle's demonic
interpretation is historically inaccurate. The original feminine meaning is correct, but the
symbolism of the pentacle has been distorted over the millennia. In this case, through
bloodshed."
"I'm not sure I follow."
Langdon glanced at Fache's crucifix, uncertain how to phrase his next point. "The Church,
sir. Symbols are very resilient, but the pentacle was altered by the early Roman Catholic Church.
As part of the Vatican's campaign to eradicate pagan religions and convert the masses to
Christianity, the Church launched a smear campaign against the pagan gods and goddesses,
recasting their divine symbols as evil."
"Go on."
"This is very common in times of turmoil," Langdon continued. "A newly emerging power
will take over the existing symbols and degrade them over time in an attempt to erase their
meaning. In the battle between the pagan symbols and Christian symbols, the pagans lost;
Poseidon's trident became the devil's pitchfork, the wise crone's pointed hat became the symbol
of a witch, and Venus's pentacle became a sign of the devil." Langdon paused. "Unfortunately,
the United States military has also perverted the pentacle; it's now our foremost symbol of war.
We paint it on all our fighter jets and hang it on the shoulders of all our generals." So much for
the goddess of love and beauty.
"Interesting." Fache nodded toward the spread-eagle corpse. "And the positioning of the
body? What do you make of that?"
Langdon shrugged. "The position simply reinforces the reference to the pentacle and sacred
feminine."
Fache's expression clouded. "I beg your pardon?"
"Replication. Repeating a symbol is the simplest way to strengthen its meaning. Jacques
Saunière positioned himself in the shape of a five-pointed star." If one pentacle is good, two is
better.
Fache's eyes followed the five points of Saunière's arms, legs, and head as he again ran a
hand across his slick hair. "Interesting analysis." He paused. "And the nudity?" He grumbled as
he spoke the word, sounding repulsed by the sight of an aging male body. "Why did he remove
his clothing?"
Damned good question, Langdon thought. He'd been wondering the same thing ever since
he first saw the Polaroid. His best guess was that a naked human form was yet another
endorsement of Venus— the goddess of human sexuality. Although modern culture had erased
much of Venus's association with the male/female physical union, a sharp etymological eye
could still spot a vestige of Venus's original meaning in the word "venereal." Langdon decided
not to go there.
"Mr. Fache, I obviously can't tell you why Mr. Saunière drew that symbol on himself or
placed himself in this way, but I can tell you that a man like Jacques Saunière would consider
the pentacle a sign of the female deity. The correlation between this symbol and the sacred
feminine is widely known by art historians and symbologists."
"Fine. And the use of his own blood as ink?"
"Obviously he had nothing else to write with."
Fache was silent a moment. "Actually, I believe he used blood such that the police would
follow certain forensic procedures."
"I'm sorry?"
"Look at his left hand."
Langdon's eyes traced the length of the curator's pale arm to his left hand but saw nothing.
Uncertain, he circled the corpse and crouched down, now noting with surprise that the curator
was clutching a large, felt-tipped marker.
"Saunière was holding it when we found him," Fache said, leaving Langdon and moving
several yards to a portable table covered with investigation tools, cables, and assorted electronic
gear. "As I told you," he said, rummaging around the table, "we have touched nothing. Are you
familiar with this kind of pen?"
Langdon knelt down farther to see the pen's label.
STYLO DE LUMIERE NOIRE.
He glanced up in surprise.
The black-light pen or watermark stylus was a specialized felt-tipped marker originally
designed by museums, restorers, and forgery police to place invisible marks on items. The stylus
wrote in a noncorrosive, alcohol-based fluorescent ink that was visible only under black light.
Nowadays, museum maintenance staffs carried these markers on their daily rounds to place
invisible "tick marks" on the frames of paintings that needed restoration.
As Langdon stood up, Fache walked over to the spotlight and turned it off. The gallery
plunged into sudden darkness.
Momentarily blinded, Langdon felt a rising uncertainty. Fache's silhouette appeared,
illuminated in bright purple. He approached carrying a portable light source, which shrouded
him in a violet haze.
"As you may know," Fache said, his eyes luminescing in the violet glow, "police use black-
light illumination to search crime scenes for blood and other forensic evidence. So you can
imagine our surprise..." Abruptly, he pointed the light down at the corpse.
Langdon looked down and jumped back in shock.
His heart pounded as he took in the bizarre sight now glowing before him on the parquet
floor. Scrawled in luminescent handwriting, the curator's final words glowed purple beside his
corpse. As Langdon stared at the shimmering text, he felt the fog that had surrounded this entire
night growing thicker.
Langdon read the message again and looked up at Fache. "What the hell does this mean!"
Fache's eyes shone white. "That, monsieur, is precisely the question you are here to
answer."
Not far away, inside Saunière's office, Lieutenant Collet had returned to the Louvre and was
huddled over an audio console set up on the curator's enormous desk. With the exception of the
eerie, robot-like doll of a medieval knight that seemed to be staring at him from the corner of
Saunière's desk, Collet was comfortable. He adjusted his AKG headphones and checked the
input levels on the hard-disk recording system. All systems were go. The microphones were
functioning flawlessly, and the audio feed was crystal clear.
Le moment de vérité, he mused.
Smiling, he closed his eyes and settled in to enjoy the rest of the conversation now being
taped inside the Grand Gallery.
CHAPTER 7
The modest dwelling within the Church of Saint-Sulpice was located on the second floor of the
church itself, to the left of the choir balcony. A two-room suite with a stone floor and minimal
furnishings, it had been home to Sister Sandrine Bieil for over a decade. The nearby convent was
her formal residence, if anyone asked, but she preferred the quiet of the church and had made
herself quite comfortable upstairs with a bed, phone, and hot plate.
As the church's conservatrice d'affaires, Sister Sandrine was responsible for overseeing all
nonreligious aspects of church operations— general maintenance, hiring support staff and guides,
securing the building after hours, and ordering supplies like communion wine and wafers.
Tonight, asleep in her small bed, she awoke to the shrill of her telephone. Tiredly, she lifted
the receiver.
"Soeur Sandrine. Eglise Saint-Sulpice."
"Hello, Sister," the man said in French.
Sister Sandrine sat up. What time is it? Although she recognized her boss's voice, in fifteen
years she had never been awoken by him. The abbéwas a deeply pious man who went home to
bed immediately after mass.
"I apologize if I have awoken you, Sister," the abbésaid, his own voice sounding groggy
and on edge. "I have a favor to ask of you. I just received a call from an influential American
bishop. Perhaps you know him? Manuel Aringarosa?"
"The head of Opus Dei?" Of course I know of him. Who in the Church doesn't? Aringarosa's
conservative prelature had grown powerful in recent years. Their ascension to grace was jump-
started in 1982 when Pope John Paul II unexpectedly elevated them to a "personal prelature of
the Pope," officially sanctioning all of their practices. Suspiciously, Opus Dei's elevation
occurred the same year the wealthy sect allegedly had transferred almost one billion dollars into
the Vatican's Institute for Religious Works— commonly known as the Vatican Bank— bailing it
out of an embarrassing bankruptcy. In a second maneuver that raised eyebrows, the Pope placed
the founder of Opus Dei on the "fast track" for sainthood, accelerating an often century -long
waiting period for canonization to a mere twenty years. Sister Sandrine could not help but feel
that Opus Dei's good standing in Rome was suspect, but one did not argue with the Holy See.
"Bishop Aringarosa called to ask me a favor," the abbétold her, his voice nervous. "One of
his numeraries is in Paris tonight...."
As Sister Sandrine listened to the odd request, she felt a deepening confusion. "I'm sorry,
you say this visiting Opus Dei numerary cannot wait until morning?"
"I'm afraid not. His plane leaves very early. He has always dreamed of seeing Saint-
Sulpice."
"But the church is far more interesting by day. The sun's rays through the oculus, the
graduated shadows on the gnomon, this is what makes Saint-Sulpice unique."
"Sister, I agree, and yet I would consider it a personal favor if you could let him in tonight.
He can be there at... say one o'clock? That's in twenty minutes."
Sister Sandrine frowned. "Of course. It would be my pleasure."
