drink? Some nibblies? Crisps? Nuts? Seltzer?" Sophie and Langdon both shook their heads. Teabing grinned and closed the bar. "So then, about this knight's tomb..."
CHAPTER 82
"Fleet Street?" Langdon asked, eyeing Teabing in the back of the limo. There's a crypt on Fleet Street? So far, Leigh was being playfully cagey about where he thought they would find the "knight's tomb", which, according to the poem, would provide the password for opening the smaller cryptex.
Teabing grinned and turned to Sophie. "Miss Neveu, give the Harvard boy one more shot at the verse, will you?"
Sophie fished in her pocket and pulled out the black cryptex, which was wrapped in the vellum. Everyone had decided to leave the rosewood box and larger cryptex behind in the plane's strongbox, carrying with them only what they needed, the far more portable and discreet black cryptex. Sophie unwrapped the vellum and handed the sheet to Langdon.
Although Langdon had read the poem several times onboard the jet, he had been unable to extract any specific location. Now, as he read the words again, he processed them slowly and carefully, hoping the pentametric rhythms would reveal a clearer meaning now that he was on the ground.
In London lies a knight a Pope interred.
His labor's fruit a Holy wrath incurred.
You seek the orb that ought be on his tomb.
It speaks of Rosy flesh and seeded womb.
The language seemed simple enough. There was a knight buried in London. A knight who labored at something that angered the Church. A knight whose tomb was missing an orb that should be present. The poem's final reference - Rosy flesh and seeded womb - was a clear allusion to Mary Magdalene, the Rose who bore the seed of Jesus.
Despite the apparent straightforwardness of the verse, Langdon still had no idea who this knight was or where he was buried. Moreover, once they located the tomb, it sounded as if they would be searching for something that was absent. The orb that ought be on his tomb?
"No thoughts?" Teabing clucked in disappointment, although Langdon sensed the Royal Historian was enjoying being one up. "Miss Neveu?"
She shook her head.
"What would you two do without me?" Teabing said. "Very well, I will walk you through it. It's quite simple really. The first line is the key. Would you read it please?"
Langdon read aloud. " 'In London lies a knight a Pope interred. '"
"Precisely. A knight a Pope interred." He eyed Langdon. "What does that mean to you?"
Langdon shrugged. "A knight buried by a Pope? A knight whose funeral was presided over by a Pope?"
Teabing laughed loudly. "Oh, that's rich. Always the optimist, Robert. Look at the second line. This knight obviously did something that incurred the Holy wrath of the Church. Think again. Consider the dynamic between the Church and the Knights Templar. A knight a Pope interred?"
"A knight a Pope killed?" Sophie asked. Teabing smiled and patted her knee. "Well done, my dear. A knight a Pope buried.Or killed." Langdon thought of the notorious Templar round-up in 1307 - unlucky Friday the thirteenth - when Pope Clement killed and interred hundreds of Knights Templar. "But there must be endless graves of 'knights killed by Popes. '"
"Aha, not so!" Teabing said. "Many of them were burned at the stake and tossed unceremoniously into the Tiber River. But this poem refers to a tomb.A tomb in London. And there are few knights buried in London." He paused, eyeing Langdon as if waiting for light to dawn. Finally he huffed. "Robert, for heaven's sake! The church built in London by the Priory's military arm - the Knights Templar themselves!"
"The Temple Church?" Langdon drew a startled breath. "It has a crypt?"
"Ten of the most frightening tombs you will ever see."
Langdon had never actually visited the Temple Church, although he'd come across numerous references in his Priory research. Once the epicenter of all Templar/Priory activities in the United Kingdom, the Temple Church had been so named in honor of Solomon's Temple, from which the Knights Templar had extracted their own title, as well as the Sangreal documents that gave them all their influence in Rome. Tales abounded of knights performing strange, secretive rituals within the Temple Church's unusual sanctuary. "The Temple Church is on Fleet Street?"
"Actually, it's just off Fleet Street on Inner Temple Lane." Teabing looked mischievous. "I wanted to see you sweat a little more before I gave it away." "Thanks." "Neither of you has ever been there?" Sophie and Langdon shook their heads." I'm not surprised," Teabing