All the men in the audience leaned forward, listening intently.
"The next time you find yourself with a woman, look in your heart and see if you cannot approach sex as a mystical, spiritual act. Challenge yourself to find that spark of divinity that man can only achieve through union with the sacred feminine."
The women smiled knowingly, nodding.
The men exchanged dubious giggles and off-color jokes. Langdon sighed. College men were still boys.
Sophie's forehead felt cold as she pressed it against the plane's window and stared blankly into the void, trying to process what Langdon had just told her. She felt a new regret well within her. Ten years.She pictured the stacks of unopened letters her grandfather had sent her. I will tell Robert everything.Without turning from the window, Sophie began to speak. Quietly. Fearfully.
As she began to recount what had happened that night, she felt herself drifting back... alighting in the woods outside her grandfather's Normandy chateau... searching the deserted house in confusion... hearing the voices below her... and then finding the hidden door. She inched down the stone staircase, one step at a time, into that basement grotto. She could taste the earthy air. Cool and light. It was March. In the shadows of her hiding place on the staircase, she watched as the strangers swayed and chanted by flickering orange candles.
I'm dreaming, Sophie told herself. This is a dream. What else could this be?
The women and men were staggered, black, white, black, white. The women's beautiful gossamer gowns billowed as they raised in their right hands golden orbs and called out in unison," I was withyou in the beginning, in the dawn of all that is holy, I bore you from the womb before the start of day."
The women lowered their orbs, and everyone rocked back and forth as if in a trance. They were revering something in the center of the circle.
What are they looking at?
The voices accelerated now. Louder. Faster.
"The woman whom you behold is love!" The women called, raising their orbs again. The men responded," She has her dwelling in eternity!"
The chanting grew steady again. Accelerating. Thundering now. Faster. The participants stepped inward and knelt.
In that instant, Sophie could finally see what they were all watching.
On a low, ornate altar in the center of the circle lay a man. He was naked, positioned on his back, and wearing a black mask. Sophie instantly recognized his body and the birthmark on his shoulder. She almost cried out. Grand-pere! This image alone would have shocked Sophie beyond belief, and yet there was more.
Straddling her grandfather was a naked woman wearing a white mask, her luxuriant silver hair flowing out behind it. Her body was plump, far from perfect, and she was gyrating in rhythm to the chanting - making love to Sophie's grandfather.
Sophie wanted to turn and run, but she couldn't. The stone walls of the grotto imprisoned her as the chanting rose to a fever pitch. The circle of participants seemed almost to be singing now, the noise rising in crescendo to a frenzy. With a sudden roar, the entire room seemed to erupt in climax. Sophie could not breathe. She suddenly realized she was quietly sobbing. She turned and staggered silently up the stairs, out of the house, and drove trembling back to Paris.
CHAPTER 75
The chartered turboprop was just passing over the twinkling lights of Monaco when Aringarosa hung up on Fache for the second time. He reached for the airsickness bag again but felt too drained even to be sick.
Just let it be over!
Fache's newest update seemed unfathomable, and yet almost nothing tonight made sense anymore. What is going on? Everything had spiraled wildly out of control. What have I gotten Silas into? What have I gotten myself into!
On shaky legs, Aringarosa walked to the cockpit. "I need to change destinations." The pilot glanced over his shoulder and laughed. "You're joking, right?" "No. I have to get to London immediately." "Father, this is a charter flight, not a taxi."
"I will pay you extra, of course. How much? London is only one hour farther north and requires almost no change of direction, so - "
"It's not a question of money, Father, there are other issues." "Ten thousand euro. Right now." The pilot turned, his eyes wide with shock. "How much? What kind of priest carries that kind of cash?"
Aringarosa walked back to his black briefcase, opened it, and removed one of the bearer bonds. He handed it to the pilot.
"What is this?" the pilot demanded.
"A ten-thousand-euro bearer bond drawn on the Vatican Bank." The pilot looked dubious." It's the same as cash."
"Only cash is cash," the pilot said, handing the bond back.
Aringarosa felt weak as he steadied himself against the cockpit door. "This is a matter of life or death. You must help me. I need to get to London."
The pilot eyed the bishop's gold ring. "Real diamonds?"
Aringarosa looked at the ring. "I could not possibly part with this." The pilot shrugged, turning and focusing back out the windshield. Aringarosa felt a deepening sadness. He looked at the ring. Everything it represented was about to be lost to the bishop anyway. After a long moment, he slid the ring from his finger and placed it gently on the instrument panel.
Aringarosa slunk out of the cockpit and sat back down. Fifteen seconds later, he could feel the pilot banking a few more degrees to the north.
Even so, Aringarosa's moment of glory was in shambles.
It had all begun as a holy cause. A brilliantly crafted scheme. Now, like a house of cards, it was collapsing in on itself... and the end was nowhere in sight.
CHAPTER 76
Langdon could see Sophie was still shaken from recounting her experience of Hieros Gamos. For his part, Langdon was amazed to have heard it. Not only had Sophie witnessed the full-blown ritual, but her own grandfather had been the celebrant... the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. It was heady company. Da Vinci, Botticelli, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, Jean Cocteau...JacquesSauniere.
"I don't know what else I can tell you," Langdon said softly.
Sophie's eyes were a deep green now, tearful. "He raised me like his own daughter."
Langdon now recognized the emotion that had been growing in her eyes as they spoke. It was remorse. Distant and deep. Sophie Neveu had shunned her grandfather and was now seeing him in an entirely different light.
Outside, the dawn was coming fast, its crimson aura gathering off the starboard. The earth was still black beneath them.
"Victuals, my dears?" Teabing rejoined them with a flourish, presenting several cans of Coke and a box of old crackers. He apologized profusely for the limited fare as he doled out the goods. "Our friend the monk isn't talking yet," he chimed, "but give him time." He bit into a cracker and eyed the poem. "So, my lovely, any headway?" He looked at Sophie. "What is your grandfather trying to tell us here? Where the devil is this headstone? This headstone praised by Templars." Sophie shook her head and remained silent. While Teabing again dug into the verse, Langdon popped a Coke and turned to the window, his thoughts awash with images of secret rituals and unbroken codes. A headstone praised by Templarsis the key.He took a long sip from the can. A headstone praised by Templars.The cola was warm.
The dissolving veil of night seemed to evaporate quickly, and as Langdon watched the transformation, he saw a shimmering ocean stretch out beneath them. The English Channel.It wouldn't be long now.
Langdon willed the light of day to bring with it a second kind of illumination, but the lighter it became outside, the further he felt from the truth. He heard the rhythms of iambic pentameter and chanting, Hieros Gamos and sacred rites, resonating with the rumble of the jet.