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Painting the Pope. The Collected Portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds. London University Press.
Gettum shook her head. "Obviously not what you're looking for." She scrolled to the next hit.
The London Writings of Alexander Pope by G. Wilson Knight.
Again she shook her head.
As the system churned on, the hits came up more quickly than usual. Dozens of texts appeared,
many of them referencing the eighteenth-century British writer Alexander Pope, whose
counterreligious, mock-epic poetry apparently contained plenty of references to knights and
London.
Gettum shot a quick glance to the numeric field at the bottom of the screen. This computer, by
calculating the current number of hits and multiplying by the percentage of the database left to
search, provided a rough guess of how much information would be found. This particular search
looked like it was going to return an obscenely large amount of data.
Estimated number of total hits: 2,692
"We need to refine the parameters further," Gettum said, stopping the search. "Is this all the
information you have regarding the tomb? There's nothing else to go on?"
Langdon glanced at Sophie Neveu, looking uncertain.
This is no scavenger hunt, Gettum sensed. She had heard the whisperings of Robert Langdon's
experience in Rome last year. This American had been granted access to the most secure library on
earth—the Vatican Secret Archives. She wondered what kinds of secrets Langdon might have
learned inside and if his current desperate hunt for a mysterious London tomb might relate to
information he had gained within the Vatican. Gettum had been a librarian long enough to know
the most common reason people came to London to look for knights. The Grail.
Gettum smiled and adjusted her glasses. "You are friends with Leigh Teabing, you are in England,
and you are looking for a knight." She folded her hands. "I can only assume you are on a Grail
quest."
Langdon and Sophie exchanged startled looks.
Gettum laughed. "My friends, this library is a base camp for Grail seekers. Leigh Teabing among
them. I wish I had a shilling for every time I'd run searches for the Rose, Mary Magdalene,
Sangreal, Merovingian, Priory of Sion, et cetera, et cetera. Everyone loves a conspiracy." She took
off her glasses and eyed them. "I need more information."
In the silence, Gettum sensed her guests' desire for discretion was quickly being outweighed by
their eagerness for a fast result.
"Here," Sophie Neveu blurted. "This is everything we know." Borrowing a pen from Langdon, she
wrote two more lines on the slip of paper and handed it to Gettum.
You seek the orb that ought be on his tomb.
It speaks of Rosy flesh and seeded womb.
Gettum gave an inward smile. The Grail indeed, she thought, noting the references to the Rose and
her seeded womb. "I can help you," she said, looking up from the slip of paper. "Might I ask where
this verse came from? And why you are seeking an orb?"
"You might ask," Langdon said, with a friendly smile, "but it's a long story and we have very little
time."
"Sounds like a polite way of saying 'mind your own business.' "
"We would be forever in your debt, Pamela," Langdon said, "if you could find out who this knight
is and where he is buried."
"Very well," Gettum said, typing again. "I'll play along. If this is a Grail-related issue, we should
cross-reference against Grail keywords. I'll add a proximity parameter and remove the title
weighting. That will limit our hits only to those instances of textual keywords that occur near a
Grail-related word."
Search for:
KNIGHT, LONDON, POPE, TOMB
Within 100 word proximity of:
GRAIL, ROSE, SANGREAL, CHALICE
"How long will this take?" Sophie asked.
"A few hundred terabytes with multiple cross-referencing fields?" Gettum's eyes glimmered as she
clicked the SEARCH key. "A mere fifteen minutes."
Langdon and Sophie said nothing, but Gettum sensed this sounded like an eternity to them.
"Tea?" Gettum asked, standing and walking toward the pot she had made earlier. "Leigh always
loves my tea."
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