Sophie scrutinized Langdon in the back of the taxi. He's joking. "The Holy Grail?"Langdon nodded, his expression serious. "Holy Grail is the literal meaning of Sangreal. The phrasederives from the French Sangraal, which evolved to Sangreal, and was eventually split into twowords, San Greal."Holy Grail. Sophie was surprised she had not spotted the linguistic ties immediately. Even so,Langdon's claim still made no sense to her. "I thought the Holy Grail was a cup. You just told methe Sangreal is a collection of documents that reveals some dark secret.""Yes, but the Sangreal documents are only half of the Holy Grail treasure. They are buried with theGrail itself... and reveal its true meaning. The documents gave the Knights Templar so much powerbecause the pages revealed the true nature of the Grail."The true nature of the Grail? Sophie felt even more lost now. The Holy Grail, she had thought, wasthe cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper and with which Joseph of Arimathea later caughtHis blood at the crucifixion. "The Holy Grail is the Cup of Christ," she said. "How much simplercould it be?""Sophie," Langdon whispered, leaning toward her now, "according to the Priory of Sion, the HolyGrail is not a cup at all. They claim the Grail legend—that of a chalice—is actually an ingeniouslyconceived allegory. That is, that the Grail story uses the chalice as a metaphor for something else,something far more powerful." He paused. "Something that fits perfectly with everything yourgrandfather has been trying to tell us tonight, including all his symbologic references to the sacredfeminine."Still unsure, Sophie sensed in Langdon's patient smile that he empathized with her confusion, andyet his eyes remained earnest. "But if the Holy Grail is not a cup," she asked, "what is it?"Langdon had known this question was coming, and yet he still felt uncertain exactly how to tellher. If he did not present the answer in the proper historical background, Sophie would be left witha vacant air of bewilderment—the exact expression Langdon had seen on his own editor's face afew months ago after Langdon handed him a draft of the manuscript he was working on.

　　"This manuscript claims what?" his editor had choked, setting down his wineglass and staringacross his half-eaten power lunch. "You can't be serious.""Serious enough to have spent a year researching it."Prominent New York editor Jonas Faukman tugged nervously at his goatee. Faukman no doubt hadheard some wild book ideas in his illustrious career, but this one seemed to have left the manflabbergasted.

　　"Robert," Faukman finally said, "don't get me wrong. I love your work, and we've had a great runtogether. But if I agree to publish an idea like this, I'll have people picketing outside my office formonths. Besides, it will kill your reputation. You're a Harvard historian, for God's sake, not a popschlockmeister looking for a quick buck. Where could you possibly find enough credible evidenceto support a theory like this?"With a quiet smile Langdon pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of his tweed coat and handed itto Faukman. The page listed a bibliography of over fifty titles—books by well-known historians,some contemporary, some centuries old—many of them academic bestsellers. All the book titlessuggested the same premise Langdon had just proposed. As Faukman read down the list, he lookedlike a man who had just discovered the earth was actually flat. "I know some of these authors.

　　They're... real historians!"Langdon grinned. "As you can see, Jonas, this is not only my theory. It's been around for a longtime. I'm simply building on it. No book has yet explored the legend of the Holy Grail from asymbologic angle. The iconographic evidence I'm finding to support the theory is, well,staggeringly persuasive."Faukman was still s............