King's College, established by King George IV in 1829, houses its Department of Theology andReligious Studies adjacent to Parliament on property granted by the Crown. King's CollegeReligion Department boasts not only 150 years' experience in teaching and research, but the 1982establishment of the Research Institute in Systematic Theology, which possesses one of the mostcomplete and electronically advanced religious research libraries in the world.

　　Langdon still felt shaky as he and Sophie came in from the rain and entered the library. Theprimary research room was as Teabing had described it—a dramatic octagonal chamber dominatedby an enormous round table around which King Arthur and his knights might have beencomfortable were it not for the presence of twelve flat-screen computer workstations. On the farside of the room, a reference librarian was just pouring a pot of tea and settling in for her day ofwork.

　　"Lovely morning," she said in a cheerful British accent, leaving the tea and walking over. "May Ihelp you?""Thank you, yes," Langdon replied. "My name is—""Robert Langdon." She gave a pleasant smile. "I know who you are."For an instant, he feared Fache had put him on English television as well, but the librarian's smilesuggested otherwise. Langdon still had not gotten used to these moments of unexpected celebrity.

　　Then again, if anyone on earth were going to recognize his face, it would be a librarian in aReligious Studies reference facility.

　　"Pamela Gettum," the librarian said, offering her hand. She had a genial, erudite face and apleasingly fluid voice. The horn-rimmed glasses hanging around her neck were thick.

　　"A pleasure," Langdon said. "This is my friend Sophie Neveu."The two women greeted one another, and Gettum turned immediately back to Langdon. "I didn'tknow you were coming.""Neither did we. If it's not too much trouble, we could really use your help finding someinformation."Gettum shifted, looking uncertain. "Normally our services are by petition and appointment only,unless of course you're the guest of someone at the college?"Langdon shook his head. "I'm afraid we've come unannounced. A friend of mine speaks veryhighly of you. Sir Leigh Teabing?" Langdon felt a pang of gloom as he said the name. "The BritishRoyal Historian."Gettum brightened now, laughing. "Heavens, yes. What a character. Fanatical! Every time hecomes in, it's always the same search strings. Grail. Grail. Grail. I swear that man will die before hegives up on that quest." She winked. "Time and money afford one such lovely luxuries, wouldn'tyou say? A regular Don Quixote, that one.""Is there any chance you can help us?" Sophie asked. "It's quite important."Gettum glanced around the deserted library and then winked at them both. "Well, I can't very wellclaim I'm too busy, now can I? As long as you sign in, I can't imagine anyone being too upset.

　　What did you have in mind?""We're trying to find a tomb in London."Gettum looked dubious. "We've got about twenty thousand of them. Can you be a little morespecific?""It's the tomb of a knight. We don't have a name.""A knight. That tightens the net substantially. Much less common.""We don't have much information about the knight we're looking for," Sophie said, "but this iswhat we know." She produced a slip of paper on which she had written only the first two lines ofthe poem.

　　Hesitant to show the entire poem to an outsider, Langdon and Sophie had decided to share just thefirst two lines, those that identified the knight. Compartmentalized cryptography, Sophie had calledit. When an intelligence agency intercepted a code containing sensitive data, cryptographers eachworked on a discrete section of the code. This way, when they broke it, no single cryptographerpossessed the entire deciphered message.

　　In this case, the precaution was probably excessive; even if this librarian saw the entire poem,identified the knight's tomb, and knew what orb was missing, the information was useless withoutthe cryptex.

　　Gettum sensed an urgency in the eyes of this famed American scholar, almost as if his finding thistomb quickly were a matter of critical importance. The green-eyed woman accompanying him alsoseemed anxious.

　　Puzzled, Gettum put on her glasses and examined the paper they had just handed her.

　　In London lies a knight a Pope interred.

　　His labor's fruit a Holy wrath incurred.

　　She glanced at her guests. "What is this? Some kind of Harvard scavenger hunt?"Langdon's laugh sounded forced. "Yeah, something like that."Gettum paused, feeling she was not getting the whole story. Nonetheless, she felt intrigued andfound herself pondering the verse carefully. "According to this rhyme, a knight did something thatincurred displeasure with God, and yet a Pope was kind enough to bury him in London."Langdon nodded. "Does it ring any bells?"Gettum moved toward one of the workstations. "Not offhand, but let's see what we can pull up inthe database."Over the past two decades, King's College Research Institute in Systematic Theology had usedoptical character recognition software in unison with............