Page 58 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)
Langdon sat at the back of the Pet?ín Funicular as the all-but-empty train descended the steep ridge. Confident he had evaded Pavel, at least for now, Langdon closed his eyes and took a deep breath, attempting to make sense of what had just happened.
Whoever had lured him to Pet?ín Tower clearly knew Katherine was missing. I have Katherine. Whether or not that statement was true, it now seemed entirely possible that the note was intended as a means to isolate Langdon…or perhaps to isolate Sasha.
Langdon felt guilty for leaving the young Russian woman alone and unprotected, although judging from her encounter with Pavel, Sasha Vesna clearly could take care of herself.
And she’s armed with Pavel’s gun, Langdon reminded himself, hoping that Michael Harris had arrived at her apartment by now.
He also hoped Harris would have some information about Katherine’s whereabouts.
Langdon focused again on the one piece of information he did have—the strangely encoded email Katherine had sent him earlier this morning. But even that seemed to be unhelpful. Gibberish. The image flashed through his mind.
Just to be certain he had not made a mistake, Langdon performed the Enochian transliteration once again but ended up with the same meaningless string of letters.
LXXEDOC
Maybe she confused recto and verso? he thought, trying to imagine why her message to him seemed nonsensical.
Recto and verso —front and back—were the terms used by iconographers to designate which page of an open book should be read first…
in other words, the direction in which a language should be read.
Enochian was a right-to-left language—like Hebrew, Arabic, or Farsi—the opposite of English.
Was it possible that the app had failed to reverse the text direction during encryption?
Or maybe that Katherine had mistakenly reversed it, thereby doubling up and causing it to encrypt incorrectly?
Langdon transliterated the letters again, backward this time, and within a moment he knew his instincts had been correct.
A new word emerged in his mind.
CODEXXL
Code XXL—much closer to English.
Nonetheless, Langdon had no idea what Code XXL was referring to.
What am I missing here? He closed his eyes, again picturing the line.
CODEXXL
Suddenly, it dawned on him, and he realized his mistake.
I put the space in the wrong place…
Katherine was not saying CODE XXL…she was saying CODEX XL.
It was an allusion Langdon understood perfectly—as would Katherine. “Codex XL” was a crystal-clear reference to an enigmatic artifact that was located right here in the heart of Prague. They had actually visited it just yesterday.
The Devil’s Bible!
Officially known as the Codex Gigas, the “Devil’s Bible” was a mysterious object with a bizarre—some claimed haunted—history.
It was the largest book in the world, measuring three feet by nearly two feet, and weighed an astounding 165 pounds.
Normally housed in the Swedish National Library, it was currently on loan to the Klementinum here in Prague.
While visiting the exhibit with Katherine yesterday, Langdon had mentioned that the codex bore more than a dozen different historical titles—so many, in fact, that one of his students had given it the humorous and simple nickname “Codex XL,” a reference to its extra-large size.
As the train trundled down the mountain, Langdon realized that Katherine’s cleverly encrypted message should have provided him some clarity, but instead it presented a new list of questions.
Is she afraid someone is reading her email?
Is she trying to remind me about something in the book…
or maybe of something that happened there yesterday?
Langdon pictured the exhibit they had visited.
The priceless Devil’s Bible was locked in a colossal, bulletproof, fireproof display case within the Klementinum, about a mile from where he was now.
Langdon had first seen the codex years ago in Sweden in the Kungliga Biblioteket, but when he discovered that it was on tour here in Prague, he had insisted he and Katherine go see it.
“ Codex Gigas literally means ‘gigantic book,’?” he told her excitedly as they stood before the imposing object.
He pointed at the book’s thick spine. “It has a wooden plank binding that contains more than three hundred pages of hand-scraped vellum, crafted from the skins of a hundred and sixty donkeys. The pages are meticulously calligraphed and include not only the complete Latin Bible but also assorted medical texts, histories, magic formulae, conjurations, and incantations. It even includes an elaborate exorcism—”
“Stop, Robert,” she said, smiling and affectionately squeezing his hand. “You had me at a hundred and sixty donkeys.”
He grinned back at her. “As you can tell…I enjoy teaching that class.”
Only a month earlier—in a course offering called Illuminations: The Art of Medieval Manuscripts —he had shown several slides of the codex, beginning with the manuscript’s most famous page.
“Here we have Folio 290,” he said, displaying the bizarre illustration of a horned devil squatting awkwardly, entirely naked except for a white loincloth wrapped around his private parts. “And it is the page from which this book derives its oldest nickname.”
“The Diaper Devil?” chimed in one of Harvard’s lacrosse stars, eliciting laughter from his classmates.
“Nice try, Bruiser,” Langdon said patiently. “It’s called the Devil’s Bible. This image portrays Satan wearing a loincloth made of ermine—a symbol of royalty.”
“Wait…so the image presents Satan as a king?” a young woman commented. “In the pages of a Bible?”
“Bingo—thank you for noticing,” Langdon said.
“It’s highly unusual iconography. But there’s a larger story to this document, and Satan’s appearance factors into it.
According to legend, the scribe who created this illumination did so as a way to thank Satan for a favor.
Rumor holds that this massive codex was written in a single night, by a single monk, who was able to complete the inconceivable task only because Satan himself stepped in to help him. ”
“Will Satan help with my midterms?” chirped lacrosse guy.
“I’m about to silence you the same way this monk got silenced,” Langdon said. “Immurement.”
From the kid’s blank stare, Langdon gathered he didn’t know the term. “ Immurement ? Anyone?” He scanned the room. “No? Modern justice systems don’t use immurement as punishment anymore because it’s too cruel. It derives from the Latin— in murus —which means…” Langdon waited. “Anyone?” Bueller?
“In the wall?” someone offered.
“Correct. Immurement literally means to be sealed alive inside a wall.”
“Gross,” someone said. “Like in The Cask of Amontillado. ”
“Exactly.” Langdon nodded, pleased to know Harvard students were still reading Edgar Allan Poe.
Another student asked, “Did they seal him into a wall for putting Satan in the Bible?”
“No,” Langdon said, “in fact, they sealed him in the wall for breaking his monastic vow of celibacy. But as the story goes, before the final brick was placed, the monk begged for mercy and was offered a chance at redemption. The monastery’s abbot left the last brick unlaid and told him that he would be freed only if he could create, within a single night, a book that contained all the world’s knowledge. ”
“Well, that was a generous offer,” someone muttered.
“Yes, but in the morning,” Langdon continued, “when the abbot returned and peered through the opening, the prisoner was sitting atop a massive codex, explaining that he had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the book. The monk was immediately freed, mostly out of terror, and the Devil’s Bible instantly became a priceless artifact.
In its early history, it was stolen, reacquired, and pawned many times, eventually becoming the property of the Cistercian monks of Sedlec.
Perhaps you’ve heard of them? They are famous for having built… this. ”
Langdon advanced the slide carousel, and as always, everyone in the room recoiled.
“What…the…hell…?” someone blurted.
The image before them was an altar made of human bones, above which hung a chandelier also made of human bones, flanking which were four massive pyramids of human skulls and femurs, all housed within a chapel whose walls and ceiling were adorned entirely with human bones.
“Sedlec Ossuary,” Langdon said. “The Bone Chapel. It contains the skeletons of an estimated seventy thousand people, mostly victims of the Black Death. If you ever visit Czechia, it’s worth a trip—about fifty miles outside Prague. It’s an astonishing location.”
“Utterly repulsive,” someone muttered.
“Memento mori,” Langdon said. “Remember death is coming…and live well.”
Langdon went on to explain how the Devil’s Bible was taken from Sedlec and eventually found its way to Prague in 1594, where it was housed in the library of Emperor Rudolf II until 1648, when it was taken as war booty by Sweden and moved permanently to the Swedish Royal Library in Stockholm.
“For three and a half centuries,” Langdon concluded, “the Swedes displayed the codex under armed guard. Then, in 2007, after pressure from the Czech government, the book was temporarily returned to Prague for a four-month exhibition at the Czech National Library, during which more than a hundred thousand people came to see ‘the book cowritten by the devil.’?”
“That’s a lot of gullible people,” muttered lacrosse guy.
Langdon decided not to mention the millions who crossed continents and oceans to see miracles like the Shroud of Turin, Lourdes, or any of the world’s countless “weeping Virgin Mary” statues.
Miracles and mystery had always been catalysts for hope—“reality softeners,” as Langdon sometimes called them.
“But whether or not you believe in its divine origins,” Langdon said, “there are other significant mysteries within this book. One of Codex Gigas’s most enigmatic features is the extraordinary quality of the calligraphy.
More than a dozen top handwriting experts have examined the codex over the past century—and every specialist insists that the entire manuscript was written by a single hand. A lone scribe.”
Langdon waited for this to soak in, but his punch line fell flat.
“Folks!” he prompted. “A book of this size, length, and complexity would have taken an estimated forty years to complete.”
“Well,” someone said, “that makes more sense than doing it in one night.”
“I agree,” Langdon said, “but there’s a major problem with the logic.
In the thirteenth century, life expectancy was approximately thirty years—and it would have taken at least half of those years to master the artistic skill exhibited in this calligraphy and illustration.
Stranger still, the specialists confirm that the penmanship is astonishingly consistent across the entire book.
There is no degradation of the lettering from beginning to end…
no signs of fatigue, loss of eyesight, decreasing mobility, aging, senility.
No change in style whatsoever. You put all those factors together, and it’s a puzzle that is technically impossible. ”
Silence.
“So, Professor…what do you think happened?” someone finally asked.
Langdon thought a long moment. “I have no idea,” he said honestly. “History contains many inexplicable anomalies, and this is one of them.”
“That’s why I’m a physics major,” chimed in a quiet student in the front row.
“Sorry to burst your bubble,” Langdon said with a chuckle, “but science doesn’t do much better on anomalies. Perhaps you could explain for us the double-slit experiment? Or the horizon problem? Or Schrodinger’s—”
“I retract!” the kid surrendered good-naturedly.
“Signs of intelligent life, after all,” Langdon said to laughter.
“In any case, in 2007, when the stolen codex was loaned to Prague, the Swedes feared the Czech government might not return it, but indeed the artifact was returned as promised, and the good-faith gesture now means the Devil’s Bible visits Prague for six months once every ten years, provided it is never removed from its sealed display case. ”
With a small jolt, the funicular came to a halt at the bottom of Pet?ín Hill. Langdon glanced up, still considering the codex and Katherine’s message. She was clearly urging him to return to the Devil’s Bible, and yet Langdon saw no logical reason for her to make that request.
No reason…except one.
Is Katherine there…waiting for me?