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 Systematic1 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 chamber2 dominatedby an enormous round table around which King Arthur and his knights4 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 celebrity5.
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 genial6, 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 pang7 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 strings8. Grail. Grail. Grail. I swear that man will die before hegives up on that quest." She winked9. "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 deserted10 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 dubious11. "We've got about twenty thousand of them. Can you be a little morespecific?""It's the tomb of a knight3. We don't have a name.""A knight. That tightens12 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 decided13 to share just thefirst two lines, those that identified the knight. Compartmentalized cryptography, Sophie had calledit. When an intelligence agency intercepted14 a code containing sensitive data, cryptographers eachworked on a discrete15 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 orb16 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 interred17.
His labor's fruit a Holy wrath18 incurred19.
She glanced at her guests. "What is this? Some kind of Harvard scavenger20 hunt?"Langdon's laugh sounded forced. "Yeah, something like that."Gettum paused, feeling she was not getting the whole story. Nonetheless, she felt intrigued21 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 offhand22, 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 unison23 with linguistic24 translation devices to digitize andcatalog an enormous collection of texts—encyclopedias of religion, religious biographies, sacredscriptures in dozens of languages, histories, Vatican letters, diaries of clerics, anything at all thatqualified as writings on human spirituality. Because the massive collection was now in the form ofbits and bytes rather than physical pages, the data was infinitely25 more accessible.
Settling into one of the workstations, Gettum eyed the slip of paper and began typing. "To begin,we'll run a straight Boolean with a few obvious keywords and see what happens.""Thank you."Gettum typed in a few words:
LONDON, KNIGHT, POPEAs she clicked the SEARCH button, she could feel the hum of the massive mainframe downstairsscanning data at a rate of 500 MB/sec. "I'm asking the system to show us any documents whosecomplete text contains all three of these keywords. We'll get more hits than we want, but it's a goodplace to start."The screen was already showing the first of the hits now.
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 scrolled26 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, whosecounterreligious, mock-epic poetry apparently27 contained plenty of references to knights andLondon.
Gettum shot a quick glance to the numeric field at the bottom of the screen. This computer, bycalculating the current number of hits and multiplying by the percentage of the database left tosearch, provided a rough guess of how much information would be found. This particular searchlooked like it was going to return an obscenely large amount of data.
Estimated number of total hits: 2,692"We need to refine the parameters29 further," Gettum said, stopping the search. "Is this all theinformation 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'sexperience in Rome last year. This American had been granted access to the most secure library onearth—the Vatican Secret Archives. She wondered what kinds of secrets Langdon might havelearned inside and if his current desperate hunt for a mysterious London tomb might relate toinformation he had gained within the Vatican. Gettum had been a librarian long enough to knowthe 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 Grailquest."Langdon and Sophie exchanged startled looks.
Gettum laughed. "My friends, this library is a base camp for Grail seekers. Leigh Teabing amongthem. 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 conspiracy30." She tookoff her glasses and eyed them. "I need more information."In the silence, Gettum sensed her guests' desire for discretion31 was quickly being outweighed32 bytheir eagerness for a fast result.
"Here," Sophie Neveu blurted33. "This is everything we know." Borrowing a pen from Langdon, shewrote 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 Rosy34 flesh and seeded womb.
Gettum gave an inward smile. The Grail indeed, she thought, noting the references to the Rose andher seeded womb. "I can help you," she said, looking up from the slip of paper. "Might I ask wherethis 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 littletime.""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 knightis and where he is buried.""Very well," Gettum said, typing again. "I'll play along. If this is a Grail-related issue, we shouldcross-reference against Grail keywords. I'll add a proximity35 parameter28 and remove the titleweighting. That will limit our hits only to those instances of textual keywords that occur near aGrail-related word."Search for: KNIGHT, LONDON, POPE, TOMBWithin 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 glimmered36 as sheclicked the SEARCH key. "A mere37 fifteen minutes."Langdon and Sophie said nothing, but Gettum sensed this sounded like an eternity38 to them.
"Tea?" Gettum asked, standing39 and walking toward the pot she had made earlier. "Leigh alwaysloves my tea."
国王学院是国王乔治四世于1829 年创建的，里面设有神学及宗教研究所，它离议会很近，是由皇家出资运营的。国王学院的宗教部在宗教教学以及研究方面号称具有150 多年的历史，而且在1982 年，它还创办了系统神学的研究机构，并拥有当今世界上最完善和最先进的宗教研究电子图书馆。
兰登与索菲冒雨来到了图书馆，他还在打着冷战。研究大楼跟提彬描述的一模一样：厅很大，呈八边形，里面一张巨大的圆桌子，煞是抢眼；要不是屋里放了十二个平面计算机工作台，就是亚瑟王和他的圆桌骑士坐上去，也不会觉得有什么不舒服。在离大厅门口很远的另一端，一位图书管理员正在给自己泡一壶茶，开始了当天的准备工作。
"多么美好的早晨啊。"她把茶晾在一边，走了过来，并操着欢快的英国口音说："需要我帮什么忙吗？"
"是的，谢谢。"罗伯特回答说："我叫--"
"罗伯特。兰登。"她开心地笑了笑："我知道你是谁。"
有一阵子，罗伯特担心是法希将他的形象弄进英国的电视节目里去了，然而这位图书管理员的微笑却表明并不是这么一回事。兰登出乎意料地做了回名人，对此，他一点也不习惯。再说，就算世界上还有哪个人能认出他这张脸，那也应该是宗教研究资料室的图书管理员才对呀。
"我叫帕美拉。杰塔姆。"图书管理员伸出手来，温和地说。她有着一张亲切而充满智慧的脸，还有一副甜美的嗓子。她的脖子上挂着一幅角质架的眼镜，看起来度数很深。
"幸会幸会。"兰登有礼貌地说："这是我朋友索菲。奈芙。"
两个女人互相打了个招呼，然后杰塔姆立刻转身对兰登说："我不知道你会到这里来。"
"不要说你，连我们自己都不知道呢。如果你不嫌麻烦，我们真想让你帮忙查些资料。"
杰塔姆动了一下，似乎有些不安。"我们通常只向事先提出申请或预约的人提供服务，当然，如果你是这里的客人除外，你受到邀请了吗？"
兰登摇了摇头："我们到这里来谁也没通知。我有位朋友对你评价很高呢。雷。提彬爵士，英国皇家历史学家，你认识吗？"兰登提到这个名字时，神情有些黯然。
听到这，杰塔姆眼睛一亮，笑了起来："我的天，这还用说吗？他是个多么狂热的人呐！每次他来，总是要查找同样的东西。成天除了圣杯，还是圣杯！我担心他这个人还没有放弃探索就不行了呢。"她眨了眨眼："时间与金钱能给人带来如此高尚的享受，我这样说你不会反对吧？那家伙整个的是个堂。吉诃德。""那你能不能帮帮我们？"索菲问："这对我们真的很重要啊。"
杰塔姆将空荡荡的图书馆扫视了一遍，然后向他们眨了眨眼："那好，眼下我总不能找个借口说我很忙对吧？只要你们签个名，我想也不会有人感到不安的。说吧，你们想干什么？"
"我们到伦敦来是想找一座坟墓。"
杰塔姆满脸疑惑："在伦敦大约有两万座的坟墓，你能不能说得再具体些呢？"
"是一位位骑土的坟墓，可我们不知道他的名字。"
"骑士？那倒是大大缩小了搜索的范围，很不寻常嘛。"
"我们对要找的骑土的坟墓主人了解不多。"索菲说："我们知道的就是这些。"说着，她从口袋里抽出一张纸条，上面只写了那首诗的前两句。
兰登与索菲起初犹豫着要不要把整首诗给一位外人看，最后他们决定，就让她看这首诗的前两句--即可以确定骑士身份的那两句。索菲将它称作"被分隔的密码"。每当情报部门截获了含有敏感信息的密码时，破译密码专家们就会各自对密码的零散部分进行分析处理。这样，等他们将密码破译出来之后，他们当中的任何人都不会拥有完整的解码信息。
不过就此而言，这样的防范也许过分了一些，即使这位图书管理员读了整首诗，确定了这位骑士的坟墓，并且还知道失踪的圆球是什么样子，但如果没有密码盒，那也是无济于事。
杰塔姆从这位著名的美国学者眼中读到了一种急迫感，仿佛尽快找到那座坟墓，就是他生命中最重要的使命。那个和他一起来的、长着一双橄榄绿色眼睛的女人，看上去似乎也一脸的急切。
杰塔姆疑惑不解，她戴上眼镜，仔细审视着他们刚才给她的那张纸上的小诗。
在伦敦葬了一位教皇为他主持葬礼的骑士。
他的行为触怒了上帝，因为违背了他的旨意。
她瞥了客人一眼："这是什么？该不是哈佛大学玩的寻宝游戏吧？"
兰登有些勉强地笑了笑："嗯，我看差不多吧。"
杰塔姆停了下来，她觉得自己看到的只是一些片断，不过她倒是被它吸引住了，于是开始仔细琢磨起这两句诗来。"这首诗说的是一位骑士，他想必做了什么事情触怒了上帝，然而教皇对他还算宽待，将他葬在了伦敦。"兰登点头说："你没有发现其他什么吗？"
杰塔姆走到厅里的一个工作台："暂时还没有，不过我们可以看看在数据库里能够搜索到什么东西。"在过去的二十多年里，国王学院的系统神学研究机构采用了光学人像识别软件以及语言转化手段对大量的文本--诸如宗教百科全书、宗教参考书目、以数十种文字写就的圣贤书稿、历史书籍、梵蒂冈信札、牧师日记以及其他所有涉及到人类精神层面的作品--逐一进行数字化的处理，并编制了新的目录。正因为现在这些数额惊人的收藏典籍是以比特和字节的形式存在，才使得要搜寻有关方面的数据变得格外的容易。
杰塔姆调用了其中一个工作台，她看了看那张纸条，然后开始打字。"首先，我们将直接启动布尔检测系统，先输入几个关键词，看看能找到些什么。""谢谢。"
杰塔姆输入了几个关键词：伦敦、骑士、教皇。
然后她按了搜索键，这时，她能够听到楼上主机以每秒500 兆字节的速度扫描数据时所发出的"嗡嗡"声。"我正在要求系统给我先是在完整文本中包含了这三个词的所有文件。
虽然我们会受到过多的数据干扰，但仍不失为我们寻找想要的东西的好地方。"电脑屏幕上现已出现了第一个匹配的数据。
《给教皇画像》，选自《乔舒亚。雷诺兹爵士收藏油画作品集》，由伦敦大学出版社出版。
杰塔姆摇摇头："这显然不是你要找的东西。"
她又转到第二个数据。
《伦敦亚历山大，蒲柏作品集》，作者：G.威尔逊。耐特。
杰塔姆再次摇了摇头。
电脑继续发出"嗡嗡"的声音，而数据出来的速度却比平常快多了。屏幕上出现了几十篇文章，其中大多是关于18 世纪英国作家亚历山大。蒲柏的，他创作的反宗教、仿史诗的诗歌很明显在许多地方提到了骑士以及伦敦的相关内容。
杰塔姆飞快地瞥了一眼屏幕底部的数字栏。这台电脑，通过计算当前数据的数量并将它乘以尚待搜索的数据库的百分比，大致估算出将要找到的信息数目。这次详细的搜索似乎将会没完没了地向他们提供大量的数据。
估计的数据总数：2692 个。
"我们必须重新设定参数。"杰塔姆停止了搜索，说："有关这座坟墓的资料就这些吗？
还有其他的没有？"
兰登看了看索菲。奈芙，神情有些不安。
杰塔姆觉得这决不是什么寻宝游戏。此前她已听说罗伯特。兰登去年在罗马的一些传闻。这名美国人被允许进入了世界上最安全的图书馆--梵蒂冈秘密档案馆。她不知道兰登是否有可能在那所档案馆里了解到了什么秘密，也不知道他眼下歇斯底里地寻找一座位于伦敦的神秘坟墓，是否跟他在梵蒂冈了解到的秘密很有关系。杰塔姆在图书馆干了多年，凭她多年的经验，她很清楚人们跑到伦敦来寻找骑士是出于什么样的动机--圣杯，就是他们前来的终极目的。
杰塔姆微微笑了笑，扶了扶眼镜，说："你们和提彬是朋友，又跑到了英国来找什么骑士。"她双手绞缠在一起："我敢打赌你们是来找圣杯的吧。"兰登与索菲互相交换了惊讶的神色。
杰塔姆大声笑了起来："各位朋友，这座图书馆就是专门为圣杯寻找者提供的一个探险基地。雷。提彬爵士就是其中的一位。我真希望每次搜索"玫瑰、抹大拉的玛利亚、圣杯、郇山隐修会"等词语的时候，能收费一先令。每个人都喜欢彼此互惠互利嘛。"她取下眼镜，斜视着他们："快给我更多有关的信息。"
在片刻的沉默中，杰塔姆发现两位客人虽然出于谨慎还想考虑考虑，但最终很快做出了决定，因为他们迫切地希望能找出结果来。
"给你。"索菲。奈芙冲口说道："我们知道的就这些了。"她从兰登那里借了一支笔，又在纸条上添上了两行诗句，递给了杰塔姆。
你们寻找的圆球，本应在这位骑士的墓里。
它道破了玫瑰般肌肤与受孕子宫的秘密。
杰塔姆会心地一笑。果然是冲着圣杯来的，她想--她注意到诗里有"玫瑰"以及"怀孕子宫"的提示。"我可以帮你。"她将视线从那张纸条上移开，抬起头来，说："我可不可以问问，这首诗是从何而来？你们为什么要寻找圆球呢？"
"当然可以。"兰登友善地笑了笑："不过说来话就长了，可我们又没有那么多的时间啊。""你好像是在委婉地对我说："你别多管闲事"呢！""我们会永远感激你的，帕美拉。"兰登说："假如你能够帮我们找出这位骑士是谁，葬在哪里的话。""很好。"杰塔姆又开始打起字来："我陪你们一起玩。如果这跟圣杯有关，那我们就得前后参照相关的关键词。我要加上一个近似参数，再除掉多余的标题。这样就会将搜寻到的数据仅限制在包含了那些与圣杯有关词语意义相近的关键词的文本范围里。"搜索："骑士、伦敦、教皇、坟墓。"
以及100 个与圣杯有关的词：GRAIL、ROSE、SANGRE、CHALICE……
"这要花多长时间？"索菲问。
"不知是否多达几百千兆的字节，并跨越了多学科的领域？"杰塔姆敲了敲搜索键，眼睛亮了起来："也就大约需要十五分钟吧。"
兰登和索菲一言不发，然而杰塔姆觉得，这对他们来说似乎是一个极其漫长的时刻。
"两位想喝茶吗？"杰塔姆站起来，向刚才她泡好茶的茶壶走去。"雷爵士一向很爱喝我沏的茶呢。"
收听单词发音 |
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systematic
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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tightens
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| 收紧( tighten的第三人称单数 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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intercepted
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| 拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻 | |
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discrete
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| adj.个别的，分离的，不连续的 | |
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orb
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| n.太阳；星球；v.弄圆；成球形 | |
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interred
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| v.埋，葬( inter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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scavenger
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| n.以腐尸为食的动物，清扫工 | |
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intrigued
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| adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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linguistic
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| adj.语言的，语言学的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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scrolled
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| adj.具有涡卷装饰的v.（电脑屏幕上）从上到下移动（资料等），卷页( scroll的过去式和过去分词 )；（似卷轴般）卷起；（像展开卷轴般地）将文字显示于屏幕 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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parameter
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| n.参数，参量 | |
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parameters
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| 因素，特征； 界限； （限定性的）因素( parameter的名词复数 )； 参量； 参项； 决定因素 | |
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conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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outweighed
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| v.在重量上超过( outweigh的过去式和过去分词 )；在重要性或价值方面超过 | |
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blurted
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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glimmered
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| v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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