The Da Vinci Code

CHAPTER 60

Sangreal... Sang Real... San Greal... Royal Blood... Holy Grail.

It was all intertwined.

The Holy Grail is Mary Magdalene... the mother of the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. Sophie felt

a new wave of disorientation as she stood in the silence of the ballroom and stared at Robert Langdon. The more pieces Langdon and Teabing laid on the table tonight, the more unpredictable this puzzle became. "As you can see, my dear," Teabing said, hobbling toward a bookshelf, "Leonardo is not the only one who has been trying to tell the world the truth about the Holy Grail. The royal bloodline of Jesus Christ has been chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians." He ran a finger down a row of several dozen books. Sophie tilted her head and scanned the list of titles: THE TEMPLAR REVELATION:

Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ

THE WOMAN WITH THE ALABASTER JAR:

Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail

THE GODDESS IN THE GOSPELS

Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine

"Here is perhaps the best-known tome," Teabing said, pulling a tattered hardcover from the stack and handing it to her. The cover read: HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL

The Acclaimed International Bestseller

Sophie glanced up. "An international bestseller. I've never heard of it." "You were young. This caused quite a stir back in the nineteen eighties. To my taste, the authors made some dubious leaps of faith in their analysis, but their fundamental premise is sound, and to their credit, they finally brought the idea of Christ's bloodline into the mainstream."