favorite among cyclists and Ferrari enthusiasts.
Sienna expertly maneuvered the Trike through each arching curve as they left behind the dingy residential neighborhood and moved into the clean, cedar-laden air of the city’s upscale west bank. They passed a chapel clock that was just chiming 8 A.M .
Langdon held on, his mind churning with mystifying images of Dante’s inferno … and the mysterious face of a beautiful silver-haired woman he had just seen wedged in between two huge soldiers in the backseat of the van.
Whoever she is , Langdon thought, they have her now.
“The woman in the van,” Sienna said over the noise of the Trike’s engine. “You’re sure it was the same woman from your visions?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then you must have met her at some point in the past two days. The question is why you keep seeing her … and why she keeps telling you to seek and find.”
Langdon agreed. “I don’t know … I have no recollection of meeting her, but every time I see her face, I have an overwhelming sense that I need to help her.”
Very sorry. Very sorry.
Langdon suddenly wondered if maybe his strange apology had been directed to the silver-haired woman. Did I fail her somehow? The thought left a knot in his gut.
For Langdon, it felt as if a vital weapon had been extracted from his arsenal. I have no memory. Eidetic since childhood, Langdon’s memory was the intellectual asset he relied on most. For a man accustomed to recalling every intricate detail of what he saw around him, functioningwithout his memory felt like attempting to land a plane in the dark with no radar.
“It seems like your only chance of finding answers is to decipher La Mappa ,” Sienna said. “Whatever secret it holds … it seems to be the reason you’re being hunted.”
Langdon nodded, thinking about the word catrovacer , set against the backdrop of writhing bodies in Dante’s Inferno .
Suddenly a clear thought emerged in Langdon’s head.
I awoke in Florence …
No city on earth was more closely tied to Dante than Florence. Dante Alighieri had been born in Florence, grew up in Florence, fell in love, according to legend, with Beatrice in Florence, and was cruelly exiled from his home in Florence, destined to wander the Italian countryside for years, longing soulfully for his home.
You shall leave everything you love most , Dante wrote of banishment. This is the arrow that the bow of exile shoots first.
As Langdon recalled those words from the seventeenth canto of the Paradiso , he looked to the right, gazing out across the Arno River toward the distant spires of old Florence.
Langdon pictured the layout of the old city—a labyrinth of tourists, congestion, and traffic bustling through narrow streets around Florence’s famed cathedral, museums, chapels, and shopping districts. He suspected that if he and Sienna ditched the Trike, they could evaporate into the throngs of people.
“The old city is where we need to go,” Langdon declared. “If there are answers, that’s where they’ll probably be. Old Florence was Dante’s entire world.”
Sienna nodded her agreement and called over her shoulder, “It will be safer, too—plenty of places to hide. I’ll head for Porta Romana, and from there, we can cross the river.”
The river , Langdon thought with a touch of trepidation. Dante’s famous journey into hell had begun by crossing a river as well.
Sienna opened up the throttle, and as the landscape blurred past, Langdon mentally scanned through images of the inferno, the dead and dying, the ten ditches of the Malebolge with the plague doctor and the strange word— CATROVACER . He pondered the words scrawled beneath La Mappa — The truth can be glimpsed only through the eyes of death —and wondered if the grim saying might be a quote from Dante.
I don’t recognize it.
Langdon was well versed in Dante’s work, and his prominence as anart historian who specialized in iconography meant he was
Sienna expertly maneuvered the Trike through each arching curve as they left behind the dingy residential neighborhood and moved into the clean, cedar-laden air of the city’s upscale west bank. They passed a chapel clock that was just chiming 8 A.M .
Langdon held on, his mind churning with mystifying images of Dante’s inferno … and the mysterious face of a beautiful silver-haired woman he had just seen wedged in between two huge soldiers in the backseat of the van.
Whoever she is , Langdon thought, they have her now.
“The woman in the van,” Sienna said over the noise of the Trike’s engine. “You’re sure it was the same woman from your visions?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then you must have met her at some point in the past two days. The question is why you keep seeing her … and why she keeps telling you to seek and find.”
Langdon agreed. “I don’t know … I have no recollection of meeting her, but every time I see her face, I have an overwhelming sense that I need to help her.”
Very sorry. Very sorry.
Langdon suddenly wondered if maybe his strange apology had been directed to the silver-haired woman. Did I fail her somehow? The thought left a knot in his gut.
For Langdon, it felt as if a vital weapon had been extracted from his arsenal. I have no memory. Eidetic since childhood, Langdon’s memory was the intellectual asset he relied on most. For a man accustomed to recalling every intricate detail of what he saw around him, functioningwithout his memory felt like attempting to land a plane in the dark with no radar.
“It seems like your only chance of finding answers is to decipher La Mappa ,” Sienna said. “Whatever secret it holds … it seems to be the reason you’re being hunted.”
Langdon nodded, thinking about the word catrovacer , set against the backdrop of writhing bodies in Dante’s Inferno .
Suddenly a clear thought emerged in Langdon’s head.
I awoke in Florence …
No city on earth was more closely tied to Dante than Florence. Dante Alighieri had been born in Florence, grew up in Florence, fell in love, according to legend, with Beatrice in Florence, and was cruelly exiled from his home in Florence, destined to wander the Italian countryside for years, longing soulfully for his home.
You shall leave everything you love most , Dante wrote of banishment. This is the arrow that the bow of exile shoots first.
As Langdon recalled those words from the seventeenth canto of the Paradiso , he looked to the right, gazing out across the Arno River toward the distant spires of old Florence.
Langdon pictured the layout of the old city—a labyrinth of tourists, congestion, and traffic bustling through narrow streets around Florence’s famed cathedral, museums, chapels, and shopping districts. He suspected that if he and Sienna ditched the Trike, they could evaporate into the throngs of people.
“The old city is where we need to go,” Langdon declared. “If there are answers, that’s where they’ll probably be. Old Florence was Dante’s entire world.”
Sienna nodded her agreement and called over her shoulder, “It will be safer, too—plenty of places to hide. I’ll head for Porta Romana, and from there, we can cross the river.”
The river , Langdon thought with a touch of trepidation. Dante’s famous journey into hell had begun by crossing a river as well.
Sienna opened up the throttle, and as the landscape blurred past, Langdon mentally scanned through images of the inferno, the dead and dying, the ten ditches of the Malebolge with the plague doctor and the strange word— CATROVACER . He pondered the words scrawled beneath La Mappa — The truth can be glimpsed only through the eyes of death —and wondered if the grim saying might be a quote from Dante.
I don’t recognize it.
Langdon was well versed in Dante’s work, and his prominence as anart historian who specialized in iconography meant he was
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