The Swiss Guards swore a holy oath never to remove their Renaissance style blue, red and yellow trousers, which had been introduced by Commandant Jules Repond in 1914. The Pontifical Swiss Guards had been founded by Pope Sixtus IV who had built their barracks in the Via Pellegrino in Rome. Langdon noted the bulge beneath his shoulder and the lumpy fit of the trousers around the man’s hips. The traffic warden stared across the park at him. A traffic warden was noting details of the smoke grey Audi A8 55 TFSI Quattro parked behind it. A beam of sunlight was streaming between two rooftops, causing dappled shadows on the bonnet. He could see the metallic claret bulk of the car at the junction of Mill Lane and Trinity Street. Robert reached into the pocket of his basil brown wool Dries Van Noten jacket and found an empty space! He had left hisiPhone 8S in the glove compartment of Sabrina’s Bentley Bentayaga Mulliner V8. That is the coat of arms of the Archbishop of Canterbury! The Anglicans know we are here!’ ‘Yes, black crosses with a pointed base, and those gold episcopal staves beneath the blue shield mean only one thing. ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Sabrina, ‘Surely those are …’ she paused. Robert paused again, ‘Do you understand the symbology?’ ‘Sabrina, do you see that?’ he paused, ‘The blue shield with four crosses pattée fitchée.’ Sabrina’s eyes swam with tears. Robert Langdon saw the coat of arms painted on the side. The rays of the sun reflected on its turning blades, casting dappled patterns on the water below. They glanced back at the pale blue Bell 407GXi helicopter, hovering over the River Avon. It had been a thankless task, severely hampered by Umberto’s total inability to understand English. Victor-Emmanuel’s father, King Umberto III, had spent his days in exile researching Shakespeare’s Catholic links until his sudden and unexpected invitation to return to the Italian throne in 2019. Since her engagement to Crown-Prince Victor-Emmanuel of Italy, the Vatican’s agents had been investigating every aspect of her past, seeking a scandal that might annul a future marriage, and she knew the only way to placate them was to produce irrefutable proof that William Shakespeare, the world-famous British poet who lived from 1564 to 1616, had been an old Catholic. Sabrina di Stefano was perhaps the only ex-Miss World with a Yale doctorate who had been Women’s Lawn Tennis Champion at Wimbledon. He paused for thought, ‘But how did a Vipera berus get onto this sylvan spot, and just as we arrived?’ It’ll be painful for a while, and you may see reddish lymphanatic lines and bruising, but you’ll live.’ The yield for a twenty-four inch vipera berus is a mere 10 to 18 milligrams, as I recall. ‘Just a little slit, and I’ll squeeze the venom out. He knelt and pulled out his EvoGrip S54 Swiss Army Knife, made by Victorinix, and left to him by his father along with his original Mickey Mouse watch. He realized at once that it was Vipera berus, or the common European adder, and remembered the lecture on venomous snakes in Zoology 101 during his first year as a student at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Then he looked down at her open toed Gucci gold grained leather sandal, and at the snake coiled on the lush turf of the Shakespeare Memorial Garden here in Stratford-upon-Avon, in England. Langdon paused to admire the sun streaming brightly through the trees and creating dappled patterns on the grass. Sabrina screamed suddenly, ‘I’ve been bitten!” Casey taught at the Cambridge Hospital at 1493 Cambridge Street, which had been founded in 1917, which was not coincidentally the date when the United States had entered the First World War. His old friend Doctor Armando Casey was the only man whom he could trust with a scalpel in such a tender area, though Langdon could only think of the renowned surgeon as “man” since Casey’s surprising gender re-orientation when she had changed her name from Amanda. He knew that he would have to have these haemorrhoids seen to once he returned to Harvard. This was even worse than the cracked rib he had endured in his fall down the stairs at Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Mila at 92, Passeig de Gracia in Barcelona. Robert Langdon tried to breathe deeply and ignore the searing, stabbing pain which he had just experienced yet again.
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