In Dan Brown’s narrative universe, a rose is also a pentacle, a symbol of female reproductive power, a longitudinal marker, a navigational symbol, and the Holy Grail itself. Its many incarnations make it a potent symbol. A rose adorns the wooden box containing the keystone, and Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man is laid out in a five-pointed star pattern, the pattern of the pentacle and the Venus star. In goddess cults, the rose has close associations with femininity, the five petals of the rose symbolizing “the five stations of female life—birth, menstruation, motherhood, menopause, and death” (275). The rose is also associated with the goddess Venus, whose functions include love, sex, and fertility. The “Rose Line,” the zero-degree longitudinal line used for navigation, represents guidance, as navigators used stars to chart their courses. Roses also represent secrecy (sub rosa), as Sauniére explains to a young Sophie. Taken together, these disparate meanings suggest an homage to femininity, to its procreative power, to its guiding wisdom, and to the mysteries within the sacred womb. 

Silas’s cilice, a barbed chain he wears around his thigh, is a reminder of man’s sins of the flesh. The spikes cut into his leg, causing pain and drawing blood.