The Julian secret

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Atlanta, Georgia

Rectory, Church of the Immaculate Conception

Two hours later

Lang was drinking his second cup of coffee in hopes of cleansing his palate of the professor's tea. Outside Francis's office, the Mercedes's theft alarm was again howling, unstoppable but at least muted by the thick brick walls. He had just finished summarizing his meeting with Dr. Greenberg.

Francis took a legal pad from a drawer in his green metal, government-issue-type desk and began to copy the inscription. "Okay, let's put the English over each Latin word."

Lang watched.

Imperator Emperor (nominative case)

Iulian Julian (nominative case) accusat – accusation/indictment (case unknown) rebillis rebel (genitive case) rexus king (genitive case) iudeaium Jews (genitive case) iubit commands (first person singular, present tense) regi palace (case unknown) unus one (genitive case) dEI god (genitive case) sepelit buried/entombed (third person passive?)

The priest reversed the pad and held it up. ''Allowing for the fact the Romans had no articles, a, an, or the, I make it to be 'The Emperor Julian commands or orders.' "

Lang nodded. "Yeah, but orders what? Without the ending, I'm not sure if he's ordering someone be indicted or something be done with the physical indictment."

Francis drew a line between two of the words. "If he's ordering someone, presumably the King of the Jews, to be indicted, he's three centuries late. Let's assume the inscription is supposed to make some sort of sense."

Lang leaned forward. "Okay. What's being done in/to/with the palace? Without the ending, we don't know."

Francis used a Bic pen as a pointer. "I think we can assume the palace doesn't possess something, leaving the nominative, dative, objective, or ablative cases. There's no verb that could apply; palaces don't order, nor are they entombed. That would leave…"

There was a knock at the door and a woman's steel-gray-haired head popped around the corner like a jack-in-the-box. "Father, you have only five minutes before Eventide service." She saw Lang. "Oh, pardon me. I didn't know you had company."

She disappeared behind the door. Francis stood, smiling. "Mrs. Pratt. Been the Church secretary forever. If she didn't know you were in here, it's the first thing she's missed since Sherman left this as the only building in town he didn't torch. I've got souls to save. We'll have to finish this later."

Outside, the Mercedes's theft alarm had quit for the moment.