"I think…"

"Yes, Diana?"

"I think I may have found 'Magnus.' I see the same sequence of letters three times on this piece. Look, there it is on your piece, too."

"Where?"

"There: ?V?C?Q

"So it is. By Hercules, these letters are small! If you're right, that gives us ? for M, V for A…"

"? for G…"

We scribbled on our wax tablets. Diana scanned her piece of parchment, put it down and scanned two others. "Papa, may I see your piece?"

I handed it to her. Her eyes moved down the page, then stopped. She sucked in a breath.

"What is it, daughter?"

"Look, there!" She pointed to a group of letters. They began with ? and ended with C?Q- or, according to our cipher, began with a G and ended with nus- and had five letters between.

" 'Gordianus,' " she whispered.

My heart pounded in my chest. "Maybe. Forget the other pieces for now. Let's work together on this one."

We concentrated on the section of text immediately following my name. It was Diana who spotted the large numbers strewn throughout; rather than quantities, they appeared to be years, following Varro's fashionable new system of dating everything from the founding of Rome. The cipher letters for D and I (presumed already from GORDIANUS) turned out to stand as well for the numerals D (five hundred) and I (one). Deciphering the years also gave us the letters for C, L, X, and V.

Using our growing list of deciphered letters, we quickly spotted familiar names embedded in the text. There was METO, and CAESAR… ECO (my other son)… CICERO… even BETHESDA and DIANA, who seemed more amused than alarmed at seeing her name in a dead man's document.