Mr Campion's Mosaic by Mike Ripley

Author:Mike Ripley [Ripley, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2022-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

In a Monastery Garden

Mr Campion had maintained that a brisk walk before the sun had burned off the morning dew was a vital prerequisite for a clear head when serious thinking had to be done, plus, after the breakfast they had enjoyed, it was a necessity for the waistline.

‘I had something of a love/hate relationship with Latin as a schoolboy,’ he said as he and Rupert set out down the single street.

‘That is not surprising,’ said Rupert, even though his father’s opening gambit was. ‘Most schoolboys do, unless they are complete swots.’

‘You asked me last night how somebody could move a mosaic floor and so I will tell you as we stroll, though you could have saved yourself a lecture had you finished Evadne’s book.’

‘I tried another chapter in bed,’ Rupert said weakly, ‘but I’m not used to brandy late at night and just couldn’t keep my eyes open.’

‘Then you must listen and learn, my boy, for you never know when the technique might come in useful, though I admit such circumstances may be rare, unless you change professions and go to work for the British Museum.’

‘It may come to that if a decent part doesn’t come along soon.’

Mr Campion ignored his son’s glumness.

‘As I was saying, Latin grammar was a bit of a struggle for me, requiring far too much concentration, but I found the Romans and their history and skulduggery quite fascinating. In fact, they went up in my estimation when I learned that the most important ones probably spoke Greek rather than Latin.

‘I remember being give a speech by Cicero to translate for an exam. It was a legal plea, a defence, and very much an “oration”. Did you know that Cicero took drama coaching from an actor called Roscius Gallus, whom he had once defended? Typical lawyer, playing to the gallery. I’m not boring you, am I?’

‘Not yet,’ said Rupert.

‘Good, because I intend to come to the point any day now. The thing is, the grammar of this legal speech didn’t interest me at all, but he had given the speech at the trial of a chap called Milo, who might have been an ex-gladiator with political ambitions and had been accused of killing a rival, and that did interest me, so I forgot to translate old Cicero’s dramatic prose and instead read around the subject, becoming quite fascinated with the last years of the Roman Republic.

‘I can’t, at this distance, remember where I read it, though Evadne Childe probably consulted the same source, but I came across the story of how a rich Roman merchant had taken a fancy to a mosaic pavement he’d spotted in Utica, which I’m sure you know was a Carthaginian city in Tunisia.’

‘Not the one in upstate New York?’

‘Don’t be facetious and please save questions and votes-of-thanks for the end of the lecture. Anyhow, this mosaic was already two hundred years old and had been brought to Utica – the one in Tunisia – from Alexandria, and that’s the one in Egypt, not the one in Scotland, nor, before you ask, the one in Virginia.

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