Page 6 of The Sea Siren of Broadwater Bottom
Edward’s father had nodded proudly. “That would really be something.” Six-year-old Edward had never heard of the Chancellor’s Classical Medal before, but from that moment, he’d been determined to win it. And the more he studied, the more it became a refrain. He’d heard some version of how he was a legitimate candidate for the Chancellor’s Classical medal from every one of his teachers and tutors.
But he hadn’t won the Chancellor’s Classical Medal. After damn near killing himself, Edward had lost the only award he really cared about to the son of a baker from Lancashire named Robert Slocombe.
The fact that he had unexpectedly been named Senior Wrangler, the title given to the top student in mathematics and universally considered to be the higher honor, had done nothing to quiet the voices in his head with their endless refrain:failure, failure, failure.
So, entering this contest… This was not something he did. Not anymore. The thought of attempting a Latin or Greek translation literally made his throat seize, his pulse fly, his—
“And what was it,” Elissa asked, recalling him to the conversation, “that you wanted to discuss with my father?”
How embarrassing to have been caught not attending to the conversation. “I heard a rumor suggesting the translator might be local to Gloucestershire.”
“You heardwhat?” Her voice rose half an octave in pitch on the last word. “How—how surprising. What was the rumor?”
“The sister of one of our maids works at the Plough Inn in Cheltenham. One day last week, the mail coachman came in with a parcel that had been dropped in the mud. It was addressed to the Prince of Wales. He asked her to re-wrap it before the mud soaked through. When she peeled off the soiled paper, she found the new translation inside, with a note from the author saying he had been honored to receive the prince’s request for an autographed copy.”
“Oh, my gracious! Could she, uh, could she make out the signature?”
“She didn’t even see it. The note was folded so that only the first few lines were visible, and she could hardly go snooping through the prince’s correspondence with the coachman looking on. But if the package came through Cheltenham, then the author must be from around these parts. That was what I wanted to discuss with your father. I thought it might be one of his former students.”
“Oh. I see. And did he have any guesses regarding the identity of the translator?”
Edward applied the gentlest pressure to the reins, slowing his horse a touch. Given the way Elissa was clinging to his neck, she must be feeling unstable. “He did not.”
“Not even an inkling?” she asked.
“No, he said he hadn’t the slightest clue.”
“Oh.” She looked down for a beat, then swallowed before peering up at him again. “May I ask your opinion regarding the translation?”
“It is excellent,” he said at once. “If you are yet to read it, I cannot recommend it highly enough.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. One reads so many translations that are without feeling. You could argue that the words are right, but they somehow fail to capture the spirit of the work. This was the exact opposite. Whoever did this has a true understanding of Longinus. And more than that…”
He paused, trying to find the right words. “It’s difficult to describe, but it was written with such enthusiasm, such genuine love of the work, it was contagious. It reminded me of everything I used to love”—catching his slip, he cleared his throat— “that is to say, everything I love about classical verse.”
That was the problem, all right. Whoever had performed this translation wasbrilliant. He was more than just a competent technician; the man was a poet in his own right. Hell, this mystery translator had even managed to capture a hint of the original Greek meter, an almost-impossible task given that Greek lacked the stress-accents that gave English its cadence.
Edward had never mastered the trick of that. But no matter how rusty and out of practice he might be, he was going to have to find a way to beat this man, whoever he was, because his little brother had drunken himself into a stupor and wagered Augustus Avery fifteen thousand pounds that Edward was going to win that bloody contest.
There was no getting out of it; it was in the betting book at White’s and everything:Mr. Harrington Astley bets Mr. Augustus Avery fifteen thousand pounds that his brother’s poem will be the one read aloud by the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University at the upcoming contest on the first of April.
The money wasn’t even the worst of it, although it was extremely bad (fifteen thousand pounds—what had Harrington beenthinking?) The worst of it was the misery in Harrington’s eyes when he begged Edward to enter. “Father won’t just cut me off if he finds out,” Harrington had said. “You were there when he threatened to ship me off to India if I set another toe out of line. He already thinks I’m such a wastrel. A waste of good linen, that’s me.”
Edward had objected immediately. Honestly, how Harrington could fail to understand that he was everyone’s favorite was beyond him. Harrington had the quickest wit of any man Edward knew, and an effervescent personality. Everyone’s mood improved the instant Harrington walked into a room.
Edward may have been the clever brother, but Harrington was the loveable one.
He could still recall the precise moment he had come to understand that.
It had been a hell of a lesson to learn at the age of eight.
But Harrington was convinced their father thought he was worthless, and none of Edward’s arguments had swayed him.
Although Edward suspected Harrington was right about his father packing him off to India if he made another mistake. Edward had been there when the earl made that threat, and his impression was that their father meant every word.
It was imperative that Harrington not go to India. Although a career with the East India Company was considered to be an acceptable option for a younger son, it would not have been Edward’s choice for his brother. Harrington had a good friend, Peter Ferguson, whose mother was from the Bengali region and whose father was Scottish. Ferguson had grown up in India and was now a frequent guest at Astley House. Edward had come to know him well. Over the years, Ferguson had related enough tales of incompetency and even malfeasance on the part of the East India Company that Edward could not help but think that the local inhabitants would be better off without the British Empire’s “guidance,” such as it was.
