Chapter 7 #2
“Ah. Your self-assigned reading.” That part was true. The Iliad was the assigned Homer for Honour Mods next term. But his tutor agreed that— so long as it did not affect his other work— they might also discuss the Odyssey.
It helped that he’d come in with rather more and better Latin than even most of the public school boys. And he had the sort of fluency in translation that came from working with Uncle Alexander’s eye for ritual texts, where every word mattered. “What were you thinking about? Will you tell me?”
Put like that, Edmund would not refuse. Mama had a reason for asking.
And while Edmund had learned during the last few years to be independent, there was a part of him that always wanted her advice and help.
He would never have snuck away from home at dawn, telling the servants to lie about where he’d gone, as Telemachus had done to his mother Penelope.
Now, he took a breath. “I suppose it’s a book that makes me think about the relationship between fathers and sons.
Or, more particularly, the lore people know, the public face of the father, and the public face of the son. ”
It made his mother chuckle. “Complicated in your case because your father hides his skills behind several layers, yes. Geoffrey is committed to that. He has been since he was younger than you are, from all I’ve heard. That does not mean you need to take the same path.”
“Except of course that I have, if not in the same way. You and Papa both still do Intelligence work, in your own forms. And Major Manse is very glad of it.”
“We will probably give it up when he retires,” Mama said, adding promptly, “Oh, he knows that. You can speak with him about it.”
“You would mark out something I couldn’t tell him, I know that,” Edmund agreed solemnly.
“This morning, I was looking at some notes from book three, where there’s a ritual.
Uncle Alexander wanted me to translate it with that in mind, with several approaches to the focus.
It’s an interesting challenge. But then I did the same thing with— you remember, toward the end of book four, where Penelope is talking to Medon? ”
“Ah. The bit about— it’s been a while, I will forget something— that Odysseus was always fair and did no wrong? Now, that is certainly not your father, though I agree he has done far less wrong than many people over his life. And he certainly has his biases. How did you translate it in the end?”
Edmund gestured toward the library. “I can show you my notes. In private, among those of Albion, there is a part of me that wants to lean into the distinction between those anchored by and tending the land magic, and those who act without that. But I haven’t made it go into words well yet.”
“And it is both a foreign concept to the Greeks, and not, at the same time. Odysseus certainly seems tightly tied to Ithaca, and Telemachus and Penelope as well.”
Edmund nodded. “And the Trojans, for that matter. The way the gods play into it as well.” He spread one hand out, palm up. “The interrelationship between Odysseus and Athena, too. Papa’s inclinations to Mercury are and are not like that. My own, too.”
“Well,” Mama said judiciously, “your father has never gone in for larger military strategy, either. Mind, his experience of it in the Great War was limited, being a Captain and fulfilling other people’s ideas of what to do.
” And there were reasons, besides the ones about preservation of life, that Papa had got out of it when given the chance and gone into work for Major Manse.
Those had been more like the raid on the Trojan camp, small, well-defined, with clear objectives and a great deal of control over implementation, aside from being more of Mercury than Minerva.
“Not my skill either,” Edmund agreed. “Nor one I much want to acquire.” His magic and his other skills were very much focused on the directly interpersonal, at a conversational level. War, especially the most recent one, was anything but.
His mother nodded. “I’m glad of it, honestly. It seems an uncomfortable skill to have. As to the classical idea of relationship to the land, you might ask Alexander about that. I’m sure he has a bibliography somewhere, or can produce one given a little time.”
“I am certain he can,” Edmund said, mock-solemn.
“I am, however, not entirely confident I can bear up under more of his bibliographies at the moment. He set me some reading for one of the lectures next term. Inscriptions of the Eighteenth Dynasty ‘Abnormal’ Hieratic. I am sure he is arming me to have a series of arguments with Professor Gunn, but I have not yet figured out all of why.” His mother almost said something, and Edmund added, “I’m quite clear there are multiple reasons, of course.
It is Uncle Alexander we’re talking about. ”
“It is.” His mother shook her head. “Your father went out a little while ago with Benton. Something about a fence and a pig. We don’t expect Alexander to appear until at least lunch time. Shall we go out for a ride? With Ros, if she’s about. The weather’s not horrid, the skies have been clearing.”
“I’d like that. I’ll go change and knock and see if Ros wants to come with us.
” Edmund stood, taking a moment to put the score back in its proper place on the shelf.
He paused again in the library to tidy his desk.
With those things done, he went off to change into riding gear and see if Ros wanted some time outside.