by Mike Voyce
(Past)
Edward and Eadie were playing. They were now older, perhaps eleven years old. They were bored, they were naughty. They were frustrated with an anger and a wildness that wasn’t normal to them. They’d often played with the Marbles, more or less as marbles and even carefully, even skilfully, today there was neither care nor skill. Edward hurtled one under a door, it jammed. He tried to get it out by opening the door. There was a sickening splintering noise. The Marble came out, it was squashed and flattened. It had never been intended to take the full downward force of a heavy oak door.
Edward was desolated. Eadie turned white. She didn’t know what had happened or what it meant but she could see the consternation on Edward’s face. Edward didn’t know why he was so appalled. He just knew something terrible had happened; somehow he couldn’t make himself believe it didn’t matter. Normally, when something went wrong, he pretended it didn’t really matter and it always worked and sooner or later it turned out not to matter. Not this time.
They found Lady Aletia or maybe she found them, she seemed to know something was wrong. Edward tearfully confessed the calamity. Aletia went silent. She was hardly ever silent. Aletia was the one who always knew how to kiss better any hurt. Not this time. She took the Marble and all the others too. She said she would speak to Thomas and they, the children, were to say nothing. The crystals were very valuable and Lady Margaret would be cross.
Edward couldn’t sleep that night, not for ages, for the worry of it. He went to Aletia the next morning, as soon as he could.
Yes she’d spoken to Thomas.
Yes it was bad and careless.
Yes she knew he hadn’t meant to do it.
Sometimes it just didn’t make everything right if you said ‘Sorry’. Could Edward mend the crystal?
Thomas’s taken them away to see what can be done. All of them.
No, Edward and Eadie could not have them back.
Somehow there was a loss of face in front of Eadie that hurt Edward. That he couldn’t have them back was an undeniable admission he’d been wrong, but there was something much worse and he, Edward, couldn’t put it right without the rest of the Marbles.
Edward went to see Lady Margaret. He didn’t know what else to do, even though Aletia said not to. He explained what happened, finishing tearfully,
“…and Aletia won’t give them back. I’m sorry, Lady Margaret. I will be careful with them.”
Lady Margaret summoned Aletia.
“What’s this young Edward tells me about marbles my dear?”
Aletia was silent for a moment. She looked almost as if she’d been caught out in something herself. She looked out of the corner of her eye at Edward before answering.
“They were really only play things. But I think Edward was fond of them. He had them from his father. Thomas has taken them away to see if they can be mended.”
“Ah!”
Lady Margaret needed to hear no more. They all knew how inordinately fond Edward was of his dead father. It could cause difficulty and Lady Margaret certainly didn’t want to open any question about Henry and Edward’s family. It could be all too delicate.
“I’m sure you and Thomas did right.
Can we not do something to replace them? Perhaps wooden ones? There you are, Edward, that’s a splendid idea. You shall have wooden balls in case Thomas can’t get the others mended. Thank you Aletia. That’s settled, Edward, you shall have wooden ones.”
Edward and Aletia trooped out of Lady Margaret’s presence and so it was Edward got a set of wooden marbles and even got to watch them being made. But there were questions buzzing round his mind: he hadn’t got the Marbles from his father, why did Aletia say he had and why were they all taken to be mended when only one was broken?
Edward didn’t ask Aletia at the time and never got answers to his questions. Bye and bye guilt over the Marbles faded.
Why should I have such dreams? Why dream about ‘the Marbles’ and if they were so special why did Edward have them in the first place? Why had these images pressed themselves on me?
The next morning, over breakfast, I took paper and pencil and tried to draw the Marbles. I came back to it again that day and spent the evening pouring over what I’d drawn. Imagine a really large cut diamond, the sort you might find in some national display of crown jewels. Imagine it exactly the same from every angle. Imagine it an inch and a half, maybe more, across. Place it in the palm of your hand and look into it. There would be light in the diamond but nothing else: in these gems there was plane after plane of facets, worlds of light leading your eye as if through a maze. With such a gem in your hand it’s the gem you see, not the flesh beyond.
The Marbles no more leave this story than they did my mind, as if the light drawn through the maze of the Marbles echoes my life drawn through Edward’s. I even wonder if they’re not more important than Edward’s story itself. I’ve tried in vain to find anything like them in our mundane world.
There was something odd about the children playing games, though I’m sure they didn’t realise it.
Something nagged at the back of my mind when I saw the children introducing King Henry to their game of marbles. Some thought of danger, of risk; it wasn’t that the King would recognise their value as gems but that he might take them away for some other reason. Why did no one question a young child’s possession of them?
Somehow things went well when you had the Marbles; reality followed your wishes. Was it mere superstition?
What put the thought in my head was a perfectly prosaic television programme. When I saw the children playing ball on the landing it seemed charmed, idyllic but not strange. Then, taking a break from all this, I saw the programme. It said what I already knew; before the 18th century children were treated as miniature adults, the concept of play was far from what it is today. Not that children didn’t play, after all there were plenty of games for grownups: there were cards and chess and dice, most of all dancing, and several games with balls. Somehow these games on the landing were different; they were inspirational, they were only for the children centred round Edward and somehow or other they always had to do with the Marbles.
When I told you about Eadie, in the chapter before last, I thought to tell you she was a child of nature but it isn’t quite true. To Aletia’s despair, she hated to be confined indoors; she loved all wild creatures, she loved to be free, but she also loved those games on the landing, the games inspired by the Marbles. When the children of the household were bored, when they didn’t know what to do, they looked to Eadie; Eadie would look to Edward: he held the Marbles.
Why did the other children turn to Eadie? There are secrets hid even from me. Here as, too, the mystery surrounding Edward’s sisters and Brother Henry. But I can see how it came that Eadie turned to Edward.
Edward and Eadie were kindred spirits, each happy to be on their own yet each wanting quiet companionship. Edward, still suffering from the shocks of childhood, had learned to be guarded; Eadie, always with one ear and one eye in other worlds, wanted hush for her fantasies, her dreams of angels and faeries and the spirits of woodland.
The Marbles opened a door for all the children, into worlds made possible by Edward’s imagination.
(Past)
There is a season for everything: Spring for new birth, summer for ripening growth, autumn for the harvest and winter for death. It was early winter when the hunter brought death with hawk and hound to field and wood alike. Edward and Eadie watched it and talked about it. One day they were in a copse not far from the hall, one of Lady Margaret’s many homes.
“Shush!
It’s Lady Margaret with her merlins.”
Somehow there was something shocking in seeing Lady Margaret riding by, a bird of prey on her arm and servants following with other birds. The merlin is a noble bird yet she’s small enough for a lady to manage. A lady, that is, who would follow the sport of kings and give little cries of delight at the kill. Though she came within twenty yards of the children sh
e didn’t see them, in the shade of the trees, intent as she was on the hunt.
Edward and Eadie watched, enthralled.
A bird was in the air, you could faintly hear its tiny bell tinkling as it circled above. Then it swooped on a quarry. Bright eyes and flushed cheeks betrayed Eadie’s excitement as she clutched Edward’s arm. Edward looked from the merlin and its chase to Eadie. No hawk is successful at every cast, on this occasion the merlin missed.
“Come...let’s follow.”
And Eadie pulled Edward after her so that they followed the chase all that morning. They followed in secret, a game to see while yet unseen. It wasn’t easy; merlins like to hunt in open land, so that Edward and Eadie were pressed to greater and greater extremes to stay in cover.
There was grace in the merlins and there was grace in Eadie too. Edward stood back to look from the straining speed of the birds to the straining of Eadie’s slim body as she craned to see them.
There was no inhibition in that excitement. It made Edward step back again. It was unnerving to see Lady Margaret, the faithful follower of the Gentle Christ, and gentle Eadie equal in lust for blood.
The scenes which fled through Edward’s mind fled through mine also. His puzzlement was my puzzlement.
There were so many days when Eadie would devote herself to saving the life of some wild thing, wood pigeon or rabbit it made no difference. She would scold anyone for the killing of a fly. Edward had to fight because of the mockery of other children; he defended Eadie’s interference. Now she was following blood sport.
Eadie was changing; there were dark waters of unknown moods, she would fly into anger and tears leaving Edward open mouthed, not knowing what he’d done, not knowing what to do. She would cry and turn away with harsh words then cling to him for comfort. Edward wanted to please his dearest friend but how can you please a girl?
Edward’s thoughtfulness and Eadie’s excitement came together on the walk home. Excitement turned to a new game for the Marbles. The true Marbles of my dream would hold the imprint of any emotion, any game with them would catch the interest of all the children of Lady Margaret’s house; a success you could never repeat with mere wood.
It had been with increasing skill in showmanship Edward had always consulted the Marbles to inform the other children, as if he were some great master. Only Eadie could ask Edward and only his infectious imagination could ask the Marbles; all three were held in high esteem.
I realised with a great clatter of pennies dropping: Edward became angry with the Marbles the day after this scene with Lady Margaret’s hawks, when he sought a game based on the birds, when the Marbles didn’t give their usual inspiration. That’s why he hurtled one under a door; that’s why Edward was so appalled when it broke and when that one, and all the others, were taken away. Of course, no adult would understand.
Thus went the Marbles, helping Edward till that day they were taken away. I believe they charmed the childhood he spent in Lady Margaret’s household. Edward never explained any of this to Aletia or to Thomas. Thank God he never told Lady Margaret or the King. Why thank God? I’ll tell you later.
So much came to me so quickly. I needed help: but where could I turn? Sarah was still in France, I was trying to run the Peterborough office with only a young assistant, my friend Angharad was a hundred miles away. I felt alone.
I knew hypnotherapists and the occasional clinical psychologist; I acted for a professional psychic and had my own ideas about the powers of the mind. I’d even taken an interest in reincarnation. I remembered how Frances suffered from past-life memories in dream state, and her belief in ‘the Elect’, people who achieve reincarnation when others do not. I remembered telling her John Knox’ famous story, told as a warning to those who think themselves special, that they do no more than serve the Devil. I’d shown her the modern literature to dispel the egotism of her special experience. Always my interest had been cool, analytical; I liked to think, professional. Who could dispel my own egotism and give me back that detachment I was now so clearly losing?
The Marbles touched on nothing short of Magic, something difficult for my rational mind to accept. I had trouble enough accepting visions of Edward but I coped with that, at least partly, the Time Travel of the mind I thought of after that debate with John. Those extraordinary Marbles and the magical success of Edward’s games were something else. I noticed the time the Marbles refused to play was when Edward asked them to follow Lady Margaret into blood sports. Clearly the Marbles are White Magic, but it was my rational mind that led to such conclusions. Was I losing my own marbles as Edward had lost his?
The answer was a deafening silence.
I tried meditation, there too, no answer, just the steady trickle of the sands of life. There was nothing to explain the Marbles, any more than the extraordinary sense of excitement and recognition I felt when I looked at them.
The next image followed an idea of Eadie’s. Now the Marbles were gone she decided Edward should learn to fly the hawk, like Lady Margaret.
It was approaching Edward’s twelfth birthday.
(Past)
“I want a peregrine, like my lord Stanley. At least let me have a goshawk such as any yeoman may have.”
These were the words I heard, starting on a new meditation. It was as if someone were in the room, speaking to me out loud.
Thomas laughed.
“You think you could handle such a bird, Master Edward?”
It was said with condescension, irony, patience, love and wisdom all at the same time. You could almost hear the twist to his smile, the smile Edward saw.
“Tomorrow we go to the weathering ground; I’ve a brace for you, they’re both haggard and the musket’s a fine bird.”
Dear reader, I hadn’t a clue what Thomas was talking about. I know nothing about falconry or hawking. What sort of bird is a ‘musket’? It turns out there’s a language to this all its own. Patience, I’ll put it plainly to you where I can but the words that rang clear in my head I’ve left as they are.
Edward was impatient for the next day. He wouldn’t despise any hawk from Thomas; it’s just there were laws as to what bird a man could fly. Edward wanted nothing less than his rank required; he would’ve flown an eagle if he could. Yet managing any of Nature’s powerful killers is no game for a novice. Thomas’s wisdom was a lesson for Edward to learn.
(Past)
The next day was damp and cold, the bark of the dogs echoed in the heavy morning air. The weathering ground was wide, you could see far beyond its boundary walls and there were others here for the sport. Thomas talked all the way. This was ground for the long winged falcons, my lord’s birds, the short winged hawk would follow the wall or line of hedge row to find her prey, swooping quicker than the eye could see on the creatures of the field. This was work for the dogs, keener than the eyes of a man, to sense the presence of a quarry and start the birds.
Thomas fondled the neck of the dog we brought, Bruce, a soft natured pointer, little more than a puppy. Thomas saw my look as he straightened.
“Don’t doubt it, this is the dog we need; he’s bred for it and worked all season with these hawks. He’ll show the falconer’s men where to find us game. Watch him.”
Bruce gave a bark and a quiver of excitement as we came to the weathering ground, Thomas was right.
We found the master falconer waiting our pleasure with a cadge holding Thomas’s birds: just as he promised, a female and a male sparrow hawk, their short beaks and yellow eyes looked murderous.
You could see the falconer and Thomas had been hatching plots. I wanted no clerks’ bird but it was all strange to me. What should I say? I wanted to fly a hawk!
The falconer tested me with questions, he watched me as he checked the jesses and bells and took away the hoods. Thomas gave me the glove for my left hand; it fit so well it made me look into his eyes for the laughter I found there,
“Yes Edward, if you’re going to do so much hawking you need a good glove.”
It was a wonderful present.
The hawk came to my arm, the falconer showing me how to hold the jesses.
“Easy now, we don’t want her baiting off at a puff of wind.”
They meant they didn’t want me casting her off at nothing, out of fright. She weighed under a pound but it was a pound of sinew and beak and talon. She stepped nervously on the glove, a thin cry and my heart jumped with the thrill of it.
“She’ll take what you set her at so take care today. Better no sport at all than the wrong prey or a missed quarry.
We walked forward, towards the nearest cover, wherever there might be game. Later I learned to manage hawk and horse together but for today I was glad to be on foot. Bruce, trotting at our side, was all eager excitement; the falconer’s men were some fifty yards ahead of us up wind.
There was a stop, Bruce had the scent; he went on point his body following his nose like an arrow. The falconer called to his men, they moved to the line, then to me; I was to cast the hawk into the air with a movement of my arm. I didn’t do it as he said but raising my arm, the jesses let go; she waited a moment, looking around, then took to flight.
A hunting hawk is a beautiful sight; she has such power and grace. The sparrow hawk takes birds from the air. In the wild she takes the blackbird and thrush but she’ll take game fowl when trained to it. My hawk went along the line to cover, up wind; she went in a great circle, flying with great speed. The men put up two or three birds; I couldn’t see what they were. She swooped like an arrow to the kill.
Thomas told me how to bring her back to the fist and she came. We were jubilant. The kill was a small partridge; there could have been none better.
We worked the ground all that morning: the little musket was game and courageous but could take nothing big. His mate missed twice. It was a good day.
“Do you still want a peregrine?”
Thomas spoke on the walk back, the hawk was still on my glove and the jesses firmly in my hand; the cadger could have taken the bird but I wouldn’t let him.
“The Book of St. Albans gives peregrines to the earl; the king gets a gyrfalcon, the duke a rock falcon: only the priest has the sparrow hawk, and his clerk has the musket. Tell me Thomas what bird should I fly?”
This time, with the little hawk on my arm, there was a smile. The cadger, whose job it was to carry other men’s birds, was emboldened to speak.
“For you, my lord, after this day, it should be the imperial eagle.”
“You know,” said Thomas, “it takes two birds to be set at heron; one alone can’t bring down the quarry. What could you do, Edward, with this hawk and her mate together?”
The question went unanswered; I never succeeded in flying them so. The quarry I might have cast them to was never served.
When I asked in meditation what linked the Marbles of that night’s dreams with the hawks of this vision you could almost feel a tension in the air. It wasn’t an answer I got but an intense hush, as if someone wanted me to answer for myself. The one word in my head was ‘Eadie’ but there’s something more than that. It has something to do with vigour and sweat and the blood of life.
This was one of the times I wasn’t shown any easy answer, no evocative vision. But one feeling I got from that meditation, I’ll pass it on to you,
“It’s half the sense of this book, together they’re the two sides of the Quest of Life.”
What on Earth can it mean? Yet it’s the feeling I try to tell you in this book. Perhaps you have the wisdom, greater than mine, to understand it.
***