by Mike Voyce
Chapter 23 – Of Life and Death
Life goes on even when you half expect it not to. Nothing clear happened to confirm or deny the expectations given me by the Board,
“Most potent, grave and reverend seigniors,
My very noble and approv’d good masters.”
I don’t know what I should have expected. One incident, however, makes me wonder, it may even be my talk with the Board saved my life.
You know I travel back to Stafford from Peterborough at weekends. I came back one Friday night, frankly, as late as I could make it, only to find I’d left something behind. I’d promised to lend my dinner jacket to a friend, for a function the next day. I’d forgot; the clothes were still in Peterborough. I got straight back in the car to fetch them. At least, at this time of night, the roads would be quiet.
In the past I’ve driven that road fast but my present car wasn’t built for racing, big and ponderous it sat heavy on the road. The secret of a quick journey isn’t to brake and accelerate a great deal but to keep the highest average speed you can and this is what I did.
The weather was foul. It had been raining for hours past so that heavy vehicles threw up walls of water, it made over-taking difficult. Running through the villages coming to Market Harborough I came up behind a courier’s van, one of those ‘express’ delivery container lorries that promise overnight service at an average speed of less than forty miles an hour. There was just visibility beyond the lorry’s wall of spray and the road was clear, I pulled out.
What caused the car to loose grip I don’t know. Whatever it was, the back of the car slid. Surely it took something more than a little rainwater to move a ton and a half of motor car across the road.
The lorry was travelling at maybe fifty miles an hour when I pulled out and I must have been going at seventy-five when the back end ‘broke’. It first started to slide in towards the lorry; we would hit it in front of the rear wheels and behind the tractor unit. It seemed clear I should do something.
I had much simple pleasure in the past from the sort of cars they don’t make any more, where you can throw the back end out in a ‘drift’. It means you can steer just on the brake and accelerator. I’ve not seriously driven like that in years. Now was a good time to try.
There was a matter of four feet or so between my car and the lorry and only a few feet between me and the far side of the road. Even so I had to steer into the skid, really quite sharply, aiming my front wheels at the tractor unit, my only hope of avoiding it. This inevitably put me into an opposite skid, even though I brought the wheel back sharp before the car straightened. Now I was heading for the grass verge. At this sort of speed there was really no chance of staying on the tarmac. All I could do was reverse the wheel again, trying to keep the car parallel to the road. We left the carriageway still doing, I guess, around sixty miles an hour; such things happen, if they happen at all, very quickly.
The grass was long and the ground soft and wet. The car 1ifted onto the right-hand wheels but it did indeed slide parallel to the road. It stopped remarkably quickly on the soggy ground.
There comes a point in a road traffic accident when you know you’re not going to die. That’s when you start worrying about damage to property. It took a moment for the World to steady itself before I got out to inspect. Stepping back, along the side, in the darkness, I fell into a ditch. It must have been something like five feet deep, the back wheel was nearly level with my head as I stood up. In fact the back wheel was overhanging the ditch, just about teetering on the top of the bank. It was so far over, although the engine started, I couldn’t drive the car off the verge.
The lorry driver stopped, he came back to see what had happened. Denying he had a towrope he went his way, simply relieved not to be involved in a serious accident. It’s amazing how your wits come back to you. The Rover had automatic transmission; with a little sensitivity and crossed fingers I pushed the car from outside, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the accelerator and my shoulder against the doorframe. Slowly I managed to drive it off the verge. There was no sound of broken exhaust, no sound of damaged transmission, no resistance from bent wheel mountings. Fingers crossed the car was drivable.
I drove it to the first garage in Market Harborough with a well-lit forecourt. I checked everything most thoroughly, wheels, tracking, suspension, everything. The only sign of the accident was a great deal of dead grass jammed between the tyres and the wheel rims on the right-hand side of the car; I never did get all that grass out.
The verge I drove along was approximately seven feet wide, it was dotted everywhere, except where I left the road, with sundry dangerous obstacles. To have turned the car over or driven directly into the ditch would have been fatal. But what really made me thoughtful was this: my car came off the road at sixty miles an hour without so much as sustaining a scratch.
You can take this as an advert. for Rover motor cars if you like, or a testament to my driving skills. I think there are other reasons; maybe my time’s not yet come. Of course, something put me off the road, even if it did no injury.
I completed the journey and fetched back the dinner jacket. The next day I was completely exhausted. On a good day the round trip takes a full four hours.
After that little demonstration on the road you’d think I’d take more notice. Looking back I should have lived life more boldly. The failures of my project, business and home life dragged me down. They permeated everything, to tell me I shouldn’t let things get me down is such an easy counsel. It’s all so very easy for those safe and secure in the verities of their lives. If you’re depressed your energy’s sapped, there’s real difficulty in seeing anything positive in life. I just gritted my teeth and stuck it out as best I could.
Over the car, whatever I may think of spirit guides and Boards of Judgement, it was depression put me off the road. It was confidence in driving and wish to live which saved me from injury. Yet, still I see, in my mind’s eye, the chairman smiling as he guided me out of that room; it’s as if he’s saying,
“See, there are still reasons to live.”
Ironically, the car was written off in another accident, again without injury, less than a month later. I was disenchanted with the car’s poor performance but no one was hurt and I had the insurance money in time for Christmas.
How great a part do expectations play in our lives?
(Past)
There’s one dismal scene I wasn’t able to place till after this incident. It was a funeral.
It was Andrew who died. He’d been struck down suddenly by the plague. Once ill he didn’t last long. Master Gibbons was terribly upset. Even then, the wise man linked plague to poor housing and Andrew lived in lodgings found by William. The letters he sent to Edward and Eadie betrayed his remorse as well as his sorrow. The one sent to Edward was almost a summons.
“My dearest Edward,
I know how close you have been to Andrew since first you met. It is my solemn duty to tell you that on Tuesday the fifth Andrew died of plague.
As you know, under his service to me, I stand in loco parentis. He has no parents living and it falls to me to make the arrangements.
I cannot tell you how inexpressibly sad this untimely death makes me and how much I feel for that young man who was in my care. I know you will obey my request. I would find it a great comfort and favour if you would attend me immediately in London that we may both pay our respects at his leaving. There are few others to call on. I have written to Eadie and you may wish to bring her with you.”
Thomas was away and Edward had nothing to do but make his apologies and leave. He was in the saddle within two hours.
It would be strange not see Andrew again. He stood for summer to both Edward and Eadie. They had taken his presence so for granted till now.
The journey to London was sombre. There was sadness for Andrew, yes, but there was also a distance between Edward and Eadie, neither any longer sure of the other or what they were thinking.
Edward had a tendency to drift into a new found formality; he used it to protect himself against the hurts of the World. Eadie had grown resentful, always looking for slights. They were both glad to get to London and Master Gibbons’ rooms.
William greeted them warmly, embracing them both and ushering them indoors. To Edward’s eye he looked older. His true age was possibly forty but his energy and confidence had always made him seem younger.
William was skilled in conversation; there was no situation of which he wasn’t master. You couldn’t judge his discomfort by any admission or awkwardness but rather in the way he sought to charm them both, and the way he abhorred silence.
“The truth is I shall miss Andrew very much. He was almost like the son I’ve never had. I’d hoped, in time, he would take over from me; serving you, Edward, as I, in my time have served your guardian. Andrew had skill enough and good sense and those qualities you need in such an office. Perhaps you are still too young to judge but believe me Edward, it’s the greatest need to the place you will hold, you shall need good counsel and true as a man.”
William led us out into another room, away from the fire’s glow, into a cold office.
“Come; I’ll show you the estate Andrew left in this World. I was his father’s executor, his mother died in childbirth and Sir James followed his wife to the grave when Andrew was thirteen. Sir James made enemies in Scotland, they cost him such lands as his family still had. The boy was sent south and I’m afraid by the time he’d finished his schooling there was nearly nothing left. I took him in as my clerk and hoped to make him my successor. Now, of course, he’ll never inherit either from his father or from me. There are no other relatives I care to contact and no friends here save only the two of you. There is only one, doubtful, claimant, an idiot daughter of Sir James, born out of wedlock. She’s kept in Edinburgh; her guardians regard her malady as afflicted by God in punishment for Sir James’ sins. Andrew sent such remittance as he got from me for her upkeep.”
There, lying on a bare table in the centre of the room, was the sorry collection of personal property William showed us, all that remained of Andrew’s life in the World.
Aside from one good suit of clothes, an engraved silver box and a serviceable sword with its harness there was little enough.
“What will become of Andrew’s sister?”
The question was Eadie’s but I echoed it in my heart, waiting solemnly for William’s answer.
“There’s not enough here to provide for anyone.”
“No my girl; least of all one who can’t make her own way in the World.”
Edward and Eadie returned to William’s words privately that night. It was Edward’s idea the girl should be brought to England, that she be supported by de Stafford revenues. Eadie agreed.
The next day was the day of the funeral. It took place at the old Templars’ church, between Fleet Street and the river.
That hallowed building that stands to this day, is still owned by lawyers of the Inns of Court. I’ve visited it myself and wondered, as I’ve gazed around, as everyone must who ducks out of the harsh light of this century into the mists of the past.. It’s an odd church and had an oddness even in its own day.
To celebrate Mass in a round church was very strange; Edward wondered if this is what it was like in Jerusalem at the height of the crusades.
The sense of those old knights carrying the Cross of Saint George pressed in from all around. The Templars were disbanded and persecuted in the years following 1307, but they were more generously treated in England than abroad. They were still more mercifully used in Scotland. How strange, neither Andrew nor William ever mentioned this Templar tradition.
“Sir James’ will was very clear. He himself was buried according to certain ancient rites and the lore of his family. He provided that if Andrew should miscarry before he attained full age, he was to be buried here. He was to be given the epitaph which is even now with the stone masons and I was to send certain notices to Scotland, all done. Had Andrew lived I was to give him certain heirlooms of the Order, with a copy of the Liber Ordinis Templi once kept in the Great Priory, they have passed down in Andrew’s family for generations. I still have them; they’re not amongst the things I showed you yesterday.”
They saw Andrew buried in the graveyard, a good Christian burial though the blustery wind pushed at the priest’s vestments and Eadie declared herself blue from the cold.
On their return to Master William’s rooms, William made a little speech.
“I’d like to give to each of you a remembrance of Andrew. You saw for yourselves, there’s little enough to give.
I told you this morning there are heirlooms. I am again bound by Sir James’ will as to these. However, there is one finger ring which I cannot clearly identify: this, Edward, I give to you.”
The tone of William’s words suggested he chose not to identify it. A shocking thought, Edward couldn’t make the accusation and he couldn’t refuse. The ring was plain, without any inscription and set with a medium sized greenish, bluish stone. It was a man’s ring and fit Edward’s hand easily.
William went on without pause, now addressing Eadie.
“To you, my dear, I can offer no ring but something as precious. I know Andrew worked long hours at night to fashion this as a gift for you this summer. I reprimanded him for it some three weeks ago and he reminded me, he’d nothing else he could offer you. This, my dear, is for you.”
William produced for Eadie a most exquisitely carved model of a rose stem and flower, exactly life sized, in wood, glowing with the warmth of much polishing.
William had to call the servants for strong drink such was Eadie’s grief. There were tears and a great access of emotion. Andrew, who didn’t show his feelings, would have been most embarrassed.
The next scene concerns the arranged marriage, neither Edward nor I wanted to think of, but now I must tell you more.
It happened just before Edward set out on his first commission in the King’s service, a military command following in footsteps trodden by de Staffords since before the Norman Conquest. A letter arrived from Lady Margaret.
(Past)
“My Dearest Edward,
I know you have been avoiding Alianore and the two of you spit so much in each other’s presence your mother and I think there must be warmer feelings, each of you, than you pretend.
While I am still your guardian and God spares me for this duty, I shall see you both brought together.
Alianore has the fine fiery spirit of her forbear, Hotspur, and the Percys are a family as ancient and proud as your own. I have never understood, since that day in this house when you told me so, why you do not want her. I blame myself you have not been living as man and wife and she bearing your children long ago.
You know you are contracted to each other by my hand and there shall be a heavy penalty for default. It is high time this contract was consummated. While I am in London this season I expect your attendance and I am summoning Alianore likewise.
This is no polite request, Edward; I expect and require you here.”
There’s no need for the rest of the letter. It was a summons that Edward was bound by, although he kept it secret, hidden without mentioning it to anyone, for days, almost weeks, before he obeyed.
It was true Edward had been committed to marriage with Alianore when he was twelve years old but even Lady Margaret hadn’t pressed it. I suspect Father Joseph, knowing what happened on that journey back from Wales; spoke to Lady Margaret’s chaplain. The Church had great power, especially with one as devout as Lady Margaret. The sanctity of holy matrimony is not be mocked by forcing so reluctant a couple. Yet marriage between families such as the Staffords and the Percy earls of Northumberland was both policy and commerce. Pressure couldn’t be withheld forever.
There was something more than this, I believe there’d been a sea change in Alianore herself. She had hated the thought of marriage as much as Edward. While he thought
only of Eadie, Alianore had had her own lover when Edward visited her in 1493. But so much had changed over the years. Alianore had grown to despise her cousin’s weaknesses. She’d turned to others who failed again to please her. Now the pride which had made her willing to kill made Alianore want what Edward refused to give.
Whether she wanted just his hand or actually his heart is another matter but certainly, Alianore now wanted to marry Edward. To be thwarted by his coldness made her angry. It was she more than money or policy which prompted Lady Margaret to write that letter. It was Alianore, not Lady Margaret, who would be waiting for Edward to answer that summons.
Edward went, he had no choice.
Alianore was there.
She did her best to charm him, to allure him, aided and abetted by Lady Margaret.
Temptation lay in the coldness grown in Eadie’s love. It lay more there than in the flattery of Alianore’ s skilful attentions; in the shape of her lips, in the provocative movements of her body, in the soft tones of her voice, the caresses her hand would give his cheek whenever she could. In private she grew bolder; Edward, blushing his awkwardness, was not quite able to resist. Power slipped steadily into her hands.
Certainly Alianore played the best game she could but the real danger lay in the steel trap of Lady Margaret’s words. Edward put off and evaded talk of a wedding but he made one fatal mistake: still reluctant to defy her, Edward half admitted the validity of Lady Margaret’s promise, the contract to marry made those many years before.
Edward said little about the episode to anyone and I shan’t break his confidence. Being wooed by the lady who was to be his wife made Edward feel guilty, even sick and soiled. It remained secret from Eadie, so Edward supposed. Edward made, both of the fact and the secrecy, something shameful. He’d been caught between defiance and almost acquiescence. He left pleading the urgency of military duties, after many days, uncommitted but ashamed. Even to entertain Alianore’s embrace at all betrayed Eadie and the simple purity of Edward’s heart was the loser.
I’d missed a step in Edward’s life. What military duties? Yet, on leaving Cambridge he had indeed taken the King’s commission; should need arise. That need had now arisen. The King’s summons had been delivered to Lady Margaret’s house and relieved Edward from staying further, his words to Alianore and Lady Margaret were excuse without untruth. Now I had a time and a place for the next scene, for Edward was being taken up by historical events, the year was 1497 and Edward was nineteen years old.
(Past)
“I’m a captain. That is by rank.
But when I order out a patrol of these West Country ‘gentlemen’ that I command they’re full of excuses. I have to go myself, and the truth is I’m no more than a ‘dogsbody’ without real authority at all. At least these men with me serve me well, just a dozen de Stafford men, come with me from my own estates, they on foot, me on my fine horse. Rank but no responsibility.
There is danger here, in this country that none of us know, but my men have firm hearts and I have Duke Henry’s Sword at my side. ‘T is only discomfort makes my men silent as they trudge along.
Travelling on narrow, empty lanes in the drizzling wet is not war or glory. But there is a wooded bank on our left and a gurgling stream somewhere on our right and the morning air is full of bird-song.
We’re here for the Cornishmen’s revolt. It is a poor affair, but a chance for me to command. Or it would be if there was any command to give. Why ordinary peasants and miners should revolt I don’t know. They must know there can be no chance for them against the King. The people I’ve met, in the villages say they come to petition the King, not to fight; but they come with weapons and killing bailiffs. Some of the rebels say Perkin Warbeck is truly Prince Richard and they’d rather him to be king than Henry Tudor. They’d rather him than a Tudor, even if he isn’t Prince Richard.
The rebels say the King’s tax is starving them into ruin. They come from the King’s own lands, with no lord between him and them, maybe they’re right. I’ve heard the King’s servants say all peasants’ revolt, but that’s the jest of the court, not the country.
Suddenly; from around the next bend, coming towards us, there’s a large party of armed men. How did we not hear them! There must be twenty or more, some with armour, some with swords, and some with bill hooks. We’ve taken them as much by surprise as they us.
I don’t like it. There are more of them than us.
We can’t run, I could, the men no.
“Charge!”
The word is out of my lips and my heels into the horse’s side before I can think. Sword drawn as I ride.
They’re too closely packed in the road. Jump or swerve I can’t get through them. I’m carried into their midst and at a standstill.
Remember Thomas’ training.
Reins in left hand, pressure with left knee and right heel, slowly walk the horse round to the right, push his rump out to the left, holding his head back with the hand - “Steady boy!”
Swinging, slashing down on my right, again and again. The sickening jar of sword and sound as steel strikes bone. Swing and slash and turn slowly; now standing in the stirrups as the men come up and the Cornish run.
There are five corpses, prone on the road. None of ours; thank God. I’m told they’re all my work.
The men look at me strangely. Is it awe? Do they think me a hero?
I have to dismount and walk into the woods to hide my shame and tears and shaking.
I didn’t think. I didn’t have a choice. One expensively trained rider, with every advantage, on a carefully schooled horse, against miners dressed up as soldiers. They didn’t have a chance.
How many fathers and lovers have I slaughtered?
My hand hurts from the jar of the Sword. I feel sick.
Oh! Thomas, how would you disapprove! This isn’t the honour I came for.
It is ironic that Frances, the woman I, your author, sometimes still live with, wants me to ride. I was on the back of a horse once and found it a damned unstable thing - even if it was more interested in grazing than throwing me off.
I know now the purpose of dressage and why Thomas schooled Edward so thoroughly. If a cavalier fights infantrymen stood stock still he will do well enough on his right, with the advantage of height, but he’ll have a blade between his ribs on his left in seconds. A shield is nearly useless. The only answer is to walk the horse round to the right, simultaneously taking the target away and pushing at attackers with the horse’s hind quarter. The horse is controlled by the rider’s legs and left hand. Under pressure, the horse can be walked forward or back… The correct speed of turn is essential because the horseman must leave no one standing on his right. If he does, that man can get under the horse’s neck, to the left, leaving the rider blocked and a blade in the belly inevitable. On the other hand, go too slow and the protection of the horse’s rump is soon overcome.
I can still dream about that crazy right-hand waltz on nights when I’m restless. Turn too quick and a blade from the left in front; too slow and a blade from the left behind. Somehow I’ve always known this.
How could I want to make these warlike moves in some sort of effete middleclass pass time, for no purpose but the relief of boredom? I still see Edward’s newly made corpses where they fell in the road.
The memory of the whipping from Thomas still burned in Edward’s mind. These, too, had been enemies too easily defeated. These, too, were not proper soldiers. They were, no doubt, fighting out of desperation for the lot of their poor wives and families. Now they were dead and what would become of those poor families? These rebels were from the King’s own lands and it was his high taxes against which they rebelled. What would happen to them now?
Edward knew he must have been open to attack. Against proper soldiers he must have been hurt. As it was, he was untouched and ashamed. It was like that day in the alehouse, but this time Edward was older, he had his men to think about. The King’s men could still be taken in a counte
r-attack. None came.
It was part of the hardening of Edward.
The shock of these scenes fell on me like further blows. First Andrew’s passing, then Alianore and this fight. They resonate with my own brush with death, the loss of Sarah and my project.
I think the estrangement which arose between Edward and those he truly loved, who truly loved him, made him unsympathetic. Maybe I’ve listened to Angharad too much. She saw him as dazzled by his own importance while I saw him as only fulfilling his duty; yet see what awfulness it drew him into.
I can only sit in my lonely flat and brood. Alas, poor Edward. Alas for those who loved him.
***