The Second Sleep

by Robert Harris

  Suddenly he cried aloud, banging his fists against the heavy wooden bed frame. He stood and snatched up his paper from the table and tore it into pieces. If Bishop Pole did not believe it, why must he? He should write a different sermon entirely. He should write a sermon that told the truth. He paced up and down the floorboards as he composed it in his mind. He should tell them there was no beast with the voice of a dragon, no whore of Babylon, no lake of fire, no rain of blood; that they did not live in the Era of the Risen Christ, that time had not stopped and been restarted. He should say that they lived upon the ruins of an ancient civilisation that had collapsed not through an act of God but for reasons that might be discoverable, and that it was no heresy to seek those reasons, but rather the duty of an enquiring mind.

  He continued to stamp up and down, up and down, and he was halfway across the room, facing the table with his back to the door, when he thought he heard a sound behind him. He stopped and turned. It came again: a quiet knocking. He hesitated, retraced his steps and opened the door partway. Sarah Durston was standing in the passage, wearing a white cotton nightdress – presumably borrowed from Martha – that reached down to her bare feet. Her black riding jacket was draped around her shoulders. Her red hair was loose. She carried a candle in one hand and shielded the flame with the other. Her eyes in the light were wide with concern.

  She whispered, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered back. ‘Forgive me.’

  ‘Are you alone?’ She frowned and peered over his shoulder.

  ‘Certainly.’ He opened the door wide to prove it. ‘Who else could be here?’

  ‘I thought you must be arguing with someone – so much talking and banging about!’

  ‘I was merely trying to compose my sermon. I’m sorry if I woke you.’

  ‘Not at all. My mind is too much stirred up. I cannot sleep.’

  ‘Nor I.’ He glanced along the passage in the direction of Hancock’s room. ‘We will disturb the captain if we speak out here. Come in, if you like.’

  ‘May I? I should be glad of the company.’

  He stood aside to let her enter. She brushed past him. He closed the door. She set down her candle on the nightstand, slipped off her jacket and hung it over the end bedpost and climbed into bed. She pulled up the covers. ‘Pay me no mind. Go on with your sermon.’

  He sat at the table with his back to her. But if the task of composition had been impossible before, it was doubly so now. He stared hopelessly at the empty paper. He could imagine nothing except her, quietly breathing behind him. After a while he heard her shift beneath the bedclothes. She said softly, ‘What are you thinking, Christopher?’

  ‘I cannot think, your ladyship. That is the trouble. My thoughts are entirely disordered.’ He turned to look at her. She was lying on her side, propped up on her right elbow, watching him. ‘I do not understand what it is I am doing.’

  ‘In your sermon?’

  ‘In my sermon, in everything – in this valley, in my duties as a priest, in this room with you.’

  Suddenly she reached over with her left hand and flung back the covers. ‘Will you lie beside me?’

  It did not occur to him to refuse her. He simply bent and unfastened his laces and started pulling off his boots. Later, he was to wonder at the ease with which he did it – the way this last and greatest step away from his old life seemed to follow naturally from all the others. She wriggled backwards, making room for him. He sat on the edge of the bed and swung his legs up on to it. She laughed and tugged at the sleeve of his cassock and whispered, ‘Do you always go to bed so heavily encumbered?’ He stood again and removed it while she watched him, and then – for there seemed no point in modesty, although he had never undressed in front of a woman before – his underclothes as well. Naked, he slipped under the blankets and turned to face her.

  He put his arms around her. He stroked her face and kissed her mouth. He ran his hand along her body. He marvelled at the feel of her, at the miracle that flesh could be at once so soft and firm. She pushed him away and sat up. He wondered if he had done something wrong. But it was only so that she could ease the nightdress up above her hips, gather it at her waist and then pull it all the way over her head. He gazed at her arching body as it was fully unveiled in the candlelight. She shook out her hair, made a ball of the nightdress and flung it across the room, lay down again, stretched out her hands and beckoned him to come to her.

  The first sleep passed entwined. In the sweetness of her warmth he dreamed of nothing; not of searching for a door to the waking world; not even of the bones in their shallow graves. All was blackness.

  And then:

  ‘Christopher!’

  An urgent, piercing whisper.

  Still half asleep, he nuzzled into her shoulder.

  ‘Christopher!’ she whispered again and shook him. ‘Listen!’

  ‘What, my love?’

  ‘Someone is at the door!’

  That woke him right enough. He sat up straight.

  ‘Fairfax!’ Hancock called out from the passage. ‘Are ye awake?’

  ‘Don’t answer him!’ Her words were as soft as breath, but her hand clenched his so hard it crushed his fingers.

  ‘Fairfax!’ Another round of heavy knocking – hammering almost.

  He felt the awful vulnerability of their nakedness. He will snap our necks like fledglings, he thought. He looked around for a weapon to protect them. He could see nothing substantial enough.

  ‘God damn it!’ muttered Hancock. After a few impatient taps of his heavy boots, they heard him clump off down the passage.

  She said, still whispering, ‘He cannot have thought me here, otherwise he’d have marched right in. I should go back to my room before he returns.’

  ‘Wait.’ He held up a warning finger, listening. ‘Did you hear him go down the stairs?’

  ‘No.’

  He imagined the captain lurking at the end of the corridor to see if anyone emerged, cunning in his suspicion. ‘Stay there.’ He threw off the covers and started dressing. His hands were shaking.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To discover what he wants, wherever he may be.’

  He sat on the side of the bed and pulled on his boots. She kneeled behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘I will distract him, then you can leave.’

  ‘Take care, Christopher. If he suspects us, he is capable of murder. And he prides himself on his skill for seeing into men’s souls.’

  ‘He will not see into mine.’ He bent and kissed her forearm. ‘Not least as I can no longer see into it myself.’ He picked up the candle from the table.

  At the door, he turned. In the half-light it was impossible to make out her expression. But he hardly needed to see her. He could smell her upon his skin, his hands, in his hair; he could taste her on his lips. I came into this chamber one man, he thought, and leave it another. He nodded to her with a confidence he did not feel, went out into the passage and closed the door quietly behind him.

  He looked both ways. There was no sign of Hancock. He reached the top of the staircase and started to descend. He held out the candle in the darkness and groped his way along the banister. A noise rose from somewhere below him, a scrape of metal on stone. He reached the hall. In the room where they had eaten, a maid, so small she seemed barely more than a child, was on her hand and knees before the fireplace, a dustpan in one hand, a bucket beside her. She jumped up when she heard him.

  He said, ‘This is a strange hour to be working!’

  ‘The mistress likes the hearths made safe and cleaned before the second sleep.’

  ‘Where’s your master?’

  ‘He stepped out, sir.’

  ‘To go where?’

  ‘The weaving shed most like. He often checks it in the night.’

  ‘Could you furnish me with a lamp?’

  She fetched him one and showed him to the front door. He stepped out o
n to the forecourt. The rain had stopped but the wind was still strong. It had broken up the heavy overcast sky into fragments of cloud, edged a bluish silver by the moon, and was sending them racing overhead, casting just sufficient gleam to show him the massive outline of a building he took to be the weaving shed. He set off towards it. Halfway across, he looked back at the house. The windows on the first floor were shuttered. No lights were visible. He supposed she was back in her own bed now.

  He walked on. The door to the factory was partly open. He held up his lamp and slipped inside. A huge space, like the nave of a cathedral, but instead of pews, hundreds of looms extended in rows, lit by pale shafts of moonlight shining through a sloping glass roof. Beneath the roof was a complicated network of shafts and pulleys to which the machines were attached by leather belts. The floor was bare damp earth. The air was heavy with humidity and the smell of cotton fibre, and filled with the sound of the fast-running river.

  He called out, ‘Captain Hancock!’ and moved his lamp around, trying to find him. Once he was satisfied he was not in the shed, he went back outside. Across the yard, a terrace of buildings ran at a right angle to the factory – storerooms, presumably – and he made for those, walking carefully over the uneven cobbles. Now that he was gaining his bearings, he had the impression of a vast enterprise, unlike anything he had ever encountered. He glimpsed a light moving and shouted again, ‘Captain Hancock!’

  At once, a greyhound, barking loudly, shot from the building and raced towards him. What it lacked in weight it made up for in a kind of devilish menace – all thin snarling snout, flattened ears and protruding eyes. He shrank back against the wall of the weaving shed, where it held him pinned.

  Hancock’s voice came out of the darkness. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Fairfax!’

  ‘Fairfax, is it? Fly!’ he called to the dog. ‘Heel, girl!’ The dog loped back to her master. ‘Come here, Mr Fairfax, if ye please, where I can see ye.’ He held up the lamp to his own face to show him the way, and when Fairfax reached him, he held it out and shone it directly in the young priest’s eyes as he scrutinised him. He will catch her scent on me, thought Fairfax. Some red hairs of hers will glint in the light. My manner will be different. He is like an animal, with extra senses. ‘I knocked at your door,’ said Hancock, ‘and called for a while, but received no reply. Where were ye?’

  ‘In my bed, sound asleep. I heard shouts but thought them part of my dream.’

  ‘Shouts in a dream? Then it was not a dream but a nightmare ye were having.’

  ‘And why should I not have nightmares, after what we saw at the Devil’s Chair and then what Shadwell told us at supper?’

  ‘Nightmares!’ repeated Hancock with contempt. ‘Ye’ll need stronger nerves than that if we’re to bring our enterprise to a fruitful conclusion.’ But the explanation seemed to satisfy him. He lowered the lamp. ‘Come, I wish to show ye something.’

  He led Fairfax inside, where another lamp was burning. The store was filled with building materials – wood planks, roof tiles, bricks, window frames, sandbags. Half a dozen heavy-looking canvas sacks, each about half the size of a man, had been dragged out and lined up next to the door.

  Hancock gestured with the lamp towards them. ‘Tents,’ he said. ‘I had to import the craftsmen from Exeter to build my factory. They lived in them while on site. I’ve been thinking on what ye said – about the need to keep our diggings secret. Ye’re right – if the men come and go from the tower to the village, word will spread in no time. But if we pitch a camp and keep them up there night and day, we can preserve our privacy till the work is done.’

  ‘Surely the moment they return home the word will spread?’

  ‘Aye, but too late to stop us. And once we’ve dug out whatever’s up there – if anything is up there – we can hide it someplace of our own choosing, which none but us need know of. Then we may learn the ancients’ secrets at our leisure.’

  The scheme struck Fairfax as improbable. The Church and government had spies in every district. News of such a sensational discovery was bound to spread. But he could not help but admire the captain’s daring. ‘It is a plan,’ he agreed, ‘and at this moment I cannot conceive of better. Although whether men who are fearful even to set foot on the Devil’s Chair in daylight will agree to spend the night up there as well, I have my doubts.’

  ‘They might,’ said Hancock craftily, ‘if a priest goes with ’em.’

  He left the suggestion hanging.

  ‘Ah!’ Fairfax smiled into the darkness. ‘So that is why you came a-calling for me? A parson has his uses after all.’ He looked from Hancock to the tents. Despite his misgivings, he felt a stirring of excitement. ‘Very well, I’ll give my blessing to your expedition – mad though it may be.’

  ‘Ye’ll really do that?’ Hancock sounded surprised by how readily he had agreed.

  ‘Why not? I am as keen as you are to solve this mystery.’

  ‘But what of your faith?’

  ‘Faith that cannot withstand the truth is not a faith worth holding.’

  Hancock cocked his head. A grin broke across his face, a gold tooth glinting in the lamplight. ‘I have misjudged ye.’ Suddenly he stuck out his hand. ‘Henceforth we shall be partners. Come, let us shake on it.’

  Fairfax took his hand. It was hard and calloused, a cudgel of flesh.

  ‘That’s settled then.’ The captain threw back his head and yawned noisily, his jaws stretched wide, like a wolf about to howl. ‘Nothing else can be done till morning. I’m ready for my second rest.’

  They made their way in silence back across the yard, carrying their lamps, the greyhound trotting ahead of them. Once they were inside the house, she slunk off to her basket and Fairfax followed Hancock up the stairs.

  ‘Good night, Parson. I hope your morning dreams are sweeter.’

  ‘Good night, Captain.’ He waited until Hancock had moved away, then let out his breath in relief.

  The chamber was empty. He had expected nothing else and yet he was still disappointed. He set his lamp on the nightstand, took off his clothes and climbed back into bed. The sheets were still faintly warm from where she had lain. She must only just have left. He rubbed his cheek against the pillow. He wondered if she might return, but there was no sound of movement from her room, the door stayed closed, and after a short while, despite everything that had happened, or perhaps because of it, he once more fell asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Saturday 13th April: the expedition is formed

  HE WAS WOKEN by a vague impression of someone moving past the end of the bed, and then by the sound of a heavy object being set upon the table. The shutters were clattered open. He raised his head. In the dawn light stood the maidservant he had spoken to during the night.

  ‘Yes, child?’

  ‘Father.’ She curtsied, her face turned away. ‘The captain says to tell ye ’tis seven o’clock and breakfast’s laid downstairs.’

  She departed without another word. On the table she left behind a towel, a bar of black soap and a jug of water that was steaming hot enough to mist the window. Fairfax looked at them for a few moments and then fell back on to his pillow. He no longer felt quite the same bravado as he had the night before. Nevertheless, he summoned his courage and by an effort of will threw off the blankets and got down on to his knees beside the bed. Heavenly Father, hear my prayer, and forgive my sins, which I know are grievous in your eyes … The familiar words emerged readily enough but now they seemed to fall stillborn to the floor and he hurried through to the end. I ask for strength this day to serve your glory. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

  He stood naked before the table and poured water into the basin. He picked up the soap and dunked it and set about washing. Beneath his slippery fingers, his ribs and muscles, flanks and loins, with their ridges and hard planes, felt strange and unfamiliar. At the seminary, for the avoidance of lewd thoughts, the priests-in-training had been encouraged to ignore their bo
dies. But now he found himself deliberately conscious for the first time of this undiscovered country, and the memory of the evening came back to him. His desire to see her again was a physical ache, and yet the thought of being with her in company – of having to pretend that nothing had happened between them – filled him with dread. He scooped his hands into the water and threw it over himself and reached for the towel. A few minutes later, dried and dressed, he stepped out into the passage and went downstairs.

  In the room where they had eaten the previous night the fire had been relit and food laid out on the table. A woman was bending over it with her back to him, and for a moment his heart jumped at the thought that it might be Sarah and they might have a moment alone together. But when she turned, he saw it was only Martha Hancock. He had to struggle to hide his disappointment.

  ‘Good morning, Father.’ Her heavy slab of face was hard and unfriendly.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Hancock.’

  ‘I trust ye passed a pleasant night?’ The trace of sarcasm in her tone set him on his guard at once.

  ‘I slept most comfortably, thank you. I hope you did the same.’

  ‘No, sir, I did not.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear it.’

  ‘So many comings and goings in the night – I never heard the like. They drew me from my chamber more than once …’ Her expression remained leaden, but something moved in her dull brown eyes – triumph? malice? disdain? – and Fairfax felt his mouth dry. She went on, with lethal politeness, ‘Ye must be hungry, Father, after all thy exertions. Ye’ll take some breakfast?’