Sleep of Death

by Philip Gooden

  ‘Give it to me.’

  Over my shoulder, I again sensed rather than saw Adrian as he reached out for the paper. There was a shift in the shadows thrown by one of the candles as someone, presumably Ralph, picked it up and brought a light to bear on this puzzle. I had no idea what was on the paper which I had been clutching for hours. It might be some recipe of Old Nick’s, it might be a note of assignation dropped by a customer as he was paying for one of the apothecary’s love-philtres, it might (for all I knew) contain the identity of the secret, off-stage man who Adrian had hinted at.

  None of these questions was preoccupying me at that instant. I had at most a few seconds while the attention of my captors was distracted. Not the sooty, rat-like Nub of course. Reading and writing did not concern him. Even though I was lying on my front he continued to squat on my lower legs, knife in hand, ready to continue the business of emasculation once Adrian had given the word.

  I heard the low breathing of the two upright men, a whispering below the pattering rain and the thunder-grumble. From this I could deduce that there was indeed something which concerned them on the scrap of paper. There were more whispers. I went limp. I groaned and my head fell forward onto the bed of straw. I wanted Nub to think – if he was capable of thought – that I had fainted from pain or fear.

  ‘There are words here, player,’ said Adrian.

  I stayed still and silent.

  ‘Valerian, ipomea, agrimony, gall-bladder, ratsfoot, antimony.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Why, this is nothing, Nicholas.’

  ‘Look carefully, it is a code,’ I said. Anything to delay them for an instant longer.

  ‘Well, code or no, we will decipher you first. Nub, unman Master Revill.’

  Nobody moved. I thought that most probably the filthy charcoal burner had not understood the meaning of ‘unman’ – or ‘decipher’, come to that.

  ‘Turn him over and go on with your business.’ Adrian’s voice was unsteady.

  Nub raised himself off from where he had been sitting on my calves and prepared to heave me over onto my back. Even while the business was proceeding with the scrap of paper, I had been all ears for the advance of the storm. Fortune was with me. The patron saint of players (Genesius), to whom I had prayed for aid, was above, beyond the thunder and lightning but surely directing it. There was a flash of lightning almost directly outside and a deafening burst of thunder, as if the very fabric of the world had been torn in two, and straightaway a smell of burning in my nostrils. All were distracted. Each man, torturer and victim alike, cowered within himself.

  I had an instant of opportunity, and an instant only. I was half turned over on my side, still shamming faintness. My legs were free, though without much feeling in them. My hands were bound yet not so tightly as before. Drawing my breath deep inside me, I jerked up my head, which had been lolling inertly, and struck out in the general direction of the charcoal-burner’s face. I connected with his dirty nose or his hole of a mouth or some such – I cared not but was well pleased with the feel of the blow. He fell back and away from me and, by good fortune, on top of one of the candles. He may have been a little burnt and cried out in pain, but my ears still resonated to the thunder’s voice. I flailed around and struggled to get upright. My legs were weak and I staggered, stumbled and almost fell, but then was upright once more.

  Adrian and Ralph stood opposite. They had not moved during this moment’s action, as if they themselves had just been transfixed by a lightning-bolt. Whether they were still deafened by the noise or dumbfounded by my sudden movement I do not know. Perhaps they were like spectators at an execution, ready for the pleasure of the event and never imagining that the condemned man might leap off the scaffold and join them in the crowd. I raised my head and screamed. A sudden shriek or scream can arrest and cow others, and on this night it seemed to me that I was the very epitome of the storm. Then I lowered my head and, with arms still tethered and on legs that were not yet altogether mine, I charged like a bull between my two tormentors. I was aiming for the ragged gap that served as a doorway to the hut. I butted into Ralph. He had a soft surface, and uttered a non-word that may have been ‘ouf’ and was anyway blotted out by the surrounding noise. He dropped the candle, which promptly extinguished itself on the ground. I tore on through the entrance, ripping my clothing on the sharp twigs and branches that surrounded it.

  Then I was free and in the night air. There was a strong smell of scorching and burning together from somewhere close at hand but I did not, in my dash away from the charcoal-burner’s hut, see anything in flames. I was hardly conscious of the rain falling on my face, the continued darts of the lightning and the rip of the thunder.

  I made my exit into the confusion of the night. I ran and ran and ran, as I ran once when I discovered the plague in my mother and father’s village.

  I zig-zagged among trees, blundered through low-lying bushes, crashed into unseen branches, slithered down slopes, splashed through streamlets. The lightning must have illuminated my course but, for them to see me, they would have to be facing in the right direction as the flash came. My only thought – no, it was hardly a thought, more the instinct of an animal for survival – was to put as much distance between myself and those three men as possible. While I ran, I struggled to loose my hands from the bonds which tied them.

  You, who sit in comfort reading this and assessing possibilities and likelihoods, may wonder how a single, frightened, bound man may make an escape from three enemies who have their hands, wits and weapons about them.

  As I am running, breathless, almost sightless, hands still bound, consider (in comfort) these things.

  I am a player. I have to fence, to dance, to tumble about on stage. I am required to move quickly, sometimes while speaking lines which I have committed to memory. I can run if I have to.

  Against me was a fat, wheezing individual whose legs would not carry him far without rest. Against me was Adrian, who might be thin and angry and was doubtless ready for the chase but who, unless he doffed his black mantle and high hat, would not make very quick progress through the forest. Besides, I sensed that he was frightened of the storm. And against me was Nub the charcoal-burner; he might be the most dangerous. The forest was his. But he was too stupid to do anything without direction from the other two.

  Consider also. I was angry. That these three men should set themselves up as a tribunal, and judge me on false evidence, and sentence me to death, as Adrian had expressed it – all this filled me with a fury that was paradoxically hot and cold. I was like the storm. When I lowered my head and charged at my captors, I saw red in front of my eyes.

  Consider further.

  I was afraid. Not only was I faced with death – which they were not; I was threatened also with emasculation – which they were not. The latter is perhaps, in some eyes, a worse fate than the former. There must be many men who would sooner contemplate losing their lives than being forced to part with the very instrument that makes them what they are. So I had this advantage over the rogues who had taken me prisoner. I was desperate and had everything, or nothing, to lose. A cornered man has a strength which he may not know that he possesses – until the time comes for him to use it.

  So I ran. My breath came in thick gasps. Sweat and rainwater gushed into my eyes and I couldn’t brush it away. When I judged I’d put a distance between myself and the hut I stopped. I needed to catch my breath and to listen for the direction any pursuit was taking. I crouched down in the inky shadow of a great tree. It took me some moments to quieten my quivering, beating body sufficient to hear any other sounds. At first, nothing. Then, from a fair way to the left, in between the thunderstrokes and the lightning flashes, came a rustling and crashing through the underbrush. Perhaps a night creature but, more likely, one of the three men.

  I tried to put myself in their position. I’d taken them by surprise and left them in darkness. Ralph would be winded after my collision with him, Adrian, already unnerve
d by the storm, would be thrown off balance because his carefully laid plans of torture and death had been disrupted. I had managed to strike Nub in the face but he was the kind to shrug off any hurt. Nevertheless I’d had a few moments’ advantage while they recovered and rallied their forces, enough time to cover the yards of forest immediately beyond the hut. Anyway, had I been the hunter, I would have delayed setting off in pursuit and listened instead for the blundering noise of the quarry and watched for glimpses provided by the flashes. Only when his direction was known for certain by sound would I have set off, telling those with me to fan out slightly as they beat their way through the woods. This was what I assumed Adrian would do.

  The night air and the rain cooled my throbbing face. Despite my sweaty self, I shivered. I knelt in the dark, like a true penitent.

  My priority was to free my hands. My shoulders ached from my arms being forced behind my back for hours. Besides the pain, it is awkward to run with your hands bound behind you, particularly if you are making your passage through a fraught wood. You are afraid for your eyes and your face, you cannot balance yourself properly, you are unable to guard against a tumble to the ground. I couldn’t cut my bonds. I had no knife – nor any means of holding one. Had I been able to find some saw-edged tree stump, I might have worked away at the cords until they frayed and parted. If all this were taking place in a play on stage, I would undoubtedly have found a cave to shelter from the storm in, a fire to warm myself by and a kindly old shepherd to provide simple country fare (and a beautiful daughter too). But it was still dark and I could not see any convenient tree stumps. And this was no play: there was a storm but no cave, lightning but no fire, and a trio of murderers rather than a kindly old shepherd (and daughter).

  I had no choice but to writhe and twist and struggle with the ties that bound me. Like a man possessed, I rocked from side to side but was careful to stifle any grunts and groans, even though I considered that the swish of the rain would cover my noise. Nub had loosened the cords when he had snatched the scrap of paper from my grasp, otherwise I might not have succeeded in eventually freeing myself. My hands grew slick with moisture as I tugged and pulled. I felt the ropes slacken and give. A mixture of sweat and blood eased the passage of my wrists and hands. At last my hands fell free. They dangled at the ends of my arms like the belongings of another.

  There was a pause in the thundering, which was in any case passing over. My ears still rang. Then my breath almost hopped out of me as an owl’s hoots sounded close by. Ter-wit ter-woo, three times repeated. It was no owl, of course, but fat Ralph, signalling to his companions. Sure enough, some way to the front, there was an answering hoot – the same, only slightly more convincing version of the night-bird’s cry which I had heard in the clearing by the wagon. So much for Nub. Finally there was a strangled croak from farther to the right, scarcely a bird at all or any creature known to God or man, and that I knew must be Adrian. I might have laughed out loud with relief and mockery but did not. Under the sound of the rain pattering on the leaves and dribbling from their branches, there was the noise of wheezing, again identifiable as Ralph. I breathed very shallow and huddled myself up on the ground into a kind of ball. I even shut my eyes because, like a child, I had a queer notion that if I could not see them they could not see me. Then there was a swishing and a crashing added to the wheezing as Ralph struggled, to the accompaniment of muttered curses, through the bushes and low branches to catch up with the charcoal-burner ahead. I guessed that the storm-tossed Adrian would also be striving to join his more nimble man.

  Now I knew the whereabouts of all three. They were in front of me or making in that direction. Like a man at a crossroads I had a choice: to double back towards the hut, to follow in the track of my persecutors, or to turn to the right or the left. Or, simply, to keep where I was. Staying still would be the hardest. My heart was beating fast, every sinew in my body was tense with fear and expectation. I had to move.

  But where? Although I thought that Adrian and the rest were in ‘front’ of me and that the hut was ‘behind’, I was by no means certain of the lie of the land. If you have ever been lost in a wood in daylight you will know how easy it is to draw circles with your feet while you think that you are ruling straight lines with your eyes. In the dark it is ten times worse. For all I knew, and especially in the rage and confusion of the storm, I might have gone round and about and ended up within yards of the hut. Nor could it be so far from day – so I reasoned to myself, the night had lasted a lifetime already, it could not be so far from day – and the dawn could expose me to my captors.

  I had to hide somewhere. I did not relish spending several hours lying wet on the ground. I had the countryman’s aversion to night and the open air and the foul weather. Were it not for the real terrors that beset me, I would have been afraid of all sorts of doubtless imaginary hobgoblins and foul fiends. So does a greater fear drive out a lesser.

  When I judged that Adrian and Ralph and Nub were well to the front, I headed off to the right and, at a kind of queer, crouching run, entered what seemed a less dense part of the forest. I held out my hands before my face to protect myself and tried to run silent. When I began to lose my breath once more I stopped in a place where the trees were growing apart rather than all close-clustered. After a few moments I found the tree I was searching for. I reckoned it was safer to get off the ground where I might be found at any moment. Perhaps there was some remnant of boyhood here, some memory of hiding away from playfellows among the friendly leaves, of seeing without being seen.

  My tree was large and generous in the spread of its branches, the lowest of which was almost within my grasp. I scrabbled for it and slipped. The bark was slimy and water pelted my upturned face. I tried once more, caught hold and swung by weakened hands. All at once the terrors of the night, the weariness, the hunger that I felt, seemed to overwhelm me. I dangled there from the branch, my feet grazing the ground, scarcely caring whether the others caught up with me or how they would deal with me if they did. I may even have lost consciousness for a instant. Then, from somewhere or nowhere, came a burst of energy and resolution, and I found myself straddling the slippery branch.

  Sopping leaves and twigs scraped at my exposed hands and face. This branch might have been good enough for a boy to sit astride but it was too slight a place to give me much ease or concealment. A little further up and over I made out a more substantial perch. I scrambled to one side, pressing the wet, knubbly bark with face and chest, gripping tight with one hand while the other searched for purchase. In the end I manoevered myself across a great, motherly branch that would have held me and many another. Once there, I slumped forward, head on my arms, my feet locked in a tight embrace about the branch. Beneath me the water dripped to the forest floor. Lightning flashed, but now at a distance; thunder, having played its part, rumbled rather than roared.

  I must have slept, if you could call it sleep. Slept and woken. Slept and woken.

  The short remainder of that night was split into hundreds of little portions of time and those portions split into yet more portions, and in each and every one I spent some moments anxious and alert, and passed other moments when I would not have been able to say who or where I was. Call it sleep.

  At one point something dropped on my back and scuttled off down one leg. I gripped tighter on my branch.

  At one point I thought how this was the third time within a few days that I had concealed myself in a tree. How I had spied on my knight and his lady in the garden. How, before that, I had climbed the pear tree and been on the verge of abandoning the chase when my eyes lighted on the carved initials WS. I wondered what Adrian had meant when he talked about another, a man off-stage who was directing their actions.

  At another point I was woken by an animal cough. An eerie half light fell from above. The rain had stopped, but the air seemed to be saturated with moisture and strange, tiny, cloudy patches. I was cold and clammy. A finely-antlered deer was making his stately progress t
hrough the trees. Wisps of mist covered him up to his haunches so that he appeared as fabulous as a unicorn, a boat-like creature navigating the wood. A few yellow leaves spiralled down and vanished into the carpet of mist beside him.

  Later I woke shaking. There was a stronger but still pale yellow light to one side of me, the right. Now, like a lode-stone, I could tell in which direction I pointed. I was facing to the north.

  Later still I woke and saw what had been concealed by night and the thick air. I was on the edge of a clear area of the forest and ahead of me was a vista like a picture in a book. The slanting sun struck at the towers and domes of a city and glinted off a river. Above, the sky was the clearest azure, promising a fresh day and forgiveness to us all. A solitary star, still visible in the west, was soon to be outshone.

  I almost wept with joy.

  We had not travelled so far after all. The direction we’d taken in the wagon had been south, across the river and then through Southwark, as I had suspected. I was up a beech tree in a forest on the gentle, sloping heights south of our city. I squinted and tried to make out the shape of the Globe theatre but in the rising sun everything danced and dazzled so much that it was impossible to discern particular buildings, however large.

  At that instant, for me, London might have been the new Jerusalem, a city of gold and crystal. I felt I might leap from my perch and race across the fields and plains until I reached it. I had survived a night of terror, with nothing worse than bruises and scratches. I had outwitted and escaped from three wicked men who unlawfully sought my life.

  I was alive.

  There was a cough underneath my branch.

  The deer, of course. An innocent creature of the forest.

  But this was no deer, no simple beast. It was a human cough, it was Adrian the false steward standing beneath the tree.