Philip Gooden - Sleep of Death

‘He does not exist,’ said Adrian, almost calling across the space of the tiny hut.

‘I have a message from him,’ I said.

I remembered the scrap of paper which I had retrieved from the apothecary’s shop just before the ambush in the dark. The paper with the writing which it had been too gloomy to decipher. It was still in my grasp, actually in my hand. Like a dying man clutching at a straw I had clenched my hand over it as I was assaulted in the shop, and it had remained in my closed fist ever since. At least I hoped it had. The careless cruelty with which my hands had been wound round with cord might actually have helped to keep a grip on the fragment of paper. There was no sensation in my limbs now, but I recalled how earlier, in the jolting back of the wagon, I had been half aware of holding something. In my clear-sighted desperation I suddenly realised what it might be.

‘A message?’ said Adrian.

‘He is t-t-t-time-wasting,’ stuttered Ralph. ‘Get on with it.’ This was directed at Nub, who seemed to be distracted by the conversation passing backwards and forwards over his black head. The curved, rusty knife stood erect in one hand while the other hand hovered above my groin. Possibly he waiting for the final word of command from Adrian. But Adrian was himself distracted by the noise from the black sky over the forest. He could not fully savour his revenge because he was somewhat fearful for himself. From the top of my great terror I looked down on his little fright. The other two had less imagination.

‘In my hand I have a message. See for yourself.’

I tried to speak with a confidence and sureness that I did not feel. But I am a player.

‘Behind my back. In my hand I feel it still. I have a message from your friend in the shadows. I found it in the shop of the dead apothecary. It is important. He will not thank you if you don’t recover it.’

There was a pause while my life — to say nothing of my fingers and my private parts — hung in the balance.

‘Turn him over.’

Through the ragged door I saw lightning stab at the trees. I was roughly manhandled onto my front. I lay, face down, on the stinking, prickly pile of straw. Adrian’s next words were covered by the thunder so that he had to repeat himself.

‘Look at his hands. See what he is holding.’

As if through a thick blanket, I felt a fumbling at my own bound and benumbed hands. There was a grunt from Nub which might have signified ‘here’ or ‘see’. I sensed rather than saw Adrian move closer to see what he had discovered.

‘Bring it here.’

Another grunt. The charcoal burner’s black claws tugged and twisted at something that was in my own grasp. Thank Christ the scrap of paper was still there.

‘Don’t tear it, you fool,’ said Adrian.

There was more fumbling at my back. I hoped that, in the struggle to retrieve the note, my hands might be completely unfastened. No such luck. But in order to extricate the scrap of paper from where it was wedged between my hands and the cords that secured them, Nub had to pull at the ropes and the constriction on my lower arms became a little less.

‘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.