Philip Gooden - Sleep of Death

Nevertheless I had no time to lose. I knew what I had to do. Adrian was lying on his front, his legs in a strange, frog-like position. Blood covered the side of his face and was matted in his hair. The leaves and grass surrounding him were spattered with it. It was on my own clothing too as well as on my hands and, no doubt, face. I picked up his tall hat from where it had rolled into the undergrowth. Averting my gaze I plucked the black mantle from around his shoulders. He did not move. I was not sure that he would ever move again.

I had no time to be sorry. I scooped up Adrian’s cloak and hat in my arms and, taking a deep breath, I set my face in the direction of London. The early morning mist had nearly burnt up in the heat of the rising sun. Ahead lay the city, not quite so bright and gleaming as when I had first glimpsed it from up the beech tree. The pure azure sky was streaked with cloud.

I ran downhill, clutching Adrian’s garments. As I ran, tears and sweat streamed down my face. I had remembered the part that I was playing that afternoon at the Globe theatre. I knew what I had to do.

The play’s the thing. .

Now Master Ralph Ransom he comes to me early in the morning in my lodgings as I am resting and preparing to go about the business of the day. Seeing him I expect him to report success in the matter of Master Revill. But first I am surprised not to see Adrian and say so.

Fat Ralph shuffles uncomfortably.

‘Master Adrian is still there,’ he says.

‘Where?’

‘In the w-w-w-woods.’

‘Why didn’t he come back with you?’

‘He will never come b-b-b-back.’

I struggle to gain control of myself, of my anger — and fear.

‘And Master Revill, he will never come back neither?’

‘He is spoken for.’

I sigh with relief but suspect all sorts of things.

‘Explain.’

Ralph Ransom begins a long and complicated story of how they managed to surprise the player and take him off to the woods and how they met with Nub -

‘Who is Nub?’

‘A creature of Adrian’s. A d-d-d-desperate man. A charcoal burner.’

‘I see.’

But I am angry at the news. There are more and more people involved in this. Safety does not lie in numbers.

They carried Master Nicholas to some hut. He was bound hand and foot. They meant to play with him a little before they killed him.

‘And. .?’

He had a message, Ralph said, a note. In his hand the player held a note.

‘Get to the point.’

‘The p-p-p-p-point is, Master-’

‘No names, not even in private. I have told you before. Simply tell me what happened.’

‘In short, the p-p-p-player managed to run off while we were examining the note and our attention was d-d-distracted.’

‘And you caught him?’

I begin to fear the worst. In fact I have feared the worst ever since Ralph put his fat greasy face round my door.

‘We p-p-p-pursued him. Adrian must have found him. Because there was a struggle.’

Ralph’s breath is coming thicker and quicker.

‘A struggle which Adrian lost,’ I say.

‘. . In short, yes.’

‘But Master Revill, he is spoken for, you said.’

‘Oh, he crawled off into the b-b-b-b-bushes to die.’

‘You saw him? His body?’

‘Well. .’

‘Ocular proof?’

‘No, b-b-b-b-but Adrian gave a good account of himself, and inflicted some mortal strokes.’

‘On the body of a man you haven’t seen and can’t find.’

‘Adrian hates Master Revill. I hate Master Revill.’

‘Hatred by itself is not enough. It has to be accompanied by good sense.’

‘I am sure it w-w-w-was so.’

‘Wishers were ever fools,’ I say.

‘What else c-c-c-c-could have happened?’

‘Anything, you fool.’

And then I change my tone because I have decided what I have to do now.

‘Never mind,’ I say, ‘perhaps you are right and Master Revill lies even now in some ditch with twenty trenched gashes on his head, each one of them a mortal wound.’

Fat Ralph sighs with relief. His blubbery shoulders seem to grow more rounded. He repeats himself.

‘I am sure it w-w-was so.’

‘Let us assume that Master Nicholas is dead,’ I say cheerily. ‘We’ll drink to that.’

I turn my back on Ralph Ransom, telling him to make himself at ease, and go to my table and prepare two glasses of red wine. With a flourish I present one to him. I am reminded of the public display that King Claudius makes when Prince Hamlet is about to fight the duel against Laertes. How the King drops a pearl into the goblet which his nephew should drink from. How Queen Gertrude mistakenly picks up the goblet containing the pearl. How the King tries to prevent the Queen from drinking.

‘Let us drink to. . the end of our enemies.’

‘The end of our enemies,’ repeats Ralph.

‘Now,’ I say, ‘this other man, this charcoal burner. .?’

‘Nub.’

‘Yes, him. Is he secure?’

‘Secure?’

‘He will not talk.’

‘He cannot t-t-t-talk,’ says Ralph jocularly. ‘Or if he did no one would be able to understand him.‘

‘He is a foreigner?’

‘He lives in the forest, it’s the same thing,’

Ralph is now very much at his ease. So much at his ease that he begins, for the first time, to look round my lodgings. From his expression, which he scarcely troubles to keep concealed, I judge that he considers them rather meagre. True enough. I do not live as I would. I require more money, always require more money. This wooing of the ladies, it is a costly business. I am a generous fellow. Occasionally, I may take something from them in return for the expenses I am driven to (as I would have taken my lady Alice’s pearl necklace, using Adrian as my instrument, had not the young player intervened) but I spend more than I get. That is the nub of the matter. And this word brings me back to the question of the charcoal-burner, and his silence.

‘So no one will talk?’

‘No one, oh no,’ says easy Ralph.

‘Good,’ I say. ‘Have some more wine.’

‘Oh yes,’ says the dead man.

‘I have a wine-supplier in Cheapside. Perhaps you have heard of him. He is French — Monsieur Lamord.’

‘Lamord,’ says Master Ralph, rolling the name round his tongue and pretending to a knowledge of vintners that he doesn’t possess, although in this case there is no vintner called Monsieur Lamord.

‘A strange name,’ I say.

‘How so, Master-’ says Ralph, stopping when he remembers that I’ve forbidden him from uttering my name aloud.

‘In French, “l’amour” means “love”.’

‘Love, that’s a fine name for a wine-seller,’ says Ralph, ‘though too much of one is the enemy of the other.’ He sniggers. I notice that when he is relaxed and thinks himself out of danger he speaks smooth and without stuttering.

‘It also means something else if it is construed a little differently,’ I say. ‘La mort. .’

‘Yes?’ all unsuspecting.

‘. . means “death”. So Lamord is love and death, two opposites in the one word.’

‘Very good. Ha ha. Lamord. Love, death. .’

He glances at the wine glass which he has almost drained for the second time. Then he glances at me. Then his face turns grey.

‘I cannot resist a pun,’ I say.

Ralph makes to fling the glass away from him but he is too weak, either through fear or through the quick-acting effects of the venom, and I am on him. He is already a dead man with what he has swallowed, but for the sake of completeness I hold the glass against his chattering lips and teeth, and force him to drink it to the very last drop. Some red wine dribbles down his chin and spills on his clothing where it looks like blood. He chokes and arches his back. Froth forms on the corners of his mouth. His eyes roll upward into his head. His hands clench and unclench on the arms of the chair.