River.
Anchor knew nothing of these three, but he was not left long in doubt as to their intentions. Clumsy in movement, yet working in a crude unison they took the helmeted murderers from behind, snatching their long knives and pinning their arms to their sides. Yet the more they squeezed and pinioned them the stronger the sinister couple grew, and it was only when their helmets fell to the ground that a supernatural strength deserted them, and they were at once overpowered and slain by their own weapons.
Then a great hush came down upon the Black House, and over the wide and tragic scene. Titus could, only with difficulty, help the gaunt man down to his knees, inch by inch. Never for an instant did he cease from the fighting: never for a moment did he murmur. His head was held high; his back was straight as a soldier’s as he slowly sank. With one hand he gripped Titus by the forearm as hard as he could. But the youth could hardly feel it.
‘Something of a holocaust, ain’t it,’ he whispered. ‘God bless you and your Gormenghast, my boy.’
Then came another voice. It was Juno.
‘Let me see you. Let me kneel beside you,’ she said.
But already it was too late. Something had fled from the sunlit bulk on the floor. Muzzlehatch had gone. He had heeled over. His arrogant head lay upon its side, and Juno closed his eyes.
Then Titus stood up. At first he saw nothing, and then it was the swaying of the crowd. He saw a face … white as a sheet: an enormity. It was too big for a human visage. It was surrounded by crude locks of carrot-coloured hair, and there were stuffed birds perched upon the dusty shoulders. It was the last of the monstrosities to fall, Titus’ mother. Turning from Muzzlehatch’s side, Titus, with his eyes fixed upon this pasteboard travesty began to shake, for it reminded him of his own treachery when he left her; and the castle, his heritage.
But he was weak from loss of blood, and there came over him an absolute emptiness. It seemed that nothing mattered any more, so that when Anchor slung him over his shoulder, it was without any kind of argument. Titus had lost all his strength. Again there were cries from the congregation, which were stifled as soon as begun, for an owl the size of a large cat lolled through the air above the Black House, only to return to make sure whether what it had seen was true.
What did it see? It saw the dwindling of the juniper fire. It saw a long corpse lying by itself. Its head was turned on one side. It saw a dormouse under a bunch of couch-grass. It saw the glint of up-turned helmets, and a little to the west, their one-time owners. There they lay, sprawled across one another.
It saw Titus’ bandages and Anchor’s red hair in the foul morning light. It saw a bangle glinting on Juno’s wrist. It saw the living and it saw the dead.
* * *
ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN
Owl or no owl, it was essential to get Juno and Titus out of this sickening place, where in the full, if beastly light of the risen sun, objects that appeared mysterious and even magnificent during the night appeared now to be tawdry; cheap; a rag-and-bone shop.
Had Anchor been alone he would have experienced no great difficulty in making an escape from what was fast becoming an angry crowd. For he could handle most aircraft and had already selected one.
But Titus was weak with loss of blood, and Juno was trembling, as though she was standing in icy water.
As for Muzzlehatch, sprawled as though to take the curve of the world; what could be done about him? That heavy body. Those prodigious limbs. Even were he to have been alive he would have had great difficulty in manoeuvring himself into the aircraft, built like a flying fish.
But now, a dead-weight with his muscles stiffening, how much more difficult!
It was then that the three vagrants ran from the crowd. Crack-Bell, Crabcalf and Slingshott. They had seen it all, and knew just as well as Anchor knew that their only hope was to jettison the dead giant and make for the planes where they stood in long lines under the cedar branches.
‘Muzzlehatch; where is he?’ whispered Titus. ‘Where is he?’
‘We cannot take him,’ said Anchor. ‘We must leave him where he lies. Come, Titus.’
But it was a little while (in spite of Anchor’s peremptory command) before Juno could tear herself from what had been so much a part of her life. She bent down and kissed the cold craggy forehead.
Then at Anchor’s second shout they left him in the pitiless sunshine, and stumbled towards the voice.
The noise of the crowd had become menacing. Was
But they had not reckoned with the men from the Under-River who, seeing how dangerously Titus and the others were placed, barred the obvious exits to the outside world.
But first they let slip through their fingers Juno, Titus and Anchor, and at that moment there began a most outrageous din. Those with a reputation as gentlemen were now forced to think otherwise for there was a great deal of scuffling and cursing before they had all fought their way out of the Black House, and into the open, where they began to mill around. Chivalry had apparently lost itself in a swarm of knees and elbows.
The Three were old campaigners and directly they saw how they had created sufficient chaos, they lost themselves in the irritable crowd.
The sky, curdled as it was, had now begun to look less ominous. A clearer, fresher stain was in the sky.
The vagrants, Crabcalf and the rest, joining up as planned in a rendezvous of branches, sat among the leaves like huge grey fowl.
Then Crabcalf lifted his head and whistled. It was the signal for Titus that all was clear as far as the making of their way was concerned, to where the long line of aircraft lay like frigates at anchor.
ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN
How beautiful they looked, those dire machines, each of a different colour, each with a different shape. Yet all of them with this in common; that speed was the gist of them.
Though it seemed to Juno, Anchor and Titus that they had been stumbling for ever, it was no more than eight
