The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

‘Lordship?’

‘How far away am I?’

‘Twelve miles, lordship.’

‘And it’s very late. It’s night-time, isn’t it?’

‘Aye. Take you at dawn. Time for sleep. Time for sleep.’

‘It’s like a dream, Mr Flay. This cave. You. The fire. Is it true?’

‘Aye.’

‘I like it,’ said Titus. ‘But I’m afraid, I think.’

‘Not proper, lordship – you being here – in my south cave.’

‘Have you other caves?’

‘Yes, two others – to the west.’

‘I will come and see them – if I can escape, one day, eh, Mr Flay?’

‘Not proper, lordship.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Titus. ‘What else have you got?’

‘A shanty.’

‘Where?’

‘Gormenghast forest – river-bank – salmon – sometimes.’

Titus got up and walked to the fire where he sat down, his legs crossed. The flames lit his young face.

‘I’m a bit frightened, you know,’ he said. ‘It’s my first night away from the castle. I suppose they are all looking for me … I expect.’

‘Ah …’ said Flay. ‘Mostly likely.’

‘Do you ever get frightened, all on your own?’

‘Not frightened, boy – exiled.’

‘What does it mean – exiled?’

Flay shifted himself on the ledge of rock, and shrugged his high, bony shoulders up to his ears; like a vulture. There was a kind of tickling in his throat. He turned his small, sunken eyes at last to the young Earl as he sat by the flames, his head raised, a puzzled frown on his brows. Then the tall man lowered himself to the floor, as though he were a kind of mechanism, his knee joints cracking like musket shots as he bent and then straightened his legs.

‘Exiled?’ he repeated at last, in a curiously low and husky voice. ‘Banished, it means. Forbidden, lordship, forbidden service, sacred service. To have your heart dug out; to have it dug out with its long roots, lordship – that’s what exiled means. It means, this cave and emptiness while I am needed. Needed,’ he repeated hotly. ‘What watchmen are there now?’

‘Watchmen?’

‘How do I know? How do I know?’ he continued, ignoring Titus’ query. Years of silence were finding vent. ‘How do I know what devilry goes on? Is all well, lordship. Is the castle well?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Titus. ‘I suppose so.’

‘You wouldn’t know, would you, boy,’ he muttered. ‘Not yet.’

‘Is it true that my mother sent you away?’ asked Titus.

‘Aye. The Countess of Groan. She exiled me. How is she, my lordship?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Titus. ‘I don’t see her very often.’

‘Ah …’ said Flay. ‘A fine, proud woman, boy. She understands the evil and the glory. Follow her, my lord, and Gormenghast will be well; and you will do your ancient duty, as your father did.’

‘But I want to be free, Mr Flay. I don’t want any duties.’

Mr Flay jerked himself forward. His head was lowered. In the deep shadows of their sockets his eyes glowed. His hand that supported his weight shook on the ground below him.

‘A wicked thing to say, my lord, a wicked thing,’ he said at last. ‘You are a Groan of the blood – and the last of the line. You must not fail the Stones. No, though the nettles hide them, and the blackweeds, my lord – you must not fail them.’

Titus stared up at him, surprised at this outburst in the taciturn man; but even as he stared his eyes began to droop for he was weary.

Flay arose to his feet, and as he did so a hare loped through the entrance of the cave where it was lit up against the intense darkness like a thing of gold. It stopped for a moment sitting bolt upright and stared at Titus, and then leapt upon a fern-hung shelf of moss and lay as still as a carving, its long ears laid like sheaths along its back.

Flay lifted Titus and laid him along the bracken-bed. But something had happened, suddenly, in the boy’s brain. He sat bolt upright the moment after his head had touched the floor, and his eyes had closed, as it seemed in that quick moment, in a long sleep.