The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

‘Yes, sir,’ said Titus, dropping to the knees and crawling alongside the old, pale lion. ‘But it looks flat enough to me, sir, I’ll make one of the squares here, and …’

But at this moment the door of the fort opened again and Doctor Prunesquallor stepped out of the sunlight and into the grey gloom of the small fort.

‘Well! well! well! well! well!’ he trilled, peering into the shadows. ‘Well, well, well! What a dreadful place to gaol an earl in, by all that’s merciless. And where is he, this fabulous little wrong-doer – this breaker of bounds, this flouter of unwritten laws, this thoroughly naughty boy? God bless my shocked spirit if I don’t see two of them – and one much bigger than the other – or is there someone with you, Titus, and if so, who can it be, and what in the name of dust and ashes can you find so absorbing on the earth’s bosom, that you must crawl about on it, belly to stubble, like beasts that stalk their prey?’

Bellgrove rose, creaking, to his knees and then catching his feet in the swathes of his gown, tore a great rent in its threadbare material as he struggled into an upright position. He straightened his back and struck the attitude of a headmaster, but his old face had coloured.

‘Hullo, Doctor Prune,’ said Titus. ‘We were just going to play marbles.’

‘Marbles! eh? By all that’s erudite, and a very fine invention too, God bless my spherical soul,’ cried the physician. ‘But, if your accomplice isn’t Professor Bellgrove, your headmaster, then my eyes are behaving in a very peculiar manner.’

‘My dear Doctor,’ said Bellgrove, his hands clasping his gown near the shoulders, its torn portion trailing the floor at his feet like a fallen sail – ‘It is indeed I. My pupil, the young earl, having misbehaved himself, I felt it my bounden duty, in loco parentis, to bring what wisdom I have at my command to bear upon his predicament. To help him, if I can, for, who knows, even the old may have experience; to succour him, for, who knows, even the old may have mercy in their bones; and to lead him back into the current of wise living – for, who knows, even the old may …’

‘I don’t like “current of wise living”, Bellgrove – a beastly phrase for a headmaster, if I may make so damnably bold,’ said Prunesquallor. ‘But I see what you mean. By all that smacks of insight, I most probably do. But what a place for incarcerating a child! Let’s have a look at you, Titus. How are you, my little bantam?’

‘All right, thank you, sir,’ said Titus. ‘I’ll be free tomorrow.’

‘Oh God, it breaks my heart,’ cried Prunesquallor. ‘“I’ll be free tomorrow” indeed! Come here, boy.’

There was a catch in the Doctor’s voice. Free tomorrow, he thought. Free tomorrow. Would the child ever be free tomorrow?

‘So your headmaster has come to see you and is going to play marbles with you,’ he said. ‘Do you know that you are greatly honoured? Have you thanked him for coming to see you?’

‘Not yet, sir,’ said Titus.

‘Well, you must, you know, before he leaves you.’

‘He’s a good boy,’ said Bellgrove. ‘A very good boy.’ After a pause he added, as though to get back to firm, authoritarian ground again, ‘and a very wicked one at that.’

‘But I’m delaying the game – by all that’s thoughtless, I am indeed!’ cried the Doctor, giving Titus a pat on the back of the head.

‘Why don’t you play, too, Doctor Prune?’ inquired Titus. ‘Then we could have “threecorners”.’

‘And how do you play “threecorners”?’ said Prunesquallor, hitching up his elegant trousers and squattirig on the floor, his pink, ingenious face directed at the tousle-haired child. ‘Do you know, my friend?’ he enquired, turning to Bellgrove.

‘Indeed, indeed,’ said Bellgrove, his face lighting up. ‘It is a noble game.’ He lowered himself to the ground again.

‘By the way,’ said the Doctor, turning his head quickly to the Professor, ‘you’re coming to our party, aren’t you? You will be our chief guest, as you know, sir.’

Bellgrove, with a great grinding and creaking of joints and fibres, got all the way to his feet again, stood for a moment magnificently and precariously upright and bowed to the squatting doctor, a lock of white hair falling across his blank blue eyes as he did so.

‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I am, sir – and my staff with me. We are deeply honoured.’ Then he sank to his knees again with extraordinary rapidity.

For the next hour, the old prison warder, peering through a keyhole the size of a table-spoon, in the inner door, was astounded to see the three figures crawling to and fro across the floor of the prison fort, to hear the high trill of the Doctor develop and strengthen into the cry of a hyena, the deep and wavering voice of the Professor bell forth like an old and happy hound, as his inhibitions waned, and the shrill cries of the child reverberate abut the room, splintering like glass on the stone walls while the marbles crashed against one another, spun in their tracks, lodged shuddering in their squares, or skimmed the prison floor like shooting stars.

TWENTY-TWO

There was no sound in all Gormenghast that could strike so chill against the heart as the sound of that small and greasy crutch on which Barquentine propelled his dwarfish body.

The harsh and rapid impact of its iron-like stub upon the hollow stones was, at each stroke, like a whip-crack, an oath, a slash across the face of mercy.

Not a hierophant but had heard at one time or another the sound of that sinister shaft mounting in loudness as the Master of Ritual thrust himself forwards, his withered leg and his crutch between them negotiating the tortuous corridors of stone, at a pace that it was difficult to believe.

There were few who had not, on hearing the crack of that stub of a crutch on distant flag-stones, altered their directions to avoid the small smouldering symbol of the law, as, in its crimson rags, it stamped its brimstone path along the centre of every corridor, altering its course for no man.

Something of the wasp, and something of the scraggy bird of prey, there was, about this Barquentine. There was something of the gale-twisted thorn tree also, and something of the gnome in his blistered face. The eyes, horribly liquid, shot their malice through veils of water. They seemed to be brimming, those eyes of his, as though old, cracked, sandy saucers were filled so full of topaz-coloured tea as to be swollen at their centres.