The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

‘Steerpike.’

The Countess stiffened at his side. It was as though something more of ice than of flesh was kneeling beside him.

‘No!’ she said at last. ‘Why should I believe you?’

‘It is true,’ said Titus.

She bent over him and taking his shoulders in her powerful hands, forced them with a deceptive tenderness to and fro, as though to ease some turmoil in her heart. He could feel through the gentle grasp of her fingers the murderous strength of her arms.

At last she said, ‘Where? Where did you see him?’

‘I could take you there … northwards.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Hours … hours … he went through a window … in my boat … he stole it.’

‘Did he see you?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure of that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Northwards you say. Beyond the Blackstone Quarter?’

‘Far beyond. Nearer the Stone Dogshead and the Angel’s Buttress.’

‘No!’ cried the Countess in so loud and husky a voice that Titus drew back on his elbow. She turned to him.

‘Then we have him.’ Her eyes were narrowed. ‘Did you not have to crawl across the Coupee – the high knife- edge? How else could you have returned?’

‘I did,’ said Titus. ‘That is how I came.’

‘From the North Headstones?’

‘Is that what it is called, mother?’

‘It is. You have been in the North Headstones beyond Gory and the Silver Mines. I know where you’ve been. You’ve been to the Twin Fingers where Little Sark begins and the Bluff narrows. Between the Twins would be water now. Am I right?’

‘There’s what looks like a bay,’ said Titus. ‘If that’s what you mean.’

‘The district will be ringed at once! And on every level!’

She rose ponderously to her feet, and turning to one of the men – ‘Have the Search Captains called immediately. Take up the boy. Couch him. Feed him. Give him dry clothes. Give him sleep. He will not have long to rest. All craft will patrol the Headstones night and day. All search parties will be mustered and concentrated to the south side of the Coupee neck. Send out all messengers. We start in one hour from now.’

She turned to look down at Titus who had risen to one knee. When he was on his feet he faced his mother.

She said to him:

‘Get some sleep. You have done well. Gormenghast will be avenged. The castle’s heart is sound. You have surprised me.’

‘I did not do it for Gormenghast,’ said Titus.

‘No?’

‘No, mother.’

‘Then for whom or for what?’

‘It was an accident,’ said Titus, his heart hammering. ‘I happened to be there.’ He knew he should hold his tongue. He knew that he was talking a forbidden language. He trembled with excitement of telling the dangerous truth. He could not stop. ‘I am glad it’s through me he’s been sighted,’ he said, ‘but it wasn’t for the safety or the honour of Gormenghast that I’ve come to you. No, though because of me he’ll be surrounded. I cannot think of my duty any more. Not in that way. I hate him for other reasons.’

The silence was thick and terrible – and then at last her millstone words. ‘What … reasons?’ There was something so cold and merciless in her voice that Titus blanched. He had spoken as he had never dared to speak before. He had stepped beyond the recognized border. He had breathed the air of an unmentionable world.

Again the cold, inhuman voice:

‘What reasons?’

He was altogether exhausted but suddenly out of his physical weakness another wave of nervous moral strength floated up in him. He had not planned to come out into the open, or to give any hint to his mother of his secret rebellion and he knew that he could never have voiced his thoughts had he planned to do so but finding now that he had shown himself in the colours of a traitor, he flushed, and lifting his head he shouted:

‘I will tell you!’

His filthy hair fell over his eyes. His eyes blazed with an upsurge of defiance, as though a dozen pent up years