The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

‘Interlarded,’ said Crabcalf. ‘That is very true; there are poems interlarded. Shall I read you one … my lord?’

‘Well …’

‘Ah, here we are … mm … mm. A thought … just a passing thought. Where are we? Are you ready, sir?’

‘Is it very long?’ said Titus.

‘It is very short,’ said Crabcalf, shutting his eyes. ‘It goes thus …

‘How fly the birds of heaven save by their wings?

How tread the stags, those huge and hairy kings

Save by their feet? How do the fishes turn

In their wet purlieus where the mermaids yearn

Save by their tails? How does the plantain sprout

Save by that root it cannot do without?’

Crabcalf opened his eyes. ‘Do you see what I mean?’ he said.

‘What is your name?’ said Titus.

‘Crabcalf.’

‘And your friends?’

‘Crack-Bell and Slingshott.’

‘You escaped from the Under-River?’

‘We did.’

‘And have you been searching for me a long while?’

‘We have.’

‘For what reason?’

‘Because you need us. You see … we believe you to be what you say you are.’

‘What do I say I am?’

The three took a simultaneous step forward. They lifted their rugged faces to the leaves above them and spoke together …

‘You are Titus, the Seventy-Seventh Earl of Groan, and Lord of Gormenghast. So help us God.’

‘We are your bodyguard,’ said Slingshott in a voice so weak and fatuous that the very tone of it negated whatever confidence the words were intended to convey.

‘I do not want a bodyguard,’ said Titus. ‘Thank you all the same.’

‘That is what I used to say when I was a young man,’ said Slingshott. ‘I thought as you did … that to be alone was everything. That is before they sent me to the salt mines … since then, I …’

‘Forgive me,’ said Titus, ‘but I cannot stay. I appreciate your selflessness in searching for me, and your idea of protecting me from this and that … but no. I am, or I’m becoming, one of those damnable selfish so-and-sos, forever biting at the hand that feeds them.’

‘We will follow you, nevertheless,’ said Crack-Bell. ‘We will be, if you like, out of sight. We have no pretensions. We are not easily dissuaded.’

‘And there will be others,’ said Slingshott. ‘Men of spleen and lads of high romance. As time goes on, you’ll have an army, my lord. An invisible army. Ready eternally for the note.’

‘What note?’ said Titus.

‘This one of course,’ cried Crack-Bell, pursing his lips and expelling a note as shrill as a curlew’s. ‘The danger note. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Oh no. You needn’t fear a thing. Your viewless army will be with you, everywhere, save in your sight.’

‘Leave me!’ cried Titus. ‘Go! You are over-reaching yourselves. There is only one thing you can do for me.’

For a while the three sat glumly, staring at Titus. Then Crabcalf said …

‘What is it we can do?’

‘Scour the world for Muzzlehatch. Bring news of him, or bring the man himself. Do that, and you can share my wanderings. But for now, please GO, GO, GO!’

EIGHTY- THREE

The three from the Under-River melted into the woods, and Titus was left alone, or so he thought. He broke and re-broke a small branch in his hands, and then turned away and began to retrace his steps in the direction of the scientist’s daughter. It was then that he suddenly saw her.

A few minutes earlier Cheeta had stepped from the car, and her father had turned it about and slid silently away, so that Titus and Cheeta found themselves drawing closer to one another with every step they took.

Anyone standing halfway between the approaching figures would have seen, as he turned his head this way and that, how similar were their backgrounds; for the tree-walled avenue was flecked with gold and green, and Cheeta and Titus were themselves flecked also, and floated, it almost seemed, on the slanting rays of the low sun.

Their past which made them what they were and nothing else, moved with them, adding at each footfall a new