The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

sunny surface sparkling after a night of heavy rain, she saw at the same moment a man sitting at its base, his shadow on the wall behind him. He was whittling at a branch in his hand. But although it was Braigon who sat there and who lifted his eyes as she opened the door, she did not cry in alarm or feel afraid or ashamed, but only looked at him quietly, happily, and saw him as a figure beneath a sparkling wall, a man whittling at a branch; someone she had longed to see again.

He did not get to his feet, so she walked over to him and sat down at his side.

His head was massive and his body also; squarely built, he gave the impression of compact energy and strength. His hair covered his head closely with tangled curls.

‘How long have you been here, Braigon, sitting in the sun carving?’

‘Not long.’

‘Why did you come?’

‘To see you.’

‘How did you know that I had come back?’

‘Because I could carve no more.’

‘You stopped carving?’ said Keda.

‘I could not see what I was doing. I could only see your face where my carving had been.’

Keda gave vent to a sigh of such tremulous depth that she clasped her hands at her breast with the pain that it engendered.

‘And so you came here?’

‘I did not come at once. I knew that Rantel would find you as you left the gate in the Outer Wall, for he hides each night among the rocks waiting for you. I knew that he would be with you. But this morning I came here to ask him where he had found you a dwelling for the night, and where you were, for I knew your house had been taken from you by the law of the Mud Square. But when I arrived here an hour ago I saw the ghost of your face on the door, and you were happy; so I waited here. You are happy, Keda?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘You were afraid in the castle to come back; but now you are here you are not afraid. I can see what it is,’ he said. ‘You have found that you are in love. Do you love him?’

‘I do not know. I do not understand. I am walking on air, Braigon. I cannot tell whether I love him or no, or whether it is the world I love so much and the air and the rain last night, and the passions that opened like flowers from their tight buds. Oh, Braigon, I do not know. If I love Rantel, then I love you also. As I watch you now, your hand at your forehead and your lips moving such a little, it is you I love. I love the way you have not wept with anger and torn yourself to shreds to find me here. The way you have sat here all by yourself, oh Braigon, whittling a branch, and waiting, unafraid and understanding everything, I do not know how, for I have not told you of what has transformed me, suddenly?’

She leaned back against the wall and the morning sun lay whitely upon her face. ‘Have I changed so much?’ she said.

‘You have broken free,’ he said.

‘Braigon,’ she cried, ‘it is you – it is you whom I love.’ And she clenched her hands together. ‘I am in pain because of you and him, but my pain makes me happy. I must tell you the truth, Braigon. I am in love with all things – pain and all things, because I can now watch them from above, for something has happened and I am clear – clear. But I love you, Braigon, more than all things. It is you I love.’

He turned the branch over in his hand as though he had not heard, and then he turned to her.

His heavy head had been reclining upon the wall and now he turned it slightly towards her, his eyes half closed.

‘Keda,’ he said, ‘I will meet you tonight. The grass hollow where the Twisted Woods descend. Do you remember?’

‘I will meet you there,’ she said. While she spoke the air became shrill between their heads and the steel point of a long knife struck the stones between them and snapped with the impact.

Rantel stood before them, he was shaking.

‘I have another knife,’ he said in a whisper which they could only just hear. ‘It is a little longer. It will be sharper by this evening when I meet you at the hollow. There is a full moon tonight. Keda! Oh Keda! Have you forgotten?’

Braigon got to his feet. He had moved only to place himself before Keda’s body. She had closed her eyes and she was quite expressionless.

‘I cannot help it,’ she said, ‘I cannot help it I am happy.’

Braigon stood immediately before his rival. He spoke over his shoulder, but kept his eyes on his enemy.

‘He is right,’ he said. ‘I shall meet him at sunset. One of us will come back to you.’

Then Keda raised her hands to her head. ‘No, no, no, no!’ she cried. But she knew that it must be so, and became calm, leaning back against the wall, her head bowed and the locks of her hair falling over her face.

The two men left her, for they knew that they could never be with her that unhappy day. They must prepare their weapons. Rantel re-entered his hut and a few moments later returned with a cape drawn about him. He approached Keda.

‘I do not understand your love,’ he said.

She looked up and saw his head upright upon his neck. His hair was like a bush of blackness.