(for Titus had heard many stories of his father's servant) as he knelt against the glow with his twelve-foot shadow reaching along the gleaming floor and climbing the wall of the cave.
'I am in the middle of an adventure,' Titus repeated to himself, several times, as though the words themselves were significant.
His mind raced over the happenings of the day which had just ended. He had no sense of confusion when he woke. He recollected everything instantaneously. But his recollections were interrupted by the sudden teasing excitement of the rich odour of something being roasted - it may have been this that had awakened him. The long man was twisting something round and round, slowly, on the flames. The ache of his hunger became unbearable, and Titus got to his feet, and as he did so Mr Flay said, 'It's ready, lordship - stay where you are.'
Breaking pieces from the flesh of the pheasant, and pouring over them a rich gravy, he brought them over to Titus on a wooden plate which he had made himself. It was the cross section of what had been a dead tree, four inches thick, its centre scooped into a shallow basin. In his other hand, as he approached the boy, was a mug of spring water.
Titus lay down again on the bracken bed, resting himself on one elbow. He was too ravenous to speak but gave the straggling figure that towered over him a gesture of the hand - as though of recognition - and then, without a moment wasted, he devoured the rich meal like a young animal.
Flay had returned to the stone oven, where he busied himself with various tasks, feeding himself intermittently as he proceeded. Then he sat down on a ledge of rock near the fire on which he fixed his eyes. Titus had been too preoccupied to watch him, but now, with his wooden plate scraped to the grain, he drank deeply of the cold spring water and glanced over the lip of the mug at the old exile, the man whom his mother had banished - the faithful servant of his dead father.
'Mr Flay,' he said.
'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.'
