Gormenghast

       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.'

       'Is it true that my mother sent you away?' asked Titus.

       'Aye. The Countess of Groan. She exiled me. How is she, my lordship?'

       'I don't know,' said Titus. 'I don't see her very often.'

       'Ah...' said Flay. 'A fine, proud woman, boy. She understands the evil and the glory. Follow her, my lord, and Gormenghast will be well; and you will do your ancient duty, as your father did.'

       'But I want to be free, Mr Flay. I don't want any duties.'

       Mr Flay jerked himself forward. His head was lowered. In the deep shadows of their sockets his eyes glowed. His hand that supported his weight shook on the ground below him.

       'A 'wicked' thing to say, my lord, a 'wicked' thing,' he said at last. 'You are a Groan of the blood - and the last of the line. You must not fail the Stones. No, though the nettles hide them, and the blackweeds, my lord - you must not fail them.'

       Titus stared up at him, surprised at this outburst in the taciturn man; but even as he stared his eyes began to droop for he was weary.

       Flay arose to his feet, and as he did so a hare loped through the entrance of the cave where it was lit up against the intense darkness like a thing of gold. It stopped for a moment sitting bolt upright and stared at Titus, and then leapt upon a fern-hung shelf of moss and lay as still as a carving, its long ears laid like sheaths along its back.

       Flay lifted Titus and laid him along the bracken-bed. But something had happened, suddenly, in the boy's brain. He sat bolt upright the moment after his head had touched the floor, and his eyes had closed, as it seemed in that quick moment, in a long sleep.

       'Mr Flay,' he whispered with a passionate urgency. 'O, Mr Flay.'

       The man of the woods knelt down at once. 'Lordship? What is it?'

       'Am I dreaming?'

       'No, boy.'

       'Have I slept?'

       'Not yet.'

       'Then I saw it.'

       'Saw what, lordship? Lie quiet now - lie quiet.'

       'That thing in the oakwoods, that flying thing.'

       Mr Flay's body tautened and there was an absolute silence in the cave.

       'What kind of a thing?' he muttered at last.

       'A thing of the air, a flying thing... sort of... delicate... but I couldn't see its face... it floated, you know, across the trees. Was it real? Have you seen it, Mr Flay? What was it, Mr Flay? Tell me, please because... because...'

       But there was no need for an answer to the boy's question, for he had fallen into a deep sleep and Mr Flay rose to his feet, and, moving across the cave where the light was dying as the fire smouldered into ashes, made his way to the entrance of his cavern. Then he leaned against the outer wall. There was no moon but a sprinkling of stars were reflected dimly in the dammed-up lake of water. Faint as an echo in the silence of the night came the bark of a fox from Gormenghast forest.

TWENTY-ONE

I

Titus was to be kept in the lichen Fort for a week. It was a round, squat edifice, its rough square stones obliterated by the unbroken blanket of the parasitic lichen which gave it its name. This covering was so thick that a variety of birds were able to make their nests in the pale green fur. The two chambers, one above the other of this fort, were kept comparatively clean by a caretaker who slept there and kept the key.

       Titus had been held prisoner in this fort on two previous occasions for flagrant offences against the hierarch - although he never knew exactly what he had done wrong. But this time it was for a longer period. He did not particularly mind. It was a relief to know what his punishment was, for when Flay had left him at the hem of the woods that showed them the castle but a couple of miles away, his anxiety had grown to such a pitch that he had visions of the most frightful punishments ahead. He had arrived in the early morning and found three fresh search parties marshalled in the red-stone yard and about to set out. Horses were drawn up at the stables and their riders were being given instructions. He had taken a deep breath and entered the yard, and staring straight ahead of him all the time, had marched across it, his heart beating wildly, his face perspiring, his shirt and trousers torn almost to shreds. At that moment he was glad he was heir to the mountainous bulks of masonry that rose above him, of the towers, and of the tracts he had crossed that morning in the low rays of the sun. He held his head up and clenched his hands, but when within a dozen yards of the cloisters, he ran, the tears gathering in his eyes, until he came to Fuchsia's room into which he rushed, his eyes burning, a dishevelled urchin, and falling upon his startled sister, clung to her like a child.