The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy (125 page)

Nor was he, physically, any longer personable. His hunched shoulders, his pallor, his dark-red eyes had never encouraged intimacy even supposing he had ever courted it. But now, how much the more so was he likely to be shunned, even in a society that laid no claim to beauty.

The burns upon his face and neck and hands were there to stay. Only the worms could put an end to them. The effect of the face was of something skewbald; the taut crimson tissue, forming fiery patterns against the wax-like pallor of his skin. His hands were blood-red and silky; their creases and wrinkles like those on the hand of a monkey.

And yet he knew, that although he created a natural revulsion among those about him, the reason for his disfigurement stood in his favour. It was he who had (as far as the castle knew) risked his life to save the hereditary Master. It was he who had suffered delirium and excruciating pain because he had had the courage to try and wrest from death’s grip a keystone of the Gormenghast tradition. How, in that case, could his diabolical appearance be held against him?

And what is more he knew, however prejudiced his opponents might be, that in the end they had no option but to accept him, in spite of his burns, his background, and the unproven rumours which he knew were in constant circulation – to accept him, for the simple reason that there was no one else with the necessary knowledge at his fingertips. Barquentine had divulged his secrets to no one else. The very tomes of cross-reference would have been beyond the powers of even the most intelligent of men to comprehend, unless, as a preliminary, he were schooled to the symbols involved. The principle upon which the arrangement of the library was based was, in itself, something which had taken Steerpike a year to unravel, even with Barquentine’s irritable guidance.

But cunningly and by slow degrees, as he went about his work, he evoked a grudging acceptance and even a kind of bitter admiration. By not so much as a hair’s breadth did he deviate from those thousand letters of the Groan law, that day by day in one form of ritual or another, were made manifest. With every evening he knew himself more deeply entrenched.

His miscalculation over Barquentine’s murder had been unforgivable and he did not forgive himself. It was not so much what had happened to his body that galled him, but that he should ever have blundered. His mind, always compassionless, was now an icicle – sharp, lucent and frigid. From now onwards he had no other purpose than to hold the castle ever more tightly in the scalded palm of his hand. He knew that his every step must be taken with the utmost precaution. That although, on the face of it, the life of Gormenghast was, in spite of its rigid tradition, a dark and shambling affair, yet there was always this consciousness beneath the surface; there were those that watched and there were those that listened. He knew that in order to fulfil his dreams he must devote, if necessary, the next ten years to the consolidation of his position, taking no risk, learning all the while, and building up a reputation not only as an authority on all that pertained to the traditions of the place, but as someone who, indefatigable in his zeal, was nevertheless difficult to approach. This would both leave what free time he had for his own purposes, and help to create for himself the legend of a saint, someone removed, someone beyond questioning, for whom, in his early days, the tests of fire and water had not been too terrible to endure when the soul of Gormenghast was in jeopardy.

The years lay spread before him. To the younger generation he would be a kind of god. But it was now in the diligence and exactness of his offices that he must carve for himself the throne that he would one day occupy.

For all the evil of his early years he knew that, though from time to time he had been suspected of insurrection and worse, yet now with his feet well set upon the gold road of advancement, he was (with the darkest of his deeds but a week or two behind him) as free as ever he had been from any question of being unmasked.

He was now close upon twenty-five years old. The fire that had mottled his face had taken no lasting toll of his strength. He was now as wiry and tireless as before the catastrophe. He whistled to himself, between his teeth, tunelessly as he stood at the window of his room and stared out across the snow.

It was mid-day. Against a dark sky, Gormenghast Mountain, for all its ruggedness, was swathed as white as wool. Steerpike stared through it. In a quarter of an hour he would be on his way to the stables, where the horses would be lined up for his inspection. It being the anniversary of the death of a nephew of the fifty-third Countess of Groan, in his day a daring horseman, he would see that the grooms were in mourning and that the traditional equine masks were being worn at the correct angle of dejection.

He held up his hands and placed them before him against the window pane. Then he spread them out like starfish, and examined his nails. Between the scarlet fingers and all about them was the white of the distant snow. It was as though he had placed his hand upon white paper. Then he turned and crossed the room to where his cape was folded over the back of a chair. When he had left the room and had turned the key and was on his way down the stairway, his mind turned for a moment to the Twins. It had been an untidy business in many ways, but perhaps it was as well that circumstances beyond his control had forced the solution. Even at the time of his burns, the re-stocking of their larder had been long overdue. By now they could no longer be alive.

He had gone through his papers, and had refreshed his memory as to exactly what provisions they were likely to have had left on the day of his burning, and from his none too simple calculations, he deduced that they must have died from starvation on about that day when, swathed like a lagged pipe in frosty weather, he first rose from his sick bed. In point of fact they died two days later.

As the days went by, Titus was becoming more and more difficult to control. In the long dormitories where after dark the boys of his own age would light their shielded candles, squat in groups, perform strange rites or eat their pilfered cakes, Titus was no watcher of the scene. He was no mere watcher from the safety of his bed, when, in fierce and secret grapple, old scores were settled in deathly silence while, in his cubicle by the dormitory door, the formidable janitor slept like a crocodile upon his back. The erratic breathing of this man, his tossings and turnings, his very wheezings and mutterings were an open book to Titus and his confederates. They all conveyed a certain
depth
of sleep, which at its deepest was shallow enough. But it was silence that they feared, for silence meant that his eyes were open in the darkness.

As sacred as the fact that there had always been an Earl of Gormenghast and always would be, and that when the time came he would be virtually unapproachable, a man out of range both socially and for reason of his intrinsic
difference
– as sacred as all this, was the tradition that as a boy the Earl of Gormenghast must be in no way treated as something apart. It was the pride of the Groans that their childhood was no time of cotton-wool.

As for the boys themselves, they found little difficulty in putting this into practice. They knew that there was no difference between themselves and Titus. It was only later that they would think otherwise. And in any case what a child may become in his later years is of little interest to his friends or his foes. It is the world of here and now that matters most. And so Titus fought with the rest in the breathless dormitory – and from time to time was caught out of his bed and was caned by the janitor.

He took the risk and he took the punishment. But he hated it. He hated the ambiguity of it all. Was he a lord or an urchin? He resented a world in which he was neither one thing nor another. That his early trials would fit him for his responsibilities in later life, made no appeal to him. He was not interested in his later life and he was not interested in having responsibilities. Somehow or other the whole thing was unfair.

And so he said to himself: ‘All right! So I’m the same as anyone else, am I? Then why do I have to report to Steerpike every evening, in case I’m lost? Why do I have to do extra things after classes – when none of the others have to? Turning keys in rotten old locks. Pouring wine all over turrets – walking here and there until I’m tired! Why should I do all this extra if I’m not any different? It’s a rotten trick!’

The professors found him difficult, wayward, and on occasions, insolent. All except Bellgrove, for whom Titus had a fondness and an inexplicable respect.

‘Are you thinking of doing any work this afternoon, or were you planning to spend it in chewing that end of your pen, dear boy?’ asked Bellgrove leaning forward over his desk and addressing Titus.

‘Yes, sir!’ said Titus with a jerk. He had been far away, in a day dream.

‘Do you mean, “Yes, sir, I’m going to work” or “Yes, sir, I’m going to chew my pen”, dear boy?’

‘O
work
, sir.’

Bellgrove flicked a lock of his mane back over his shoulder with the end of his ruler.

‘I
am
so pleased,’ he said. ‘You know, my young friend, that one day when
I
was about your age, I was suddenly taken with the idea of concentrating upon the paper which my old schoolteacher had set me. I don’t know what gave me the idea. I had never thought of doing such a thing before. I had
heard
of people who had tried it, you know – of paying attention, of putting their minds to the work in hand – but I had never thought of doing it
myself
. But – and here you must listen, my dear boy – what happened? I will tell you. I found that the paper which my dear master had set me was quite, quite simple. It was almost an insult. I concentrated more than ever. When I had finished I asked for more. And then more again. All my answers were quite perfect. And what happened? I became so fascinated at finding I was so clever, that I did too much and
became ill
. And so I warn you – and I warn the whole class. Take care of your health. Don’t overdo it. Go slow – or you may have a breakdown just as I had, long ago, when I was young, dear boys, and ugly, just as you are, and just as dirty, too, and if you haven’t got your work finished by four o’clock, Master Groan, my dear child, I shall be forced to keep you in until five.’

‘Yes sir,’ said Titus and at that moment he felt a dig in the back. Turning he found that the boy behind him was passing him a note. He could not have chosen a much worse moment for it, but Bellgrove had closed his eyes in a resigned and lordly way. When Titus unfolded the scrap of paper, he found it was no message but a crude caricature of Bellgrove chasing Miss Irma Prunesquallor with a long lasso in his hand. It was very feebly drawn and not particularly funny, and Titus, who was in no mood for it, felt suddenly angry, and screwing it up threw it back over his shoulder. This time Bellgrove’s attention was caught by the pellet.

‘What was that, dear boy?’

‘Just a screwed up bit of paper, sir.’

‘Bring it up here, to your old master. It will give him something to do,’ said Bellgrove. ‘He can work away at it with his old fingers, you know. After all there is nothing much he can do until the class ends.’ And then musing aloud, ‘O babes and sucklings … babes and sucklings … how tired of you your old headmaster gets.’

The pellet was retrieved and passed to Titus who got up from his desk. And then suddenly when he had approached to within a few feet of the headmaster’s desk he put the screwed-up drawing into his mouth, and with a gulp, swallowed it.

‘I’ve swallowed it, sir.’

Bellgrove frowned, and an expression of pain flitted across his noble face.

‘You will stand on your desk,’ he said. ‘I am ashamed of you, Titus Groan. You will have to be punished.’

When Titus had been standing on his desk for a few minutes he received another tap upon the back. He had already been in trouble through the stupidity of the boy behind and in a flash of anger ‘Shut up!’ he cried, and swinging around at the same instant found himself staring at Steerpike.

The young Master of Ritual had come silently through the door of the schoolroom. It was his duty to make a periodic round of the classes, and it was an understood thing that in this official capacity it was not for him to knock before he entered – only a few boys had noticed Steerpike’s arrival – but the whole class turned at the sound of Titus’ voice.

Gradually it dawned upon the class that the reason for the stiff, frozen position that Titus was in, his head turned sharply over his shoulder, his body swivelled around on the narrow pivot of his hips, his hands clenched, his head lowered angrily – that the reason for his tenseness was that his ‘shut-up’ must have been addressed to none other than the man with the skewbald face, Steerpike himself.