by Mervyn Peake
‘Do you think that because I am here, in the Honeycomb, I am missing anything? Do you think I am jealous of my family? Do you think I miss the golden plates and the tiger-skins? No! Nor the reflections in the polished floor. I have found my luxury here. This is my joy. To be a prisoner in the Honeycomb. So, my dear child, be not startled. I came to tell you there’s a friend below you. You can always tap to me. Tap out your thoughts. Tap out your joys and sorrows. Tap out your love. We will grow old together.’
Titus turned his face sharply. What did he mean, this vile, unhealthy creature.
‘Leave me alone,’ cried Titus, ‘– leave me alone!’
The man from the cell below stared at Titus. Then he began to tremble.
‘This used to be my cell,’ he said. ‘Years and years ago. I was a fire-raiser. “Arson” they called it. I did so love a fire. The flames make up for everything.
‘Bring on the rats and mice! Bring on my skinning-knife. Bring on the New Boys.’
He moved a step towards Titus who, in his turn, moved a little nearer to the chair-leg weapon.
‘This is a good cell. I had it once,’ whined Old Crime. ‘I made something out of it, I can tell you. I learned the nature of it. I was sad to leave it. This window is the finest in the prison. But who cares about it now? Where are the frescoes gone? My yellow frescoes. Drawings, you understand. Drawings of fairies. Now they have been covered up and nothing is left of all my work. Not a trace.’
He lifted his proud head and but for the shortness of his legs he might well have been Isaiah.
‘Put that chair leg on the table, boy. Forget yourself. Eat up your crumbs.’
Titus looked down at the old lag and the craggy grandeur of his upturned face.
‘You’ve come to the right place,’ said Old Crime. ‘Away from the filthy thing called Life. Join us, dear boy. You would be an asset. My friends are unique. Grow old with us.’
‘You talk too much,’ said Titus.
The man from below stretched out his strong arm slowly. His right hand fastened upon Titus’ biceps and as it tightened Titus could feel an evil strength, a sense that Old Crime’s power was limitless and that, had he wanted to, he could have torn the arm away with ease.
As it was he brought Titus to his side with a single pull, and far back in the sham nobility of his countenance Titus could see two little fires no bigger than pin-heads burning.
‘I was going to do so much for you,’ said the man from below. ‘I was going to introduce you to my colleagues. I was going to show you all the escape routes – should you want them – I was going to tell you about my poetry and where the harlots prowl. After all one mustn’t become ill, must we? That wouldn’t do at all.
‘But you have told me I talk too much, so I will do something quite different and crack your skull like an egg-shell.’
All in a breath the dreadful man let go of Titus, wheeled in his tracks, and lifting the table above his head he flung it, with all the force he could command, at Titus. But he was too late, for all his speed. Directly Titus saw the man reach for the table he sprang to one side, and the heavy piece of furniture crashed against the wall at his back.
Turning now upon the massive-chested and muscular creature, he was surprised to hear the sound of sobbing. His adversary was now upon his knees, his huge archaic face buried in his hands.
Not knowing what to do, Titus re-lit one of the candles which had been on the table and then sat down on his trestle bed, the only piece of furniture left in the cell that hadn’t been smashed.
‘Why did you have to say it? Why did you have to? O why? Why?’ sobbed the man.
‘O God,’ said Titus to himself, ‘what have I done?’
‘So I talk too much? O God, I talk too much.’
A shadow passed over Old Crime’s face. At the same moment there was a heavy sound of feet beyond the door and then after a rattling of keys the sound of one turning in the lock. Old Crime was by this time on the move and by the time the door began to open he had disappeared down the hole in the floor.
Hardly knowing what he was doing, Titus dragged the trestle bed over the hole and then lay down on it as the door opened.
A warder came in with a torch. He flashed it around the cell, the beam of light lingering on the broken table, the broken chair, and the supposedly sleeping boy.
Four strides took him to Titus, whom he pulled from his bed only to beat him back again with a vicious clout on the head.
‘Let that last you till the morning, you bloody whelp!’ shouted the warder. ‘I’ll teach you to keep your temper! I’ll teach you to smash things.’ He glowered at Titus. ‘Who were you talking to?’ he shouted, but Titus, being half stunned, could hardly answer.
In the very early morning when he awoke he thought it had all been a dream. But the dream was so vivid that he could not refrain from rolling to the floor and peering in the half-darkness beneath the trestle bed.
It had been no dream, for there it was, that heavy slab of stone, and he immediately began to shift it inch by inch and it fell into its former place. But just before the hole was finally closed he heard the old man’s voice, soft as gruel, in the darkness below.
‘Grow old with me …,’ it said. ‘Grow old with me.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
A dim light shone above his Worship’s head. In the hollow of the Court someone could be heard sharpening a pencil. A chair creaked, and Titus, standing upright at the bar, began to bang his hands together, for it was a bitter cold morning.
‘Who is applauding what?’ said the Magistrate, recovering from a reverie. ‘Have I said something profound?’
‘No, not at all, your Worship,’ said the large, pock-marked Clerk of the Court. ‘That is, sir, you made no remark.’
‘Silence can be profound, Mr Drugg. Very much so.’
‘Yes, your Worship.’
‘What was it then?’
‘It was the young man, your Worship; clapping his hands, to warm them, I imagine.’
‘Ah, yes. The young man. Which young man? Where is he?’
‘In the dock, your Worship.’
The Magistrate, frowning a little, pushed his wig to one side and then drew it back again.
‘I seem to know his face,’ said the Magistrate.
‘Quite so, your Worship,’ said Mr Drugg. ‘This prisoner has been before you several times.’
‘That accounts for it,’ said the Magistrate. ‘And what has he been up to now?’
‘If I may remind your Worship,’ said the large pock-marked Clerk of the Court, not without a note of peevishness in his voice,’ – you were dealing with this case only this morning.’
‘And so I was. It is returning to me. I have always had an excellent memory. Think of a Magistrate with no memory.’
‘I am thinking of it, your Worship,’ said Mr Drugg as, with a gesture of irritation, he thumbed through a sheaf of irrelevant papers.
‘Vagrancy. Wasn’t that it, Mr Drugg?’
‘It was,’ said the Clerk of the Court. ‘Vagrancy, damage, and trespass’ – and he turned his big greyish-coloured face to Titus and lifted a corner of his top lip away from his teeth like a dog. And then, as though upon their own volition, his hands slid down into the depths of his trouser pockets as though two foxes had all of a sudden gone to earth. A smothered sound of keys and coins being jangled together gave the momentary impression that there was about Mr Drugg something frisky, something of the playboy. But this impression was gone as soon as it was born. There was nothing in Mr Drugg’s dark, heavy features, nothing about his stance, nothing about his voice to give colour to the thought. Only the noise of coins.
But the jangling, half smothered as it was, reminded Titus of something half forgotten, a dreadful, yet intimate music; of a cold kingdom; of bolts and flag-stoned corridors; of intricate gates of corroded iron; of flints and visors and the beaks of birds.
‘“Vagrancy”, “damage”, and “trespass”,’ repeated the Magistrate, ‘y
es, yes, I remember. Fell through someone else’s roof. Was that it?’
‘Exactly, sir,’ said the Clerk of the Court.
‘No visible means of support?’
‘That is so, your Worship.’
‘Homeless?’
‘Yes, and no, your Worship,’ said the Clerk. ‘He talks of –’
‘Yes, yes, yes, yes. I have it now. A trying case and a trying young man – I had begun to tire, I remember, of his obscurity.’
The Magistrate leaned forward on his elbows and rested his long, bony chin upon the knuckles of his interlocked fingers.
‘This is the fourth time that I have had you before me at the bar, and as far as I can judge, the whole thing has been a waste of time to the Court and nothing but a nuisance to myself. Your answers, when they have been forthcoming, have been either idiotic, nebulous, or fantastic. This cannot be allowed to go on. Your youth is no excuse. Do you like stamps?’
‘Stamps, your Worship?’
‘Do you collect them?’
‘No.’
‘A pity. I have a rare collection rotting daily. Now listen to me. You have already spent a week in prison – but it is not your vagrancy that troubles me. That is straightforward, though culpable. It is that you are rootless and obtuse. It seems you have some knowledge hidden from us. Your ways are curious, your terms are meaningless. I will ask you once again. What is this Gormenghast? What does it mean?’
Titus turned his face to the Bench. If ever there was a man to be trusted, his Worship was that man.
Ancient, wrinkled, like a tortoise, but with eyes as candid as grey glass.
But Titus made no answer, only brushing his forehead with the sleeve of his coat.
‘Have you heard his Worship’s question?’ said a voice at his side. It was Mr Drugg.
‘I do not know,’ said Titus, ‘what is meant by such a question. You might just as well ask me what is this hand of mine? What does it mean?’ And he raised it in the air with the fingers spread out like a starfish. ‘Or what is this leg?’ And he stood on one foot in the box and shook the other as though it were loose. ‘Forgive me, your Worship, I cannot understand.’
‘It is a place, your Worship,’ said the Clerk of the Court. ‘The prisoner has insisted that it is a place.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said the Magistrate. ‘But where is it? Is it north, south, east, or west, young man? Help me to help you. I take it you do not want to spend the rest of your life sleeping on the roofs of foreign towns. What is it, boy? What is the matter with you?’
A ray of light slid through a high window of the Courtroom and hit the back of Mr Drugg’s short neck as though it were revealing something of mystical significance. Mr Drugg drew back his head and the light moved forward and settled on his ear. Titus watched it as he spoke.
‘I would tell you, if I could, sir,’ he said. ‘I only know that I have lost my way. It is not that I want to return to my home – I do not; it is that even if I wished to do so I could not. It is not that I have travelled very far; it is that I have lost my bearings, sir.’
‘Did you run away, young man?’
‘I rode away,’ said Titus.
‘From … Gormenghast?’
‘Yes, your Worship.’
‘Leaving your mother …?’
‘Yes.’
‘And your father …?’
‘No, not my father …’
‘Ah … is he dead, my boy?’
‘Yes, your Worship. He was eaten by owls.’
The Magistrate raised an eyebrow and began to write upon a piece of paper.
THIRTY-EIGHT
This note, which was obviously intended for some important person, probably someone in charge of the local Asylum, or home for delinquent youths – this note fell foul of the Magistrate’s intentions, and after being dropped and trodden on, was recovered and passed from hand to hand until it came to rest for a little while in the wrinkled paw of a half-wit, who eventually, after trying to read it, made a dart out of it, and set it sailing out of the shadows and into a less murky quarter of the Court.
A little behind the half-wit was a figure almost completely lost in the shadows. In his pocket lay curled a salamander. His eyes were closed and his nose, like a large rudder, pointed at the ceiling.
On his left sat Mrs Grass with a hat like a yellow cabbage. She had made several attempts to whisper in Muzzlehatch’s ear, but had received no response.
Some distance to the left of these two sat half a dozen strong men, husky and very upright. They had followed the proceedings with strict, if frowning, attention. In their view the Magistrate was being too lenient. After all the young man in the dock had proved himself no gentleman. One had only to look at his clothes. Apart from this, the way he had broken into Lady Cusp-Canine’s party was unforgivable.
Lady Cusp-Canine sat with her little chin propped up by her little index finger. Her hat, unlike Mrs Grass’s cabbage-like creation, was black as night and rather like a crow’s nest. From under the multiform brim of twigs her little made-up face was mushroom-white save where her mouth was like a small red wound. Her head remained motionless but her small, black, button eyes darted here and there so that nothing should be missed.
Very little was, when she was around, and it was she who first saw the dart soar out of the gloom at the back of the Court and take a long leisurely half-circle through the dim air.
The Magistrate, his eyelids dropping heavily over his innocent eyeballs, began to slip forward in his high chair until he assumed the kind of position that reminded one of Muzzlehatch at the wheel of his car. But there the similarity ended, for the fact that they had both, even now, closed their eyes meant little. What was important was that the Magistrate was half asleep while Muzzlehatch was very wide awake.
He had noticed, in spite of his seeming torpor, that in an alcove, half hidden by a pillar, were two figures who sat very still and very upright; with an elasticity of articulation; an imperceptible vibrance of the spine. They were upright to the point of unnaturalness. They did not move. Even the plumes on their helmets were motionless, and were in every way identical.
He, Muzzlehatch, had also picked out Inspector Acreblade (a pleasant change from the tall enigmas), for there could be nothing more earthy than the Inspector, who believed in nothing so much as his hound-like job, the spoor and gristle of it: the dry bones of his trade. Within his head there was always a quarry. Ugly or beautiful; a quarry. High morals took no part in his career. He was a hunter and that was all. His aggressive chin prodded the air. His stocky frame had about it something dauntless.
Muzzlehatch watched him through eyelids that were no more than a thread apart. There were not many people in Court that were not being watched by Muzzlehatch. In fact there was only one. She sat quite still and unobserved in the shade of a pillar and watched Titus as he stood in the dock, the Magistrate looming above him, like some kind of a cloud. His forgetful face was quite invisible but the crown of his wig was illumined by the lamp that hung above his head. And as Juno stared, she frowned a little and the frown was as much an expression of kindness as the warm quizzical smile that usually hovered on her lips.
THIRTY-NINE
What was it about this stripling at the bar? Why did he touch her so? Why was she frightened for him? ‘My father is dead,’ he had answered. ‘He was eaten by owls.’
A group of elderly men, their legs and arms draped around the backs and elbow-rests of pew-like settees, made between them a noisy corner. The Clerk of the Court had brought them to order more than once but their age had made them impervious to criticism, their old jaws rattling on without a break.
At that moment the paper dart began to loop downward in a gracile curve so that the central figure of the elderly group – the poet himself – jumped to his feet and cried out ‘Armageddon!’ in so loud a voice that the Magistrate opened his eyes.
‘What’s this!’ he muttered, the dart trailing across his line of vision. There was no answer, for at th
at moment the rain came down. At first it had been the merest patter; but then it had thickened into a throbbing of water, only to give way after a little while to a protracted hissing.
This hissing filled the whole Court. The very stones hissed and with the rain came a premature darkness which thickened the already murky Court.
‘More candles!’ someone cried. ‘More lanterns! Brands and torches, electricity, gas and glow-worms!’
By now it was impossible to recognize anyone save by their silhouettes, for what lights had begun to appear were sucked in by the quenching effect of the darkness.
It was then that someone pulled down a small emergency lever at the back of the Court, and the whole pace was jerked into a spasm of naked brilliance.
For a while the Magistrate, the Clerk, the witnesses, the public, sat blinded. Scores of eyelids closed: scores of pupils began to contract. And everything was changed save for the roaring of the rain upon the roof. While this noise made it impossible to be heard, yet every detail had become important to the eye.
There was nothing mysterious left; all was made naked. The Magistrate had never before suffered such excruciating limelight. The very essence of his vocation was ‘removedness’; how could he be ‘removed’ with the harsh unscrupulous light revealing him as a particular man? He was a symbol. He was the Law. He was Justice. He was the wig he wore. Once the wig was gone then he was gone with it. He became a little man among little men. A little man with rather weak eyes; that they were blue and candid argued a quality of magnanimity, when in Court; but they became irritatingly weak and empty directly he removed his wig and returned to his home. But now the unnatural light was upon him, cold and merciless: the kind of light by which vile deeds are done.
With this fierce radiance on his face it was not hard for him to imagine that he was the prisoner.
