by Mervyn Peake
But that was where the compunction ended, and Juno, trembling as much as her antagonist, was about to be grabbed by Anchor, when the shrillest scream of all tore its way through the body of the sunrise like a knife through tissue; and immediately upon this vent from Cheeta’s lungs, the little creature turned upon them all and spat. This was the once exquisite Cheeta, the queen of ice; the orchid; brilliant of brain and limb. Now with her dignity departed for ever, she bared her teeth.
What was she to do? She darted her glance along the half circle. She saw how Juno was attending to Titus’ wounds as well as she could. Between them and herself, stood Anchor. She looked about her wildly, and saw how the light in Muzzlehatch’s eyes was directed upon her, and how there was no love in them; and how she was irrevocably alone.
She returned her gaze to Titus.
‘I hate you!’ she cried. ‘I hate all that you think you are. I hate your Gormenghast. I will always hate it. If it were true I’d hate it even more. I’m glad your neck is bleeding. You beast! Bloody beast!’
She turned and ran from them crying out words that none of them could understand … ran like a shred of darkness; ran and ran; until only those with the keenest sight could see her as she fled into the deep shadows of the most easterly of the forests. But though she was soon too far away for even the best of eyes, yet her voice carried all the way, until only a far, thin screaming could be heard, and after that no more.
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN
Muzzlehatch turned his great hewn face to the sky.
‘Come here Titus. I am suddenly remembering you. What’s the matter? Do you always go round with blood all over you, like a butcher’s shop?’
‘Leave him alone, Muzzle dear. He’s very sick indeed,’ said Juno.
But they were not destined for any slackening of the pressure. Cheeta had gone it is true, and her father also, but danger was now from another quarter. The crowd was beginning to surge towards them. There were cries of anger, for they were very afraid. Everything had gone wrong. They were cold. They were lost. They were hungry. And Cheeta, the centre of it all, had forsaken them. Who could they turn to? In their lost condition, they could do little else but fling abuse at the shadowy figures, and it was only after a particularly ugly bout that a thick voice called out …
‘And look at them,’ it cried. ‘Look at that fool in a bandage. Seventy-Seventh Earl! Ha! ha! There’s Gormenghast for you. Why don’t you come and prove yourself, my lord?’
Why this particular remark should have got under Muzzlehatch’s skin, it is hard to fathom, but it did, and he stalked to the border of the crowd in order to annihilate the man. In order to do so he passed, swaggering in his rags, between the two inscrutable Helmeteers. As he did so there was a kind of hush as they slid aside to let him through. Then, as though it had all been premeditated, they turned and, bringing out their long-bladed knives, they stabbed Muzzlehatch in the back.
He did not die all at once, though the blades were long. He did not make a sound except for a catch in his breath. The red had gone out of his eyes, and in its place was a prodigious sanity. ‘Where’s Titus?’ he said. ‘Bring the young ruffian here.’
There was no need to tell Titus what to do. He flung himself at Muzzlehatch, yet with tenderness, for all his passion, and he clasped his old friend with his hand.
‘Hey! hey!’ whispered Muzzlehatch. ‘Don’t squeeze out what’s left of me, my dear.’
‘Oh my dear Muzzle … my dear friend.’
‘Don’t overdo it,’ whispered Muzzlehatch, as he began to sag at the knees. ‘Mustn’t get morbid … eh? … eh? … Where is your hand, boy?’
What had been diffused throughout the sunrise, had now contracted to a focus. What was atmospheric had become almost solid. As they looked at one another, they saw what some see under the influence of drugs, a peculiar nearness, and a vividness hardly to be borne.
ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN
Juno, though knowing herself to be an outsider, in spite of her devotion to them both, yet had no power to keep away from her one-time lover, and it is strange that they needed Muzzlehatch at this last moment more than vengeance. Vengeance was to come, and Anchor was on his way to dispense it.
By now the sun was clear of the eastern forests, and every shape of form and colour would have shone clearly were it not for the omnipresent veil of the foul orange tint, that bastard hue, that was neither red nor yellow, but wavered on the brink of both. The only thing that burned with decision was Anchor.
Within a few strides he was beside them. The Helmeted Men. They were wiping their long steel blades upon the dock leaves that grew profusely on the floor of the Black House. For a moment his stomach turned with revulsion, for there was no expression on their faces. During the moment, too short to be called a pause, Anchor averted his gaze, and he saw on the other side of the two ‘Helmets’, the three characters from the Under-River.
Anchor knew nothing of these three, but he was not left long in doubt as to their intentions. Clumsy in movement, yet working in a crude unison they took the helmeted murderers from behind, snatching their long knives and pinning their arms to their sides. Yet the more they squeezed and pinioned them the stronger the sinister couple grew, and it was only when their helmets fell to the ground that a supernatural strength deserted them, and they were at once overpowered and slain by their own weapons.
Then a great hush came down upon the Black House, and over the wide and tragic scene. Titus could, only with difficulty, help the gaunt man down to his knees, inch by inch. Never for an instant did he cease from the fighting: never for a moment did he murmur. His head was held high; his back was straight as a soldier’s as he slowly sank. With one hand he gripped Titus by the forearm as hard as he could. But the youth could hardly feel it.
‘Something of a holocaust, ain’t it,’ he whispered. ‘God bless you and your Gormenghast, my boy.’
Then came another voice. It was Juno.
‘Let me see you. Let me kneel beside you,’ she said.
But already it was too late. Something had fled from the sunlit bulk on the floor. Muzzlehatch had gone. He had heeled over. His arrogant head lay upon its side, and Juno closed his eyes.
Then Titus stood up. At first he saw nothing, and then it was the swaying of the crowd. He saw a face … white as a sheet: an enormity. It was too big for a human visage. It was surrounded by crude locks of carrot-coloured hair, and there were stuffed birds perched upon the dusty shoulders. It was the last of the monstrosities to fall, Titus’ mother. Turning from Muzzlehatch’s side, Titus, with his eyes fixed upon this pasteboard travesty began to shake, for it reminded him of his own treachery when he left her; and the castle, his heritage.
But he was weak from loss of blood, and there came over him an absolute emptiness. It seemed that nothing mattered any more, so that when Anchor slung him over his shoulder, it was without any kind of argument. Titus had lost all his strength. Again there were cries from the congregation, which were stifled as soon as begun, for an owl the size of a large cat lolled through the air above the Black House, only to return to make sure whether what it had seen was true.
What did it see? It saw the dwindling of the juniper fire. It saw a long corpse lying by itself. Its head was turned on one side. It saw a dormouse under a bunch of couch-grass. It saw the glint of up-turned helmets, and a little to the west, their one-time owners. There they lay, sprawled across one another.
It saw Titus’ bandages and Anchor’s red hair in the foul morning light. It saw a bangle glinting on Juno’s wrist. It saw the living and it saw the dead.
* * *
ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN
Owl or no owl, it was essential to get Juno and Titus out of this sickening place, where in the full, if beastly light of the risen sun, objects that appeared mysterious and even magnificent during the night appeared now to be tawdry; cheap; a rag-and-bone shop.
Had Anchor been alone he would have experienced no great difficulty in making
an escape from what was fast becoming an angry crowd. For he could handle most aircraft and had already selected one.
But Titus was weak with loss of blood, and Juno was trembling, as though she was standing in icy water.
As for Muzzlehatch, sprawled as though to take the curve of the world; what could be done about him? That heavy body. Those prodigious limbs. Even were he to have been alive he would have had great difficulty in manoeuvring himself into the aircraft, built like a flying fish.
But now, a dead-weight with his muscles stiffening, how much more difficult!
It was then that the three vagrants ran from the crowd. Crack-Bell, Crabcalf and Slingshott. They had seen it all, and knew just as well as Anchor knew that their only hope was to jettison the dead giant and make for the planes where they stood in long lines under the cedar branches.
‘Muzzlehatch; where is he?’ whispered Titus. ‘Where is he?’
‘We cannot take him,’ said Anchor. ‘We must leave him where he lies. Come, Titus.’
But it was a little while (in spite of Anchor’s peremptory command) before Juno could tear herself from what had been so much a part of her life. She bent down and kissed the cold craggy forehead.
Then at Anchor’s second shout they left him in the pitiless sunshine, and stumbled towards the voice.
The noise of the crowd had become menacing. Was this Cheeta’s party? The men were furious; the women tired and vicious. Their clothes were ruined. Was it not natural for the company to wish to revenge itself on something or other? What better than the remaining three?
But they had not reckoned with the men from the Under-River who, seeing how dangerously Titus and the others were placed, barred the obvious exits to the outside world.
But first they let slip through their fingers Juno, Titus and Anchor, and at that moment there began a most outrageous din. Those with a reputation as gentlemen were now forced to think otherwise for there was a great deal of scuffling and cursing before they had all fought their way out of the Black House, and into the open, where they began to mill around. Chivalry had apparently lost itself in a swarm of knees and elbows.
The Three were old campaigners and directly they saw how they had created sufficient chaos, they lost themselves in the irritable crowd.
The sky, curdled as it was, had now begun to look less ominous. A clearer, fresher stain was in the sky.
The vagrants, Crabcalf and the rest, joining up as planned in a rendezvous of branches, sat among the leaves like huge grey fowl.
Then Crabcalf lifted his head and whistled. It was the signal for Titus that all was clear as far as the making of their way was concerned, to where the long line of aircraft lay like frigates at anchor.
ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN
How beautiful they looked, those dire machines, each of a different colour, each with a different shape. Yet all of them with this in common; that speed was the gist of them.
Though it seemed to Juno, Anchor and Titus that they had been stumbling for ever, it was no more than eight or so minutes before they saw her: a lemon-yellow creature the shape of a tipcat.
As they began to clamber aboard, they could hear the angry voices growing louder every moment, and it was indeed a near thing, for as they rose into the air the first of the forsaken crowd came running into view.
But Muzzlehatch? What of that vast collapse? What of that structure? There it lay so still in the sunlight. What of the way his head lolled over in absolute death? What could they do about it? There was nothing they could do.
The machine rose into the air, and as it rose they saw him dwindle. Now he was the size of a bird: now of an insect on the bright earth. Now he was gone. Gone? Had they forsaken him? Had they lost him forever? Lost him, where he lay, depth below depth, as though fathomed under water; Muzzlehatch … silence forever with him; one arm flung out.
For a long while, as the aircraft rose, and moved at the same time into the south, they took no heed of one another; each of them bemused: each in a wilderness of their own.
Anchor, perhaps, his fingers moving mechanically across the controls, was less far from reality than Titus or Juno, by reason of his watchfulness, but even he was hardly normal, and there was upon his face a shadow that Juno had not seen before.
From time to time, as they sped through the upper atmosphere, and while the world unveiled itself, valley by valley, range by range, ocean by ocean, city by city, it seemed that the earth wandered through his skull … a cosmos in the bone; a universe lit by a hundred lights and thronged by shapes and shadows; alive with endless threads of circumstance … action and event. All futility: disordered; with no end and no beginning.
* * *
ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN
Juno was motionless. Her profile was like that of an antique coin. A fullness under the chin; her nose straight and short; her face floated it seemed, un attached against the sky. A planet lit a cheekbone and revealed a tear. It hung there. It could not roll. The sweet down of her cheekbone held it where it was.
As Titus turned and saw her, he recoiled from her pathos. He could not bear it. He saw in her a criticism of his own defection. He suddenly hated himself for such a thought and he half rose from his seat in an agony of confusion. He loathed his own existence. He hated the unnatural from whose platter he had supped too often. The face of Muzzlehatch grew large in his mind. It filled him. It spread deeper. It filled the coloured plane. It filled the heavens. Then came a voice to join it. Was it Muzzlehatch with his eyes half closed upon his rocky cheekbone?
Titus shook his head to free his brain. Anchor glanced at the young man and tossed a hank of red hair from his eyes. Then he stared again at Titus.
‘Where are we going?’ he said at last. But there was no reply.
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY
The darkness fell and the little craft sped on like an insect in the void. Time seemed to be a meaningless thing; but dawn came at last, its breast a wilderness of feathers.
The red-headed pilot seemed to be slumped over the controls but every now and again he shook himself and adjusted some device. All about him were the intricate entrails of the yellow machine; a creature terrible in its speed; lethal in its line; multitudinous in its secrets; an equation of metal.
Juno was fast asleep with her head on Titus’ shoulders. He sat in stony silence while the slim plane whistled through the air.
Suddenly he sat forward in his seat, and clenched his hands. A dark flush covered his brow. It was as though he had only just heard Anchor’s question.
‘Did someone ask where we were going? Or am I dreaming? Perhaps it is all a figment of my brain.’
‘What is the matter, Titus?’ said Juno, lifting her head.
‘What is the matter? Is that what you said? So you don’t know either? Neither of you know. Is that it? Have we no destination? We are moving, that is all; from one sky to the next. Is that what you think? Or am I mad? I have drowned my birthplace with rant until its name stinks to heaven. Gormenghast! O Gormenghast! How can I prove you?’
Titus banged his head down upon his knees over and over again.
‘Dear God! Dear God!’ he muttered. ‘Don’t make me mad.’
‘You are no more mad than I am,’ said Anchor. ‘Or than any other creature who is lost.’
But Titus went on banging his head on his knees.
‘Oh Titus,’ cried Juno. ‘We will search until we find your heart’s home. Have I ever doubted you?’
‘It is your pity for me. Your damnable pity,’ cried Titus. ‘You do not believe. You are gentle, but you do not believe. Oh God, it is your terrible, ignorant pity. Don’t you see it is the grey towers that I want? It is my Doctor; it is Bellgrove. If I shout will she hear me? Turn off the engine, Mr Anchor, and I will call her out of the air.’ Juno and Anchor exchanged glances, and the engine was switched off. The slithering silence filled them. Titus raised his head to cry, but no sound came. Only within himself could he hear a faraway voice calling out … �
�Mother … mother … mother … mother … where are you? Where … are … you? Where … are … you?’
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE
Never knowing where they were, for they could see nothing but alien hills and a great unheard-of sea, yet, nevertheless, they had no option but to cruise ever deeper into the unknown.
They took it in turn to guide the sleek machine, and it was well that Titus took his share of the responsibility. To some extent it kept him from brooding.
Yet even then his mind was half aware. Childhood and rebellion … disobedience and defiance; the journey; the adventures and now a youth no longer – but the man.
‘Good-bye, my friend. Look after her. She is all heart.’
Before Anchor and Juno knew what was happening he pressed a button, and was a second or two later alone, falling through the wilds of space, his parachute opening like a flower above him.
Gradually the dark silk tent filled up with air, and he swayed as he descended through the darkness, for it was night again. He gave himself up to the sensation of seemingly endless descent.
For a little while he forgot his loneliness, which was strange, for what could have been a lonelier setting than the night through which, suspended, he gradually fell? There was nothing for his feet to touch and it was right for him to be, for the time, so out of touch in every kind of sense. And so it was with composure that he felt and saw the bats surround him.
Now lay the land below him. A vast charcoal drawing of mountains and forests. There was no habitation to be seen, nor anything human, yet the stark geology and the crowding heads of the forest trees were redolent of almost human shapes. It was among the branches of a forest tree that Titus eventually subsided, and he lay there for a little while unharmed, like a child in a cradle.
