The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [435]
Meanwhile Flay lay stretched out beneath the pillar on the far side of the square, his bearded chin propped by his bony hands.
Not for a moment did his eyes wander from the silhouette of the head against the dawn. The yellow band had widened and still further intensified so that it was now not so much a thing that might be painted as a radiance beyond the reach of pigment.
As he watched he saw the first movement. The head raised itself and as the face stared up into the branches the mouth opened in a yawn. It was like the yawning of a lizard; the jaws, sharp, soundless, merciless. It was as though all thought was over, and out of some reptilian existence the yawn grew and opened like a reflex. And it was so, for Steerpike, leaning there, had, instead of pitying himself and brooding upon his mistakes, been tabulating and re-grouping in his scheduled brain every aspect of his position, of his plans, of his relationship not only with Fuchsia but with all with whom he had dealings, and making out of the maze, of these relationships and projects a working pattern – something that was a masterpiece of cold-blooded systemization. But the plan of action, condensed and crystallized though it was, was nevertheless, for all its ingenuity, somehow less microscopically careful in its every particular than usual. He was prepared for the first time to take risks. The time had come for drawing together the hundred and one threads that had for so long been stretched from one end of the castle to another. This would need action. For the moment he could relax. This dawn would be his own. Tonight he must bewilder Fuchsia; dazzle her, awake her; and if all failed, seduce her so that, compromised in the highest degree, he would have her at his mercy. In her present mood she was too dangerous.
But today? He yawned again. His brainwork was done. His plans were complete. And yet there was one loose end. Not in the logic of his brain, but in spite of it – a loose end that he wished to tuck away. What his brain had proved his eyes were witless of. It was his eyes that needed confirmation.
He ran his tongue between his thin, dry lips. Then he turned his face to the east. It shone in the yellow light. It shone like a carbuncle, as, breaking suddenly out of the darkness, the first direct ray of the climbing sun broke upon his bulging brow. His dark red eyes stared back into the heart of the level ray. He cursed the sun and slid out of the beam.
FIFTY-EIGHT
It was lucky for Titus that when the Doctor started from his sleep he immediately recognized the boy’s shape against the windowpane.
Titus had climbed the thick creeper below the Doctor’s window and had with difficulty forced up the lower sash. There had been no other way to enter. To knock or ring would have been to have lost Steerpike.
Dr Prunesquallor reached for the candle by his bed but Titus bent forward in the darkness.
‘No, Dr Prune, don’t light it … it’s Titus … and we want your help … terribly … sorry it’s so early … can you come? … Flay is with me …’
‘Flay?’
‘Yes, he has come from exile – but out of concern for Fuchsia, and me, and the laws … but quickly, Doctor, are you coming? We are trailing Steerpike – he’s just outside.’
In a moment the Doctor was in his elegant dressing gown – had found and put on his spectacles, a pair of socks and his soft slippers.
‘I am flattered,’ he said, in his quick, stilted, yet very pleasant voice. ‘I am more than flattered – lead on, boy, lead on.’
They descended the dark stairs; on reaching the hall the Doctor vanished but reappeared almost at once with two pokers: one long, top-heavy brass affair with a murderous club-end and the other a short heavy iron thing with a perfect grip.
The Doctor hid them behind his back. ‘Which hand?’ he said. Titus chose the left and received the iron. Even with so crude a weapon in his grip the boy’s confidence rose at once. Not that his heart beat any the less