The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy Read Free Page B

his could give normal utterance, but rather that instead of sounds, something more brittle, more ancient, something dryer would emerge, something perhaps more in the nature of a splinter or a fragment of stone. Nevertheless, the harsh lips parted. ‘It’s me,’ he said, and took a step forward into the room, his knee joints cracking as he did so. His passage across a room – in fact his passage through life – was accompanied by these cracking sounds, one per step, which might be likened to the breaking of dry twigs.
    Rottcodd, seeing that it was indeed he, motioned him to advance by an irritable gesture of the hand and closed the door behind him.
    Conversation was never one of Mr Flay’s accomplishments and for some time he gazed mirthlessly ahead of him, and then, after what seemed an eternity to Rottcodd he raised a bony hand and scratched himself behind the ear. Then he made his second remark, ‘Still here, eh?’ he said, his voice forcing its way out of his face.
    Rottcodd, feeling presumably that there was little need to answer such a question, shrugged his shoulders and gave his eyes the run of the ceiling.
    Mr Flay pulled himself together and continued: ‘I said still here, eh, Rottcodd?’ He stared bitterly at the carving of the Emerald Horse. ‘You’re still here, eh?’
    ‘I’m invariably here,’ said Rottcodd, lowering his gleaming glasses and running his eyes all over Mr Flay’s visage. ‘Day in, day out, invariably. Very hot weather. Extremely stifling. Did you want anything?’
    ‘Nothing,’ said Flay and he turned towards Rottcodd with something menacing in his attitude. ‘I want nothing .’ He wiped the palms of his hands on his hips where the dark cloth shone like silk.
    Rottcodd flicked ash from his shoes with the feather duster and tilted his bullet head. ‘Ah,’ he said in a non-committal way.
    ‘You say “ah”,’ said Flay, turning his back on Rottcodd and beginning to walk down the coloured avenue, ‘but I tell you, it is more than “ah”.’
    ‘Of course,’ said Rottcodd. ‘Much more, I dare say. But I fail to understand. I am a Curator.’ At this he drew his body up to full height and stood on the tips of his toes in the dust.
    ‘A what?’ said Flay, straggling above him for he had returned. ‘A curator?’
    ‘That is so,’ said Rottcodd, shaking his head.
    Flay made a hard noise in his throat. To Rottcodd it signified a complete lack of understanding and it annoyed him that the man should invade his province.
    ‘Curator,’ said Flay, after a ghastly silence, ‘I will tell you something. I know something. Eh?’
    ‘Well?’ said Rottcodd.
    ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Flay. ‘But first, what day is it? What month, and what year is it? Answer me.’
    Rottcodd was puzzled at this question, but he was becoming a little intrigued. It was so obvious that the bony man had something on his mind, and he replied, ‘It is the eighth day of the eighth month, I am uncertain about the year. But why?’
    In a voice almost inaudible Flay repeated ‘The eighth day of the eighth month’. His eyes were almost transparent as though in a country of ugly hills one were to find among the harsh rocks two sky-reflecting lakes. ‘Come here,’ he said, ‘come closer, Rottcodd, I will tell you. You don’t understand Gormenghast, what happens in Gormenghast – the things that happen – no, no. Below you, that’s where it all is, under this north wing. What are these things up here? These wooden things? No use now. Keep them, but no use now. Everything is moving. The castle is moving. Today, first time for years he’s alone, his Lordship. Not in my sight.’ Flay bit at his knuckle. ‘Bedchamber of Ladyship, that’s where he is. Lordship is beside himself: won’t have me, won’t let me in to see the New One. The New One. He’s come. He’s downstairs. I haven’t seen him.’ Flay bit at the corresponding knuckle on the other hand as though to balance the sensation. ‘No