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, ‘yes, 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.