Between this dreary province and the pine wood that surrounded the West Wing of the castle, a dark, shelving plateau rose to a height of about a hundred to two hundred feet – an irregular tableland of greeny-black rock, broken and scarred and empty. It was beyond these cold escarpments that the river wound its way about the base of the Mountain and fed the swamps where the wild fowl lived.
Fuchsia could see three short stretches of the river from her window. This afternoon the central portion and that to its right were black with the reflection of the Mountain, and the third, away to the west beyond the rocky plateau, was a shadowy white strip that neither glanced nor sparkled, but, mirroring the opaque sky, lay lifeless and inert, like a dead arm.
Fuchsia left the window abruptly and closing the door after her with a crash, ran all the way down the stairs, almost falling as she slipped clumsily on the last flight, before threading a maze of corridors to emerge panting in the chilly sunlight.
Breathing in the sharp air she gulped and clenched her hands together until her nails bit at her palms. Then she began to walk. She had been walking for over an hour when she heard footsteps behind her and, turning, saw Steerpike. She had not seen him since the night at the Prunesquallors’ and never as clearly as now, as he approached her through the naked autumn. He stopped when he noticed that he was observed and called.
‘Lady Fuchsia! May I join you?’
Behind him she saw something which by contrast with the alien, incalculable figure before her, was close and real. It was something which she understood, something which she could never do without, or be without, for it seemed as though it were her own self, her own body, at which she gazed and which lay so intimately upon the skyline. Gormenghast. The long, notched outline of her home. It was now his background. It was a screen of walls and towers pocked with windows. He stood against it, an intruder, imposing himself so vividly, so solidly, against her world, his head overtopping the loftiest of its towers.
‘What do you want?’ she said.
A breeze had lifted from beyond the Twisted Woods and her dress was blown across her so that down her right side it clung to her showing the strength of her young body and thighs.
‘Lady Fuchsia!’ shouted Steerpike across the strengthening wind. ‘I’ll tell you.’ He took a few quick paces towards her and reached the sloping rock on which she stood. ‘I want you to explain this region to me – the marshes and Gormenghast Mountain. Nobody has ever told me about it. You know the country – you understand it,’ (he filled his lungs again) ‘and though I love the district I’m very ignorant.’ He had almost reached her. ‘Can I share your walks, occasionally? Would you consider the idea? Are you returning?’ Fuchsia had moved away. ‘If so, may I accompany you back?’
‘That’s not what you’ve come to ask me,’ said Fuchsia slowly. She was beginning to shake in the cold wind.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Steerpike, ‘it is just what I’ve come to ask you. And whether you will tell me about Nature.’
‘I don’t know anything about Nature,’ said Fuchsia, beginning to walk down the sloping rock. ‘I don’t understand it. I only look at it. Who told you I knew about it? Who makes up these things?’
‘No one,’ said Steerpike. ‘I thought you must know and understand what you love so much. I’ve seen you very often returning to the castle laden with the things you have discovered. And also, you
‘I
‘Your knowledge is intuitive,’ said the youth. ‘You have no need of book learning and such like. You only have to gaze at a thing to
Steerpike turned up his high collar, and gaining her permission to accompany her back to the castle, he began with her the descent of the grey rocks. Before they were halfway down, the rain was falling and the autumn sunlight had given way to a fast, tattered sky.
‘Tread carefully, Lady Fuchsia,’ said Steerpike suddenly; and Fuchsia stopped and stared quickly over her shoulder at him as though she had forgotten he was there. She opened her mouth as though to speak when a far rattle of thunder reverberated among the rocks and she turned her head to the sky. A black cloud was approaching and from its pendulous body the rain fell in a mass of darkness.
