Gormenghast - post V

As the second volume moves towards its conclusion the pace quickens and at last there is a partial dose of justice for Steerpike who has never been quite the same since he killed Barquentine. All of a sudden after trawling through pages with strange characters and odd locations you come to a point where things start flying and you are so grateful that you took the decision to read the book.

Bullet points between pages 247 – 317

* Flay wanders the corridors at night and stumbles across the courtship Steerpike is making of Fuchsia and worries not just at the lack of tradition for such a relationship but also of the girl’s safety and he can’t help himself but warn her from the shadows

* Almost immediately afterwards Steerpike turns up and calls her a fool for lighting her candle and pushes her into a private room where they meet but because of his roughness things are not the same and she decides to end the relationship

* Angry that he made another slip Steerpike decides to seduce her that night and then blackmail her and at the same time he is planning to kill Titus in an accident that will clear his path to take over the world of Gormenghast

* Flay fetches Titus who in turn fetches the doctor and all three follow Steerpike through the castle until the room where the twins died is opened and they encounter the murderer as he dances around their skeletal corpses

* Steerpike kills Flay and then disappears and the castle goes onto a war footing but the fugitive manages to kill eight people with his catapult in the next few days while the castle gets ready for the bright carvers festival

* Meanwhile the Countess has discovered that The Thing, Keda’s child, has been eating a lot of her birds and she shouts at the wild child in fury in the woods and then has to suffer again as the girl disrupts the bright carving festival

* Titus runs away from the castle to find the girl and as the rain beats down and floodwaters rise they meet in the cave used by Flay and as Fuchsia arrives and the wild girl escapes she is struck by lightning and killed

The brother and sister head back to a flooded castle and agree to go their separate ways leaving you wondering just which of them will run into Steerpike first…