"Mervyn Peake - Ghormenghast 01 - Titus Groan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Peake Mervyn)

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


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at the corresponding knuckle on the other hand as though to balance the sensation. "No one's been
in. Of course not. I'll be next. The birds are lined along the bedrail. Ravens, starlings, all the
perishers, and the white rook. There's a kestrel; claws through the pillow. My lady feeds them
with crusts. Grain and crusts. Hardly seen her new-born. Heir to Gormenghast. Doesn't look at him.
But my lord keeps staring. Seen him through the grating. Needs me. Won't let me in. Are you
listening?"
Mr. Rottcodd certainly was listening. In the first place he had never heard Mr. Flay talk
so much in his life before, and in the second place the news that a son had been born at long last
to the ancient and historic house of Groan was, after all, an interesting tit-bit for a curator
living alone on the upper storey of the desolate north wing. Here was something with which he
could occupy his mind for some time to come. It was true, as Mr. Flay pointed out, that he,
Rottcodd, could not possibly feel the pulse of the castle as he lay in his hammock, for in point
of fact Rottcodd had not even suspected that an heir was on its way. His meals came up in a
miniature lift through darkness from the servants' quarters many floors below and he slept in the
ante-room at night and consequently he was completely cut off from the world and all its
happenings. Flay had brought him real news. All the same he disliked being disturbed even when
information of this magnitude was brought. What was passing through the bullet-shaped head was a
question concerning Mr. Flay's entry. Why had Flay, who never in the normal course of events would
have raised an eyebrow to acknowledge his presence -- why had he now gone to the trouble of
climbing to a part of the castle so foreign to him? And to force a conversation on a personality
as unexpansive as his own. He ran his eyes over Mr. Flay in his own peculiarly rapid way and
surprised himself by saying suddenly, "To what may I attribute your presence, Mr. Flay?"
"What?" said Flay. "What's that?" He looked down on Rottcodd and his eyes became glassy.
In truth Mr. Flay had surprised himself. Why, indeed, he thought to himself, had he
troubled to tell Rottcodd the news which meant so much to him? Why Rottcodd, of all people? He
continued staring at the curator for some while, and the more he stood and pondered the clearer it
became to him that the question he had been asked was, to say the very least, uncomfortably
pertinent.
The little man in front of him had asked a simple and forthright question. It had been
rather a poser. He took a couple of shambling steps towards Mr. Rottcodd and then, forcing his
hands into his trouser pockets, turned round very slowly on one heel.
"Ah," he said at last, "I see what you mean, Rottcodd -- I see what you mean."
Rottcodd was longing to get back to his hammock and enjoy the luxury of being quite alone
again, but his eye travelled even more speedily towards the visitor's face when he heard the
remark. Mr. Flay had said that he saw what Rottcodd had meant. Had he really? Very interesting.
What, by the way, _had_ he meant? What precisely was it that Mr. Flay had seen? He flicked an
imaginary speck of dust from the gilded head of a dryad.
"You are interested in the birth below?" he inquired.
Flay stood for a while as though he had heard nothing, but after a few minutes it became
obvious he was thunderstruck. "Interested!" he cried in a deep, husky voice, "Interested! The