‘Did I hurt you very much?’

Her old nurse, lying on the coverlet like a withered doll in black satin, pursed her lips together and waited until Fuchsia, seating herself on the side of the bed, had placed one of her hands within range. Then her fingers crept forward, inch by inch, over the eiderdown, and with a sudden grimace of concentrated naughtiness she smacked Fuchsia’s hand as hard as she was able. Relaxing against the pillow after this puny revenge, she peered at Fuchsia, a triumphant gleam in her watery eyes.

Fuchsia, hardly noticing the malicious little blow, leant over and suffered herself to be hugged for a few moments.

‘Now you must start getting dressed,’ said Nannie Slagg. ‘You must be getting ready for your father’s Gathering, mustn’t you? It’s always one thing or another. “Do this. Do that.” And my heart in the state it is. Where will it all end? And what will you wear today? What dress will look the noblest for the wicked, tempestable thing?’

‘You’re coming, too, aren’t you?’ Fuchsia said.

‘Why, what a thing you are,’ squeaked Nannie Slagg, climbing down over the edge of the bed. ‘Fancy such an ignorous question! I am taking his little LORDSHIP, you big stupid!’

‘What! is Titus going, too?’

‘Oh, your ignorance,’ said Nannie, ‘“Is Titus going, too?” she says.’ Mrs Slagg smiled pityingly. ‘Poor, poor, wicked thing! what a querail!’ The old woman gave forth a series of pathetically unconvincing laughs and then put her hands on Fuchsia’s knees excitedly. ‘Of course he’s going,’ she said. ‘The Gathering is for him. It’s about this Birthday Breakfast.’

‘Who else is going, Nannie?’

Her old nurse began to count on her fingers.

‘Well, there’s your father,’ she began, placing the tips of her forefingers together and raising her eyes to the ceiling. ‘First of all there’s him, your father …’

As she spoke Lord Sepulchrave was returning to his room after performing the bi-annual ritual of opening the iron cupboard in the armoury, and, with the traditional dagger which Sourdust had brought for the occasion, of scratching on the metal back of the cupboard another half moon, which, added to the long line of similar half moons, made the seven hundred and thirty-seventh to be scored into the iron. According to the temperaments of the deceased Earls of Gormenghast the half moons were executed with precision or with carelessness. It was not certain what significance the ceremony held, for unfortuately the records were lost, but the formality was no less sacred for being unintelligible.