“And now,” he said, “what will you have? And what, in the name of hosiery, are you wearing?”

Steerpike got to his feet. “I am wearing what I am forced to wear until clothes can be found which are more appropriate,” he said. “These rags, although an official uniform, are as absurd upon me as they are insulting. Sir,” he continued, “you asked me what I would take. Brandy, I thank you, sir, Brandy.”

The Doctor was for a moment nonplussed at the youth’s self-assurance, but he did not show it. He simply smiled like a crocodile. “Am I mistaken, dear boy, or is that a kitchen jacket you’re wearing?”

“Not only is this a kitchen jacket, but these are kitchen trousers and kitchen socks and kitchen shoes and everything is kitchen about me, sir, except myself, if you don’t mind me saying so, Doctor.”

“And what,” said Prunesqualior, placing the tips of his fingers together, “are you? Beneath your foetid jacket, which I must say looks amazingly unhygienic even for Swelter’s kitchen. What are you? Are you a problem case, my dear boy, or are you a clear-cut young gentleman with no ideas at all, ha, ha, ha?”

“With your permission, Doctor, I am neither. I have plenty of ideas, though at the moment plenty of problems, too.”

— Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake

Of all the characters that Gormenghast introduces to us, it is Steerpike that rouses our deepest mistrust and with it, a tiny sliver of our sympathy. At least, mine. There is something enterprising about a kitchen boy who thirsts to rise above his station, who does not want to fester with the dirty pans and has no qualms against manipulating the denizens of this castle to get what he wants. Mervyn writes of him as a boy who ‘does not let any kind of information slip from him unawares.’ A boy so in control of his destiny despite the odds stacked against him. That’s the stuff great heroes villains are made of. I’m intrigued to see the mischief he can conjure.