Having spent his long and entire adult life ensconced in the castle walls of Gormenghast, Flay, now dismissed, finds a new existence living wild in the surrounding mountains. At first his exile is desperate, but he eventually develops a certain liking for his newfound freedom.  Here he surveys his new home, illumined by a curtain of strikingly sun-coloured dust beams.

‘Behind him his swept cave yawned, a million prawn-coloured motes swaying against the darkness at the entrance.’

Source: Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan, introduction by Anthony Burgess (London: Vintage Books, 1998), p. 419