Barquentine (Gormenghast) hereditary office of Master of Ritual following the death of his father, and accepts Steerpike as his assistant. In the second book, Gormenghast, he is murdered by Steerpike, who takes over the post of Master of Ritual. Barquentine (Gormenghast) Barquentine is a fictional character in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series. He is the son of Sourdust, the Master of Ritual of Gormenghast castle. He is a one-legged, hunchbacked dwarf with a bitter, vicious personality; he never washes, he dresses in filthy rags, and his hair and beard are long, tangled, and dirty. He is frequently taunted by the castle's children, who
Mervyn Peake Mervyn Peake Mervyn Laurence Peake (9 July 1911 – 17 November 1968) was an English writer, artist, poet, and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the "Gormenghast" books. The three works were part of what Peake conceived as a lengthy cycle, the completion of which was prevented by his death. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R. Tolkien, but his surreal fiction was influenced by his early love for Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson rather than Tolkien's studies of mythology and philology. Peake also wrote poetry