Character guide

Dudley Carston

major

Also known as Carston, Mr. Carston, Mr. Tracy, Tracy, old Tracy, old Mr. Tracy, Clarence Carston, Clarence

Carston arrives among Scylla, Picus, Felix, and their set as an outsider whose ordinary assumptions keep colliding with their talk of the Sanc-Grail, wells, and psychic birds. He is at once repelled and fascinated, disliking them yet granting them an uncomfortable respect as Felix pours out confidences he cannot quite decode. His baffled, revising consciousness becomes the reader's way into the group's dangerous blend of superstition, desire, and self-invention.

Scylla Taverner

major

Also known as Scylla, More Scylla, Scylla Trio, Miss Scylla

Scylla presides over the household at Tollerdown with an airy freedom that scandalizes her married friends Philip and Lydia, who arrive to lecture her about the men she keeps around her. Jealous Lydia once wanted Clarence herself, and their operatic confrontation over respectability exposes how much Scylla's refusal to be managed costs her socially. Her appetite for vision over routine, and her bond with Picus, drive the group toward whatever the cup and spear are about to set loose.

Picus

major

Also known as Picus the Woodpecker, Woodpecker, Mr. Picus, the true Picus, Knowing Picus

Picus brings Scylla to Gault Cliff, shows her the rarest woodpecker, and speaks of Zeus and Leda as if the old stories were simply true of them. He is tender, possessive, and shadowed by an untractable grief near to wickedness that he neither names nor shares. His presence turns the recovered cup into something more than an antiquity, and his power over the group makes Carston uneasy and Felix desperate.

Felix Taverner

major

Also known as Felix, Mr. Felix

In Paris, Felix watches a glittering party he cannot enter, nursing homesickness and the conviction that he could be happy nowhere. Back among the others he sobs in a chair while Ross listens, raging that they came looking for the Sanc-Grail and that Scylla has ended up in bed with old Tracy's son. His fear and petulance expose the group's fault lines, and his need to be someone makes him both pitiable and volatile.

Clarence

supporting

Also known as XVII Clarence, old Clarence

Clarence is entangled with the Carston family and with Scylla, who considers seducing him simply to shut his mouth before he bitches things further. He assumes a form from inside and makes the world fit it, a habit Scylla calls medievalist, and he nurses grievances against Picus with a martyr's relish. His jealous scheming and his readiness to play Philoctetes make him a quiet threat to whatever fragile peace the group still has.

Ross

supporting

Also known as Mr. Ross, great Ross, Ross Ross

Ross is the group's still center, a naturalist-trained painter who copies a plant exactly and plans to reinvent it tomorrow. When Felix collapses sobbing, Ross cannot control his own aversion to speak or to help, and he finds himself edging away like a man about to be shot at. His detachment gives the reader a measuring eye on the others' fever, even as his own coolness becomes its own kind of failure.

Lydia

supporting

Lydia is the old friend Scylla seeks out for her learning and instinct for tradition, the woman who once sang troubadour songs in the wood and might have understood the story of the cup. Married now to Phil, she revels in his authority while privately storing up grievances for the interminable score they will recite to one another. Her heaven-born pride, which might as easily move to hell, makes her both the ally Scylla needs and the person capable of punishing her fancy-boy and breaking both hearts.

Phil

supporting

Also known as Philip

Phil is the man who took Scylla's friend away, who kisses her while calculating how to use Lydia's practical brain and unpractised love for his own ends. Afraid of his wife's old friends, he cuts conversation and interrupts himself to prevent any continuity, reckoning he can prove that not being a gentleman is worth something. His technique with Lydia is no more than the length of rope on which he will hang himself, and his presence makes the cup impossible to speak of.

Boris

minor

A character who appears in the narrative with a distinct role in the plot.

Nanna

minor

Also known as Trust Nanna, Once Nanna

A maternal or nurturing figure mentioned in the story.

the doctor

minor

Also known as The doctor

A medical professional who appears in a scene.

Starn

minor

A named individual with a brief but notable appearance.

Iduna

minor

A figure from myth or narrative who is referenced.

Miss Taverner

minor

A relative of Felix or Scylla Taverner.

Gawaine

minor

A legendary name invoked in the story.

Hestia

minor

A mythological reference within the text.

Philoctetes

minor

A classical figure mentioned in dialogue.