Steerpike might be called the antagonist of the Gormenghast trilogy, but in truth he is more of an anti-hero; the first book for example is largely focused on him, only covering the first year of the eponymous hero Titus's life.
High-shouldered to a degree little short of malformation, slender and adroit of limb and frame, his eyes close-set and the colour of dried blood, he is climbing the spiral staircase of the soul of Gormenghast, bound for some pinnacle of the itching fancy — some wild, invulnerable eyrie best known to himself; where he can watch the world spread out below him, and shake exultantly his clotted wings.
[2]Steerpike first appears as a youth of seventeen years with an unclear past, working in Gormenghast's Great Kitchen under the chef Abiatha Swelter, whom he hates.
Shortly afterwards he starts to work for the simpleton sisters of the Earl, the twins Cora and Clarice, manipulating them with appeals to their vanity and desire for power (they believed that the Countess had usurped their rightful position beside their brother).
He persuades them to set fire to Sepulchrave's Library and uses the circumstances to play the hero in rescuing those trapped inside (including all the surviving members of the House of Groan).
[citation needed] Deciding to remove the twins, Steerpike convinces them to move into a distant and abandoned region of the castle by confabulating an epidemic of "Weasel Plague", which they must be quarantined from.
At approximately this time the Twins die of starvation in their remote room; locked away they were completely dependent on Steerpike for supplies, but he ceased to visit them when they attempted to kill him and escape.
With his crimes exposed, Steerpike flees and for a short while terrorizes the castle, using his intimate knowledge of its layout and extensive passageways to evade capture.