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Having made sure her front door was secure, Ma Grunter pulled the sack off her new charge.

Blinking in the sudden light, Daisy found herself in a narrow, rather dirty hallway, face-to-face with a very ugly old woman who was dressed all in black, a large brown wart with hairs growing out of it on the tip of her nose.

‘John!’ the old woman croaked, without taking her eyes off Daisy, and a boy much bigger and older than Daisy with a blunt, scowling face came shuffling into the hall, cracking his knuckles. ‘Go and tell the Janes upstairs to put another mattress in their room.’

‘Make one of the little brats do it,’ grunted John. ‘I ’aven’t ’ad breakfast.’

Ma Grunter suddenly swung her heavy, silver-handled cane at the boy’s head. Daisy expected to hear a horrible thud of silver on bone, but the boy ducked the cane neatly, as though he’d had a lot of practice, cracked his knuckles again and said sullenly: ‘Orl right, orl right.’ He disappeared up some rickety stairs.

‘What’s your name?’ said Ma Grunter, turning back to Daisy.

‘Daisy,’ said Daisy.

‘No, it isn’t,’ said Ma Grunter. ‘Your name is Jane.’

Daisy would soon find out that Ma Grunter did the same thing to every single child who arrived in her house. Every girl was rechristened Jane, and every boy was renamed John. The way the child reacted to being given a new name told Ma Grunter exactly what she needed to know about how hard it was going to be to break that child’s spirit.

Of course, the very tiny children who came to Ma Grunter simply agreed that their name was John or Jane, and quickly forgot that they’d been called anything else. Homeless children and lost children, who could tell that being John or Jane was the price of having a roof over their heads, were also quick to agree to the change.

But every so often Ma Grunter met a child who wouldn’t accept their new name without a fight, and she knew, before Daisy even opened her mouth, that the girl was going to be one of them. There was a nasty, proud look about the newcomer, and, while skinny, she looked strong, standing there in her overalls with her fists clenched.

‘My name,’ said Daisy, ‘is Daisy Dovetail. I was named after my mother’s favourite flower.’

‘Your mother is dead,’ said Ma Grunter, because she always told the children in her care that their parents were dead. It was best if the little wretches didn’t think there was anybody to run away to.

‘That’s true,’ said Daisy, her heart hammering very fast. ‘My mother is dead.’

‘And so is your father,’ said Ma Grunter.

The horrible old woman seemed to swim before Daisy’s eyes. She’d had nothing to eat since the previous lunchtime and had spent a night of terror on Prodd’s wagon. Nevertheless, she said in a cold, clear voice: ‘My father’s alive. I’m Daisy Dovetail, and my father lives in Chouxville.’

She had to believe her father was still there. She couldn’t let herself doubt it, because if her father was dead, then all light would disappear from the world, forever.

‘No, he isn’t,’ said Ma Grunter, raising her cane. ‘Your father’s as dead as a doornail and your name is Jane.’

‘My name—’ began Daisy, but with a sudden whoosh, Ma Grunter’s cane came swinging at her head. Daisy ducked as she’d seen the big boy do, but the cane swung back again, and this time it hit Daisy painfully on the ear, and knocked her sideways.

‘Let’s try that again,’ said Ma Grunter. ‘Repeat after me. “My father is dead and my name is Jane.”’

‘I won’t,’ shouted Daisy, and before the cane could swing back at her, she’d darted under Ma Grunter’s arm and run off into the house, hoping that the back door might not have bolts on it. In the kitchen she found two pale, frightened-looking children, a boy and a girl, ladling a dirty green liquid into bowls, and a door with just as many chains and padlocks on it as the other. Daisy turned and ran back to the hall, dodged Ma Grunter and her cane, then sped upstairs, where more thin, pale children were cleaning and making beds with threadbare sheets. Ma Grunter was already climbing the stairs behind her.

‘Say it,’ croaked Ma Grunter. ‘Say, “My father is dead and my name is Jane.”’

‘My father’s alive and my name is Daisy!’ shouted Daisy, now spotting a hatch in the ceiling that she suspected led to an attic. Snatching a feather duster out of the hand of a scared girl, she poked the hatch open. A rope ladder fell, which Daisy climbed, pulling it up after her and slamming the attic door, so that Ma Grunter and her cane couldn’t reach her. She could hear the old woman cackling below, and ordering a boy to stand guard over the hatch, to make sure Daisy didn’t come out.

Later, Daisy would discover that the children gave each other extra names, so they knew which John or Jane they were talking about. The big boy now standing guard over the attic hatch was the same one Daisy had seen downstairs. His nickname among the other children was Basher John, for the way he bullied the smaller children. Basher John was by way of being a deputy for Ma Grunter, and now he called up to Daisy, telling her children had died of starvation in that attic and that she’d find their skeletons if she looked hard enough.

The ceiling of Ma Grunter’s attic was so low that Daisy had to crouch. It was also very dirty, but there was a small hole in the roof through which a shaft of sunlight fell. Daisy wriggled over to this and put her eye to it. Now she could see the skyline of Jeroboam. Unlike Chouxville, where the buildings were mostly sugar-white, this was a city of dark-grey stone. Two men were reeling along the street below, bellowing a popular drinking song.

‘I drank a single bottle and the Ickabog’s a lie,

I drank another bottle, and I thought I heard it sigh,

And now I’ve drunk another, I can see it slinking by,

The Ickabog is coming, so let’s drink before we die!’

Daisy sat with her eye pressed against the spyhole for an hour, until Ma Grunter came and banged on the hatch with her cane.

‘What is your name?’

‘Daisy Dovetail!’ bellowed Daisy.

And every hour afterwards, the question came, and the answer remained the same.

However, as the hours wore by, Daisy began to feel light-headed with hunger. Every time she shouted ‘Daisy Dovetail’ back at Ma Grunter, her voice was weaker. At last, she saw through her spyhole in the attic that it was becoming dark. She was very thirsty now, and she had to face the fact that, if she kept refusing to say her name was Jane, there really might be a skeleton in the attic for Basher John to frighten other children with.

So the next time Ma Grunter banged on the attic hatch with her cane and asked what Daisy’s name was, she answered, ‘Jane.’

‘And is your father alive?’ asked Ma Grunter.

Daisy crossed her fingers and said:

‘No.’

‘Very good,’ said Ma Grunter, pulling open the hatch, so that the rope ladder fell down. ‘Come down here, Jane.’

When Daisy was standing beside her again, the old lady cuffed her around the ear. ‘That’s for being a nasty, lying, filthy little brat. Now go and drink your soup, wash up the bowl, then get to bed.’

Daisy gulped down a small bowl of cabbage soup, which was the nastiest thing she’d ever eaten, washed the bowl in the greasy barrel that Ma Grunter kept for doing dishes, then went back upstairs. There was a spare mattress on the floor of the girls’ bedroom, so she crept inside while all the other girls watched her, and got under the threadbare blanket, fully dressed, because the room was very cold.

Daisy found herself looking into the kind blue eyes of a girl her own age, with a gaunt face.

‘You lasted much longer than most,’ whispered the girl. She had an accent Daisy had never heard before. Later, Daisy would learn that the girl was a Marshlander.

‘What’s your name?’ Daisy whispered. ‘Your real name?’

The girl considered Daisy with those huge, forget-me-not eyes.

‘We’re not allowed to say.’

‘I promise I won’t tell,’ whispered Daisy.

The girl stared at her. Just when Daisy thought she wasn’t going to answer, the girl whispered:

‘Martha.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Martha,’ whispered Daisy. ‘I’m Daisy Dovetail and my father’s still alive.’

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When Daisy arrived home from school that afternoon, playing with her bandalore as she went, she headed as usual to her father’s workshop to tell him about her day. However, to her surprise, she found the workshop locked up. Assuming that Mr Dovetail had finished work early and was back in the cottage, she walked in through the front door with her schoolbooks under her arm.

Daisy stopped dead in the doorway, staring around. All the furniture was gone, as were the pictures on the walls, the rug on the floor, the lamps, and even the stove.

She opened her mouth to call her father, but in that instant, a sack was thrown over her head and a hand clamped over her mouth. Her schoolbooks and her bandalore fell with a series of thuds to the floor. Daisy was lifted off her feet, struggling wildly, then carried out of the house, and slung into the back of a wagon.

‘If you make a noise,’ said a rough voice in her ear, ‘we’ll kill your father.’

Daisy, who’d drawn breath into her lungs to scream, let it out quietly instead. She felt the wagon lurch, and heard the jingling of a harness and trotting hooves as they began to move. By the turn that the wagon took, Daisy knew that they were heading out of the City-Within-The-City, and by the sounds of market traders and other horses, she realised they were moving into wider Chouxville. Though more frightened than she’d ever been in her life, Daisy nevertheless forced herself to concentrate on every turn, every sound, and every smell, so she could get some idea of where she was being taken.

After a while, the horse’s hooves were no longer falling on cobblestones, but on an earthy track, and the sugar-sweet air of Chouxville was gone, replaced by the green, loamy smell of the countryside.

The man who’d kidnapped Daisy was a large, rough member of the Ickabog Defence Brigade called Private Prodd. Spittleworth had told Prodd to ‘get rid of the little Dovetail girl’, and Prodd had understood Spittleworth to mean that he was to kill her. (Prodd was quite right to think this. Spittleworth had selected Prodd for the job of murdering Daisy because Prodd was fond of using his fists and seemed not to care whom he hurt.)

However, as he drove through the countryside, passing woods and forests where he might easily strangle Daisy and bury her body, it slowly dawned on Private Prodd that he wasn’t going to be able to do it. He happened to have a little niece around Daisy’s age, of whom he was very fond. In fact, every time he imagined himself strangling Daisy, he seemed to see his niece Rosie in his mind’s eye, pleading for her life. So instead of turning off the dirt track into the woods, Prodd drove the wagon onwards, racking his brains as to what to do with Daisy.

Inside the flour sack, Daisy smelled the sausages of Baronstown mingling with the cheese fumes of Kurdsburg, and wondered which of the two she was being taken to. Her father had occasionally taken her to buy cheese and meat in these famous cities. She believed that if she could somehow give the driver the slip when he lifted her down from the wagon, she’d be able to make her way back to Chouxville in a couple of days. Her frantic mind kept returning to her father, and where he was, and why all the furniture in their house had been removed, but she forced herself to concentrate on the journey the wagon was making instead, to be sure of finding her way home again.

However, hard as she listened out for the sound of the horse’s hooves on the stone bridge over the Fluma that connected Baronstown and Kurdsburg, it never came, because instead of entering either city, Private Prodd passed them by. He’d just had a brainwave about what to do with Daisy. So, skirting the city of sausagemakers, he drove on north. Slowly, the meat and cheese smells disappeared from the air and night began to fall.

Private Prodd had remembered an old woman who lived on the outskirts of Jeroboam, which happened to be his hometown. Everyone called this old woman Ma Grunter. She took in orphans, and was paid one ducat a month for each child she had living with her. No boy or girl had ever succeeded in running away from Ma Grunter’s house, and it was this that made Prodd decide to take Daisy there. The last thing he wanted was Daisy finding her way back home to Chouxville, because Spittleworth was likely to be furious that Prodd hadn’t done what he was told.

Though so scared, cold and uncomfortable in the back of the wagon, the rocking had lulled Daisy to sleep, but suddenly she jerked awake again. She could smell something different on the air now, something she didn’t much like, and after a while she identified it as wine fumes, which she recognised from the rare occasions when Mr Dovetail had a drink. They must be approaching Jeroboam, a city she’d never visited. Through the small holes in the sack she could see daybreak. The wagon was soon jolting over cobblestones again, and after a while it came to a halt.

At once, Daisy tried to wriggle out of the back of the wagon onto the ground, but before she’d hit the street, Private Prodd seized her. Then he carried her, struggling, to the door of Ma Grunter’s, which he pounded with a heavy fist.

‘All right, all right, I’m coming,’ came a high, cracked voice from inside the house.

There came the noise of many bolts and chains being removed and Ma Grunter was revealed in the doorway, leaning heavily on a silver-topped cane – though, of course, Daisy, being still in the sack, couldn’t see her.

‘New child for you, Ma,’ said Prodd, carrying the wriggling sack into Ma Grunter’s hallway, which smelled of boiled cabbage and cheap wine.

Now, you might think Ma Grunter would be alarmed to see a child in a sack carried into her house, but in fact, the kidnapped children of so-called traitors had found their way to her before. She didn’t care what a child’s story was; all she cared about was the one ducat a month the authorities paid her for keeping them. The more children she packed into her tumbledown hovel, the more wine she could afford, which was really all she cared about. So she held out her hand and croaked, ‘Five ducat placement fee,’ – which was what she always asked for, if she could tell somebody really wanted to get rid of a child.

Prodd scowled, handed over five ducats, and left without another word. Ma Grunter slammed the door behind him.

As he climbed back onto his wagon, Prodd heard the rattle of Ma Grunter’s chains and the scraping of her locks. Even if it had cost him half his month’s pay, Prodd was glad to have got rid of the problem of Daisy Dovetail, and he drove off as fast as he could, back to the capital.

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Daisy had gone to school, and Mr Dovetail was busy in his workshop next morning, when Major Roach knocked on the carpenter’s door. Mr Dovetail knew Roach as the man who lived in his old house, and who’d replaced Major Beamish as head of the Royal Guard. The carpenter invited Roach inside, but the major declined.

‘We’ve got an urgent job for you at the palace, Dovetail,’ he said. ‘A shaft on the king’s carriage has broken and he needs it tomorrow.’

‘Already?’ said Mr Dovetail. ‘I only mended that last month.’

‘It was kicked,’ said Major Roach, ‘by one of the carriage horses. Will you come?’

‘Of course,’ said Mr Dovetail, who was hardly likely to turn down a job from the king. So he locked up his workshop and followed Roach through the sunlit streets of the City-Within-The-City, talking of this and that, until they reached the part of the royal stables where the carriages were kept. Half a dozen soldiers were loitering outside the door, and they all looked up when they saw Mr Dovetail and Major Roach approaching. One soldier had an empty flour sack in his hands, and another, a length of rope.

‘Good morning,’ said Mr Dovetail.

He made to walk past them, but before he knew what was happening, one soldier had thrown the flour sack over Mr Dovetail’s head and two more had pinned his arms behind his back and tied his wrists together with the rope. Mr Dovetail was a strong man – he struggled and fought, but Roach muttered in his ear:

‘Make one sound, and it’ll be your daughter who pays the price.’

Mr Dovetail closed his mouth. He permitted the soldiers to march him inside the palace, though he couldn’t see where he was going. He soon guessed, though, because they took him down two steep flights of stairs and then onto a third, which was made of slippery stone. When he felt a chill on his flesh, he suspected that he was in the dungeon, and he knew it for sure when he heard the turning of an iron key, and the clanking of bars.

The soldiers threw Mr Dovetail onto the cold stone floor. Somebody pulled off his hood.

The surroundings were almost completely dark, and at first, Mr Dovetail couldn’t make out anything around him. Then one of the soldiers lit a torch, and Mr Dovetail found himself staring at a pair of highly polished boots. He looked up. Standing over him was a smiling Lord Spittleworth.

‘Good morning, Dovetail,’ said Spittleworth. ‘I have a little job for you. If you do it well, you’ll be home with your daughter before you know it. Refuse – or do a poor job – and you’ll never see her again. Do we understand each other?’

Six soldiers and Major Roach were lined up against the cell wall, all of them holding swords.

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Mr Dovetail in a low voice. ‘I understand.’

‘Excellent,’ said Spittleworth. Moving aside, he revealed an enormous piece of wood, a section of a fallen tree as big as a pony. Beside the wood was a small table, bearing a set of carpenter’s tools.

‘I want you to carve me a gigantic foot, Dovetail, a monstrous foot, with razor-sharp claws. On top of the foot, I want a long handle, so that a man on horseback can press the foot into soft ground, to make an imprint. Do you understand your task, carpenter?’

Mr Dovetail and Lord Spittleworth looked deep into each other’s eyes. Of course, Mr Dovetail understood exactly what was going on. He was being told to fake proof of the Ickabog’s existence. What terrified Mr Dovetail was that he couldn’t imagine why Spittleworth would ever let him go, after he’d created the fake monster’s foot, in case he talked about what he’d done.

‘Do you swear, my lord,’ said Mr Dovetail quietly, ‘do you swear that if I do this, my daughter won’t be harmed? And that I’ll be permitted to go home to her?’

‘Of course, Dovetail,’ said Spittleworth lightly, already moving to the door of the cell. ‘The quicker you complete the task, the sooner you’ll see your daughter again.

‘Now, every night, we’ll collect these tools from you, and every morning they’ll be brought back to you, because we can’t have prisoners keeping the means to dig themselves out, can we? Good luck, Dovetail, and work hard. I look forward to seeing my foot!’

And with that, Roach cut the rope binding Mr Dovetail’s wrists, and rammed the torch he was carrying into a bracket on the wall. Then Spittleworth, Roach and the other soldiers left the cell. The iron door closed with a clang, a key turned in the lock, and Mr Dovetail was left alone with the enormous piece of wood, his chisels and his knives.

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Unfortunately for Lord Spittleworth, Mr Dovetail wasn’t the only person who’d started voicing doubts about the Ickabog.

Cornucopia was growing slowly poorer. The rich merchants had no problem paying their Ickabog taxes. They gave the collectors two ducats a month, then increased the prices on their pastries, cheeses, hams, and wines to pay themselves back. However, two gold ducats a month was increasingly hard to find for the poorer folk, especially with food at the markets more expensive. Meanwhile, up in the Marshlands, children began to grow hollow-cheeked.

Spittleworth, who had spies in every city and village, began hearing word that people wanted to know what their gold was being spent on, and even to demand proof that the monster was still a danger.

Now, people said of the cities of Cornucopia that their inhabitants had different natures: Jeroboamers were supposed to be brawlers and dreamers, the Kurdsburgers peaceful and courteous, while the citizens of Chouxville were often said to be proud, even snooty. But the people of Baronstown were said to be plain speakers and honest dealers, and it was here that the first serious outbreak of disbelief in the Ickabog happened.

A butcher called Tubby Tenderloin called a meeting in the town hall. Tubby was careful not to say he didn’t believe in the Ickabog, but he invited everyone at the meeting to sign a petition to the king, asking for evidence that the Ickabog tax was still necessary. As soon as this meeting was over, Spittleworth’s spy, who had of course attended the meeting, jumped on his horse and rode south, arriving at the palace by midnight.

Woken by a footman, Spittleworth hurriedly summoned Lord Flapoon and Major Roach from their beds, and the two men joined Spittleworth in his bedroom to hear what the spy had to say. The spy told the story of the treasonous meeting, then unfurled a map on which he’d helpfully circled the houses of the ringleaders, including that of Tubby Tenderloin.

‘Excellent work,’ growled Roach. ‘We’ll have all of them arrested for treason and slung in jail. Simple!’

‘It isn’t simple at all,’ said Spittleworth impatiently. ‘There were two hundred people at this meeting, and we can’t lock up two hundred people! We haven’t got room, for one thing, and for another, everyone will just say it proves we can’t show the Ickabog’s real!’

‘Then we’ll shoot ’em,’ said Flapoon, ‘and wrap ’em up like we did Beamish, and leave ’em up by the marsh to be found, and people will think the Ickabog got ’em.’

‘Is the Ickabog supposed to have a gun now?’ snapped Spittleworth, ‘and two hundred cloaks in which to wrap its victims?’

‘Well, if you’re going to sneer at our plans, my lord,’ said Roach, ‘why don’t you come up with something clever yourself?’

But that was exactly what Spittleworth couldn’t do. Cudgel his sneaky brains though he might, he couldn’t think of any way to frighten the Cornucopians back into paying their taxes without complaint. What he needed was proof that the Ickabog really existed, but where was he to get it?

Pacing alone in front of his fire, after the others had gone back to bed, Spittleworth heard another tap on his bedroom door.

‘What now?’ he snapped.

Into the room slid the footman, Cankerby.

‘What do you want? Out with it quickly, I’m busy!’ said Spittleworth.

‘If it pleases Your Lordship,’ said Cankerby, ‘I ’appened to be passing your room earlier, and I couldn’t ’elp ’earing about that there treasonous meeting in Baronstown what you, Lord Flapoon and Major Roach was talking about.’

‘Oh, couldn’t you help it?’ said Spittleworth, in a dangerous voice.

‘I thought I should tell you, my lord: I’ve got evidence that there’s a man ’ere in the City-Within-The-City what thinks the same way as those traitors in Baronstown,’ said Cankerby. ‘’E wants proof, just like them butchers do. Sounded like treason to me, when I ’eard about it.’

‘Well, of course it’s treason!’ said Spittleworth. ‘Who dares say such things, in the very shadow of the palace? Which of the king’s servants dares question the king’s word?’

‘Well… as to that…’ said Cankerby, shuffling his feet. ‘Some would say that’s valuable information, some would—’

‘You tell me who it is,’ snarled Spittleworth, seizing the footman by the front of his jacket, ‘and then I’ll see whether you deserve payment! Their name – give me their name!’

‘It’s D-D-Dan Dovetail!’ said the footman.

‘Dovetail… Dovetail… I know that name,’ said Spittleworth, releasing the footman, who staggered sideways and fell into an end table. ‘Wasn’t there a seamstress…?’

‘’Is wife, sir. She died,’ said Cankerby, straightening up.

‘Yes,’ said Spittleworth slowly. ‘He lives in that house by the graveyard, where they never fly a flag and without a single portrait of the king in the windows. How d’you know he’s expressed these treasonous views?’

‘I ’appened to over’ear Mrs Beamish telling the scullery maid what ’e said,’ said Cankerby.

‘You happen to hear a lot of things, don’t you, Cankerby?’ commented Spittleworth, feeling in his waistcoat for some gold. ‘Very well. Here are ten ducats for you.’

‘Thank you very much, my lord,’ said the footman, bowing low.

‘Wait,’ said Spittleworth, as Cankerby turned to go. ‘What does he do, this Dovetail?’

What Spittleworth really wanted to know was whether the king would miss Mr Dovetail, if he disappeared.

‘Dovetail, my lord? ’E’s a carpenter,’ said Cankerby, and he bowed himself out of the room.

‘A carpenter,’ repeated Spittleworth out loud. ‘A carpenter…’

And as the door closed on Cankerby, another of Spittleworth’s lightning strike ideas hit him, and so amazed was he at his own brilliance, he had to clutch the back of the sofa, because he felt he might topple over.

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Daisy was about to turn eight years old, so she decided to invite Bert Beamish to tea.

A thick wall of ice seemed to have grown up between Daisy and Bert since his father had died. He was always with Roderick Roach, who was very proud to have the son of an Ickabog victim as a friend, but Daisy’s coming birthday, which was three days before Bert’s, would be a chance to find out whether they could repair their friendship. So she asked her father to write a note to Mrs Beamish, inviting her and her son to tea. To Daisy’s delight, a note came back accepting the invitation, and even though Bert still didn’t talk to her at school, she held out hope that everything would be made right on her birthday.

Although he was well paid as carpenter to the king, even Mr Dovetail had felt the pinch of paying the Ickabog tax, so he and Daisy had bought fewer pastries than usual, and Mr Dovetail stopped buying wine. However, in honour of Daisy’s birthday, Mr Dovetail brought out his last bottle of Jeroboam wine, and Daisy collected all her savings and bought two expensive Hopes-of-Heaven for herself and Bert, because she knew they were his favourites.

The birthday tea didn’t start well. Firstly, Mr Dovetail proposed a toast to Major Beamish, which made Mrs Beamish cry. Then the four of them sat down to eat, but nobody seemed able to think of anything to say, until Bert remembered that he’d bought Daisy a present.

Bert had seen a bandalore, which is what people called yo-yos at that time, in a toyshop window and bought it with all his saved pocket money. Daisy had never seen one before, and what with Bert teaching her to use it, and Daisy swiftly becoming better at it than Bert was, and Mrs Beamish and Mr Dovetail drinking Jeroboam sparkling wine, conversation began to flow much more easily.

The truth was that Bert had missed Daisy very much, but hadn’t known how to make up with her, with Roderick Roach always watching. Soon, though, it felt as though the fight in the courtyard had never happened, and Daisy and Bert were snorting with laughter about their teacher’s habit of digging for bogies in his nose when he thought none of the children were looking. The painful subjects of dead parents, or fights that got out of hand, or King Fred the Fearless, were all forgotten.

The children were wiser than the adults. Mr Dovetail hadn’t tasted wine in a long time, and, unlike his daughter, he didn’t stop to consider that discussing the monster that was supposed to have killed Major Beamish might be a bad idea. Daisy only realised what her father was doing when he raised his voice over the children’s laughter.

‘All I’m saying, Bertha,’ Mr Dovetail was almost shouting, ‘is where’s the proof? I’d like to see proof, that’s all!’

‘You don’t consider it proof, then, that my husband was killed?’ said Mrs Beamish, whose kindly face suddenly looked dangerous. ‘Or poor little Nobby Buttons?’

‘Little Nobby Buttons?’ repeated Mr Dovetail. ‘Little Nobby Buttons? Now you come to mention it, I’d like proof of little Nobby Buttons! Who was he? Where did he live? Where’s that old widowed mother gone, who wore that ginger wig? Have you ever met a Buttons family in the City-Within-The-City? And if you press me,’ said Mr Dovetail, brandishing his wine glass, ‘if you press me, Bertha, I’ll ask you this: why was Nobby Buttons’ coffin so heavy, when all that was left of him were his shoes and a shin bone?’

Daisy made a furious face to try and shut her father up, but he didn’t notice. Taking another large gulp of wine, he said: ‘It doesn’t add up, Bertha! Doesn’t add up! Who’s to say – and this is just an idea, mind you – but who’s to say poor Beamish didn’t fall off his horse and break his neck, and Lord Spittleworth saw an opportunity to pretend the Ickabog killed him, and charge us all a lot of gold?’

Mrs Beamish rose slowly to her feet. She wasn’t a tall woman, but in her anger, she seemed to tower awfully over Mr Dovetail.

‘My husband,’ she whispered in a voice so cold that Daisy felt goosebumps, ‘was the best horseman in all of Cornucopia. My husband would no sooner have fallen off his horse than you’d chop off your leg with your axe, Dan Dovetail. Nothing short of a terrible monster could have killed my husband, and you ought to watch your tongue, because saying the Ickabog isn’t real happens to be treason!’

‘Treason!’ jeered Mr Dovetail. ‘Come off it, Bertha, you’re not going to stand there and tell me you believe in this treason nonsense? Why, a few months ago, not believing in the Ickabog made you a sane man, not a traitor!’

‘That was before we knew the Ickabog was real!’ screeched Mrs Beamish. ‘Bert – we’re going home!’

‘No – no – please don’t go!’ Daisy cried. She picked up a little box she’d stowed under her chair and ran out into the garden after the Beamishes.

‘Bert, please! Look – I got us Hopes-of-Heaven, I spent all my pocket money on them!’

Daisy wasn’t to know that when he saw Hopes-of-Heaven now, Bert was instantly reminded of the day he’d found out his father was dead. The very last Hope-of-Heaven he’d ever eaten had been in the king’s kitchens, when his mother was promising him they’d have heard if anything had happened to Major Beamish.

All the same, Bert didn’t mean to dash Daisy’s gift to the ground. He meant only to push it away. Unluckily, Daisy lost her grip on the box, and the costly pastries fell into the flowerbed and were covered in earth.

Daisy burst into tears.

‘Well, if all you care about is pastries!’ shouted Bert, and he opened the garden gate and led his mother away.

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I’m sure you haven’t forgotten those three brave soldiers locked up in the dungeons, who’d refused to believe in either the Ickabog or in Nobby Buttons.

Well, Spittleworth hadn’t forgotten them either. He’d been trying to think up ways to get rid of them, without being blamed for it, ever since the night he’d imprisoned them. His latest idea was to feed them poison in their soup, and pretend they’d died of natural causes. He was still trying to decide on the best poison to use, when some of the soldiers’ relatives turned up at the palace gates, demanding to speak to the king. Even worse, Lady Eslanda was with them, and Spittleworth had the sneaking suspicion she’d arranged the whole thing.

Instead of taking them to the king, Spittleworth had the group shown into his splendid new Chief Advisor’s office, where he invited them politely to sit down.

‘We want to know when our boys are going to stand trial,’ said Private Ogden’s brother, who was a pig farmer from just outside Baronstown.

‘You’ve had them locked up for months now,’ said the mother of Private Wagstaff, who was a barmaid in a Jeroboam tavern.

‘And we’d all like to know what they’re charged with,’ said Lady Eslanda.

‘They’re charged with treason,’ said Spittleworth, wafting his scented handkerchief under his nose, with his eyes on the pig farmer. The man was perfectly clean, but Spittleworth meant to make him feel small, and I’m sorry to say he succeeded.

‘Treason?’ repeated Mrs Wagstaff in astonishment. ‘Why, you won’t find more loyal subjects of the king anywhere in the land than those three!’

Spittleworth’s crafty eyes moved between the worried relatives, who so clearly loved their brothers and sons very deeply, and Lady Eslanda, whose face was so anxious, and a brilliant idea flashed into his brain like a lightning strike. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before! He didn’t need to poison the soldiers at all! What he needed was to ruin their reputations.

‘Your men will be put on trial tomorrow,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘The trial will take place in the largest square in Chouxville, because I want as many people as possible to hear what they have to say. Good day to you, ladies and gentlemen.’

And with a smirk and a bow, Spittleworth left the astonished relatives and proceeded down into the dungeons.

The three soldiers were a lot thinner than the last time he’d seen them, and as they hadn’t been able to shave or keep very clean, they made a miserable picture.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ said Spittleworth briskly, while the drunken warder snoozed in a corner. ‘Good news! You’re to stand trial tomorrow.’

‘And what exactly are we charged with?’ asked Captain Goodfellow suspiciously.

‘We’ve been through this already, Goodfellow,’ said Spittleworth. ‘You saw the monster on the marsh, and ran away instead of staying to protect your king. You then claimed the monster isn’t real, to cover up your own cowardice. That’s treason.’

‘It’s a filthy lie,’ said Goodfellow, in a low voice. ‘Do what you like to me, Spittleworth, but I’ll tell the truth.’

The other two soldiers, Ogden and Wagstaff, nodded their agreement with the captain.

‘You might not care what I do to you,’ said Spittleworth, smiling, ‘but what about your families? It would be awful, wouldn’t it, Wagstaff, if that barmaid mother of yours slipped on her way down into the cellar, and cracked open her skull? Or, Ogden, if your pig-farming brother accidentally stabbed himself with his own scythe, and got eaten by his own pigs? Or,’ whispered Spittleworth, moving closer to the bars, and staring into Goodfellow’s eyes, ‘if Lady Eslanda were to have a riding accident, and break her slender neck.’

You see, Spittleworth believed that Lady Eslanda was Captain Goodfellow’s lover. It would never occur to him that a woman might try and protect a man to whom she’d never even spoken.

Captain Goodfellow wondered why on earth Lord Spittleworth was threatening him with the death of Lady Eslanda. True, he thought her the loveliest woman in the kingdom, but he’d always kept that to himself, because cheesemakers’ sons didn’t marry ladies of the court.

‘What has Lady Eslanda to do with me?’ he asked.

‘Don’t pretend, Goodfellow,’ snapped the Chief Advisor. ‘I’ve seen her blushes when your name is mentioned. Do you think me a fool? She has been doing all that she can to protect you and, I must admit, it is down to her that you’re still alive. However, it is the Lady Eslanda who’ll pay the price if you tell any truth but mine tomorrow. She saved your life, Goodfellow: will you sacrifice hers?’

Goodfellow was speechless with shock. The idea that Lady Eslanda was in love with him was so marvellous that it almost eclipsed Spittleworth’s threats. Then the captain realised that, in order to save Eslanda’s life, he would have to publicly confess to treason the next day, which would surely kill her love for him stone-dead.

From the way the colour had drained out of the three men’s faces, Spittleworth could see that his threats had done the trick.

‘Take courage, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I’m sure no awful accidents will happen to your loved ones, as long as you tell the truth tomorrow…’

So notices were pinned up all over the capital announcing the trial, and the following day, an enormous crowd packed itself into the largest square in Chouxville. Each of the three brave soldiers took it in turns to stand on a wooden platform, while their friends and families watched, and one by one they confessed that they’d met the Ickabog on the marsh, and had run away like cowards instead of defending the king.

The crowd booed the soldiers so loudly that it was hard to hear what the judge (Lord Spittleworth) was saying. However, all the time Spittleworth was reading out the sentence – life imprisonment in the palace dungeons – Captain Goodfellow stared directly into the eyes of Lady Eslanda, who sat watching, high in the stands, with the other ladies of the court. Sometimes, two people can tell each other more with a look than others could tell each other with a lifetime of words. I will not tell you everything that Lady Eslanda and Captain Goodfellow said with their eyes, but she knew, now, that the captain returned her feelings, and he learnt, even though he was going to prison for the rest of his life, that Lady Eslanda knew he was innocent.

The three prisoners were led from the platform in chains, while the crowd threw cabbages at them and then dispersed, chattering loudly. Many of them felt Lord Spittleworth should have put the traitors to death, and Spittleworth chuckled to himself as he returned to the palace, for it was always best, if possible, to seem a reasonable man.

Mr Dovetail had watched the trial from the back of the crowd. He hadn’t booed the soldiers, nor had he brought Daisy with him, but had left her carving in his workshop. As Mr Dovetail walked home, lost in thought, he saw Wagstaff’s weeping mother being followed along the street by a gang of youths, who were booing and throwing vegetables at her.

‘You follow this woman any further, and you’ll have me to deal with!’ Mr Dovetail shouted at the gang, who, seeing the size of the carpenter, slunk away.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 22: The House with No Flags

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 24: The Bandalore »

And so a monthly tax of two gold ducats was imposed on every household in Cornucopia, to protect the country from the Ickabog. Tax collectors soon became a common sight on the streets of Cornucopia. They had large, staring white eyes like lamps painted on the back of their black uniforms. These were supposed to remind everybody of what the tax was for, but people whispered in the taverns that they were Lord Spittleworth’s eyes, watching to make sure everybody paid up.

Once they’d collected enough gold, Spittleworth decided to raise a statue to the memory of one of the Ickabog’s victims, to remind people what a savage beast it was. At first Spittleworth planned a statue of Major Beamish, but his spies in the taverns of Chouxville reported that it was Private Buttons’s story that had really captured the public imagination. Brave young Buttons, who’d volunteered to gallop off into the night with the news of his major’s death, only to end up in the Ickabog’s jaws himself, was generally felt to be a tragic, noble figure deserving of a handsome statue. Major Beamish, on the other hand, seemed merely to have died by accident, blundering unwisely across the foggy marsh in the dark. In fact, the drinkers of Chouxville felt quite resentful towards Beamish, as the man who’d forced Nobby Buttons to risk his life.

Happy to bow to the public mood, Spittleworth had a statue of Nobby Buttons made, and placed it in the middle of the largest public square in Chouxville. Seated on a magnificent charger, with his bronze cloak flying out behind him and a look of determination on his boyish face, Buttons was forever frozen in the act of galloping back to the City-Within-The-City. It became fashionable to lay flowers around the statue’s base every Sunday. One rather plain young woman, who laid flowers every day of the week, claimed she’d been Nobby Buttons’ girlfriend.

Spittleworth also decided to spend some gold on a scheme to keep the king diverted, because Fred was still too scared to go hunting, in case the Ickabog had sneaked south somehow and pounced on him in the forest. Bored of entertaining Fred, Spittleworth and Flapoon had come up with a plan.

‘We need a portrait of you fighting the Ickabog, sire! The nation demands it!’

‘Does it really?’ said the king, fiddling with his buttons, which that day were made of emeralds. Fred remembered the ambition he’d formed, the morning he’d first tried on battledress, of being painted killing the Ickabog. He liked this idea of Spittleworth’s very much, so he spent the next two weeks choosing and being fitted for a new uniform, because the old one was much stained by the marsh, and having a replacement jewelled sword made. Then Spittleworth hired the best portrait painter in Cornucopia, Malik Motley, and Fred began posing for weeks on end, for a portrait large enough to cover an entire wall of the Throne Room. Behind Motley sat fifty lesser artists, all copying his work, so as to have smaller versions of the painting ready to deliver to every city, town, and village in Cornucopia.

While he was being painted, the king amused Motley and the other artists by telling them the story of his famous fight with the monster, and the more he told the story, the more he found himself convinced of its truth. All of this kept Fred happily occupied, leaving Spittleworth and Flapoon free to run the country, and to divide up the trunks of gold left over each month, which were sent in the dead of night to the two lords’ estates in the country.

But what, you might ask, of the eleven other advisors, who’d worked under Herringbone? Didn’t they think it odd that the Chief Advisor had resigned in the middle of the night, and never been seen again? Didn’t they ask questions, when they woke up to find Spittleworth in Herringbone’s place? And, most importantly of all: did they believe in the Ickabog?

Well, those are excellent questions, and I’ll answer them now.

They certainly muttered among themselves that Spittleworth shouldn’t have been allowed to take over, without a proper vote. One or two of them even considered complaining to the king. However, they decided not to act, for the simple reason that they were scared.

You see, royal proclamations had now gone up in every town and village square in Cornucopia, all written by Spittleworth and signed by the king. It was treason to question the king’s decisions, treason to suggest that the Ickabog might not be real, treason to question the need for the Ickabog tax and treason not to pay your two ducats a month. There was also a reward of ten ducats if you reported someone for saying the Ickabog wasn’t real.

The advisors were frightened of being accused of treason. They didn’t want to be locked up in a dungeon. It really was much more pleasant to keep living in the lovely mansions which came with the job of advisor, and to continue wearing their special advisor robes, which meant they were allowed to go straight to the head of the queue in pastry shops.

So they approved all the expenses of the Ickabog Defence Brigade, who wore green uniforms, which Spittleworth said hid them better in the marsh weed. The Brigade soon became a common sight, parading through the streets of all of Cornucopia’s major cities.

Some might wonder why the Brigade was riding through the streets waving at people, instead of remaining up in the north, where the monster was supposed to be, but they kept their thoughts to themselves. Meanwhile, most of their fellow citizens competed with each other to demonstrate their passionate belief in the Ickabog. They propped up cheap copies of the painting of King Fred fighting the Ickabog in their windows, and hung wooden signs on their doors, which bore messages like PROUD TO PAY THE ICKABOG TAX and DOWN WITH THE ICKABOG, UP WITH THE KING! Some parents even taught their children to bow and curtsy to the tax collectors.

The Beamish house was decorated in so many anti-Ickabog banners that it was hard to see what the cottage beneath looked like. Bert had returned to school at last, but to Daisy’s disappointment, he spent all his breaks with Roderick Roach, talking about the time when they would both join the Ickabog Defence Brigade and kill the monster. She’d never felt lonelier, and wondered whether Bert missed her at all.

Daisy’s own house was the only one in the City-Within-The-City that was entirely free of flags and signs welcoming the Ickabog tax. Her father also kept Daisy inside whenever the Ickabog Defence Brigade rode past, rather than urging her to run into the garden and cheer, like the neighbours’ children.

Lord Spittleworth noticed the absence of flags and signs on the tiny cottage beside the graveyard, and filed that knowledge away in the back of his cunning head, where he kept information that might one day prove useful.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 21: Professor Fraudysham

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 23: The Trial »

The morning after the funerals, Spittleworth knocked on the door of the king’s apartments again and entered, carrying a lot of scrolls, which he let fall onto the table where the king sat.

‘Spittleworth,’ said Fred, who was still wearing his Medal for Outstanding Bravery Against the Deadly Ickabog, and had dressed in a scarlet suit, the better to show it off, ‘these cakes aren’t as good as usual.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Your Majesty,’ said Spittleworth. ‘I thought it right for the widow Beamish to take a few days off work. These are the work of the under pastry chef.’

‘Well, they’re chewy,’ said Fred, dropping half his Folderol Fancy back on his plate. ‘And what are all these scrolls?’

‘These, sire, are suggestions for improving the kingdom’s defences against the Ickabog,’ said Spittleworth.

‘Excellent, excellent,’ said King Fred, moving the cakes and the teapot aside to make more room, as Spittleworth pulled up a chair.

‘The very first thing to be done, Your Majesty, was to find out as much as we could about the Ickabog itself, the better to discover how to defeat it.’

‘Well, yes, but how, Spittleworth? The monster is a mystery! Everyone’s thought it a fantasy all these years!’

‘That, forgive me, is where Your Majesty is wrong,’ said Spittleworth. ‘By dint of ceaseless searching, I’ve managed to find the foremost Ickabog expert in all of Cornucopia. Lord Flapoon is waiting with him in the hall. With Your Majesty’s permission—’

‘Bring him in, bring him in, do!’ said Fred excitedly.

So Spittleworth left the room and returned shortly afterwards with Lord Flapoon and a little old man with snowy white hair and spectacles so thick that his eyes had vanished almost into nothingness.

‘This, sire, is Professor Fraudysham,’ said Flapoon, as the mole-like little man made a deep bow to the king. ‘What he doesn’t know about Ickabogs isn’t worth knowing!’

‘How is it that I’ve never heard of you before, Professor Fraudysham?’ asked the king, who was thinking that if he’d known the Ickabog was real enough to have its own expert, he’d never have gone looking for it in the first place.

‘I live a retired life, Your Majesty,’ said Professor Fraudysham, with a second bow. ‘So few people believe in the Ickabog that I’ve formed the habit of keeping my knowledge to myself.’

King Fred was satisfied with this answer, which was a relief to Spittleworth, because Professor Fraudysham was no more real than Private Nobby Buttons or, indeed, old Widow Buttons in her ginger wig, who’d howled at Nobby’s funeral. The truth was that beneath the wigs and the glasses, Professor Fraudysham and Widow Buttons were the same person: Lord Spittleworth’s butler, who was called Otto Scrumble, and looked after Lord Spittleworth’s estate while he lived at the palace. Like his master, Scrumble would do anything for gold, and had agreed to impersonate both the widow and the professor for a hundred ducats.

‘So, what can you tell us about the Ickabog, Professor Fraudysham?’ asked the king.

‘Well, let’s see,’ said the pretend professor, who’d been told by Spittleworth what he ought to say. ‘It’s as tall as two horses—’

‘If not taller,’ interrupted Fred, whose nightmares had featured a gigantic Ickabog ever since he’d returned from the Marshlands.

‘If, as Your Majesty says, not taller,’ agreed Fraudysham. ‘I should estimate that a medium-sized Ickabog would be as tall as two horses, whereas a large specimen might reach the size of – let’s see—’

‘Two elephants,’ suggested the king.

‘Two elephants,’ agreed Fraudysham. ‘And with eyes like lamps—’

‘Or glowing balls of fire,’ suggested the king.

‘The very image I was about to employ, sire!’ said Fraudysham.

‘And can the monster really speak in a human tongue?’ asked Fred, in whose nightmares the monster whispered, ‘The king… I want the king… Where are you, little king?’ as it crept through the dark streets towards the palace.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Fraudysham, with another low bow. ‘We believe the Ickabog learnt to speak Human by taking people prisoner. Before disembowelling and eating its victims, we believe it forces them to give it English lessons.’

‘Suffering Saints, what savagery!’ whispered Fred, who’d turned pale.

‘Moreover,’ said Fraudysham, ‘the Ickabog has a long and vengeful memory. If outwitted by a victim – as you outwitted it, sire, by escaping its deadly clutches – it has sometimes sneaked out of the marsh under cover of darkness, and claimed its victim while he or she slept.’

Whiter than the snowy icing on his half-eaten Folderol Fancy, Fred croaked:

‘What’s to be done? I’m doomed!’

‘Nonsense, Your Majesty,’ said Spittleworth bracingly. ‘I’ve devised a whole raft of measures for your protection.’

So saying, Spittleworth took hold of one of the scrolls he’d brought with him and unrolled it. There, covering most of the table, was a coloured picture of a monster that resembled a dragon. It was huge and ugly, with thick black scales, gleaming white eyes, a tail that ended in a poisonous spike, a fanged mouth large enough to swallow a man, and long, razor-sharp claws.

‘There are several problems to be overcome, when defending against an Ickabog,’ said Professor Fraudysham, now taking out a short stick and pointing in turn to the fangs, the claws, and the poisonous tail. ‘But the most difficult challenge is that killing an Ickabog causes two new Ickabogs to emerge from the corpse of the first.’

‘Surely not?’ said Fred faintly.

‘Oh, yes, Your Majesty,’ said Fraudysham. ‘I’ve made a lifelong study of the monster, and I can assure you that my findings are quite correct.’

‘Your Majesty might remember that many of the old tales of the Ickabog make mention of this curious fact,’ interjected Spittleworth, who really needed the king to believe in this particular trait of the Ickabog, because most of his plan relied on it.

‘But it seems so – so unlikely!’ said Fred weakly.

‘It does seem unlikely on the face of it, doesn’t it, sire?’ said Spittleworth, with another bow. ‘In truth, it’s one of those extraordinary, unbelievable ideas that only the very cleverest people can grasp, whereas common folk – stupid folk, sire – giggle and laugh at the notion.’

Fred looked from Spittleworth to Flapoon to Professor Fraudysham; all three men seemed to be waiting for him to prove how clever he was, and naturally he didn’t want to seem stupid, so he said: ‘Yes… well, if the professor says it, that’s good enough for me… but if the monster turns into two monsters every time it dies, how do we kill it?’

‘Well, in the first phase of our plan, we don’t,’ said Spittleworth.

‘We don’t?’ said Fred, crestfallen.

Spittleworth now unrolled a second scroll, which showed a map of Cornucopia. The northernmost tip had a drawing of a gigantic Ickabog on it. All around the edge of the wide marsh stood a hundred little stick figures, holding swords. Fred looked closely to see whether any of them was wearing a crown, and was relieved to see that none were.

‘As you can see, Your Majesty, our first proposal is a special Ickabog Defence Brigade. These men will patrol the edge of the Marshlands, to ensure that the Ickabog can’t leave the marsh. We estimate the cost of such a brigade, including uniforms, weapons, horses, wages, training, board, lodging, sick pay, danger money, birthday presents, and medals to be around ten thousand gold ducats.’

‘Ten thousand ducats?’ repeated King Fred. ‘That’s a lot of gold. However, when it comes to protecting me – I mean to say, when it comes to protecting Cornucopia—’

‘Ten thousand ducats a month is a small price to pay,’ finished Spittleworth.

‘Ten thousand a month!’ yelped Fred.

‘Yes, sire,’ said Spittleworth. ‘If we’re to truly defend the kingdom, the expense will be considerable. However, if Your Majesty feels we could manage with fewer weapons—’

‘No, no, I didn’t say that—’

‘Naturally, we don’t expect Your Majesty to bear the expense alone,’ continued Spittleworth.

‘You don’t?’ said Fred, suddenly hopeful.

‘Oh, no, sire, that would be grossly unfair. After all, the entire country will benefit from the Ickabog Defence Brigade. I suggest we impose an Ickabog tax. We’ll ask every household in Cornucopia to pay one gold ducat a month. Of course, this will mean the recruitment and training of many new tax collectors, but if we raise the amount to two ducats, we’ll cover the cost of them, too.’

‘Admirable, Spittleworth!’ said King Fred. ‘What a brain you have! Why, two ducats a month – people will barely notice the loss.’

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