We now return to Chouxville, where some important things are about to happen.

I’m sure you remember the day of Major Beamish’s funeral, when little Bert returned home, smashed apart his Ickabog toy with the poker, and vowed that when he grew up, he’d hunt down the Ickabog and take revenge upon the monster that killed his father.

Well, Bert was about to turn fifteen. This might not seem very old to you, but in those days it was big enough to become a soldier, and Bert had heard that the Brigade was expanding. So one Monday morning, without telling his mother what he was planning, Bert set off from their little cottage at the usual time, but instead of going to school, he stuffed his schoolbooks into the garden hedge where he could retrieve them later, then headed for the palace, where he intended to apply to join the Brigade. Under his shirt, for luck, he wore the silver medal his father had won for outstanding bravery against the Ickabog.

Bert hadn’t gone far when he saw a commotion ahead of him in the road. A small crowd was clustered around a mail coach. As he was far too busy trying to think of good answers to the questions Major Roach was sure to ask him, Bert walked past the mail coach without paying much attention.

What Bert didn’t realise was that the arrival of that mail coach was going to have some very important consequences, which would send him on a dangerous adventure. Let’s allow Bert to walk on without us for a moment or two, so I can tell you about the coach.

Ever since Lady Eslanda had informed King Fred that Cornucopia was unhappy about the Ickabog tax, Spittleworth and Flapoon had taken steps to make sure he never heard news from outside the capital again. As Chouxville remained quite rich and bustling, the king, who never left the capital any more, assumed the rest of the country must be the same. In fact, the other Cornucopian cities were all full of beggars and boarded-up shops, because the two lords and Roach had stolen so much gold from the people. To ensure the king never got wind of all this, Lord Spittleworth, who read all the king’s mail in any case, had hired gangs of highwaymen lately to stop any letters entering Chouxville. The only people who knew this were Major Roach, because he’d hired the highwaymen, and Cankerby the footman, who’d been lurking outside the Guard’s Room door when the plan was hatched.

Spittleworth’s plan had worked well so far, but today, just before dawn, some of the highwaymen had bungled the job. They’d ambushed the coach as usual, dragging the poor driver from his seat, but before they could steal the mail sacks, the frightened horses had bolted. When the highwaymen fired their guns after the horses they merely galloped all the faster, so that the mail coach soon entered Chouxville, where it careered through the streets, finally coming to rest in the City-Within-The-City. There a blacksmith succeeded in seizing the reins and bringing the horses to a halt. Soon, the servants of the king were tearing open long-awaited letters from their families in the north. We’ll find out more about those letters later, because it’s now time to re-join Bert, who’d just reached the palace gates.

‘Please,’ Bert said to the guard, ‘I want to join the Ickabog Defence Brigade.’

The guard took Bert’s name and told him to wait, then carried the message to Major Roach. However, when he reached the door of the Guard’s Room, the soldier paused, because he could hear shouting. He knocked, and the voices fell silent at once.

‘Enter!’ barked Roach.

The guard obeyed, and found himself face-to-face with three men: Major Roach, who looked extremely angry, Lord Flapoon, whose face was scarlet above his striped silk dressing gown, and Cankerby the footman, who, with his usual good timing, had been walking to work when the mail coach came galloping into town, and had hastened to tell Flapoon that letters had managed to make their way past the highwaymen. On hearing this news, Flapoon had stormed downstairs from his bedroom into the Guard’s Room to blame Roach for the highwaymen’s failure, and a shouting match erupted. Neither man wanted to be blamed by Spittleworth when he returned from his inspection of Ma Grunter’s and heard what had happened.

‘Major,’ said the soldier, saluting both men, ‘there’s a boy at the gate, sir, name of Bert Beamish. Wants to know if he can join the Ickabog Defence Brigade.’

‘Tell him to go away,’ barked Flapoon. ‘We’re busy!’

‘Do not tell the Beamish boy to go away!’ snapped Roach. ‘Bring him to me immediately. Cankerby, leave us!’

‘I was hoping,’ began Cankerby, in his weaselly way, ‘that you gentlemen might want to reward me for—’

‘Any idiot can see a mail coach speed past them!’ said Flapoon. ‘If you’d wanted a reward, you should’ve hopped on board and driven it straight back out of the city again!’

So the disappointed footman slunk out, and the guard went to fetch Bert.

‘What are you bothering with this boy for?’ Flapoon demanded of Roach, once they were alone. ‘We have to solve this problem of the mail!’

‘He isn’t just any boy,’ said Roach. ‘He’s the son of a national hero. You remember Major Beamish, my lord. You shot him.’

‘All right, all right, there’s no need to go on about it,’ said Flapoon irritably. ‘We’ve all made a tidy bit of gold out of it, haven’t we? What do you suppose his son wants – compensation?’

But before Major Roach could answer, in walked Bert, looking nervous and eager.

‘Good morning, Beamish,’ said Major Roach, who’d known Bert a long time, because of his friendship with Roderick. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Please, Major,’ said Bert, ‘please, I want to join the Ickabog Defence Brigade. I heard you’re needing more men.’

‘Ah,’ said Major Roach. ‘I see. And what makes you want to do that?’

‘I want to kill the monster that killed my father,’ said Bert.

There was a short silence, in which Major Roach wished he was as good as Lord Spittleworth at thinking up lies and excuses. He glanced towards Lord Flapoon for help, but none came, although Roach could tell that Flapoon too had spotted the danger. The last thing the Ickabog Defence Brigade needed was somebody who actually wanted to find an Ickabog.

‘There are tests,’ said Roach, playing for time. ‘We don’t let just anybody join. Can you ride?’

‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said Bert truthfully. ‘I taught myself.’

‘Can you use a sword?’

‘I’m sure I could pick it up fast enough,’ said Bert.

‘Can you shoot?’

‘Yes, sir, I can hit a bottle from the end of the paddock!’

‘Hmm,’ said Roach. ‘Yes. But the problem is, Beamish – you see, the problem is, you might be too—’

‘Foolish,’ said Flapoon cruelly. He really wanted this boy gone, so that he and Roach could think up a solution to this problem of the mail coach.

Bert’s face flooded with colour. ‘Wh-what?’

‘Your schoolmistress told me,’ lied Flapoon. He’d never spoken to the schoolmistress in his life. ‘She says you’re a bit of a dunce. Nothing that should hold you back in any line of work other than soldiering, but dangerous to have a dunce on the battlefield.’

‘My – my marks are all right,’ said poor Bert, trying to stop his voice from shaking. ‘Miss Monk never told me she thinks I’m—’

‘Of course she hasn’t told you,’ said Flapoon. ‘Only a fool would think a nice woman like that would tell a fool he’s a fool. Learn to make pastries like your mother, boy, and forget about the Ickabog, that’s my advice.’

Bert was horribly afraid his eyes had filled with tears. Scowling in his effort to keep from crying, he said:

‘I – I’d welcome the chance to prove I’m not – not a fool, Major.’

Roach wouldn’t have put matters as rudely as Flapoon, but after all, the important thing was to stop the boy joining the Brigade, so Roach said: ‘Sorry, Beamish, but I don’t think you’re cut out for soldiering. However, as Lord Flapoon suggests—’

‘Thank you for your time, Major,’ said Bert in a rush. ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

And with a low bow, he left the Guard’s Room.

Once outside, Bert broke into a run. He felt very small and humiliated. The last thing he wanted to do was return to school, not after hearing what his teacher really thought of him. So, assuming that his mother would have left for work in the palace kitchens, he ran all the way home, barely noticing the knots of people now standing on street corners, talking about the letters in their hands.

When Bert entered the house, he found Mrs Beamish was still standing in the kitchen, staring at a letter of her own.

‘Bert!’ she said, startled by the sudden appearance of her son. ‘What are you doing home?’

‘Toothache,’ Bert invented on the spot.

‘Oh, you poor thing… Bert, we’ve had a letter from Cousin Harold,’ said Mrs Beamish, holding it up. ‘He says he’s worried he’s going to lose his tavern – that marvellous inn he built up from nothing! He’s written to ask me whether I might be able to get him a job working for the king… I don’t understand what can have happened. Harold says he and the family are actually going hungry!’

‘It’ll be the Ickabog, won’t it?’ said Bert. ‘Jeroboam’s the city nearest the Marshlands. People have probably stopped visiting taverns at night, in case they meet the monster on the way!’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Beamish, looking troubled, ‘yes, maybe that’s why… Gracious me, I’m late for work!’ Setting Cousin Harold’s letter down on the table she said, ‘Put some oil of cloves on that tooth, love,’ and, giving her son a quick kiss, she hurried out of the door.

Once his mother had gone, Bert went and flung himself face down on his bed, and sobbed with rage and disappointment.

Meanwhile, anxiety and anger were spreading through the streets of the capital. Chouxville had at last found out that their relatives in the north were so poor they were starving and homeless. When Lord Spittleworth returned to the city that night, he found serious trouble brewing.

---

Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 38: Lord Spittleworth Comes to Call

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 40: Bert Finds a Clue »

Ma Grunter was one of the few Cornucopians who’d grown richer and richer in the last few years. She’d crammed her hovel with children and babies until the place was at bursting point, then demanded gold from the two lords who now ruled the kingdom, to enlarge her tumbledown house. These days the orphanage was a thriving business, which meant that Ma Grunter was able to dine on delicacies that only the richest could afford. Most of her gold paid for bottles of finest Jeroboam wine, and I’m sorry to say that when drunk, Ma Grunter was very cruel indeed. The children inside the orphanage sported many cuts and bruises, because of Ma Grunter’s drunken temper.

Some of her charges didn’t last long on a diet of cabbage soup and cruelty. While endless hungry children poured in at the front door, a little cemetery at the back of the building became fuller and fuller. Ma Grunter didn’t care. All the Johns and Janes of the orphanage were alike to her, their faces pale and pinched, their only worth the gold she got for taking them in.

But in the seventh year of Lord Spittleworth’s rule over Cornucopia, when he received yet another request for gold from Ma Grunter’s orphanage, the Chief Advisor decided to go and inspect the place, before he gave the old woman more funds. Ma Grunter dressed up in her best black silk dress to greet His Lordship, and was careful not to let him smell wine on her breath.

‘Poor little mites, ain’t they, Your Lordship?’ she asked him, as he looked around at all the thin, pale children, with his scented handkerchief held to his nostrils. Ma Grunter stooped down to pick up one tiny Marshlander, whose belly was swollen from hunger. ‘You see ’ow much they needs Your Lordship’s ’elp.’

‘Yes, yes, clearly,’ said Spittleworth, his handkerchief clamped to his face. He didn’t like children, especially children as dirty as these, but he knew many Cornucopians were stupidly fond of brats, so it was a bad idea to let too many of them die. ‘Very well, further funds are approved, Ma Grunter.’

As he turned to leave, the lord noticed a pale girl standing beside the door, holding a baby in each arm. She wore patched overalls which had been let out and lengthened. There was something about the girl that set her apart from the other children. Spittleworth even had the strange notion that he’d seen somebody like her before. Unlike the other brats, she didn’t seem at all impressed by his sweeping Chief Advisor’s robes, nor of the jangling medals he’d awarded himself for being Regimental Colonel of the Ickabog Defence Brigade.

‘What’s your name, girl?’ Spittleworth asked, halting beside Daisy, and lowering his scented handkerchief.

‘Jane, my lord. We’re all called Jane here, you know,’ said Daisy, examining Spittleworth with cool, serious eyes. She remembered him from the palace courtyard where she’d once played, how he and Flapoon would scare the children into silence as they walked past, scowling.

‘Why don’t you curtsy? I am the king’s Chief Advisor.’

‘A Chief Advisor isn’t a king,’ said the girl.

‘What’s that she’s saying?’ croaked Ma Grunter, hobbling over to see that Daisy wasn’t making trouble. Of all the children in her orphanage, Daisy Dovetail was the one Ma Grunter liked least. The girl’s spirit had never quite been broken, although Ma Grunter had tried her hardest to do it. ‘What are you saying, Ugly Jane?’ she asked. Daisy wasn’t ugly in the slightest, but this name was one of the ways Ma Grunter tried to break her spirit.

‘She’s explaining why she doesn’t curtsy to me,’ said Spittleworth, still staring into Daisy’s dark eyes, and wondering where he’d seen them before.

In fact, he’d seen them in the face of the carpenter he visited regularly in the dungeon, but as Mr Dovetail was now quite insane, with long white hair and beard, and this girl looked intelligent and calm, Spittleworth didn’t make the connection between them.

‘Ugly Jane’s always been impertinent,’ said Ma Grunter, inwardly vowing to punish Daisy as soon as Lord Spittleworth had gone. ‘One of these days I’ll turn her out, my lord, and she can see how she likes begging on the streets, instead of sheltering under my roof and eating my food.’

‘How I’d miss cabbage soup,’ said Daisy, in a cold, hard voice. ‘Did you know that’s what we eat here, my lord? Cabbage soup, three times a day?’

‘Very nourishing, I’m sure,’ said Lord Spittleworth.

‘Though, sometimes, as a special treat,’ said Daisy, ‘we get Orphanage Cakes. Do you know what those are, my lord?’

‘No,’ said Spittleworth, against his will. There was something about this girl… What was it?

‘They’re made of spoiled ingredients,’ said Daisy, her dark eyes boring into his. ‘Bad eggs, mouldy flour, scraps of things that have been in the cupboard too long… People haven’t got any other food to spare for us, so they mix up the things they don’t want and leave them on the front steps. Sometimes the Orphanage Cakes make the children sick, but they eat them anyway, because they’re so hungry.’

Spittleworth wasn’t really listening to Daisy’s words, but to her accent. Though she’d now spent so long in Jeroboam, her voice still carried traces of Chouxville.

‘Where do you come from, girl?’ he asked.

The other children had fallen silent now, all of them watching the lord talking to Daisy. Though Ma Grunter hated her, Daisy was a great favourite among the younger children, because she protected them from Ma Grunter and Basher John, and never stole their dry crusts, unlike some of the other big children. She’d also been known to sneak them bread and cheese from Ma Grunter’s private stores, although that was a risky business, and sometimes led to Daisy being beaten by Basher John.

‘I come from Cornucopia, my lord,’ said Daisy. ‘You might have heard of it. It’s a country that used to exist, where nobody was ever poor or hungry.’

‘That’s enough,’ snarled Lord Spittleworth and, turning to Ma Grunter, he said, ‘I agree with you, madam. This child seems ungrateful for your kindness. Perhaps she ought to be left to fend for herself, out in the world.’

With that, Lord Spittleworth swept out of the orphanage, slamming the door behind him. As soon as he had gone, Ma Grunter swung her cane at Daisy, but long practice enabled Daisy to duck out of harm’s way. The old woman shuffled away, swishing her cane before her, making all the little ones scatter, then slammed the door of her comfortable parlour behind her. The children heard the popping of a cork.

Later, after they’d climbed into their neighbouring beds that night, Martha suddenly said to Daisy:

‘You know, Daisy, it isn’t true, what you said to the Chief Advisor.’

‘Which bit, Martha?’ whispered Daisy.

‘It isn’t true that everyone was well fed and happy in the old days. My family never had enough in the Marshlands.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Daisy quietly. ‘I forgot.’

‘Of course,’ sighed the sleepy Martha, ‘the Ickabog kept stealing our sheep.’

Daisy wriggled deeper under her thin blanket, trying to keep warm. In all their time together, she’d never managed to convince Martha that the Ickabog wasn’t real. Tonight, though, Daisy wished that she too believed in a monster in the marsh, rather than in the human wickedness she’d seen staring out of Lord Spittleworth’s eyes.

---

Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 37: Daisy and the Moon

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 39: Bert and the Ickabog Defence Brigade »

Ma Grunter’s orphanage had changed a great deal since Daisy Dovetail had been taken there in a sack. The broken-down hovel was now an enormous stone building, with bars on the windows, locks on every door, and space for a hundred children.

Daisy was still there, grown much taller and thinner, but still wearing the overalls in which she’d been kidnapped. She’d sewn lengths onto the arms and legs so they still fit, and patched them carefully when they tore. They were the last thing she had of her home and her father, and so she kept wearing them instead of making herself dresses out of the sacks the cabbages came in, as Martha and the other big girls did.

Daisy had held onto the idea that her father was still alive for several long years after her kidnap. She was a clever girl, and had always known her father didn’t believe in the Ickabog, so she forced herself to believe that he was in a cell somewhere, looking up through the barred window at the same moon she watched every night, before she fell asleep.

Then one night, in her sixth year at Ma Grunter’s, after tucking the Hopkins twins in for the night, and promising them they’d see their mummy and daddy again soon, Daisy lay down beside Martha and looked up at the pale gold disc in the sky as usual, and realised she no longer believed her father was alive. That hope had left her heart like a bird fleeing a ransacked nest, and though tears leaked out of her eyes, she told herself that her father was in a better place now, up there in the glorious heavens with her mother. She tried to find comfort in the idea that, being no longer earthbound, her parents could live anywhere, including in her own heart, and that she must keep their memories alive inside her, like a flame. Still, it was hard to have parents who lived inside you, when all you really wanted was for them to come back, and hug you.

Unlike many of the orphanage children, Daisy retained a clear memory of her parents. The memory of their love sustained her, and every day she helped look after the little ones in the orphanage, and made sure they had the hugs and kindness she was missing herself.

Yet it wasn’t only the thought of her mother and father that enabled Daisy to carry on. She had a strange feeling that she was meant to do something important – something that would change not only her own life, but the fortunes of Cornucopia. She’d never told anyone about this strange feeling, not even her best friend, Martha, yet it was a source of strength. Her chance, Daisy felt sure, would come.

---

Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 36: Cornucopia Hungry

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 38: Lord Spittleworth Comes to Call »

A year passed… then two… then three, four, and five.

The tiny kingdom of Cornucopia, which had once been the envy of its neighbours for its magically rich soil, for the skill of its cheesemakers, winemakers and pastry chefs, and for the happiness of its people, had changed almost beyond recognition.

True, Chouxville was carrying on more or less as it always had. Spittleworth didn’t want the king to notice that anything had changed, so he spent plenty of gold in the capital to keep things running as they always had, especially in the City-Within-The-City. Up in the northern cities, though, people were struggling. More and more businesses – shops, taverns, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, farms, and vineyards – were closing down. The Ickabog tax was pushing people into poverty, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, everyone feared being the next to receive a visit from the Ickabog – or whatever it was that broke down doors and left monster-like tracks around houses and farms.

People who voiced doubts about whether the Ickabog was really behind these attacks were usually next to receive a visit from the Dark Footers. That was the name Spittleworth and Roach had given to the squads of men who murdered unbelievers in the night, leaving footprints around their victims’ houses.

Occasionally, though, the Ickabog doubters lived in the middle of a city, where it was difficult to fake an attack without the neighbours seeing. In this case, Spittleworth would hold a trial, and by threatening their families, as he had with Goodfellow and his friends, he made the accused agree that they’d committed treason.

Increasing numbers of trials meant Spittleworth had to oversee the building of more jails. He also needed more orphanages. Why did he need orphanages, you ask?

Well, in the first place, quite a number of parents were being killed or imprisoned. As everyone was now finding it difficult to feed their own families, they weren’t able to take in the abandoned children.

In the second place, poor people were dying of hunger. As parents usually fed their children rather than themselves, children were often the last of the family left alive.

And in the third place, some heartbroken, homeless families were giving up their children to orphanages, because it was the only way they could make sure their children would have food and shelter.

I wonder whether you remember the palace maid, Hetty, who so bravely warned Lady Eslanda that Captain Goodfellow and his friends were about to be executed?

Well, Hetty used Lady Eslanda’s gold to take a coach home to her father’s vineyard, just outside Jeroboam. A year later, she married a man called Hopkins, and gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl.

However, the effort of paying the Ickabog tax was too much for the Hopkins family. They lost their little grocery store, and Hetty’s parents couldn’t help them, because shortly after losing their vineyard, they’d starved to death. Homeless now, their children crying with hunger, Hetty and her husband walked in desperation to Ma Grunter’s orphanage. The twins were torn, sobbing, from their mother’s arms. The door slammed, the bolts banged home, and poor Hetty Hopkins and her husband walked away, crying no less hard than their children, and praying that Ma Grunter would keep them alive.

---

Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 35: Lord Spittleworth’s Proposal

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 37: Daisy and the Moon »

A few days later, Lady Eslanda was walking alone in the palace rose garden when the two soldiers hiding in a bush spotted their chance. They seized her, gagged her, bound her hands, and drove her away to Spittleworth’s estate in the country. Then they sent a message to Spittleworth, and waited for him to join them.

Spittleworth promptly summoned Lady Eslanda’s maid, Millicent. By threatening to murder Millicent’s little sister, he forced her to deliver messages to all Lady Eslanda’s friends, telling them that her mistress had decided to become a nun.

Lady Eslanda’s friends were all shocked by this news. She’d never mentioned wanting to become a nun to any of them. In fact, several of them were suspicious that Lord Spittleworth had had something to do with her sudden disappearance. However, I’m sad to tell you that Spittleworth was now so widely feared, that apart from whispering their suspicions to each other, Eslanda’s friends did nothing to either find her, or ask Spittleworth what he knew. Perhaps even worse was the fact that none of them tried to help Millicent, who was caught by soldiers trying to flee the City-Within-The-City, and imprisoned in the dungeons.

Next, Spittleworth had set out for his country estate, where he arrived late the following evening. After giving each of Eslanda’s kidnappers fifty ducats, and reminding them that if they talked, he’d have them executed, Spittleworth smoothed his thin moustaches in a mirror, then went to find Lady Eslanda, who was sitting in his rather dusty library, reading a book by candlelight.

‘Good evening, my lady,’ said Spittleworth, sweeping her a bow.

Lady Eslanda looked at him in silence.

‘I have good news for you,’ continued Spittleworth, smiling. ‘You are to become the wife of the Chief Advisor.’

‘I’d sooner die,’ said Lady Eslanda pleasantly, and, turning a page in her book, she continued to read.

‘Come, come,’ said Spittleworth. ‘As you can see, my house really needs a woman’s tender care. You’ll be far happier here, making yourself useful, than pining over the cheesemakers’ son, who in any case, is likely to starve to death any day now.’

Lady Eslanda, who’d expected Spittleworth to mention Captain Goodfellow, had been preparing for this moment ever since arriving in the cold and dirty house. So she said, with neither a blush nor a tear:

‘I stopped caring for Captain Goodfellow a long time ago, Lord Spittleworth. The sight of him confessing to treason disgusted me. I could never love a treacherous man – which is why I could never love you.’

She said it so convincingly that Spittleworth believed her. He tried a different threat, and told her he’d kill her parents if she didn’t marry him, but Lady Eslanda reminded him that she, like Captain Goodfellow, was an orphan. Then Spittleworth said he’d take away all the jewellery her mother had left her, but she shrugged and said she preferred books anyway. Finally, Spittleworth threatened to kill her, and Lady Eslanda suggested he get on with it, because that would be far better than listening to him talk.

Spittleworth was enraged. He’d become used to having his own way in everything, and here was something he couldn’t have, and it only made him want it all the more. Finally, he said that if she liked books so much, he’d lock her up inside the library forever. He’d have bars fitted on all the windows, and Scrumble the butler would bring her food three times a day, but she would only ever leave the room to go to the bathroom – unless she agreed to marry him.

‘Then I shall die in this room,’ said Lady Eslanda calmly, ‘or, perhaps – who knows? – in the bathroom.’

As he couldn’t get another word out of her, the furious Chief Advisor left.

---

Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 34: Three More Feet

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 36: Cornucopia Hungry »

‘This had better be worth my while,’ snapped Spittleworth five minutes later, as he entered the Blue Parlour, where the spy was waiting.

‘Your – Lordship,’ said the breathless man, ‘they’re saying – the monster’s – hopping.’

‘They’re saying what?’

‘Hopping, my lord – hopping!’ he panted. ‘They’ve noticed – all the prints – are made by the same – left – foot!’

Spittleworth stood speechless. It had never occurred to him that the common folk might be clever enough to spot a thing like that. Indeed, he, who’d never had to look after a living creature in his life, not even his own horse, hadn’t stopped to consider the fact that a creature’s feet might not all make the same prints in the ground.

‘Must I think of everything?’ bellowed Spittleworth, and he stormed out of the parlour and off to the Guard’s Room, where he found Major Roach drinking wine and playing cards with some friends. The major leapt to his feet at the sight of Spittleworth, who beckoned him to come outside.

‘I want you to assemble the Ickabog Defence Brigade immediately, Roach,’ Spittleworth told the major, in a low voice. ‘You’re to ride north, and be sure to make plenty of noise as you go. I want everyone from Chouxville to Jeroboam to see you passing by. Then, once you’re up there, spread out, and mount a guard over the border of the marsh.’

‘But—’ began Major Roach, who’d got used to a life of ease and plenty at the palace, with occasional rides around Chouxville in full uniform.

‘I don’t want “buts”, I want action!’ shouted Spittleworth. ‘Rumours are flying that there’s nobody stationed in the north! Go, now, and make sure you wake up as many people as possible as you go – but leave me two men, Roach. Just two. I have another small job for them.’

So the grumpy Roach ran off to assemble his troops, and Spittleworth proceeded alone to the dungeon.

The first thing he heard when he got there was the sound of Mr Dovetail, who was still singing the national anthem.

‘Be quiet!’ bellowed Spittleworth, drawing his sword and gesturing to the warder to let him into Mr Dovetail’s cell.

The carpenter appeared quite different to the last time Lord Spittleworth had seen him. Since learning that he wasn’t to be let out of the dungeon to see Daisy, a wild look had appeared in Mr Dovetail’s eye. Of course, he hadn’t been able to shave for weeks either, and his hair had grown rather long.

‘I said, be quiet!’ barked Spittleworth, because the carpenter, who didn’t seem able to help himself, was still humming the national anthem. ‘I need another three feet, d’you hear me? One more left foot, and two right. Do you understand me, carpenter?’

Mr Dovetail stopped humming.

‘If I carve them, will you let me out to see my daughter, my lord?’ he asked in a hoarse voice.

Spittleworth smiled. It was clear to him that the man was going slowly mad, because only a madman would imagine he’d be let out after making another three Ickabog feet.

‘Of course I will,’ said Spittleworth. ‘I shall have the wood delivered to you first thing tomorrow morning. Work hard, carpenter. When you’re finished, I’ll let you out to see your daughter.’

When Spittleworth emerged from the dungeons, he found two soldiers waiting for him, just as he’d requested. Spittleworth led these men up to his private apartments, made sure Cankerby the footman wasn’t skulking about, locked the door, and turned to give the men their instructions.

‘There will be fifty ducats for each of you, if you succeed in this job,’ he said, and the soldiers looked excited.

‘You are to follow the Lady Eslanda, morning, noon, and night, you understand me? She must not know you are following her. You will wait for a moment when she is quite alone, so that you can kidnap her without anyone hearing or seeing anything. If she escapes, or if you are seen, I shall deny that I gave you this order, and put you to death.’

‘What do we do with her once we’ve got her?’ asked one of the soldiers, who no longer looked excited, but very scared.

‘Hmm,’ said Spittleworth, turning to look out of the window while he considered what best to do with Eslanda. ‘Well, a lady of the court isn’t the same as a butcher. The Ickabog can’t enter the palace and eat her… No, I think it best,’ said Spittleworth, a slow smile spreading over his crafty face, ‘if you take Lady Eslanda to my estate in the country. Send word when you’ve got her there, and I’ll join you.’

---

Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 33: King Fred is Worried

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 35: Lord Spittleworth’s Proposal »

Little knowing of the new threat to their schemes, Spittleworth and Flapoon had just sat down to one of their usual sumptuous late-night dinners with the king. Fred was most alarmed to hear of the Ickabog’s attack on Baronstown, because it meant that the monster had strayed closer to the palace than ever before.

‘Ghastly business,’ said Flapoon, lifting an entire black pudding onto his plate.

‘Shocking, really,’ said Spittleworth, carving himself a slice of pheasant.

‘What I don’t understand,’ fretted Fred, ‘is how it slipped through the blockade!’

For, of course, the king had been told that a division of the Ickabog Defence Brigade was permanently camped round the edge of the marsh, to stop the Ickabog escaping into the rest of the country. Spittleworth, who’d been expecting Fred to raise this point, had his explanation ready.

‘I regret to say that two soldiers fell asleep on watch, Your Majesty. Taken unawares by the Ickabog, they were eaten whole.’

‘Suffering Saints!’ said Fred, horrified.

‘Having broken through the line,’ continued Spittleworth, ‘the monster headed south. We believe it was attracted to Baronstown because of the smell of meat. While there, it gobbled up some chickens, as well as the butcher and his wife.’

‘Dreadful, dreadful,’ said Fred with a shudder, pushing his plate away from him. ‘And then it slunk off back home to the marsh, did it?’

‘So our trackers tell us, sire,’ said Spittleworth, ‘but now that it’s tasted a butcher full of Baronstown sausage, we must prepare for it trying to break through the soldiers’ lines regularly – which is why I think we should double the number of men stationed there, sire. Sadly, that will mean doubling the Ickabog tax.’

Luckily for them, Fred was watching Spittleworth, so he didn’t see Flapoon smirk.

‘Yes… I suppose that makes sense,’ said the king.

He got to his feet and began roaming restlessly around the dining room. The lamplight made his costume, which today was of sky-blue silk with aquamarine buttons, shine beautifully. As he paused to admire himself in the mirror, Fred’s expression clouded.

‘Spittleworth,’ he said, ‘the people do still like me, don’t they?’

‘How can Your Majesty ask such a thing?’ said Spittleworth, with a gasp. ‘You’re the most beloved king in the whole of Cornucopia’s history!’

‘It’s just that… riding back from hunting, yesterday, I couldn’t help thinking that people didn’t seem quite as happy as usual to see me,’ said King Fred. ‘There were hardly any cheers, and only one flag.’

‘Give me their names and addresses,’ said Flapoon through a mouthful of black pudding, and he groped in his pockets for a pencil.

‘I don’t know their names and addresses, Flapoon,’ said Fred, who was now playing with a tassel on the curtains. ‘They were just people, you know, passing by. But it upset me, rather, and then, when I got back to the palace, I heard that the Day of Petition has been cancelled.’

‘Ah,’ said Spittleworth, ‘yes, I was going to explain that to Your Majesty…’

‘There’s no need,’ said Fred. ‘Lady Eslanda has already spoken to me about it.’

‘What?’ said Spittleworth, glaring at Flapoon. He’d given his friend strict instructions never to let Lady Eslanda near the king, because he was worried what she might tell him. Flapoon scowled and shrugged. Really, Spittleworth couldn’t expect him to be at the king’s side every minute of the day. A man needed the bathroom occasionally, after all.

‘Lady Eslanda told me that people are complaining that the Ickabog tax is too high. She says rumours are flying that there aren’t even any troops stationed in the north!’

‘Piffle and poppycock,’ said Spittleworth, though in fact it was perfectly true that there were no troops stationed in the north, and also true that there’d been even more complaints about the Ickabog tax, which was why he’d cancelled the Day of Petition. The last thing he wanted was for Fred to hear that he was losing popularity. He might take it into his foolish head to lower the taxes or, even worse, send people to investigate the imaginary camp in the north.

‘There are times, obviously, when two regiments swap over,’ said Spittleworth, thinking that he’d have to station some soldiers near the marsh now, to stop busybodies asking questions. ‘Possibly some foolish Marshlander saw a regiment riding away, and imagined that there was nobody left up there… Why don’t we triple the Ickabog tax, sire?’ asked Spittleworth, thinking that this would serve the complainers right. ‘After all, the monster did break through the lines last night! Then there can never again be any danger of a scarcity of men on the edge of the Marshlands and everyone will be happy.’

‘Yes,’ said King Fred uneasily. ‘Yes, that does make sense. I mean, if the monster can kill four people and some chickens in a single night…’

At this moment, Cankerby the footman entered the dining room and, with a low bow, whispered to Spittleworth that the Baronstown spy had just arrived with urgent news from the sausage-making city.

‘Your Majesty,’ said Spittleworth smoothly, ‘I must leave you. Nothing to worry about! A minor issue with my, ah, horse.’

---

Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 32: A Flaw in the Plan

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 34: Three More Feet »

When Mr and Mrs Tenderloin’s neighbours woke up the next day and found chickens all over the road, they hurried to tell Tubby his birds had escaped. Imagine the neighbours’ horror when they found the enormous footprints, the blood and the feathers, the broken-down back door and no sign of either husband or wife.

Before an hour had passed, a huge crowd had congregated around Tubby’s empty house, all examining the monstrous footprints, the smashed-in door, and the wrecked furniture. Panic set in, and within a few hours, news of the Ickabog’s raid on a Baronstown butcher’s house was spreading north, south, east and west. Town criers rang their bells in the city squares, and within a couple of days, only the Marshlanders would be ignorant of the fact that the Ickabog had slunk south overnight and carried off two people.

Spittleworth’s Baronstown spy, who’d been mingling with the crowds all day to observe their reactions, sent word to his master that his plan had worked magnificently. However, in the early evening, just as the spy was thinking of heading off to the tavern for a celebratory sausage roll and a pint of beer, he noticed a group of men whispering together as they examined one of the Ickabog’s giant footprints. The spy sidled over.

‘Terrifying, isn’t it?’ the spy asked them. ‘The size of its feet! The length of its claws!’

One of Tubby’s neighbours straightened up, frowning.

‘It’s hopping,’ he said.

‘Excuse me?’ said the spy.

‘It’s hopping,’ repeated the neighbour. ‘Look. It’s the same left foot, over and over again. Either the Ickabog’s hopping, or…’

The man didn’t finish his sentence, but the look on his face alarmed the spy. Instead of heading for the tavern, he mounted his horse again, and galloped off towards the palace.

---

Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 31: Disappearance of a Butcher

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 33: King Fred is Worried »

That night, under cover of darkness, a party of horsemen dressed all in black rode out from Chouxville, headed by Major Roach. Hidden beneath a large bit of sacking on a wagon in their midst was the gigantic wooden foot, with its carved scales and long sharp claws.

At last they reached the outskirts of Baronstown. Now the riders – members of the Ickabog Defence Brigade whom Spittleworth had chosen for the job – slipped from their horses and covered the animals’ hooves with sacking to muffle the noise and the shape of their prints. Then they lifted the giant foot off the wagon, remounted, and carried it between them to the house where Tubby Tenderloin the butcher lived with his wife, which was luckily a little distance from its neighbours.

Several of the soldiers now tied up their horses, stole up to Tubby’s back door and forced entry, while the rest pressed the giant foot into the mud around his back gate.

Five minutes after the soldiers arrived, they carried Tubby and his wife, who had no children, out of their house, bound and gagged, then threw them onto the wagon. I may as well tell you now that Tubby and his wife were about to be killed, their bodies buried in the woods, in exactly the way Private Prodd had been supposed to dispose of Daisy. Spittleworth only kept alive those people for whom he had a use: Mr Dovetail might need to repair the Ickabog foot if it got damaged, and Captain Goodfellow and his friends might need to be dragged out again some day, to repeat their lies about the Ickabog. Spittleworth couldn’t imagine ever needing a treasonous sausage maker, though, so he’d ordered his murder. As for poor Mrs Tenderloin, Spittleworth barely considered her at all, but I’d like you to know that she was a very kind person, who babysat her friends’ children and sang in the local choir.

Once the Tenderloins had been taken away, the remaining soldiers entered the house and smashed up the furniture as though a giant creature had wrecked it, while the rest of the men broke down the back fence and pressed the giant foot into the soft soil around Tubby’s chicken coop, so that it appeared the prowling monster had also attacked the birds. One of the soldiers even stripped off his socks and boots, and made bare footprints in the soft earth, as though Tubby had rushed outside to protect his chickens. Finally, the same man cut off the head of one of the hens and made sure plenty of blood and feathers was spread around, before breaking down the side of the coop to allow the rest of the chickens to escape.

After pressing the giant foot many more times onto the mud outside Tubby’s house, so the monster appeared to have run away onto solid ground, the soldiers heaved Mr Dovetail’s creation back onto the wagon beside the soon-to-be-murdered butcher and his wife, remounted their horses, and disappeared into the night.

---

Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 30: The Foot

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 32: A Flaw in the Plan »

A month passed. Deep in the dungeons, Mr Dovetail worked in a kind of frenzy. He had to finish the monstrous wooden foot, so he could see Daisy again. He’d forced himself to believe that Spittleworth would keep his word, and let him leave the dungeon after he’d completed his task, even though a voice in his head kept saying, They’ll never let you go after this. Never.

To drive out fear, Mr Dovetail started singing the national anthem, over and over again:

‘Coooorn – ucopia, give praises to the king,

Coooorn – ucopia, lift up your voice and sing…’

His constant singing annoyed the other prisoners even more than the sound of his chisel and hammer. The now thin and ragged Captain Goodfellow begged him to stop, but Mr Dovetail paid no attention. He’d become a little delirious. He had a confused idea that if he showed himself a faithful subject of the king, Spittleworth might think him less of a danger, and release him. So the carpenter’s cell rang with the banging and scraping of his tools and the national anthem, and slowly but surely, a monstrous clawed foot took shape, with a long handle out of the top, so that a man on horseback could press it deep into soft ground.

When at last the wooden foot was finished, Spittleworth, Flapoon, and Major Roach came down into the dungeons to inspect it.

‘Yes,’ said Spittleworth slowly, examining the foot from every angle. ‘Very good indeed. What do you think, Roach?’

‘I think that’ll do very nicely, my lord,’ replied the major.

‘You’ve done well, Dovetail,’ Spittleworth told the carpenter. ‘I’ll tell the warder to give you extra rations tonight.’

‘But you said I’d go free when I finished,’ said Mr Dovetail, falling to his knees, pale and exhausted. ‘Please, my lord. Please. I have to see my daughter… please.’

Mr Dovetail reached for Lord Spittleworth’s bony hand, but Spittleworth snatched it back.

‘Don’t touch me, traitor. You should be grateful I didn’t have you put to death. I may yet, if this foot doesn’t do the trick – so if I were you, I’d pray my plan works.’

---

Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 29: Mrs Beamish Worries

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 31: Disappearance of a Butcher »