You might think Bert would be terrified at the sound of these words, but believe it or not, the voice filled him with relief. He’d recognised it, you see. So instead of putting up his hands, or pleading for his life, he turned around, and found himself looking at Roderick Roach.

‘What are you smiling about?’ growled Roderick, staring into Bert’s filthy face.

‘I know you’re not going to stab me, Roddy,’ said Bert quietly.

Even though Roderick was the one holding the sword, Bert could tell the other boy was far more scared than he was. The shivering Roderick was wearing a coat over his pyjamas and his feet were wrapped in bloodstained rags.

‘Have you walked all the way from Chouxville like that?’ asked Bert.

‘That’s none of your business!’ spat Roderick, trying to look fierce, though his teeth were chattering. ‘I’m taking you in, Beamish, you traitor!’

‘No, you aren’t,’ said Bert and he pulled the sword out of Roderick’s hand. At that, Roderick burst into tears.

‘Come on,’ said Bert kindly, and he put his arm round Roderick’s shoulders and led him off down a side alley, away from the fluttering Wanted poster.

‘Get off,’ sobbed Roderick, shrugging away Bert’s arm. ‘Get off me! It’s all your fault!’

‘What’s my fault?’ asked Bert, as the two boys came to a halt beside some bins full of empty wine bottles.

‘You ran away from my father!’ said Roderick, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

‘Well, of course I did,’ said Bert reasonably. ‘He wanted to kill me.’

‘But n – now he’s been – been killed!’ sobbed Roderick.

‘Major Roach is dead?’ said Bert, taken aback. ‘How?’

‘Sp – Spittleworth,’ sobbed Roderick. ‘He c – came t – to our house with soldiers when n – nobody could find you. He was so angry Father hadn’t caught you – he grabbed a soldier’s gun – and he…’

Roderick sat down on a dustbin and wept. A cold wind blew down the alleyway. This, Bert thought, showed just how dangerous Spittleworth was. If he could shoot dead his faithful head of the Royal Guard, nobody was safe.

‘How did you know I’d come to Jeroboam?’ Bert asked.

‘C – Cankerby from the palace told me. I gave him five ducats. He remembered your mother talking about your cousin owning a tavern.’

‘How many people d’you think Cankerby’s told?’ asked Bert, now worried.

‘Plenty, probably,’ said Roderick, mopping his face with his pyjama sleeve. ‘He’ll sell anyone information for gold.’

‘That’s rich, coming from you,’ said Bert, getting angry. ‘You were about to sell me for a hundred ducats!’

‘I d – didn’t want the g – gold,’ said Roderick. ‘It was for my m – mother and brothers. I thought I might be able to g – get them back if I turned you in. Spittleworth t – took them away. I escaped out of my bedroom window. That’s why I’m in my pyjamas.’

‘I escaped from my bedroom window too,’ said Bert. ‘But at least I had the sense to bring shoes. Come on, we’d better get out of here,’ he added, pulling Roderick to his feet. ‘We’ll try and steal you some socks off a washing line on the way.’

But they’d taken barely a couple of steps when a man’s voice spoke from behind them.

‘Hands up! You two are coming with me!’

Both boys raised their hands and turned round. A man with a dirty, mean face had just emerged from the shadows, and was pointing a rifle at them. He wasn’t in uniform and neither Bert nor Roderick recognised him, but Daisy Dovetail could have told them exactly who this was: Basher John, Ma Grunter’s deputy, now a full-grown man.

Basher John took a few steps closer, squinting from one boy to the other. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You two’ll do. Gimme that sword.’

With a rifle pointed at his chest, Bert had no choice but to hand it over. However, he wasn’t quite as scared as he might have been, because Bert – whatever Flapoon might have told him – was actually a very clever boy. This dirty-looking man didn’t seem to realise he’d just caught a fugitive worth one hundred gold ducats. He seemed to have been looking for any two boys, though why, Bert couldn’t imagine. Roderick, on the other hand, had turned deathly pale. He knew Spittleworth had spies in every city, and was convinced they were both about to be handed over to the Chief Advisor, and that he, Roderick Roach, would be put to death for being in league with a traitor.

‘Move,’ said the blunt-faced man, gesturing them out of the alley with his rifle. With the gun at their backs, Bert and Roderick were forced away through the dark streets of Jeroboam until, finally, they reached the door of Ma Grunter’s orphanage.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 45: Bert in Jeroboam

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 44: Mrs Beamish Fights Back

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 46: The Tale of Roderick Roach »

While Bert was slipping out of the city gates, Mrs Beamish was being shunted into a cell in the dungeons by Lord Spittleworth. A cracked, reedy voice nearby sang the national anthem in time to hammer blows.

‘Be quiet!’ bellowed Spittleworth towards the wall. The singing stopped.

‘When I finish this foot, my lord,’ said the broken voice, ‘will you let me out to see my daughter?’

‘Yes, yes, you’ll see your daughter,’ Spittleworth called back, rolling his eyes. ‘Now, be quiet, because I want to talk to your neighbour!’

‘Well, before you get started, my lord,’ said Mrs Beamish, ‘I’ve got a few things I want to say to you.’

Spittleworth and Flapoon stared at the plump little woman. Never had they placed anyone in the dungeons who looked so proud and unconcerned at being slung in this dank, cold place. Spittleworth was reminded of Lady Eslanda, who was still shut up in his library, and still refusing to marry him. He’d never imagined a cook could look as haughty as a lady.

‘Firstly,’ said Mrs Beamish, ‘if you kill me, the king will know. He’ll notice I’m not making his pastries. He can taste the difference.’

‘That’s true,’ said Spittleworth, with a cruel smile. ‘However, as the king will believe that you’ve been killed by the Ickabog, he’ll simply have to get used to his pastries tasting different, won’t he?’

‘My house lies in the shadow of the palace walls,’ countered Mrs Beamish. ‘It will be impossible to fake an Ickabog attack there without waking up a hundred witnesses.’

‘That’s easily solved,’ said Spittleworth. ‘We’ll say you were foolish enough to take a night-time stroll down by the banks of the River Fluma, where the Ickabog was having a drink.’

‘Which might have worked,’ said Mrs Beamish, making up a story off the top of her head, ‘if I hadn’t left certain instructions, to be carried out if word gets out that I’ve been killed by the Ickabog.’

‘What instructions, and whom have you given them to?’ said Flapoon.

‘Her son, I daresay,’ said Spittleworth, ‘but he’ll soon be in our power. Make a note, Flapoon – we only kill the cook once we’ve killed her son.’

‘In the meantime,’ said Mrs Beamish, pretending she hadn’t felt an icy stab of terror at the thought of Bert falling into Spittleworth’s hands, ‘you might as well equip this cell properly with a stove and all my regular implements, so I can keep making cakes for the king.’

‘Yes… Why not?’ said Spittleworth slowly. ‘We all enjoy your pastries, Mrs Beamish. You may continue to cook for the king until your son is caught.’

‘Good,’ said Mrs Beamish, ‘but I’m going to need assistance. I suggest I train up some of my fellow prisoners who can at least whisk the egg whites and line my baking trays.

‘That will require you to feed the poor fellows a little more. I noticed as you marched me through here that some of them look like skeletons. I can’t have them eating all my raw ingredients because they’re starving.

‘And lastly,’ said Mrs Beamish, giving her cell a sweeping glance, ‘I shall need a comfortable bed and some clean blankets if I’m to get enough sleep to produce cakes of the quality the king demands. It’s his birthday coming up too. He’ll be expecting something very special.’

Spittleworth eyed this most surprising captive for a moment or two, then said:

‘Doesn’t it alarm you, madam, to think that you and your child will soon be dead?’

‘Oh, if there’s one thing you learn at cookery school,’ said Mrs Beamish, with a shrug, ‘burned crusts and soggy bases happen to the best of us. Roll up your sleeves and start something else, I say. No point moaning over what you can’t fix!’

As Spittleworth couldn’t think of a good retort to this, he beckoned to Flapoon and the two lords left the cell, the door clanging shut behind them.

As soon as they’d gone, Mrs Beamish stopped pretending to be brave and dropped down onto the hard bed, which was the only piece of furniture in the cell. She was shaking all over and for a moment, she was afraid that she was going to have hysterics.

However, a woman didn’t rise to be in charge of the king’s kitchens, in a city of the finest pastry-makers on earth, without being able to manage her own nerves. Mrs Beamish took a deep, steadying breath and then, hearing the reedy voice next door break into the national anthem again, she pressed her ear to the wall, and began to listen for the place where the noise was coming into her cell. At last she found a crack near the ceiling. Standing on her bed, she called softly:

‘Dan? Daniel Dovetail? I know that’s you. This is Bertha, Bertha Beamish!’

But the broken voice only continued to sing. Mrs Beamish sank back down on her bed, wrapped her arms around herself, closed her eyes and prayed with every part of her aching heart that wherever Bert was, he was safe.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 43: Bert and the Guard

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The candle on the table beside Bert burned slowly downwards while he watched the minute hand creep around the clock face. He told himself his mother would definitely come home soon. She’d walk in any minute, pick up his half-darned sweater as though she’d never dropped it, and tell him what had happened when she saw the king.

Then the minute hand seemed to speed up, when Bert would have done anything to make it slow down. Four minutes. Three minutes. Two minutes left.

Bert got to his feet and moved to the window. He looked up and down the dark street. There was no sign of his mother returning.

But wait! His heart leapt: he’d seen movement on the corner! For a few shining seconds, Bert was sure he was about to see Mrs Beamish step into the patch of moonlight, smiling as she caught sight of his anxious face at the window.

And then his heart seemed to drop like a brick into his stomach. It wasn’t Mrs Beamish who was approaching, but Major Roach, accompanied by four large members of the Ickabog Defence Brigade, all carrying torches.

Bert leapt back from the window, snatched up the sweater from the table, and sprinted through to his bedroom. He grabbed his shoes and his father’s medal, forced up the bedroom window, clambered out of it, then gently slid the window closed from outside. As he dropped down into the vegetable patch, he heard Major Roach banging on the front door, then a rough voice said: ‘I’ll check the back.’

Bert threw himself flat in the earth behind a row of beetroots, smeared his fair hair with soil and lay very still in the darkness.

Through his closed eyelids he saw flickering light. A soldier held his torch high in hopes of seeing Bert running away across other people’s gardens. The soldier didn’t notice the earthy shape of Bert concealed behind the beetroot leaves, which threw long, swaying shadows.

‘Well, he hasn’t got out this way,’ shouted the soldier.

There was a crash, and Bert knew Roach had broken down the front door. He listened to the soldiers opening cupboards and wardrobes. Bert remained utterly still in the earth, because torchlight was still shining through his closed eyelids.

‘Maybe he cleared out before his mother went to the palace?’

‘Well, we’ve got to find him,’ growled the familiar voice of Major Roach. ‘He’s the son of the Ickabog’s first victim. If Bert Beamish starts telling the world the monster’s a lie, people will listen. Spread out and search, he can’t have got far. And if you catch him,’ said Roach, as his men’s heavy footsteps sounded across the Beamishes’ wooden floorboards, ‘kill him. We’ll work out our stories later.’

Bert lay completely flat and still, listening to the men running away up and down the street, and then a cool part of Bert’s brain said:

Move.

He put his father’s medal around his neck, pulled on the half-darned sweater and snatched up his shoes, then began to crawl through the earth until he reached a neighbouring fence, where he tunnelled out enough dirt to let him wriggle beneath it. He kept crawling until he reached a cobbled street, but he could still hear the soldiers’ voices echoing through the night as they banged on doors, demanding to search houses, asking people whether they’d seen Bert Beamish, the pastry chef’s son. He heard himself described as a dangerous traitor.

Bert took another handful of earth and smeared it over his face. Then he got to his feet and, crouching low, darted into a dark doorway across the street. A soldier ran past, but Bert was now so filthy that he was well camouflaged against the dark door, and the man noticed nothing. When the soldier had disappeared, Bert ran barefooted from doorway to doorway, carrying his shoes, hiding in shadowy alcoves and edging ever closer to the City-Within-The-City gates. However, when he drew near, he saw a guard keeping watch, and before Bert could think up a plan, he had to slide behind a statue of King Richard the Righteous, because Roach and another soldier were approaching.

‘Have you seen Bert Beamish?’ they shouted at the guard.

‘What, the pastry chef’s son?’ asked the man.

Roach seized the front of the man’s uniform and shook him as a terrier shakes a rabbit. ‘Of course, the pastry chef’s son! Have you let him through these gates? Tell me!’

‘No, I haven’t,’ said the guard, ‘and what’s the boy done, to have you lot chasing him?’

‘He’s a traitor!’ snarled Roach. ‘And I’ll personally shoot anyone who helps him, understood?’

‘Understood,’ said the guard. Roach released the man and he and his companion ran off again, their torches casting swinging pools of light on all the walls, until they were swallowed once more by the darkness.

Bert watched the guard straighten his uniform and shake his head. Bert hesitated, then, knowing this might cost him his life, crept out of his hiding place. So thoroughly had Bert camouflaged himself with all the earth, that the guard didn’t realise anyone was beside him until he saw the whites of Bert’s eyes in the moonlight, and he let out a yelp of terror.

‘Please,’ whispered Bert. ‘Please… don’t give me away. I need to get out of here.’

From beneath his sweater, he pulled his father’s heavy silver medal, brushed earth from the surface, and showed the guard.

‘I’ll give you this – it’s real silver! – if you just let me out through the gates, and don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me. I’m not a traitor,’ said Bert. ‘I haven’t betrayed anyone, I swear.’

The guard was an older man, with a stiff grey beard. He considered the earth-covered Bert for a moment or two before saying:

‘Keep your medal, son.’

He opened the gate just wide enough for Bert to slide through.

‘Thank you!’ gasped Bert.

‘Stick to the back roads,’ advised the guard. ‘And trust no one. Good luck.’

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 42: Behind the Curtain

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The kitchens were dark and empty when Mrs Beamish let herself in from the courtyard. Moving on tiptoe, she peeked around corners as she went, because she knew how Cankerby the footman liked to lurk in the shadows. Slowly and carefully, Mrs Beamish made her way towards the king’s private apartments, holding the little wooden foot so tightly in her hand that its sharp claws dug into her palm.

At last she reached the scarlet-carpeted corridor leading to Fred’s rooms. Now she could hear laughter coming from behind the doors. Mrs Beamish rightly guessed that Fred hadn’t been told about the Ickabog attack on the outskirts of Chouxville, because she was sure he wouldn’t be laughing if he had. However, somebody was clearly with the king, and she wanted to see Fred alone. As she stood there, wondering what was best to do, the door ahead opened.

With a gasp, Mrs Beamish dived behind a long velvet curtain and tried to stop it swaying. Spittleworth and Flapoon were laughing and joking with the king as they bade him goodnight.

‘Excellent joke, Your Majesty, why, I think I’ve split my pantaloons!’ guffawed Flapoon.

‘We shall have to rechristen you King Fred the Funny, sire!’ chuckled Spittleworth.

Mrs Beamish held her breath and tried to suck in her tummy. She heard the sound of Fred’s door closing. The two lords stopped laughing at once.

‘Blithering idiot,’ said Flapoon in a low voice.

‘I’ve met cleverer blobs of Kurdsburg cheese,’ muttered Spittleworth.

‘Can’t you take a turn entertaining him tomorrow?’ grumbled Flapoon.

‘I’ll be busy with the tax collectors until three,’ said Spittleworth. ‘But if—’

Both lords stopped talking. Their footsteps also ceased. Mrs Beamish was still holding her breath, her eyes closed, praying they hadn’t noticed the bulge in the curtain.

‘Well, goodnight, Spittleworth,’ said Flapoon’s voice.

‘Yes, sleep well, Flapoon,’ said Spittleworth.

Very softly, her heart beating very fast, Mrs Beamish let out her breath. It was all right. The two lords were going to bed… and yet she couldn’t hear footsteps…

Then, so suddenly she had no time to draw breath into her lungs, the curtain was ripped back. Before she could cry out, Flapoon’s large hand had closed over her mouth and Spittleworth had seized her wrists. The two lords dragged Mrs Beamish out of her hiding place and down the nearest set of stairs, and while she struggled and tried to shout, she couldn’t make a sound through Flapoon’s thick fingers, nor could she wriggle free. At last, they pulled her into that same Blue Parlour where she’d once kissed her dead husband’s hand.

‘Do not scream,’ Spittleworth warned her, pulling out a short dagger he’d taken to wearing, even inside the palace, ‘or the king will need a new pastry chef.’

He gestured to Flapoon to take his hand away from Mrs Beamish’s mouth. The first thing she did was take a gasp of breath, because she felt like fainting.

‘You made an outsized lump in that curtain, cook,’ sneered Spittleworth. ‘Exactly what were you doing, lurking there, so close to the king, after the kitchens have closed?’

Mrs Beamish might have made up some silly lie, of course. She could have pretended she wanted to ask King Fred what kinds of cakes he’d like her to make tomorrow, but she knew the two lords wouldn’t believe her. So instead she held out the hand clutching the Ickabog foot, and opened her fingers.

‘I know,’ she said quietly, ‘what you’re up to.’

The two lords moved closer and peered down at her palm, and the perfect, tiny replica of the huge feet the Dark Footers were using. Spittleworth and Flapoon looked at each other, and then at Mrs Beamish, and all the pastry chef could think, when she saw their expressions, was, Run, Bert – run!

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 41: Mrs Beamish’s Plan

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‘Mother,’ said Bert.

Mrs Beamish had been sitting at the kitchen table, mending a hole in one of Bert’s sweaters and pausing occasionally to wipe her eyes. The Ickabog’s attack on their Chouxville neighbour had brought back awful memories of the death of Major Beamish, and she’d just been thinking about that night when she’d kissed his poor, cold hand in the Blue Parlour at the palace, while the rest of him was hidden by the Cornucopian flag.

‘Mother, look,’ said Bert, in a strange voice, and he set down in front of her the tiny, clawed wooden foot he’d found beneath his bed.

Mrs Beamish picked it up and examined it through the spectacles she wore when sewing by candlelight.

‘Why, it’s part of that little toy you used to have,’ said Bert’s mother. ‘Your toy Icka…’

But Mrs Beamish didn’t finish the word. Still staring at the carved foot, she remembered the monstrous footprints she and Bert had seen earlier that day, in the soft ground around the house of the vanished old lady. Although much, much bigger, the shape of that foot was identical to this, as were the angle of the toes, the scales and the long claws.

For several minutes, the only sound was the sputtering of the candle, as Mrs Beamish turned the little wooden foot in her trembling fingers.

It was as though a door had flown open inside her mind, a door she’d been keeping blocked and barricaded for a very long time. Ever since her husband had died, Mrs Beamish had refused to admit a single doubt or suspicion about the Ickabog. Loyal to the king, trusting in Spittleworth, she’d believed the people who claimed the Ickabog wasn’t real were traitors.

But now the uncomfortable memories she’d tried to shut out came flooding in upon her. She remembered telling the scullery maid all about Mr Dovetail’s treasonous speech about the Ickabog, and turning to see Cankerby the footman listening in the shadows. She remembered how soon afterwards the Dovetails had disappeared. She remembered the little girl who’d been skipping, wearing one of Daisy Dovetail’s old dresses, and the bandalore she’d claimed her brother had been given on the same day. She thought of her cousin Harold starving, and the strange absence of mail from the north that she and all her neighbours had noticed over the past few months. She thought, too, of the sudden disappearance of Lady Eslanda, which many had puzzled over. These, and a hundred other odd happenings, added themselves together in Mrs Beamish’s mind as she gazed at the little wooden foot, and together they formed a monstrous outline that frightened her far more than the Ickabog. What, she asked herself, had really happened to her husband up on that marsh? Why hadn’t she been allowed to look beneath the Cornucopian flag covering his body? Horrible thoughts now tumbled on top of each other as Mrs Beamish turned to look at her son, and saw her suspicions reflected in his face.

‘The king can’t know,’ she whispered. ‘He can’t. He’s a good man.’

Even if everything else she’d believed might be wrong, Mrs Beamish couldn’t bear to give up her belief in the goodness of King Fred the Fearless. He’d always been so kind to her and Bert.

Mrs Beamish stood up, the little wooden foot clutched tightly in her hand, and laid down Bert’s half-darned sweater.

I’m going to see the king,’ she said, with a more determined look on her face than Bert had ever seen there.

‘Now?’ he asked, looking out into the darkness.

‘Tonight,’ said Mrs Beamish, ‘while there’s a chance neither of those lords are with him. He’ll see me. He’s always liked me.’

‘I want to come too,’ said Bert, because a strange feeling of foreboding had come over him.

‘No,’ said Mrs Beamish. She approached her son, put her hand on his shoulder, and looked up into his face. ‘Listen to me, Bert. If I’m not back from the palace in one hour, you’re to leave Chouxville. Head north to Jeroboam, find Cousin Harold and tell him everything.’

‘But—’ said Bert, suddenly afraid.

‘Promise me you’ll go if I’m not back in an hour,’ said Mrs Beamish fiercely.

‘I… I will,’ said Bert, but the boy who’d earlier imagined dying a heroic death, and not caring how much it upset his mother, was suddenly terrified. ‘Mother—’

She hugged him briefly. ‘You’re a clever boy. Never forget, you’re a soldier’s son, as well as a pastry chef’s.’

Mrs Beamish walked quickly to the door and slipped on her shoes. After one last smile at Bert, she slipped out into the night.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 40: Bert Finds a Clue

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When he heard that a mail coach had reached the heart of Chouxville, Spittleworth seized a heavy wooden chair and threw it at Major Roach’s head. Roach, who was far stronger than Spittleworth, batted the chair aside easily enough, but his hand flew to the hilt of his sword and for a few seconds, the two men stood with teeth bared in the gloom of the Guard’s Room, while Flapoon and the spies watched, open-mouthed.

‘You will send a party of Dark Footers to the outskirts of Chouxville tonight,’ Spittleworth ordered Roach. ‘You will fake a raid – we must terrify these people. They must understand that the tax is necessary, that any hardship their relatives are suffering is the fault of the Ickabog, not mine or the king’s. Go, and undo the harm you’ve done!’

The furious major left the room, privately thinking of all the ways he’d like to hurt Spittleworth, if given ten minutes alone with him.

‘And you,’ said Spittleworth to his spies, ‘will report to me tomorrow whether Major Roach has done his work well enough. If the city’s still whispering about starvation and penniless relations, well then, we’ll have to see how Major Roach likes the dungeons.’

So a group of Major Roach’s Dark Footers waited until the capital slept, then set out for the first time to make Chouxville believe that the Ickabog had come calling. They selected a cottage on the very edge of town that stood a little apart from its neighbours. The men who were most skilful at breaking into houses entered the cottage, where, it pains me to say, they killed the little old lady who lived there, who, you might like to know, had written several beautifully illustrated books about the fish that lived in the River Fluma. Once her body had been carried away to be buried somewhere remote, a group of men pressed four of Mr Dovetail’s finest carved feet into the ground around the fish expert’s house, smashed up her furniture and her fish tanks and let her specimens die, gasping, on the floor.

Next morning, Spittleworth’s spies reported that the plan seemed to have worked. Chouxville, so long avoided by the fearsome Ickabog, had at last been attacked. As the Dark Footers had now perfected the art of making the tracks look natural, and breaking down doors as though a gigantic monster had smashed them in, and using pointed metal tools to mimic tooth marks on wood, the Chouxville residents who flocked to see the poor old woman’s house were entirely taken in.

Young Bert Beamish stayed at the scene even after his mother had left to start cooking their supper. He was treasuring up every detail of the beast’s footprints and its fang marks, the better to imagine what it would look like when at last he came face-to-face with the evil creature that had killed his father, because he’d by no means abandoned his ambition to avenge him.

When Bert was sure he had every detail of the monster’s prints memorised, he walked home, burning with fury, and shut himself up in his bedroom, where he took down his father’s Medal for Outstanding Bravery Against the Deadly Ickabog, and the tiny medal the king had given him after he’d fought Daisy Dovetail. The smaller medal made Bert feel sad these days. He’d never had a friend as good as Daisy since she’d left for Pluritania, but at least, he thought, she and her father were beyond the reach of the evil Ickabog.

Angry tears started in Bert’s eyes. He’d so wanted to join the Ickabog Defence Brigade! He knew he’d be a good soldier. He wouldn’t even care if he died in the fight! Of course, it would be extremely upsetting for his mother if the Ickabog killed her son as well as her husband, but on the other hand, Bert would be a hero, like his father!

Lost in thoughts of revenge and glory, Bert made to replace the two medals on the mantelpiece when the smaller of them slipped through his fingers and rolled away under the bed. Bert lay down and groped for it, but couldn’t reach. He wriggled further under his bed and found it at last in the furthermost, dustiest corner, along with something sharp that seemed to have been there a very long time, because it was cobwebby.

Bert pulled both the medal and the sharp thing out from the corner and sat up, now rather dusty himself, to examine the unknown object.

By the light of his candle, he saw a tiny, perfectly carved Ickabog foot, the last remaining piece of the toy carved so long ago by Mr Dovetail. Bert had thought he’d burned up every last bit of the toy, but this foot must have flown under the bed when he’d smashed up the rest of the Ickabog with his poker.

He was on the point of tossing the foot onto his bedroom fire when Bert suddenly changed his mind, and began to examine it more closely.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 39: Bert and the Ickabog Defence Brigade

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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.

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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.

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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.

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