As soon as Spittleworth and Flapoon were out of earshot of the king, Spittleworth rounded on Flapoon.

‘You were supposed to check all those letters before giving them to the king! Where am I supposed to find a dead Ickabog to stuff?’

‘Sew something,’ suggested Flapoon with a shrug.

‘Sew something? Sew something?’

‘Well, what else can you do?’ said Flapoon, taking a large bite of the Dukes’ Delight he’d sneaked from the king’s table.

‘What can I do?’ repeated Spittleworth, incensed. ‘You think this is all my problem?’

‘You were the one who invented the Ickabog,’ said Flapoon thickly, as he chewed. He was getting very bored of Spittleworth shouting at him and bossing him about.

‘And you’re the one who killed Beamish!’ snarled Spittleworth. ‘Where would you be now, if I hadn’t blamed the monster?’

Without waiting for Flapoon’s response, Spittleworth turned and headed down to the dungeons. At the very least, he could stop the prisoners singing the national anthem so loudly, so the king might think the war against the Ickabogs had taken a turn for the worse again.

‘Quiet – QUIET!’ bellowed Spittleworth, as he entered the dungeon, because the place was ringing with noise. There was singing and laughter, and Cankerby the footman was running between the cells fetching and carrying kitchen equipment for all the different prisoners, and the smell of Maidens’ Dreams, fresh from Mrs Beamish’s oven, filled the warm air. The prisoners all looked far better fed than the last time Spittleworth had been down here. He didn’t like this, didn’t like it at all. He especially didn’t like to see Captain Goodfellow looking as fit and strong as ever he had. Spittleworth liked his enemies weak and hopeless. Even Mr Dovetail looked as though he’d trimmed his long white beard.

‘You are keeping track, aren’t you,’ he asked the panting Cankerby, ‘of all these pots, and knives and whatnots you’re handing out?’

‘Of – of course, my lord,’ gasped the footman, not liking to admit that he was so confused by all the orders Mrs Beamish was giving him, that he had no idea which prisoner had what. Spoons, whisks, ladles, saucepans, and baking trays had to be passed between the bars, to keep up with the demand for Mrs Beamish’s pastries, and once or twice Cankerby had accidentally passed one of Mr Dovetail’s chisels to another prisoner. He thought he collected everything in at the end of each night, but how on earth was he to be sure? And sometimes Cankerby worried that the warder of the dungeon, who was fond of wine, might not hear the prisoners whispering to each other, if they took it into their heads to plot anything after the candles were snuffed out at night. However, Cankerby could tell that Spittleworth was in no mood to have problems brought to him, so the footman held his tongue.

‘There will be no more singing!’ shouted Spittleworth, his voice echoing through the dungeon. ‘The king has a headache!’

In fact, it was Spittleworth whose head was beginning to throb. He forgot the prisoners as soon as he turned his back on them, and fell back to pondering how on earth he was going to make a convincing stuffed Ickabog. Perhaps Flapoon was onto something? Might they take the skeleton of a bull, and kidnap a seamstress to stitch a dragonish covering over the bones, and pad it out with sawdust?

Lies upon lies upon lies. Once you started lying, you had to continue, and then it was like being captain of a leaky ship, always plugging holes in the side to stop yourself sinking. Lost in thoughts of skeletons and sawdust, Spittleworth had no idea that he’d just turned his back on what promised to be his biggest problem yet: a dungeon full of plotting prisoners, each of whom had knives and chisels hidden beneath their blankets, and behind loose bricks in their walls.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 55: Spittleworth Offends the King

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 57: Daisy’s Plan »

After the disaster of the runaway mail coach, Lord Spittleworth took steps to make sure such a thing would never happen again. A new proclamation was issued, without the king’s knowledge, which allowed the Chief Advisor to open letters to check them for signs of treason. The proclamation notices helpfully listed all the things that were now considered treason in Cornucopia. It was still treason to say that the Ickabog wasn’t real, and that Fred wasn’t a good king. It was treason to criticise Lord Spittleworth and Lord Flapoon, treason to say the Ickabog tax was too high, and, for the first time, treason to say that Cornucopia wasn’t as happy and well fed as it had always been.

Now that everybody was too frightened to tell the truth in their letters, mail and even travel to the capital dwindled to almost nothing, which was exactly what Spittleworth had wanted, and he started on phase two of his plan. This was to send a lot of fan mail to Fred. As these letters couldn’t all have the same handwriting, Spittleworth had shut up a few soldiers in a room with a stack of paper and lots of quills, and told them what to write.

‘Praise the king, of course,’ said Spittleworth, as he swept up and down in front of the men in his Chief Advisor’s robes. ‘Tell him he’s the best ruler the country’s ever had. Praise me, too. Say that you don’t know what would become of Cornucopia without Lord Spittleworth. And say you know the Ickabog would have killed many more people, if not for the Ickabog Defence Brigade, and that Cornucopia’s richer than ever.’

So Fred began to receive letters telling him how marvellous he was, and that the country had never been happier, and that the war against the Ickabog was going very well indeed.

‘Well, it appears everything’s going splendidly!’ beamed King Fred, waving one of these letters over lunch with the two lords. He’d been much more cheerful since the forgeries had started to arrive. The bitter winter had frozen the ground so that it was dangerous to go hunting, but Fred, who was wearing a gorgeous new costume of burnt-orange silk, with topaz buttons, felt particularly handsome today, which added to his cheerfulness. It was quite delightful, watching the snow tumble down outside the window, when he had a blazing fire and his table was piled high, as usual, with expensive foodstuffs.

‘I had no idea so many Ickabogs had been killed, Spittleworth! In fact – come to think of it – I didn’t even know there was more than one Ickabog!’

‘Er, yes, Sire,’ said Spittleworth, with a furious glance at Flapoon, who was stuffing himself with a particularly delicious cream cheese. Spittleworth had so much to do, he’d given Flapoon the job of checking all the forged letters before they were sent to the king. ‘We didn’t wish to alarm you, but we realised some time ago that the monster had, ah—’

He coughed delicately.

‘—reproduced.’

‘I see,’ said Fred. ‘Well, it’s jolly good news you’re finishing them off at such a rate. We should have one stuffed, you know, and hold an exhibition for the people!’

‘Er… yes, sire, what an excellent idea,’ said Spittleworth, through gritted teeth.

‘One thing I don’t understand, though,’ said Fred, frowning over the letter again. ‘Didn’t Professor Fraudysham say that every time an Ickabog dies, two grow in its place? By killing them like this, aren’t you in fact doubling their numbers?’

‘Ah… no, sire, not really,’ said Spittleworth, his cunning mind working furiously fast. ‘We’ve actually found a way of stopping that happening, by – er – by—’

‘Banging them over the head first,’ suggested Flapoon.

‘Banging them over the head first,’ repeated Spittleworth, nodding. ‘That’s it. If you can get near enough to knock them out before killing them, sire, the, er, the doubling process seems to… seems to stop.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me of this amazing discovery, Spittleworth?’ cried Fred. ‘This changes everything – we might soon have wiped Ickabogs from Cornucopia forever!’

‘Yes, sire, it is good news, isn’t it?’ said Spittleworth, wishing he could smack the smile off Flapoon’s face. ‘However, there are still quite a few Ickabogs left…’

‘All the same, the end seems to be in sight at last!’ said Fred joyfully, setting the letter aside and picking up his knife and fork again. ‘How very sad that poor Major Roach was killed by an Ickabog just before we began to turn the tables on the monsters!’

‘Very sad, sire, yes,’ agreed Spittleworth, who, of course, had explained away Major Roach’s sudden disappearance by telling the king he’d laid down his life in the Marshlands, trying to prevent the Ickabog coming south.

‘Well, this all makes sense of something I’ve been wondering about,’ said Fred. ‘The servants are constantly singing the national anthem, have you heard them? Jolly uplifting and all that, but it does become a bit samey. But this is why – they’re celebrating our triumph over the Ickabogs, aren’t they?’

‘That must be it, sire,’ said Spittleworth.

In fact, the singing was coming from the prisoners in the dungeons, not the servants, but Fred was unaware that he had fifty or so people trapped in the dungeons beneath him.

‘We should hold a ball in celebration!’ said Fred. ‘We haven’t had a ball for a very long time. It seems an age since I danced with Lady Eslanda.’

‘Nuns don’t dance,’ said Spittleworth crossly. He stood up abruptly. ‘Flapoon, a word.’

The two lords were halfway towards the door when the king commanded:

‘Wait.’

Both turned. King Fred looked suddenly displeased.

‘Neither of you asked permission to leave the king’s table.’

The two lords exchanged glances, then Spittleworth bowed and Flapoon copied him.

‘I crave Your Majesty’s pardon,’ said Spittleworth. ‘It’s simply that if we are to act on your excellent suggestion of having a dead Ickabog stuffed, sire, we must act quickly. It might, ah, rot, otherwise.’

‘All the same,’ said Fred, fingering the golden medal he wore around his neck, which was embossed with the picture of the king fighting a dragonish monster, ‘I remain the king, Spittleworth. Your king.’

‘Of course, sire,’ said Spittleworth, bowing low again. ‘I live only to serve you.’

‘Hmm,’ said Fred. ‘Well, see that you remember it, and be quick about stuffing that Ickabog. I wish to display it to the people. Then we shall discuss the celebration ball.’

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 54: The Song of the Ickabog

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The Ickabog had just drawn breath, with its usual sound of an inflating bagpipe, when Daisy said:

‘What language do you sing in, Ickabog?’

The Ickabog looked down at her, startled to find Daisy so close. At first, Daisy thought it wasn’t going to answer, but at last it said in its slow, deep voice:

‘Ickerish.’

‘And what’s the song about?’

‘It’s the story of Ickabogs – and of your kind, too.’

‘You mean, people?’ asked Daisy.

‘People, yes,’ said the Ickabog. ‘The two stories are one story, because people were Bornded out of Ickabogs.’

It drew in its breath to sing again, but Daisy asked: ‘What does “Bornded” mean? Is it the same as born?’

‘No,’ said the Ickabog, looking down at her, ‘Bornded is very different from being born. It’s how new Ickabogs come to be.’

Daisy wanted to be polite, seeing how enormous the Ickabog was, so she said cautiously:

‘That does sound a bit like being born.’

‘Well, it isn’t,’ said the Ickabog, in its deep voice. ‘Born and Bornded are very different things. When babies are Bornded, we who have Bornded them die.’

‘Always?’ asked Daisy, noticing how the Ickabog absent-mindedly rubbed its tummy as it spoke.

‘Always,’ said the Ickabog. ‘That is the way of the Ickabog. To live with your children is one of the strangenesses of people.’

‘But that’s so sad,’ said Daisy slowly. ‘To die when your children are born.’

‘It isn’t sad at all,’ said the Ickabog. ‘The Bornding is a glorious thing! Our whole lives lead up to the Bornding. What we’re doing and what we’re feeling when our babies are Bornded gives them their natures. It is very important to have a good Bornding.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Daisy.

‘If I die sad and hopeless,’ explained the Ickabog, ‘my babies won’t survive. I’ve watched my fellow Ickabogs die in despair, one by one, and their babies survived them only by seconds. An Ickabog can’t live without hope. I’m the last Ickabog left, and my Bornding will be the most important Bornding in history, because if my Bornding goes well, our species will survive, and if not, Ickabogs will be gone forever…

‘All our troubles began from a bad Bornding, you know.’

‘Is that what your song’s about?’ asked Daisy. ‘The bad Bornding?’

The Ickabog nodded, its eyes fixed on the darkening, snowy marsh. Then it took yet another deep bagpipe breath, and began to sing, and this time it sang in words that the humans could understand.

‘At the dawn of time, when only

Ickabogs existed, stony

Man was not created, with his

Cold, flint-hearted ways,

Then the world in its perfection

Was like heaven’s bright reflection.

No one hunted us or harmed us

In those lost, beloved days.

Oh Ickabogs, come Bornding back,

Come Bornding back, my Ickabogs.

Oh Ickabogs, come Bornding back,

Come Bornding back, my own.

Then tragedy! One stormy night

Came Bitterness, Bornded of Fright,

And Bitterness, so tall and stout,

Was different from its fellows.

Its voice was rough, its ways were mean,

The likes of it had not been seen

Before, and so they drove it out

With angry blows and bellows.

Oh Ickabogs, be Bornded wise,

Be Bornded wise, my Ickabogs.

Oh Ickabogs, be Bornded wise,

Be Bornded wise, my own.

A thousand miles from its old home,

Its Bornding time arrived, alone

In darkness, Bitterness expired

And Hatred came to being.

A hairless Ickabog, this last,

A beast sworn to avenge the past.

With bloodlust was the creature fired,

Its evil eye far-seeing.

Oh Ickabogs, be Bornded kind,

Be Bornded kind, my Ickabogs.

Oh Ickabogs, be Bornded kind,

Be Bornded kind, my own.

 Then Hatred spawned the race of man,

’Twas from ourselves that man began,

From Bitterness and Hate they swelled

To armies, raised to smite us.

In hundreds, Ickabogs were slain,

Our blood poured on the land like rain.

Our ancestors like trees were felled,

And still men came to fight us.

 Oh Ickabogs, be Bornded brave,

Be Bornded brave, my Ickabogs.

Oh Ickabogs, be Bornded brave,

Be Bornded brave, my own.

Men forced us from our sunlit home,

Away from grass to mud and stone,

Into the endless fog and rain.

And here we stayed and dwindled,

’Til of our race there’s only one

Survivor of the spear and gun

Whose children must begin again

With hate and fury kindled.

Oh Ickabogs, now kill the men,

Now kill the men, my Ickabogs.

Oh Ickabogs, now kill the men,

Now kill the men, my own.’

Daisy and the Ickabog sat in silence for a while after the Ickabog had finished singing. The stars were coming out now. Daisy fixed her eyes on the moon as she said:

‘How many people have you eaten, Ickabog?’

The Ickabog sighed.

‘None, so far. Ickabogs like mushrooms.’

‘Are you planning on eating us when your Bornding time comes?’ Daisy asked. ‘So your babies are born believing Ickabogs eat people? You want to turn them into people killers, don’t you? To take back your land?’

The Ickabog looked down at her. It didn’t seem to want to answer, but at last it nodded its huge, shaggy head. Behind Daisy and the Ickabog, Bert, Martha, and Roderick exchanged terrified glances by the light of the dying fire.

‘I know what it’s like to lose the people you love the most,’ said Daisy quietly. ‘My mother died, and my father disappeared. For a long time, after my father went away, I made myself believe that he was still alive, because I had to, or I think I’d have died as well.’

Daisy got to her feet to look up into the Ickabog’s sad eyes.

‘I think people need hope nearly as much as Ickabogs do. But,’ she said, placing her hand over her heart, ‘my mother and father are both still in here, and they always will be. So when you eat me, Ickabog, eat my heart last. I’d like to keep my parents alive as long as I can.’

She walked back into the cave, and the four humans settled down on their piles of wool again, beside the fire.

A little later, sleepy though she was, Daisy thought she heard the Ickabog sniff.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 53: The Mysterious Monster

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It was several days before Daisy, Bert, Martha, and Roderick plucked up the courage to do anything other than eat the frozen food that the Ickabog brought them from the wagon, and watch the monster eat the mushrooms it foraged for itself. Whenever the Ickabog went out (always rolling the enormous boulder into the mouth of the cave, to stop them escaping) they discussed its strange ways, but in low voices, in case it was lurking on the other side of the boulder, listening.

One thing they argued about was whether the Ickabog was a boy or a girl. Daisy, Bert, and Roderick all thought it must be male, because of the booming depth of its voice, but Martha, who’d looked after sheep before her family had starved to death, thought the Ickabog was a girl.

‘Its belly’s growing,’ she told them. ‘I think it’s going to have babies.’

The other thing the children discussed, of course, was exactly when the Ickabog was likely to eat them, and whether they were going to be able to fight it off when it tried.

‘I think we’ve got a bit of time yet,’ said Bert, looking at Daisy and Martha, who were still very skinny from their time at the orphanage. ‘You two wouldn’t make much of a meal.’

‘If I got it round the back of the neck,’ said Roderick, miming the action, ‘and Bert hit it really hard in the stomach—’

‘We’ll never be able to overpower the Ickabog,’ said Daisy. ‘It can move a boulder as big as itself. We’re nowhere near strong enough.’

‘If only we had a weapon,’ said Bert, standing up and kicking a stone across the cave.

‘Don’t you think it’s odd,’ said Daisy, ‘that all we’ve seen the Ickabog eat is mushrooms? Don’t you feel as though it’s pretending to be fiercer than it really is?’

‘It eats sheep,’ said Martha. ‘Where did all this wool come from, if it hasn’t eaten sheep?’

‘Maybe it just saved up wisps of wool caught on brambles?’ suggested Daisy, picking up a bit of the soft, white fluff. ‘I still don’t understand why there aren’t any bones in here, if it’s in the habit of eating creatures.’

‘What about that song it sings every night?’ said Bert. ‘It gives me the creeps. If you ask me, that’s a battle song.’

‘It scares me too,’ agreed Martha.

‘I wonder what it means?’ said Daisy.

A few minutes later, the giant boulder at the mouth of the cave shifted again, and the Ickabog reappeared with its two baskets, one full of mushrooms as usual, and the other packed with frozen Kurdsburg cheeses.

Everyone ate without talking, as they always did, and after the Ickabog had tidied away its baskets and poked up the fire, it moved, as the sun was setting, to the mouth of the cave, ready to sing its strange song, in the language the humans couldn’t understand.

Daisy stood up.

‘What are you doing?’ whispered Bert, grabbing her ankle. ‘Sit down!’

‘No,’ said Daisy, pulling herself free. ‘I want to talk to it.’

So she walked boldly to the mouth of the cave, and sat down beside the Ickabog.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 52: Mushrooms

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 54: The Song of the Ickabog »

Some hours later, Daisy woke up, but at first she didn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t remember being this cosy since childhood, when she’d slept beneath a patchwork quilt stitched by her mother, and woken every winter morning to the sound of a fire crackling in her grate. She could hear the fire crackling now, and smell venison pies heating in the oven, so she knew she must be dreaming that she was back at home with both her parents.

But the sound of flames and the smell of pie were so real it then occurred to Daisy that instead of dreaming, she might be in heaven. Perhaps she’d frozen to death on the edge of the marsh? Without moving her body, she opened her eyes and saw a flickering fire, and the rough-hewn walls of what seemed to be a very large cavern, and she realised she and her three companions were lying in a large nest of what seemed to be unspun sheep’s wool.

There was a gigantic rock beside the fire, which was covered with long greenish-brown marsh weed. Daisy gazed at this rock until her eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness. Only then did she realise that the rock, which was as tall as two horses, was looking back at her.

Even though the old stories said the Ickabog looked like a dragon, or a serpent, or a drifting ghoul, Daisy knew at once that this was the real thing. In panic, she closed her eyes again, reached out a hand through the soft mass of sheep’s wool, found one of the others’ backs, and poked it.

‘What?’ whispered Bert.

‘Have you seen it?’ whispered Daisy, eyes still tightly shut.

‘Yes,’ breathed Bert. ‘Don’t look at it.’

‘I’m not,’ said Daisy.

‘I told you there was an Ickabog,’ came Martha’s terrified whisper.

‘I think it’s cooking pies,’ whispered Roderick.

All four lay quite still, with their eyes closed, until the smell of venison pie became so deliciously overpowering that each of them felt it would be almost worth dying to jump up, snatch a pie and maybe wolf down a few mouthfuls before the Ickabog could kill them.

Then they heard the monster moving. Its long coarse hair rustled, and its heavy feet made loud muffled thumps. There was a clunk, as though the monster had laid down something heavy. Then a low, booming voice said:

‘Eat them.’

All four opened their eyes.

You might think the fact that the Ickabog could speak their language would be a huge shock, but they were already so stunned that the monster was real, that it knew how to make fires and that it was cooking venison pies, that they barely stopped to consider that point. The Ickabog had placed a rough-hewn wooden platter of pies beside them on the floor, and they realised that it must have taken them from the frozen stock of food on the abandoned wagon.

Slowly and cautiously, the four friends moved into sitting positions, staring up into the large, mournful eyes of the Ickabog, which peered at them through the tangle of long, coarse, greenish hair that covered it from head to foot. Roughly shaped like a person, it had a truly enormous belly, and huge shaggy paws, each of which had a single sharp claw.

‘What do you want with us?’ asked Bert, bravely.

In its deep, booming voice the Ickabog replied:

‘I’m going to eat you. But not yet.’

The Ickabog turned, picked up a pair of baskets, which were woven from strips of bark, and walked away to the mouth of the cave. Then, as though a sudden thought had struck it, the Ickabog turned back to them and said, ‘Roar.’

It didn’t actually roar. It simply said the word. The four teenagers stared at the Ickabog, which blinked, then turned round and walked out of the cave, a basket in each paw. Then a boulder as large as the cave mouth rumbled its way across the entrance, to keep the prisoners inside. They listened as the Ickabog’s footsteps crunched through the snow outside, and died away.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 50: A Winter’s Journey

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 52: Mushrooms »

No harder journey had been made, in all of Cornucopia’s history, than the trek of those four young people to the Marshlands.

It was the bitterest winter the kingdom had seen for a hundred years, and by the time the dark outline of Jeroboam had vanished behind them, the snow was falling so thickly it dazzled their eyes with whiteness. Their thin, patched clothes and their torn blankets were no match for the freezing air, which bit at every part of them like tiny, sharp-toothed wolves.

If not for Martha, it would have been impossible to find their way, but she was familiar with the country north of Jeroboam and, in spite of the thick snow now covering every landmark, she recognised old trees she used to climb, odd-shaped rocks that had always been there, and ramshackle sheep sheds that had once belonged to neighbours. Even so, the further north they travelled, the more all of them wondered in their hearts whether the journey would kill them, though they never spoke the thought aloud. Each felt their body plead with them to stop, to lie down in the icy straw of some abandoned barn, and give up.

On the third night, Martha knew they were close, because she could smell the familiar ooze and brackish water of the marsh. All of them regained a little hope: they strained their eyes for any sign of torches and fires in the soldiers’ encampment, and imagined they heard men talking, and the jingling of horses’ harnesses, through the whistling wind. Every now and then they saw a glint in the distance, or heard a noise, but it was always just the moonlight reflecting on a frozen puddle, or a tree creaking in the blizzard.

At last they reached the edge of the wide expanse of rock, marsh, and rustling weed, and they realised there were no soldiers there at all.

The winter storms had caused a retreat. The commander, who was privately certain there was no Ickabog, had decided that he wasn’t going to let his men freeze to death just to please Lord Spittleworth. So he’d given the order to head south, and if it hadn’t been for the thick snow, which was still falling so fast it covered all tracks, the friends might have been able to see the soldiers’ five-day-old footprints, going in the opposite direction.

‘Look,’ said Roderick, pointing as he shivered. ‘They were here…’

A wagon had been abandoned in the snow because it had got stuck, and the soldiers wanted to escape the storm quickly. The foursome approached the wagon and saw food, food such as Bert, Daisy, and Roderick remembered only from their dreams, and which Martha had never seen in her life. Heaps of creamy Kurdsburg cheeses, piles of Chouxville pastries, sausages and venison pies of Baronstown, all sent to keep the camp commander and his soldiers happy, because there was no food to be had in the Marshlands.

Bert reached out numb fingers to try and take a pie, but a thick layer of ice now covered the food, and his fingers simply slid off.

He turned a hopeless face to Daisy, Martha, and Roderick, all of whose lips were now blue. Nobody said anything. They knew they were going to die of cold on the edge of the Ickabog’s marsh and none of them really cared any longer. Daisy was so cold that to sleep forever seemed a wonderful idea. She barely felt the added chill as she sank slowly into the snow. Bert sank down and put his arms around her, but he too was feeling sleepy and strange. Martha leant up against Roderick, who tried to draw her under his blanket. Huddled together beside the wagon, all four were soon unconscious, and the snow crept up their bodies as the moon began to rise.

And then a vast shadow rippled over them. Two enormous arms covered in long green hair, like marsh weed, descended upon the four friends. As easily as if they were babies, the Ickabog scooped them up and bore them away across the marsh.

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 49: Escape from Ma Grunter’s

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 51: Inside the Cave »

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Previous writing: « The Ickabog – Chapter 48: Bert and Daisy Find Each Other

Next writing: The Ickabog – Chapter 50: A Winter’s Journey »

The chill of winter was felt in Ma Grunter’s orphanage, too. Children in rags who are fed only on cabbage soup cannot withstand coughs and colds as easily as children who are well fed. The little cemetery at the back of the orphanage saw a steady stream of Johns and Janes who’d died for lack of food, and warmth, and love, and they were buried without anybody knowing their real names, although the other children mourned them.

The sudden spate of deaths was the reason Ma Grunter had sent Basher John out onto the streets of Jeroboam, to round up as many homeless children as he could find, to keep up her numbers. Inspectors came to visit three times a year to make sure she wasn’t lying about how many children were in her care. She preferred to take in older children, if possible, because they were hardier than the little ones.

The gold she received for each child had now made Ma Grunter’s private rooms in the orphanage some of the most luxurious in Cornucopia, with a blazing fire and deep velvet armchairs, thick silk rugs and a bed with soft woollen blankets. Her table was always provided with the finest food and wine. The starving children caught whiffs of heaven as Baronstown pies and Kurdsburg cheeses passed into Ma Grunter’s apartment. She rarely left her rooms now except to greet the inspectors, leaving Basher John to manage the children.

Daisy Dovetail paid little attention to the two new boys when they first arrived. They were dirty and ragged, as were all newcomers, and Daisy and Martha were busy trying to keep as many of the smaller children alive as was possible. They went hungry themselves to make sure the little ones got enough to eat, and Daisy carried bruises from Basher John’s cane because she often inserted herself between him and a smaller child he was trying to hit. If she thought about the new boys at all, it was to despise them for agreeing to be called John without putting up any sort of fight. She wasn’t to know that it suited the two boys very well for nobody to know their real names.

A week after Bert and Roderick arrived at the orphanage, Daisy and her best friend Martha held a secret birthday party for Hetty Hopkins’ twins. Many of the youngest children didn’t know when their birthdays were, so Daisy picked a date for them, and always made sure it was celebrated, if only with a double portion of cabbage soup. She and Martha always encouraged the little ones to remember their real names, too, although they taught them to call each other John and Jane in front of Basher John.
Daisy had a special treat for the twins. She’d actually managed to steal two real Chouxville pastries from a delivery for Ma Grunter several days before, and saved them for the twins’ birthday, even though the smell of the pastries had tortured Daisy and it had been hard to resist eating them herself.

‘Oh, it’s lovely,’ sighed the little girl through tears of joy.

‘Lovely,’ echoed her brother.

‘Those came from Chouxville, which is the capital,’ Daisy told them. She tried to teach the smaller children the things she remembered from her own interrupted schooldays, and often described the cities they’d never seen. Martha liked hearing about Kurdsburg, Baronstown and Chouxville, too, because she’d never lived anywhere but the Marshlands and Ma Grunter’s orphanage.

The twins had just swallowed the last crumbs of their pastries, when Basher John came bursting into the room. Daisy tried to hide the plate, on which was a trace of cream, but Basher John had spotted it.

‘You,’ he bellowed, approaching Daisy with the cane held up over his head, ‘have been stealing again, Ugly Jane!’ He was about to bring it down on her when he suddenly found it caught in mid-air. Bert had heard the shouting and gone to find out what was going on. Seeing that Basher John had cornered a skinny girl in much-patched overalls, Bert grabbed and held the cane on the way down.

‘Don’t you dare,’ Bert told Basher John in a low growl. For the first time, Daisy heard the new boy’s Chouxville accent, but he looked so different to the Bert she’d once known, so much older, so much harder-faced, that she didn’t recognise him. As for Bert, who remembered Daisy as a little olive-skinned girl with brown pigtails, he had no idea he’d ever met the girl with the burning eyes before.

Basher John tried to pull his cane free of Bert’s grip, but Roderick came to Bert’s aid. There was a short fight, and for the first time in any of the children’s memories, Basher John lost. Finally, vowing revenge, he left the room with a cut lip, and word spread in whispers around the orphanage that the two new boys had rescued Daisy and the twins, and that Basher John had slunk off looking stupid.

Later that evening, when all the orphanage children were settling down for bed, Bert and Daisy passed each other on an upstairs landing, and they paused, a little awkwardly, to talk to each other.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Daisy, ‘for earlier.’

‘You’re welcome,’ said Bert. ‘Does he often behave like that?’

‘Quite often,’ said Daisy, with a little shrug. ‘But the twins got their pastries. I’m very grateful.’

Bert now thought he saw something familiar in the shape of Daisy’s face, and heard the trace of Chouxville in her voice. Then he looked down at the ancient, much-washed overalls, onto which Daisy had had to sew extra lengths to the legs.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

Daisy glanced around to make sure they weren’t being overheard.

‘Daisy,’ she said. ‘But you must remember to call me Jane when Basher John’s around.’

‘Daisy,’ gasped Bert. ‘Daisy – it’s me! Bert Beamish!’

Daisy’s mouth fell open, and before they knew it, they were hugging and crying, as though they’d been transformed back into small children in those sunlit days in the palace courtyard, before Daisy’s mother had died, and Bert’s father had been killed, when Cornucopia had seemed the happiest place on earth.

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The kitchen workers in the palace were most surprised to hear from Lord Spittleworth that Mrs Beamish had requested her own, separate kitchen, because she was so much more important than they were. Indeed, some of them were suspicious, because Mrs Beamish had never been stuck up, in all the years they’d known her. However, as her cakes and pastries were still appearing regularly at the king’s table, they knew she was alive, wherever she was, and like many of their fellow countrymen, the servants decided it was safest not to ask questions.

Meanwhile, life in the palace dungeons had been utterly transformed. A stove had been fitted in Mrs Beamish’s cell, her pots and pans had been brought down from the kitchens, and the prisoners in neighbouring cells had been trained up to help her perform the different tasks that went into producing the feather-light pastries that made her the best baker in the kingdom. She demanded the doubling of the prisoners’ rations (to make sure they were strong enough to whisk and fold, to measure and weigh, to sift and pour) and a rat catcher to clean the place of vermin, and a servant to run between the cells, handing out different implements through the bars.

The heat from the stove dried out the damp walls. Delicious smells replaced the stench of mould and dank water. Mrs Beamish insisted that each of the prisoners had to taste a finished cake, so that they understood the results of their efforts. Slowly, the dungeon started to be a place of activity, even of cheerfulness, and prisoners who’d been weak and starving before Mrs Beamish arrived were gradually fattening up. In this way she kept busy, and tried to distract herself from her worries about Bert.

All the time the rest of the prisoners baked, Mr Dovetail sang the national anthem, and kept carving giant Ickabog feet in the cell next door. His singing and banging had enraged the other prisoners before Mrs Beamish arrived, but now she encouraged everyone to join in with him. The sound of all the prisoners singing the national anthem drowned out the perpetual noises of his hammer and chisel, and the best of it was that when Spittleworth ran down into the dungeons to tell them to stop making such a racket, Mrs Beamish said innocently that surely it was treason, to stop people singing the national anthem? Spittleworth looked foolish at that, and all the prisoners bellowed with laughter. With a leap of joy, Mrs Beamish thought she heard a weak, wheezy chuckle from the cell next door.

Mrs Beamish might not have known much about madness, but she knew how to rescue things that seemed spoiled, like curdled sauces and falling soufflés. She believed Mr Dovetail’s broken mind might yet be mended, if only he could be brought to understand that he wasn’t alone, and to remember who he was. And so every now and then Mrs Beamish would suggest songs other than the national anthem, trying to jolt Mr Dovetail’s poor mind onto a different course that might bring him back to himself.

And at last, to her amazement and joy, she heard him joining in with the Ickabog drinking song, which had been popular even in the days long before people thought the monster was real.

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

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

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

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

Setting down the tray of cakes she’d just taken out of the stove, Mrs Beamish jumped up onto her bed, and spoke softly through the crack high in the wall.

‘Daniel Dovetail, I heard you singing that silly song. It’s Bertha Beamish here, your old friend. Remember me? We used to sing that a long time ago, when the children were tiny. My Bert, and your Daisy. D’you remember that, Dan?’

She waited for a response and in a little while, she thought she heard a sob.

You may think this strange, but Mrs Beamish was glad to hear Mr Dovetail cry, because tears can heal a mind, as well as laughter.

And that night, and for many nights afterwards, Mrs Beamish talked softly to Mr Dovetail through the crack in the wall, and after a while he began to talk back. Mrs Beamish told Mr Dovetail how terribly she regretted telling the kitchen maid what he’d said about the Ickabog, and Mr Dovetail told her how wretched he’d felt, afterwards, for suggesting that Major Beamish had fallen off his horse. And each promised the other that their child was alive, because they had to believe it, or die.

A freezing chill was now stealing into the dungeons through its one high, tiny, barred window. The prisoners could tell a hard winter was approaching, yet the dungeon had become a place of hope and healing. Mrs Beamish demanded more blankets for all her helpers and kept her stove burning all night, determined that they would survive.

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