The Ickabog(21)
“Now, we ought to discuss tomorrow’s funerals. We’re intending to bury what’s left of Buttons next to Major Beamish. It is to be a state occasion, you know, with plenty of pomp and ceremony, and I think it would be a very nice touch if you could present the Medal for Outstanding Bravery Against the Deadly Ickabog to relatives of the dead men.”
“Oh, is there a medal?” said Fred.
“Certainly there is, sire, and that reminds me — you haven’t yet received your own.”
From an inner pocket, Spittleworth pulled out a most gorgeous gold medal, almost as large as a saucer. Embossed upon the medal was a monster with gleaming ruby eyes, which was being fought by a handsome, muscular man wearing a crown. The whole thing was suspended from a scarlet velvet ribbon.
“Mine?” said the king, wide-eyed.
“But of course, sire!” said Spittleworth. “Did Your Majesty not plunge your sword into the monster’s loathsome neck? We all remember it happening, sire!”
King Fred fingered the heavy gold medal. Though he said nothing, he was undergoing a silent struggle.
Fred’s honesty had piped up, in a small, clear voice: “It didn’t happen like that. You know it didn’t. You saw the Ickabog in the fog, you dropped your sword, and you ran away. You never stabbed it. You were never near enough!”
But Fred’s cowardice blustered louder than his honesty: “You’ve already agreed with Spittleworth that that’s what happened! What a fool you’ll look if you admit you ran away!”
And Fred’s vanity spoke loudest of all: “After all, I was the one who led the hunt for the Ickabog! I was the one who saw it first! I deserve this medal, and it will stand out beautifully against that black funeral suit.”
So Fred said:
“Yes, Spittleworth, it all happened just as you said. Naturally, one doesn’t like to boast.”
“Your Majesty’s modesty is legendary,” said Spittleworth, bowing low to hide his smirk.
The following day was declared a national day of mourning in honor of the Ickabog’s victims. Crowds lined the streets to watch Major Beamish’s and Private Buttons’s coffins pass on wagons drawn by plumed black horses.
King Fred rode behind the coffins on a jet-black horse, with the Medal for Outstanding Bravery Against the Deadly Ickabog bouncing on his chest and reflecting the sunlight so brightly that it hurt the eyes of the crowd. Behind the king walked Mrs. Beamish and Bert, also dressed in black, and behind them came a howling old woman in a ginger wig, who’d been introduced to them as Mrs. Buttons, Nobby’s mother.
“Oh, my Nobby,” she wailed as she walked. “Oh, down with the awful Ickabog, who killed my poor Nobby!”
The coffins were lowered into graves and the national anthem was played by the king’s buglers. Buttons’s coffin was particularly heavy, because it had been filled with bricks. The odd-looking Mrs. Buttons wailed and cursed the Ickabog again while ten sweating men lowered her son’s coffin into the ground. Mrs. Beamish and Bert stood quietly weeping.
Then King Fred called the grieving relatives forward to receive their men’s medals. Spittleworth hadn’t been prepared to spend as much money on Beamish and the imaginary Buttons as he’d spent on the king, so their medals were made of silver rather than gold. However, it made an affecting ceremony, especially as Mrs. Buttons was so overcome that she fell to the ground and kissed the king’s boots.
Mrs. Beamish and Bert walked home from the funeral and the crowds parted respectfully to let them pass. Only once did Mrs. Beamish pause, and that was when her old friend Mr. Dovetail stepped out of the crowd to tell her how sorry he was. The two embraced. Daisy wanted to say something to Bert, but the whole crowd was staring, and she couldn’t even catch his eye, because he was scowling at his feet. Before she knew it, her father had released Mrs. Beamish, and Daisy watched her best friend and his mother walk out of sight.
Once they were back in their cottage, Mrs. Beamish threw herself facedown on her bed where she sobbed and sobbed. Bert tried to comfort her, but nothing worked, so he took his father’s medal into his own bedroom and placed it on the mantelpiece.
Only when he stood back to look at it did he realize that he’d placed his father’s medal right beside the wooden Ickabog that Mr. Dovetail had carved for him so long ago. Until this moment, Bert hadn’t connected the toy Ickabog with the way his father had died.
Now he lifted the wooden model from its shelf, placed it on the floor, picked up a poker, and smashed the toy Ickabog to splinters. Then he picked up the remnants of the shattered toy and threw them into the fire. As he watched the flames leap higher and higher, he vowed that one day, when he was old enough, he’d hunt down the Ickabog, and revenge himself upon the monster that had killed his father.
The morning after the funerals, Spittleworth knocked on the door of the king’s apartments again and entered, carrying a lot of scrolls, which he let fall onto the table where the king sat.
“Spittleworth,” said Fred, who was still wearing his Medal for Outstanding Bravery Against the Deadly Ickabog, and had dressed in a scarlet suit, the better to show it off, “these cakes aren’t as good as usual.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Your Majesty,” said Spittleworth. “I thought it right for the widow Beamish to take a few days off work. These are the work of the under-pastry chef.”