The Ickabog(28)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Thank you very much, my lord,” said the footman, bowing low.

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

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

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

“A carpenter,” repeated Spittleworth out loud. “A carpenter …”

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





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

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

“Already?” said Mr. Dovetail. “I only mended that last month.”

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

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

“Good morning,” said Mr. Dovetail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, my lord,” said Mr. Dovetail in a low voice. “I understand.”

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

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

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