The Ickabog(43)

“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!





The candle on the table beside Bert burned slowly downward 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 Defense Brigade, all carrying torches.

Bert leapt back from the window, snatched up the sweater on 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 gotten 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 gotten 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 neighboring fence, where he tunneled 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!”