‘Nonsense, Your Majesty,’ said Spittleworth bracingly. ‘I’ve devised a whole raft of measures for your protection.’
So saying, Spittleworth took hold of one of the scrolls he’d brought with him and unrolled it. There, covering most of the table, was a coloured picture of a monster that resembled a dragon. It was huge and ugly, with thick black scales, gleaming white eyes, a tail that ended in a poisonous spike, a fanged mouth large enough to swallow a man, and long, razor-sharp claws.
‘There are several problems to be overcome, when defending against an Ickabog,’ said Professor Fraudysham, now taking out a short stick and pointing in turn to the fangs, the claws, and the poisonous tail. ‘But the most difficult challenge is that killing an Ickabog causes two new Ickabogs to emerge from the corpse of the first.’
‘Surely not?’ said Fred faintly.
‘Oh, yes, Your Majesty,’ said Fraudysham. ‘I’ve made a lifelong study of the monster, and I can assure you that my findings are quite correct.’
‘Your Majesty might remember that many of the old tales of the Ickabog make mention of this curious fact,’ interjected Spittleworth, who really needed the king to believe in this particular trait of the Ickabog, because most of his plan relied on it.
‘But it seems so – so unlikely!’ said Fred weakly.
‘It does seem unlikely on the face of it, doesn’t it, sire?’ said Spittleworth, with another bow. ‘In truth, it’s one of those extraordinary, unbelievable ideas that only the very cleverest people can grasp, whereas common folk – stupid folk, sire – giggle and laugh at the notion.’
Fred looked from Spittleworth to Flapoon to Professor Fraudysham; all three men seemed to be waiting for him to prove how clever he was, and naturally he didn’t want to seem stupid, so he said: ‘Yes… well, if the professor says it, that’s good enough for me… but if the monster turns into two monsters every time it dies, how do we kill it?’
‘Well, in the first phase of our plan, we don’t,’ said Spittleworth.
‘We don’t?’ said Fred, crestfallen.
Spittleworth now unrolled a second scroll, which showed a map of Cornucopia. The northernmost tip had a drawing of a gigantic Ickabog on it. All around the edge of the wide marsh stood a hundred little stick figures, holding swords. Fred looked closely to see whether any of them was wearing a crown, and was relieved to see that none were.
‘As you can see, Your Majesty, our first proposal is a special Ickabog Defence Brigade. These men will patrol the edge of the Marshlands, to ensure that the Ickabog can’t leave the marsh. We estimate the cost of such a brigade, including uniforms, weapons, horses, wages, training, board, lodging, sick pay, danger money, birthday presents, and medals to be around ten thousand gold ducats.’
‘Ten thousand ducats?’ repeated King Fred. ‘That’s a lot of gold. However, when it comes to protecting me – I mean to say, when it comes to protecting Cornucopia—’
‘Ten thousand ducats a month is a small price to pay,’ finished Spittleworth.
‘Ten thousand a month!’ yelped Fred.
‘Yes, sire,’ said Spittleworth. ‘If we’re to truly defend the kingdom, the expense will be considerable. However, if Your Majesty feels we could manage with fewer weapons—’
‘No, no, I didn’t say that—’
‘Naturally, we don’t expect Your Majesty to bear the expense alone,’ continued Spittleworth.
‘You don’t?’ said Fred, suddenly hopeful.
‘Oh, no, sire, that would be grossly unfair. After all, the entire country will benefit from the Ickabog Defence Brigade. I suggest we impose an Ickabog tax. We’ll ask every household in Cornucopia to pay one gold ducat a month. Of course, this will mean the recruitment and training of many new tax collectors, but if we raise the amount to two ducats, we’ll cover the cost of them, too.’
‘Admirable, Spittleworth!’ said King Fred. ‘What a brain you have! Why, two ducats a month – people will barely notice the loss.’
Chapter 22
The House with No Flags
And so a monthly tax of two gold ducats was imposed on every household in Cornucopia, to protect the country from the Ickabog. Tax collectors soon became a common sight on the streets of Cornucopia. They had large, staring white eyes like lamps painted on the back of their black uniforms. These were supposed to remind everybody of what the tax was for, but people whispered in the taverns that they were Lord Spittleworth’s eyes, watching to make sure everybody paid up.
Once they’d collected enough gold, Spittleworth decided to raise a statue to the memory of one of the Ickabog’s victims, to remind people what a savage beast it was. At first Spittleworth planned a statue of Major Beamish, but his spies in the taverns of Chouxville reported that it was Private Buttons’s story that had really captured the public imagination. Brave young Buttons, who’d volunteered to gallop off into the night with the news of his major’s death, only to end up in the Ickabog’s jaws himself, was generally felt to be a tragic, noble figure deserving of a handsome statue. Major Beamish, on the other hand, seemed merely to have died by accident, blundering unwisely across the foggy marsh in the dark. In fact, the drinkers of Chouxville felt quite resentful towards Beamish, as the man who’d forced Nobby Buttons to risk his life.
Happy to bow to the public mood, Spittleworth had a statue of Nobby Buttons made, and placed it in the middle of the largest public square in Chouxville. Seated on a magnificent charger, with his bronze cloak flying out behind him and a look of determination on his boyish face, Buttons was forever frozen in the act of galloping back to the City-Within-The-City. It became fashionable to lay flowers around the statue’s base every Sunday. One rather plain young woman, who laid flowers every day of the week, claimed she’d been Nobby Buttons’ girlfriend.
Spittleworth also decided to spend some gold on a scheme to keep the king diverted, because Fred was still too scared to go hunting, in case the Ickabog had sneaked south somehow and pounced on him in the forest. Bored of entertaining Fred, Spittleworth and Flapoon had come up with a plan.
‘We need a portrait of you fighting the Ickabog, sire! The nation demands it!’
‘Does it really?’ said the king, fiddling with his buttons, which that day were made of emeralds. Fred remembered the ambition he’d formed, the morning he’d first tried on battledress, of being painted killing the Ickabog. He liked this idea of Spittleworth’s very much, so he spent the next two weeks choosing and being fitted for a new uniform, because the old one was much stained by the marsh, and having a replacement jewelled sword made. Then Spittleworth hired the best portrait painter in Cornucopia, Malik Motley, and Fred began posing for weeks on end, for a portrait large enough to cover an entire wall of the Throne Room. Behind Motley sat fifty lesser artists, all copying his work, so as to have smaller versions of the painting ready to deliver to every city, town, and village in Cornucopia.
While he was being painted, the king amused Motley and the other artists by telling them the story of his famous fight with the monster, and the more he told the story, the more he found himself convinced of its truth. All of this kept Fred happily occupied, leaving Spittleworth and Flapoon free to run the country, and to divide up the trunks of gold left over each month, which were sent in the dead of night to the two lords’ estates in the country.