The Ickabog

This summary section includes Chapter 33: “King Fred Is Worried,” Chapter 34: “Three More Feet,” Chapter 35: “Lord Spittleworth’s Proposal,” Chapter 36: “Cornucopia Hungry,” Chapter 37: “Daisy and the Moon,” Chapter 38: “Lord Spittleworth Comes to Call,” Chapter 39: “Bert and the Ickabog Defense Brigade,” Chapter 40: “Bert Finds a Clue,” and Chapter 41: “Mrs. Beamish’s Plan.”

The day after the attack in Baronstown, the king questions the two lords. He says the people don’t seem to like him as much as they once did. Lady Eslanda has told him that the high taxes are ruining his subjects and that no troops are stationed up north at all. Spittleworth discredits Eslanda’s information and proposes tripling the tax to provide more soldiers in the Marshlands. The king, not knowing what’s really going on in other parts of his realm, agrees.

Later that day, Spittleworth’s spy reports that people are suspicious of an Ickabog that only hops on one leg. His lordship immediately orders Dovetail to make two pairs of wooden feet. He also sends Roach north to the Marshlands to dispel rumors that nobody is stationed there. Then, he orders his henchmen to kidnap Lady Eslanda and bring her to his estate.

To explain Eslanda’s disappearance, Spittleworth spreads the rumor that she has unexpectedly joined a convent. When he has his captive locked in his mansion, he proposes marriage, which she rejects. He then threatens her family, but she is an orphan. Spittleworth imprisons her in his library since she likes reading so much. Eslanda is unmoved by the threat that she will die there.

After five years have passed, the prosperous kingdom of Cornucopia is wasting away: “The Ickabog tax was pushing people into poverty, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, everyone feared being the next to receive a visit from the Ickabog” (149). Many suspect the attacks are being made by men they call the Dark Footers because they leave Ickabog tracks behind, but everyone is afraid to speak up. The king is oblivious because Spittleworth has been careful to pour money into Chouxville so that everything appears prosperous there. However, the rest of the country suffers from poverty, starvation, and attacks by Dark Footers. These days, there are many more orphans, so Ma Grunter’s profit grows.

Daisy is still locked up in the orphanage, which has now expanded to accommodate 100 children. After all this time, she has lost hope that her father is still alive. The only belief that keeps her going is the conviction that she has an important part to play in saving Cornucopia. She thinks, “Who’d believe that a penniless girl locked up in an orphanage could save the country? Yet the strange belief burned stubbornly inside her, like a flame that refused to go out” (154).

Spittleworth makes an unexpected inspection of the orphanage because Ma Grunter had demanded more funds to expand her operation. While there, he encounters Daisy, who tells him about the moldy food and abuse that the orphans endure. Spittleworth doesn’t care. Fortunately, he doesn’t identify Daisy as Dovetail’s daughter.

Bert, now 15, feels that he’s old enough to join the defense brigade and avenge his father’s death. He appears before Roach and Flapoon, who discourage him from enlisting: “The last thing the Ickabog Defense Brigade needed was somebody who actually wanted to find an Ickabog” (163). The two reject Bert as unfit for soldiering because Bert’s teacher supposedly said he was a dunce. Disappointed, Bert returns home to find his mother reading a letter from an uncle up north. A mail coach has slipped past Spittleworth’s blockade, and news from other parts of the country has now reached Chouxville. Mrs. Beamish discovers that Cousin Harold in Jeroboam may lose his tavern. Everyone there is going hungry.

When Spittleworth realizes that information has reached the capital about the actual state of affairs, he is furious. He orders Roach to plan an attack that night on Chouxville. They hope to revive the citizens’ belief that the Ickabog is a real threat. The morning after the attack in which an old lady was killed, Bert visits the scene to study the Ickabog’s footprints. He wants to remember every detail for the day when he can hunt the creature himself.

Back at home, Bert is frustrated that he can’t join the brigade. He takes down the two medals his family received and studies them. One slips under the bed. When he dives to retrieve it, Bert finds a forgotten toy carved by Mr. Dovetail years earlier. It was an Ickabog, which Bert had smashed to pieces some time ago. Only the foot remains, and Bert is now struck by the similarity between the carved foot in his hand and the tracks at the monster’s latest attack scene.

That night, Bert shows his mother the carved foot, and she begins to realize all the lies she’s been told about her husband’s death and everything else that’s been going on in the kingdom. Mrs. Beamish still believes the king is a good man, so she plans to visit him late in the evening when the two lords are away. She tells Bert that if she doesn’t return in an hour, he’s to go north to stay with Cousin Harold: “She hugged him briefly. ‘You’re a clever boy. Never forget, you’re a soldier’s son, as well as a pastry chef’s’” (171).