King of the Wind Page 4

  Agba resumed his measuring. Fingers trembling, he placed his right hand on Sham’s withers. One! Left hand came alongside. Two! Right over left. Three! Left alongside right. Four!

  Right, left. Five, six.

  Twelve at the crest.

  Fifteen at the ears.

  Now over the poll and down the face. Right, left. Sixteen. Seventeen.

  Right, left. Eighteen. Nineteen.

  Nineteen at the upper lip!

  At that moment Agba felt the knotted stick on his shoulder. He wheeled around and faced the Signor.

  The Signor’s head was nodding up and down. “Aye,” he was saying. “This one is chosen. He measures one hand more than the best. His neck is made long to stretch out in running.”

  The Signor turned and was gone. Agba quickly closed the door of the stall behind him. Wild with excitement, he kissed the white spot on Sham’s heel. He sprang up on Sham’s back, and with his hands for a neck rein, he rode him around and around the stall until they both were dizzy.

  The seven days before their departure flew. Agba made a nosebag out of his turban to accustom Sham to the way he would have to eat on the overland journey to Tangier. He exercised him, increasing the distance each day. He took him to the farrier’s and watched, troubled, as the big-muscled man took a knife and a hammer and fitted Sham’s hooves to the shoes. Both he and Sham were covered with sweat when the shoeing was finally done.

  On the last night in the Sultan’s stables Agba hardly slept at all. He kept jumping down from his hammock and feeling inside the two great pockets which fitted over the cantle of his saddle. He wanted to make sure that nothing was missing: the leathern vessel for water, the fine new nosebag the Signor had given him, the rub-rag made of camel’s hair, the little earthen jug of rancid butter, called budra, with which to rub Sham’s legs, the fly crop made from the hairs of Sham’s tail.

  The stars were beginning to fade when at last he slept.

  9. Salem Alick!

  BY THE time dawn crept down the Atlas Mountains and filled the Meknes valley with long shafts of light, Signor Achmet and six horseboys, on their Arabian stallions, were on their way to the royal palace.

  Agba, first of the six, rode with his eyes fixed on the sun. It was climbing higher and higher, veering southward, nearer and nearer to the tower of the mosque. Now its outer rim was almost touching the slender needle.

  The Signor, too, was watching the sun. If he did not arrive at the exact moment the Sultan had specified, there was no telling what the punishment might be. He quickened his pace. Agba and the other boys did not need to urge their horses. They were eager to go, tossing their heads with impatience. Just as the sun slid behind the tower, the procession moved up the steep incline that led to the entrance of the palace grounds.

  And at that precise moment four bagpipers and four tomtom players tore the morning stillness to shreds. The palace gates were flung open and Sultan Mulai Ismael himself came riding toward them. He swayed on his horse like a ship at sea, and in his wake trailed an enormous following—the parasol holder, the fly-flickers, the groom, the spur-men, and slaves and foot soldiers without number.

  There was a flurry of movement along the walls. A thousand guards stood at attention. A thousand spears, like so many serpents’ tongues, were thrust into the air. A thousand throats shouted above the drums and the bagpipes, “May Allah bless the life of our Sultan!”

  Signor Achmet and the horseboys bowed until their noses brushed the manes of their mounts. Without answering the salutation, the royal procession swept past them, down the incline between rows of guards, and led the way to the city gates.

  In single file the Signor and the horseboys followed. Through the narrow public streets they rode. Buyers and sellers and saints and beggars joined the parade.

  Women, their faces half-hidden by veils, came out on the rooftops to watch and to add their high-voiced cries to the beating of the tom-toms and the skirling of the bagpipes.

  Discordant as the music was, there was a kind of rhythm and excitement to it, too. The horses kept time to it. The silken handkerchiefs of the fly-flickers and even the royal parasol waved to its rhythm.

  As the parade left the market place, Agba felt someone pull at his mantle. He looked out of the corner of his eye and caught the toothless grin of the camel driver.

  Agba smiled in quick recognition.

  The camel driver bellowed a huzza. Then he extended his arms to heaven as if this moment of sharing Agba’s glory was reward enough for all the camel’s milk he had given him.

  At last the procession reached the outer gate of the city. The music stopped. A great silence fell over the multitude as the Sultan, helped by his attendants, dismounted. With a jolting, camel-like trot he made his way to the six Arabians and tied a silken bag around the neck of each one. There was a dark red bag for the chestnut, a pale yellow one for the yellow dun, a gray bag for the dappled gray, a white bag for the white, a black one for the black, and for Sham there was a bag made of shiny gold cloth.

  The Sultan’s shrill voice pierced the quiet.

  “These bags,” he said, “contain the pedigree of each stallion. They also contain amulets of great power, amulets that will prevent and cure the bite of scorpions and protect your stallions from evil spirits. Guard these bags well. The King of France and Monsieur le duc will thus bear witness to my greatness.” He patted his chest and grinned until his eyes were hidden in their folds of fat.

  “Ride under the sun,” his voice intoned. “Ride under the rain water, blessed of Allah. Ride the golden hills of the Atlas Mountains. Ride through the green valleys and the regions of the plains. Ferry across the winding rivers. And when you have crossed the provinces of Errif and El Garb, then do you embark at Tangier and sail the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Travel in safety so that the King and Monsieur le duc will thus bear witness to my greatness.”

  He turned to Signor Achmet. His voice changed. “Give your horses the heel!” he shrieked. “Salem alick! Farewell!”

  “Alick salem!” cried the Signor, Then, clapping his spurs to his horse, he wheeled and rode out of the gate, followed by the six purest-bred stallions in the kingdom of Morocco.

  In the twinkling of an eye, horses and riders were gone, speeding toward the ship prepared for them.

  The Sultan returned to his palace with a smile of satisfaction, thinking how neatly his plans were working out.

  He did not know that the captain of the vessel had pocketed the money sent to buy corn and barley for the horses and had stuffed the sacks with straw instead. Nor did he know that the horseboys would be made to man the heavy sails on stormy seas. Nor that day after day they would be fed only on bread and water until they were skin and bones when, at last, they reached the coast of France.

  10. The Boy King

  IT WAS four weeks later to a day when Signor Achmet and his little company arrived at the court of Versailles. Monsieur le duc, the King’s adviser, was in the beauty salon at the time. He was calmly admiring himself in a mirror, when suddenly the pixie-like face of the King’s groom was reflected right alongside his own.

  “My lord duke! My lord duke!” the groom puffed. “I have news! News!”

  “What brings you to the beauty salon?” Monsieur spoke in an icy tone. “Is the stable afire?”

  “Oh, no, my lord.”

  “What is it, then?” he asked, viewing the back of his wig with a long-handled mirror.

  The elfin figure of the groom was agitated with excitement. “Why, ’tis a gift to His Majesty, the King,” he breathed. “A gift of six horses. They stand within the stable this very moment.”

  “Ha!” scoffed Monsieur le duc. “A hundred horses are in the royal stables. Yet you disturb my toilet with news of a paltry six more.”

  “But, my lord! They’ve come by land and by sea all the way from. . .”

  “Hold your tongue!” the Duke commanded. He turned to the gentleman-of-the-wigs. “You shall add forty more curls,” he s
aid, rolling the words on his tongue as if he were tasting a French pastry. “You shall do twenty on either side to form the effect of pigeons’ wings. What think you of it?”

  The gentleman-of-the-wigs raised the fingers of his right hand as if he were holding a teacup.

  “Exactement!” he grimaced. “Forty it shall be! Twenty on either side! It will be my masterpiece!” And he whisked the wig from Monsieur’s head, carefully replacing it with the old wig which, to the eyes of the groom, looked almost identical.

  The Duke turned to the groom. “Whence did you say the horses came?” he snapped.

  “I did not say, my lord.”

  “Well, speak up!”

  “From Africa, my lord. From Morocco. And, my lord, the bearer of the gift and his six horseboys will not leave the stable.”

  “What’s that? What’s that?”

  “They stand like stones. They will not leave. The chief fellow has a letter, and he will give it to no one but Monsieur le duc or His Majesty the King.” The groom tiptoed around the gentle-man-of-the-wigs and brought his face close to the Duke’s. “Methought you’d like to know,” he whispered, “that I have the King’s horse in readiness. In a moment he leaves for the chase. But, my lord,” the groom’s face broke into a sly smile, “methought you would like to come to the stable and read the letter first.”

  Monsieur le duc patted the groom’s shoulder with a jeweled hand. Then, upsetting a powder table in his haste, he snatched up his plumed hat and hurried to the stables with the groom running bow-legged behind him.

  As Mulai Ismael’s letter was being put into the Duke’s hands, King Louis XV, followed by twenty courtiers, walked into the royal stable. A great stillness seemed to come in with them. The only sound in that vast high-ceilinged building was made by Sham swishing a fly from his hip.

  The young King stopped stock still. He seemed transfixed by the pitiful gathering before him. Slowly, looking from one to the other, he studied the six stallions and the lead horse of Signor Achmet. They were carefully groomed, but so bony that each rib showed. And beside each stallion stood a thin, ragged horseboy, holding his charge on a lead rope.

  The King was about the same age as the horseboys, but there the likeness stopped. He wore high polished boots and golden spurs, and his breeches and coat were of velvet. The horseboys were barelegged, and the insides of their legs were covered with blue-green welts made by their stirrup straps on the long overland ride. And their bodies were wrapped in coarse, hooded cloaks.

  Agba was glad of the hood. It was like the protective shell of a turtle. He could see out, yet he felt that no one could see him. Had he only known, the darkness of his hood made glowing embers of his eyes.

  Monsieur le duc cleared his throat. He bowed low. “Your Majesty,” he sniveled, “may find this letter interesting. I know not what it says.”

  Louis XV looked past the Duke as if he did not exist.

  “Read it to me,” he said absently, without taking his eyes from the horses or the boys.

  “It bears the seal of Mulai Ismael,” the Duke said as he untied the silken cord and broke the red seal. His tongue passed rapidly over the complimentary phrases at the beginning. Then he read more slowly.

  “ ‘The bearer of this letter is come with six Arabian stallions as a gift to Your Majesty. These Sons of the Desert are strong and fleet. . .’ ”

  Here the Duke burst out laughing. “Really, Your Majesty, this is very amusing. The Sultan refers to these bags of bones as ‘strong and fleet and of purest Eastern blood.’ Pardon me, Your Majesty, but it is enough to make me die of laughter.”

  At the sound of his hollow laughter all the horses laced their ears back.

  The King’s face clouded. “Read on,” he said.

  “Very well. ‘They are descended from mares that once belonged to Mohammed.’ ” Now the Duke’s voice was full of mockery and scorn. “ ‘From henceforward,’ the letter reads, ‘you may use them to sire a better race of horses among you. They will strengthen and improve your breed.’ ”

  The King’s groom brought forward his mount. The horse was a big gelding, nearly twice the size of the Arabians. From his superior height, he looked down on the six stallions and let out a shrill whinny.

  The Duke shrieked with laughter. “See there, Your Majesty! Even your own horse is laughing. I trust you will send these old sand sifters back to the desert where they belong. The bony broomtails!”

  Agba’s fists clenched. He could not understand a word of this foreign tongue, but he knew that the man was laughing at Sham and the other horses. His burning eyes sought the King’s. He longed to tell him that the horses were gaunt only because of the terrible journey, and that soon they would be sleek and beautiful again. He longed to tell him how swift they were, and how brave.

  “Send a messenger to Bishop Fleury,” the King said to the groom. “Tell him the King awaits him.”

  The courtiers who were clustered behind the King drew a sigh. This was all very much like a play. Act One was over. Now there would be a little wait for Act Two.

  Monsieur le duc made his own use of the intermission. He drew a tiny snuff bottle out of his pocket and dipped into it with a miniature silver spoon. Then he fed each nostril a rounded spoonful of the snuff.

  “Your Majesty,” he said, pinching his nose and snuffing noisily. “Mulai Ismael insults the horses of France. He insults your own mount. But more dastardly, he insults your Royal Majesty.”

  Making a wry face, he let his glance wander over the chestnut, the dappled gray, the yellow dun, the black horse, the moon-colored horse. When he came to Sham he stopped short. “Monstrosity!” he spat out the word. “Nothing but skin and bones, and a crest so high you can hang your hat upon it! Fie! Pooh! Bah!”

  His face wrinkled until it looked not much bigger than a prune. Then the prune seemed to burst open, and the very stable trembled with the force of the Duke’s sneeze.

  Sham wheeled in fright. And to Agba’s horror his off hind hoof landed squarely on Monsieur le duc’s toe.

  Quick as a flash Agba lifted Sham’s foot. He could not help noticing, with the faintest of smiles, that it was the one with the white spot.

  With a mighty outcry the Duke grabbed his foot and went hopping about the stable like a one-legged bird.

  “Help! Help ho!” he cried while the courtiers and the horseboys tittered. Agba thought he saw a smile flicker across the King’s face, but he could not be sure. Bishop Fleury had arrived.

  Agba liked the Bishop at once. He had friendly blue eyes and wore no wig at all. His hair was powdered white by time. He bowed to the King first, then turned to the Duke, his eyes crinkled with suppressed laughter.

  “What is it, Monsieur le duc? What is it?” he asked.

  Monsieur le duc’s face was stained an angry red.

  “This—this clumsy, camel-necked nag!” he stammered. “He crushed my toe. What is more, he did it from a vile temper and . . .”

  “The Sultan’s letter,” the King interrupted. “I desire you to show it to Bishop Fleury.”

  “Read it to me, Monsieur le duc,” said the Bishop. “My eyes are fading.”

  Monsieur le due spared nothing in the reading. At the end he said, “I beg your pardon, Bishop Fleury, but the rains have spoiled the harvest. Corn is scarce. My advice to the King is to send these nags of small stature back to Africa.” His eyes fell on Sham. “Save one,” he added. “The chief cook is in need of a cart horse to drive to market.”

  The King looked to the Bishop with questioning eyes.

  “Dear son,” the Bishop said as he put a gentle hand on the boy’s head. “Pray look at your own stableful of horses. Pray look at your favorite mount. He is stout of limb, and lusty. These Arabian creatures are small. Moreover, corn is dear. Why do you not turn the high-crested creature over to the chief of the kitchen? He could draw a cart to market and bring back the food for your table. The other horses could be assigned to the army to transport supplies. They would thus nee
d far less to eat than if they were employed in the chase.”

  Agba’s and the King’s eyes met. It was the King who looked down first. He was King in name only. He had no power to change the order of the older men. He nodded his head listlessly. “Let it be as you say.” And without another glance at the stallions he mounted his great horse and rode away.

  11. The Thieves’ Kitchen

  ONLY AGBA and Sham remained in the King’s stables. Signor Achmet dared not go back to Morocco and face the wrath of the Sultan. He swallowed his pride and went along with the other horseboys, accepting a humble position as groom in the French army. Before he left, however, he took the bag from Sham’s neck and tied it around Agba’s. “The pedigree and the amulets will be safer with you, Agba,” he said, with a meaningful look at the King’s groom.

  In the days that followed, Sham regained his vigor. And with it seemed to come an intense distrust of everyone except Agba. With Agba in the driver’s seat, Sham’s way of going to market was so bold and handsome that journeymen turned round to gape at him. He pranced his way between the stalls of the pea-shellers and the artichoke-boilers as if he were making figure eights in the King’s courtyard. As for the harness and the degrading vehicle he pulled, one would have thought he wore purple housings and drew the King’s carriage!

  But if the chief cook so much as touched the reins, Sham took the bit and went where he pleased, and no amount of whip-lashing could control him. The people in the market place stood in open-mouthed wonder at the spirit of Sham. Secretly they admired the proud way he took the cook’s lashes. There was the plump apple woman who polished her apples with her apron. She soon made it a habit each market day to save two of her biggest apples—one for the fiery little horse and the other for the quiet boy. Even the vendor of sweets held back a pan of frosted pastries on the days when Sham was expected. And a farmer who had the turnip stall managed to keep from his wife a whole sackful of turnips for Sham.