King of the Wind Read online

  One day the chief cook insisted upon driving alone to market. He wanted to select a nice suckling pig for the King’s birthday dinner. “And,” he told Agba, “I need every inch of space for the live pig and for sausages and potatoes and mushrooms and herrings and eggs and chickens. You will stay in the kitchen and scour the pots.”

  Now, the cook told Agba only half the truth. What he really wanted was to be rid of Agba. It irked him that a mere sliver of a boy could manage the horse and he could not. If he could just get rid of the boy, he had a feeling he could master the horse.

  But he was wrong. Without Agba, Sham was mischief itself. He waited until the cart was groaning with vegetables and fish and fowl and the live pig. Then suddenly he became forked lightning. In and out among the market stalls he streaked. He overturned the cart, spewing chickens, herrings, eggs, the frightened pig, and an amazed cook high into the air!

  Children screamed. Fishmongers, marketwomen, eating-house keepers, slipped and stumbled. They shook their fists and shouted at the King’s cook.

  As he scrambled to his feet, the cook was so confused he did not know whether to chase the horse or the suckling pig! He darted first after one and then the other, and ended by catching neither. When the little apple woman quietly held out her hand and brought Sham to a halt, it was more than the cook could bear. He was beside himself with rage.

  “This settles it!” he cried. “Everyone but me can handle the crazy brute. I’ll sell him at the Horse Fair.”

  To horse traders, the Horse Fair was known by quite a different name. It was called the Thieves’ Kitchen because no one knew where the horses came from and nobody cared. No questions were asked.

  Red-faced and panting, the cook led Sham to the big open shed of the Thieves’ Kitchen. Sham was not winded in the least. He seemed actually to be enjoying the cook’s discomfiture.

  The cook cast a quick glance to the right and to the left. In all the long shed there was not another horsetrader in sight. He sighed with relief, for the fewer people who saw him in his disheveled condition the less talk there would be. If word of the lost pig and the runaway horse ever reached the royal kitchen, his high position would be ruined. The scullions, as they cleaned their pots and kettles, would whisper and laugh behind his back. He must sell the horse quickly. He resolved to get rid of him to the very first buyer.

  Scarcely had he blotted the splattered eggs from his over-blouse when a man walked past. He was enormous in build, and he stalked rather than walked, like a big tiger cat. His hat was pulled far down over his head and he looked neither to the one side nor to the other. Yet somehow the cook sensed that the man was in the vicinity of Thieves’ Kitchen for but one purpose. He was in need of a horse.

  Almost past the shed, he wheeled about and came skulking back, shaking his head as if suddenly remembering an errand.

  The cook could not see the face of the man, but he noticed the brutish size of him—hands big and broad, legs shaped like water casks. He noticed, too, that the man carried a horsewhip. A wood carter, he figured. Or a street hawker.

  “Ahem!” the cook cleared his throat. “Are you in need of a stout beast, sir?”

  The man stopped in his tracks.

  “No!” he snarled, pulling his hat even farther over his eyes. “Your price is too high.”

  “But, sir,” wheedled the cook, “I have not spoken to you about the price.”

  “I know you thieves,” the carter bawled out, waving the cook aside. “You steal a horse. Then ask a fortune for it.”

  A group of passers-by and idlers began surrounding the two men.

  The cook spoke in a low tone. “Name your price, my good man, and I’ll throw in the harness, too, and a slightly damaged cart with a few vegetables in it. He’s a good stout beast, he is.”

  “Why, that weed!” the carter threw back his head and bellowed. “He’s neither horse nor pony. Too small for one; too big for the other. Besides, his neck’s misshaped!”

  “But, sir,” pleaded the cook, “you’ve not even looked at the creature.”

  The carter motioned the growing crowd to close in. He thumped himself on the chest with the handle of his whip. “Me and all my friends here,” he roared, “we saw the whole show. Ho! Ho!” he snorted, “the beast made a fool out of you. He freed your pig and scrambled your eggs. Ho! Ho! Ho!”

  Then he brushed the people aside and began fumbling in his pockets, taking a little money from each one. “I’ll give you these francs for the nag,” he said. “Then I’ll teach him a thing or two.” And he cracked his whip sharply as if to prove his words.

  Sham felt the gust of wind made by the whip. He quivered, then went up on his hind legs and neighed shrilly.

  The cook laughed. He was not interested in Sham’s feelings. He was interested only in getting rid of the horse. That the man was brutish concerned him not at all. Quickly the deal was closed, and the carter led Sham away.

  12. Agba Becomes an Awakener

  WHEN THE chief cook returned alone, his clothes torn and his face grim, Agba knew that Sham was in trouble. He was beside himself with worry. He dogged the man’s footsteps, but he could learn only that Sham had been left in Paris. Why or where the cook stubbornly refused to tell.

  Finally he became so annoyed at Agba’s shadow that he booted the boy out of the kitchen door. “You, you tagtail!” he bawled out after him. “Stay out of my sight. Go find the beast yourself.”

  Agba fled to Paris. He haunted the market place, the Horse Fair, the stables of the inns. Night and day he searched the roads that led into the great city. He lived on nothing but apples which the apple woman gave him. When he did sleep, he curled up in a nest of straw in the very shed where Sham had been sold.

  One night the owner of a chocolate shop offered him a job as an awakener. “Ye seldom seem to sleep anyway,” he told Agba. “Ye may as well be paid for waking others. Besides, ye look as if ye needed some steaming chocolate to warm your belly and a kind word to warm your heart.”

  Agba was glad of the work. The chocolate shop was in the center of the market district and served carters and buyers. One among them might turn out to be the owner of Sham.

  Each night now he snatched a few hours of sleep in the shed at the Horse Fair. Then long before sunrise he would hurry to the chocolate shop, drink his pot of chocolate, and go to work. It was his job, as soon as the market stalls were ready for business, to awaken the customers who had arrived in the middle of the night and had fallen asleep over their cups.

  Some slept so deeply that no amount of shaking would rouse them. They had almost to be lifted to their feet. These heavy sleepers paid Agba two sous. The light sleepers paid him one sou. A few laughed in his face and did not pay him at all.

  One early summer evening when Agba was on his way to the shed, he decided to wander along the Boulevard St. Denis and wait for dark to fall. He stopped to watch the play of water in a marble fountain. There was something about the tinkling sound that reached far back into his memory. The street faded away. In its place was the Sultan’s garden. Agba could smell the orange blossoms and jasmine. He could hear the Sultan’s voice: “And one shall be a clear bay touched with gold.”

  He was hardly aware of the sound of cartwheels and the clomp-clomp of unshod hooves. Yet he closed the shutter on his dreams and from force of habit rather than hope turned to look at the animal.

  Something within him snapped. A small, dusty horse, harnessed to an empty cart, was coming toward him. The horse turned toward the fountain as if to drink, but the driver jerked him sharply away.

  Agba’s heart seemed to stop altogether, then suddenly began thumping. He waved to the man to stop.

  “Aside! You dog!” roared the carter as he struck Agba’s legs with the lash of his long whip.

  Agba jumped aside, his eyes never leaving the horse. He tried to make the little purling noises in his throat, but they would not come. No matter. This beaten creature could not be Sham. It was only the size that brought up h
is memory. There was no wheat ear on his chest. Or . . . could it be hidden by the collar of his harness? There was no white spot on his off hind heel. Or . . . could it be crusted with mud?

  Agba followed the cart past a big inn, past a theater of marionettes, past houses with gabled roofs that stared down at him with their triangular eyes, then down squalid old streets and narrow passages. Clop, clop. Clop, clop Clop, clop. Once the horse stumbled and Agba could hear the loud curses of the driver. Then clop, clop. Clop, clop. And just when Agba could bear the sound no longer, the horse turned into an extremely narrow alley and stopped before a rickety shed.

  Hiding behind a barrel, Agba peered around and saw that half of the shed was empty, the other half piled to the rafters with wood. He watched as a cat leaped out from the woodpile, streaked toward the horse, and landed lightly on his back. A weak whinny escaped the horse but it was lost in the carter’s scorn. “Grimalkin! You crazy tomcat!” he taunted, “still in love with your bony friend?”

  Agba saw the cart drawn into the shed, saw the driver hitch the horse to a ring on the wall, toss him a bundle of hay, and walk off into the deepening twilight.

  Slowly, slowly, the boy stole into the shed. He walked around the cart until at last he was standing face to face with the horse. He was near enough to touch the muzzle, near enough to stroke the gaunt neck, but he forced his hands to hang at his sides. Now the cat was mewing softly, and to his voice the boy added the only sounds he could make, the little purling noises like a brook on a summer’s day.

  The ears of the horse began to twitch. His nostrils quivered. Then without a sound he lowered his head and rubbed it against Agba’s shoulder.

  Agba did not need to look for the wheat ear or the white spot. It was Sham!

  13. A Strange Threesome

  THE CARTER allowed Agba to live in his shed not from kindness but because he could use the boy. He had long wanted someone to load his cart each morning. Now, a slave had come to him as if by magic. And it cost him nothing at all—in money or food or clothing.

  Agba gave up his job as awakener. Instead, he helped the fishmongers and the farm women at the market place by day, and so came to the alley at night with presents of little things that horses and cats like.

  It was a strange threesome: the boy, the cat, and the horse. Each evening, at the first sound of cartwheels, Grimalkin would fly out of the shed. With a quick leap he was on Sham’s back, miaowing and talking to him in his cat’s way.

  Agba would wait in silence, wait for the creaking wheels to come to a stop, wait for the deep bellowing roar of the carter. Always it was the same.

  “You mute! You numps! A horse and a cat for company! Out of my way!”

  At first the carter let Agba unharness Sham at night and tend his sores, but when he saw the fiery look return to Sham’s eyes he was not pleased. And when, one day, Sham seized him by the breeches and bit him viciously, the carter flew into a rage.

  “The brute can sleep harnessed and standing,” he told Agba. “A few harness sores’ll teach him to respect this!” And he snaked his whip in the air until it hissed.

  On Sundays, however, the carter never came near the shed, and it seemed as if all day long the cat never stopped purring and Sham neighed his happiness in a pitiful, thin sound. As for Agba, there was a silent rapture in the way he worked. He washed Sham. He dried and smoothed his coat. He rubbed the horse’s legs with the last of the budra which he had brought from Africa. He combed Sham’s tangled tail and mane. He made cooling poultices of wet leaves and applied them with gentle fingers to all of Sham’s sores. He packed the inner walls of Sham’s hooves with mud. And he fed him three times a day with the oats he had bought with his own money.

  As Agba ran his hand over the wheat ear on Sham’s chest or the white spot on his heel, the words of Signor Achmet kept beating in his ears.

  “The white spot against the wheat ear. The good sign against the bad. The one and the other.”

  The days shortened into winter. Despite Agba’s care, Sham’s coat was not coming in thick and glossy as it had in Morocco. It remained harsh and staring. And some nights he was too tired to eat. He would only mouth the food that Agba brought, and drop it listlessly. Day by day Agba watched the skin of Sham’s neck grow more and more flabby, and the hollow places above his eyes deepen.

  One fierce, cold morning, in the dead of winter, the carter startled the three creatures out of their sleep with a shrill whistle. He stood over them, rubbing his hands in pleasure. This was the kind of day he liked. Last night’s sleet had stopped. The air was sharpening. People would need plenty of wood to feed their fires. Business would be brisk.

  He stood with hands on hips, singing a coarse song while Agba loaded the cart. Usually he was satisfied when the load reached the top of the great cartwheels. But this day he ordered the logs laid higher and higher and he kicked Agba when the boy tried to interfere. At last he had to help tie the logs with a stout hempen cord to keep them from toppling.

  “Ho! Ho!” he sang out lustily as he swung his great hulking body atop the load, “I feel sorry for beasts on a frosty day like this, so I give ’em a big load to make ’em sweat. Allons!” he shouted, cracking his whip.

  Agba saw Sham slip on the icy ramp that led out of the shed. He saw the carter pull him up by a savage tug on the bit. Then horse and cart were lost in the darkness.

  Shopkeepers were opening their shutters and the tallow dips of the city were being snuffed out when the carter reached the Boulevard St. Denis.

  His first stop was at the Hôtel de Ville, a big gray building with lions at the entrance. To get to the service entrance Sham had to climb a steady upgrade from the street. But try as he would, he could get no footing on the icy cobble stones. Balls of ice had formed inside his hooves, and after many tries he was still pawing and slipping at the very bottom of the incline.

  The carter’s temper was growing short. He laid the whip across Sham’s bony hips. He stood up and lashed it across the horse’s ears. He shouted and cursed.

  “You tom-noddy! You puny nag! Back up, you beast of a carthorse!”

  Icicles were forming on Sham’s feelers, yet his body was wet with sweat. He backed up. He lowered his head, and as the whip struck him, he made a snatching pull. The load moved, and as if by some supernatural power Sham kept on going up the incline. When almost at the top, however, his forefeet began slipping. He clawed with them. The whip snarled and cracked. It cut deep into his hide. Groaning, he tried again, and again. His veins swelled to bursting.

  In spite of the bitter weather passers-by stopped to watch. A water-carrier set down his yoke, and stepped forward as if to protest. But one look at the livid face of the carter stopped him.

  Sham was sucking for breath, his nostrils going in and out, showing the red lining. Once more he threw himself against the collar of his harness. He struggled to keep his footing. The onlookers were pulling with him, breathing heavily, tensing their muscles as one man, straining, straining to help. But it was no use. With a low moan, Sham fell to his knees.

  A great crowd had gathered and a collection of dogs began barking as the carter jerked the reins, trying to lift Sham up by sheer force. But he was caught fast between the shafts of the cart. His eyes were wild and white-ringed with fear, his mouth bleeding.

  Leaping to the paving stones the carter braced the cart with a log. “Now,” he yelled to the crowd, “I’ll take my own faggots and build a fire under his tail. That’ll make the stubborn beast rise!”

  As he was reaching for his faggots, an Englishman of stately bearing made his way into the crowd. He wore the collarless black coat and the broad-brimmed black hat of a Quaker. Although his garments and manner were sober, there was a fiery look in his eye.

  “My friend,” he addressed the carter in perfect French, “I have long wanted a quiet old horse.” Opening his greatcoat he drew from his inner pocket a handful of gold. “I am prepared,” he said coolly, “to offer fifteen louis for the creature.�
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  At sight of the gold the carter’s mouth went agape. A greedy light leaped into his eyes. He dropped the faggots. “Fifteen louis for a done-up nag?” he asked incredulously.

  “Aye, friend,” the Quaker nodded. “I have need of a smallish horse for my son-in-law, Benjamin Biggle.”

  Even the onlookers were round-eyed now. Why, fifteen louis would buy a fine, high-stepping hackney!

  “I suppose ye want my cart and my wood, too,” the carter sniveled.

  “I want only the horse,” the Quaker replied. “I am Jethro Coke of London and didst thou know me, thou wouldst make thy decision quickly. Unharness the poor brute or I may change my mind.”

  The carter laughed roughly and gave his whip into Jethro Coke’s hands. With one eye on the gold he turned to unfasten Sham. But he was too late. A slim brown boy had come seemingly from nowhere at all and was kneeling at the horse’s feet, unhitching his harness. What surprised the crowd even more was to see a tiger cat poke his head out of the boy’s hood and begin to lick the horse’s face.

  Such a laughter and a clapping went up that it sounded more like an audience at a puppet show than a group of early morning citizens on their way to the day’s tasks.

  14. Benjamin Biggle Goes for a Ride

  THE QUAKER, Jethro Coke, was a retired merchant who owned a parcel of land on the outskirts of London. The plight of the over-burdened horse had moved him to action. Now he saw a boy who also needed help.

  “At the foot of a wooded hill,” he told Agba, “I’ve an olden barn. It has not heard the whinny of a horse nor the cushioned footfalls of a cat for many a year. Thou and thy cat, too, will be welcome there. The poor broken-down horse has need of you both.”