King of the Wind (10 page)

“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.”

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.

T
HE 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.”

And so, within less than a week, Sham and Agba and Grimalkin were on their way to England.

When Agba beheld the comfortable barn and the hillside pastures owned by Mister Coke, he was certain that the power of the wheat ear had spent itself.

Jethro Coke’s wife was dead, and he had given the running of his household to Mistress Cockburn, a plump, motherly person who had eyes like black raisins and always a red spot on each cheek, as if she had just been bending over a hot fire.

Mistress Cockburn not only found time to roast great haunches of mutton and stir up puddings and cakes, but she waited upon Mister Coke’s daughter and played nursemaid to her new baby. As for Benjamin Biggle, Mistress Cockburn set a place at table for him and nodded a stiff good morning to him with her starched cap. More than that she would not do.

“Benjamin Biggle is a fat dolt!” she told Mister Coke on more than one occasion. And while Mister Coke was inclined, secretly, to agree with her, he tried to make the best of matters for his daughter’s sake. Besides, he was a birthright Quaker and he looked upon all God’s creatures as friends.

“Benjamin,” he said to his son-in-law shortly after his return from Paris, “I’ve a surprise for thee. Follow me.”

With an expectant gleam in his eye, Benjamin Biggle followed Mister Coke down the hill to the barn. There they looked in upon a busy scene. Agba, his hood thrown back, was dyeing the white tufts of hair that had grown in on Sham’s knees where he had cut them in the streets of Paris. Meanwhile Grimalkin was sitting on Sham’s back, polishing his own whiskers.

“Good morning, friends,” the Quaker nodded in turn to Agba and Sham and Grimalkin.

The sound of Mister Coke’s voice fell pleasantly upon Sham’s ears. And Agba’s hands, as they applied the dye made from rootlets, felt comforting to him. He stood so still he might have been a stuffed horse in a museum.

“I bought this poor beast out of pity,” Mister Coke was saying to his son-in-law. “He appears to be gaunt and bowed by years and ill use, but with the good care of this devoted boy he will fill out and make thee a nice quiet pacer.”

“Aye, Papa Coke,” replied Benjamin Biggle as he squared his hat over his small black wig. “Upwards of a year I have needed a horse and carriage.”

The blood mounted in Mister Coke’s face. For a long moment he seemed unable to speak. Then he controlled his voice with effort. “A horse, aye,” he said, “but a carriage, no! A carriage is not necessary and therefore would be a vain adornment. Pride and conceit are against my principles.”

“But, Papa Coke,” pleaded the son-in-law, biting his lip nervously, “I have never sat a horse!”

“Pshaw and nonsense! I can assure thee that a child could sit this sedate mount. He is just the horse for a draper like thee. In my mind’s eye I can already see thee, traveling about the countryside, calling on housewives.”

Benjamin Biggle’s face was growing as white as a mixing of dough. He took a sidelong glance at Sham, who returned the look with a warning movement of his ears.

“It would seem best,” said Mister Coke as he lifted the pocket flap of his coat and took an almanack from his pocket, “it would seem best to wait until, say, Third Month, Fourth
Day. The almanack promises more settled weather then and the little cob should be ready for a gentle canter. Shall we say the forenoon of Third Month, Fourth Day, for thy first ride?”

Benjamin Biggle sighed in relief. Third Month was a long time off. “Be it so, Papa Coke,” he said brightly. Then he squinted at the position of the sun. “Mistress Cockburn is probably buttering the scones for our tea. We would better go.”

Agba watched the two men walk up the hill—the long strides of Mister Coke and the quick, rocking gait of Mister Biggle. Then he went back to work on Sham’s scars.

With the coming of spring, Sham lost his starveling look. He began to appear the four-year-old that he really was. Once more his coat was burnished gold, with the course of his veins showing full and large.

Under the kind mothering of Mistress Cockburn, Agba thrived, too. She filled his plate with pigeon pie and dumplings, and when she discovered that the boy had a special liking for confections, she saw to it that each day he had a goodly helping of whipped syllabub or almond cake, or perhaps an apple pasty. All the while the boy ate, Mistress Cockburn kept up such a stream of conversation that it was scarcely any time at all before he understood such English words as:
eat, poor boy, a bit of cake, beautiful daughter, fat dolt.
Mistress Cockburn even found time to teach Agba his letters from her cookery book.

In return he would show her the amulets in his bag and Sham’s pedigree. Of course she could not read the Arabic writing, but she was tremendously impressed with its importance.