King of the Wind (17 page)

Agba’s mouth fell open. His glance darted to the polished parquetry floor, to the shining silver sconces with branching
lights, to the gardener trimming the hedge outside the window.

“Aye,” the Earl nodded. “Vast estates require vast reservoirs of money. I am in low circumstances and my debts grow clamorous. Pastures must needs be limed and rolled and harrowed, horses shod, farriers paid. Agba,” he paused, then went on falteringly, “on the very eve when we are improving the strain of the English horse, I may have to let our stables and pastures for farming purposes.”

The words fell with a thud. The gold clock on the mantel tolled the hour. A log split open, sent up a shower of sparks, then fell among the ashes.

For seconds the Earl stared into the fire. Then a flicker of hope lighted his eyes. “There is a three-day race meeting at Newmarket this spring,” he said, “with the Queen’s Plate as the prize. Should Lath or Cade or Regulus win, there would be no need to let the property. The Queen’s Plate is a purse of one thousand guineas!”

The blood quickened in Agba’s veins. He almost fell off the hassock in his excitement. He waited for the Earl’s next words. They came in a rush.

“It is not often,” he said, “that a stallion has three great sons in one race meet. Since the Godolphin Arabian is too old to compete, I am of the opinion that he should be present at Newmarket to watch the performance of Lath and Cade and Regulus. What think you of this?”

The Earl searched Agba’s face, and when he read the hope and pride there, he threw back his head and laughed deeply.

N
EWMARKET! The word set Agba on fire. Since first he had come to England he had heard horseshoers, jockeys, water boys, exercise men, saddlers, capmakers, whip-makers, the Earl, and even the Duchess, say the word as if it held ice and flame in its syllables.

Now that he knew all three of Sham’s sons were to run on this famous course, Agba felt such excitement that he worked with the speed of a whirlwind. The days sped by in eager preparation for the great event. Finally came the day to start.

To Agba, on that early morning of April, the road to Newmarket seemed never-ending. He was in a fever of expectancy. He wanted to break ranks, as Sham was urging him to do. He wanted to plunge ahead of Titus Twickerham on Galompus, the lead horse. But he must keep the pace set.

Behind him he could hear the light hoofbeats of Sham’s three sons, and the heavy cloppety-clop of the pack horses.

Perhaps, if he took his eyes from the striped body-jacket of Titus Twickerham and the stout rump of Galompus, the pace would not seem so slow! He tried to study the farms they passed, the tidy cottages with old men on the doorsteps and young men in the fields. He tried to count the long-necked geese in the four-storied carts they passed. He peered down the byways. He saw a shepherd and his dog driving a flock of sheep toward market. He even tried to imagine what the sheep were thinking of the passing horses.

But it was no use. New-mar-ket! New-mar-ket! The word kept dangling before him like a blade in the sun. New-mar-ket! New-mar-ket! He heard it in the rhythm of the hoofbeats, in the creak of cartwheels, in the song of the cuckoo. New-mar-ket!

They climbed a gentle rise. They passed through a toll gate. And then, suddenly, Newmarket Heath lay spread out before them. Agba gasped in dismay. It was not that Newmarket was less beautiful than he had expected. It was not that at all. He looked at the vast greenness of it. He smelled the fragrance of the turf. And instead of one racecourse, there were many. But what made a lump rise in Agba’s throat was that everywhere, in all directions, exercise boys were galloping their horses. He shut his eyes, but he only saw them more clearly. The satin bodies of horses. Horses flying. Horses stretched out in the wind.

His mind raced back to what the Earl had told him only last evening. “You may walk your horse over the dips and rises,” he had said kindly. “But do not gallop him. He is far more valuable than a running horse, Agba. He is the hope of Gog Magog.”

And Mister Twickerham had added his own word of caution. “If I c-c-c-catches ye galloping him, I’ll trounce ye w-w-w-within an inch of yer life!”

At the time, Agba had readily agreed. It would be enough happiness, he had thought, to see Lath and Cade and Regulus
run. Now he was not so sure. How he wanted Sham to run! To prove that he
was
King of the Wind!

The Earl’s horses were always allowed several days in Newmarket to limber up before the day of the meeting. For Agba and Sham these days dragged. They were
in
Newmarket, but not of it. The Earl seemed too busy to pay any attention to them. His whole concern was in Lath, Cade, Regulus. He had not even told Agba where Sham was to be stationed when he watched his sons run.

Agba wished he and Sham had never come to Newmarket! He listened to the talk going on about him, sifting out the words that mattered.

“Regulus will run one heat over the Round Course on Thursday.”

“Cade will run one heat over the Beacon Course on Friday.”

“On Saturday, Lath will run one heat over the Caesarewitch Course for the honor and the glory of the Queen’s Plate!”

After that, thought Agba, it will be over and done with. He would be
glad
to go back to Gog Magog. Then he and Sham could lose themselves for hours at a time in the upland pasture.

Monday, Tuesday passed. Wednesday came. All day the Earl and Mister Twickerham passed by Sham’s tent as if they were unaware of his being there. Thursday came. Agba tried to busy himself shaking up the straw of Sham’s bed, cleaning out his hooves, anointing his body with sheep’s-foot oil. By mid-morning he was doing the same tasks over and over, like a dog in a treadmill cage. His neck ached from looking up expectantly at every footfall. Perhaps the Earl would ask Sham to be the
lead horse, to guide the nervous young fillies and colts to the starting post. There was still time. He might come.

The sun climbed higher and higher. The excitement all about them mounted. But Agba and Sham were isolated. No one came near them. They seemed more alone than when they were in the fen country.

Noon came. Regulus was led by Sham’s stall on his way to the Round Course. Agba heard the saddling bell. He heard the winding of the trumpet. He heard the cry as if from a thousand throats, “They’re away!” Then the quickening music of hoofbeats. A few brief seconds, and they began fading, growing fainter and fainter until they were gone.

Agba was glad, of course, when he heard the cries of “Regulus! Regulus!” and knew that Sham’s youngest son had won the two-year-old race. All the rest of the day he told himself how very glad he was. But there was a kind of hollowness in his gladness. Sham was unnoticed. Forgotten.

When Cade won the three-year-old race on the second day, Agba went right on sewing a strap that Sham had torn from his horsecloth. This was not news. He had known it all along. Did not Cade, like Regulus, have Sham’s blood flowing in his veins? Was he not sired by the King of the Wind? Did he not have the white spot on his heel? With each question Agba’s needle whipped in and out of the blanket, faster, faster.

A shadow suddenly fell across his work. He looked up into the twinkling gray eyes of the Earl of Godolphin.

“Agba!” cried the Earl with a boyish grin. “A great honor is come! The King and Queen of England will attend the final
race meet tomorrow. And the Keeper of the Course has invited the Godolphin Arabian to stand at the finish post. Think on it, Agba! The King and Queen on one side. And directly opposite, the Godolphin Arabian!”

Agba was on his feet in an instant.

“And you, gentle Agba, will be up!” Then the Earl chuckled. “Though Twickerham insists upon two lead grooms to hold him. He does not trust Sham when the horses are off.”

A group of the Earl’s friends were coming toward him. The Earl lowered his voice and spoke quickly. “The amulets,” he whispered, “do you still wear them about your neck?”

Agba took the silken bag from his neck and handed it to the Earl.

The Earl winked. “Hmm,” he smiled. “If the amulets can prevent and cure the bite of a scorpion, they can give Lath wings.”

He turned to go, then came back. “I do not need to tell you to curry the Godolphin Arabian,” he smiled with his eyes. “Already his coat is the color of honey when held in a jar against the sunlight.”

News of the King’s and Queen’s coming flew over the countryside. From Suffolk and Norfolk, from Hertford and Bedford, from nearly all the shires in England, the people came! Peers and lords and ladies in velvets and gold lace; yeomen in sturdy homespun; professors from Cambridge; gamekeepers with
partridges in their pockets; moneylenders and Quakers; maltmen and saddlers and whipmakers and aldermen and squires and maids and housewives. They came on horseback. They came in coaches. They came afoot.

They spread themselves along Devil’s Dyke where, long years ago, the Britons had dug a ditch to stem invasions. Now the dyke was overgrown with the finest turf in the kingdom. The people stood on it, sat on it, waiting for the sun to mark the middle of the day.

Within Sham’s tent the very air seemed to crackle with excitement. The Earl of Godolphin himself was laying a purple saddlecloth on Sham’s back, and fastening gold ornaments on his bridle and breastplate. Two grooms stood ready with silken lead ropes. They were dressed in the Earl’s stable colors—scarlet silk body jackets and long scarlet stockings. What a contrast Agba made! His feet and legs were bare and he wore his plain mantle. But he sat his horse with such pride that he might have worn ermine.

Now Sham was parading to the finish post. Agba kept his eyes forward. Yet he was aware of an undertone as of bees buzzing. The deep tones of men’s voices. The grace notes of women. He caught wisps of talk.

“I prefers ’em lustier, stouter-limbed.”

“Little as a cricket, hain’t he?”

“He’s the gold of the sun.”

“Egad! Note the crest on him!”

“Lookit the artist, there, sketching a likeness o’ ’im.”

“That young man astride him—I knew him when he was just
a little mite. My poor boy! I used to bake sugar tarts for him.”

Agba turned his head very slightly and from the sea of faces he picked out the plump, red-cheeked face and the shining eyes of Mistress Cockburn. A look of affectionate greeting flew between them.

Now there was a crash of drums and a flourish of trumpets as the Light Dragoons on matched horses swept into the race grounds. They were clearing a path for the royal party. The crowds fell back like thistles before the wind. Then shouts went up on all sides. “Long live the King! Long live the King!”

The coaches wheeled to a stop. Escorts rushed forward, followed by the Mayor of Newmarket and all the aldermen and squires. They bowed low before His Royal Majesty, George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland. The King was little in stature, but he strutted to the stand, his purple bodycoat flaring out behind him like the tail of a peacock.

Queen Caroline, tall as a pikestaff, swept along behind him. Her gown was corded and hooped with pearls and she wore ropes of pearls about her neck, and her bonnet was bedecked with purple plumes.