King of the Wind (16 page)

The only answer he got was Sham’s lips nibbling along his neck. “We’re in this together,” he said in his own way. “Fen slodgers, all three of us!” Then with a nervous foreleg he would paw the floor of the hut, as if he wanted to be out in the howling gales. Agba would lift the hoof and feel the soundness of it—the hard wall, the cushiony frog. “See!” he would tell himself. “Sham is well and strong. The power of the wheat ear cannot last.” And he laughed to feel the good warm shagginess of Sham’s coat and the length of his own hair.

Winter spent itself, and spring came, scattering windflowers among the spare blades of grass. Sham rolled and rolled, trying to rub off his heavy winter coat. And when he stood up, he left great bunches of his hair lying on the grass. As soon as his back was turned, thrushes and finches and starlings picked up the hair and lined their nests with it.

Another year passed. And in all that time Agba saw but one human creature beside the peasant farmer. This one called himself a wild-fowler because he trapped ducks and geese. He looked curiously out of his birdlike eyes at the three castaways. Then he shook his head and went his way, as if he liked his own company better.

The wild creatures of Wicken Fen, however, accepted Sham and Agba and Grimalkin. Butterflies grazed Sham’s nose, leaving the powder from their wings as a token of trust. And Agba made a friend of a hooded crow. One minute the crow was an earthy creature perched on his shoulder. The next he was an arrow piercing the sky.

Wicken Fen was not always drear. There were fair days when, just at sunset, Agba and Grimalkin would ride Sham along a grassy causeway to a watering place. It was more like flying than riding, for Sham no longer wore shoes and the sound of his hooves was muted by the grass. They seemed one creature, these three, flying into the sunset. Then they drank with the wild things, the deer and the mallards and the gulls.

One day when Agba was repairing the thatched roof of his hovel, he looked off into the distance and noticed a cloud of dust rising. It was not just a puff. It was a long, extended cloud, as if made by many horses.

He slid down the roof, glancing around quickly for Sham. There, only a few rods away, he was cavorting and kicking his heels like a colt. The boy ran to him and led him inside the hovel, closing the door securely. As he stepped out again he almost stumbled over Grimalkin. Quickly Agba sent the cat inside, too. Then he stood before the door, barricading it with his arms. He felt no fear for himself, but a nameless fear for Sham clutched at his heart.

He squinted his eyes against the sun. Now he could make out a van drawn by a pair of horses and attended by a whole cavalcade of outriders. They were coming toward him.

He could see the van clearly now. It was shiny red. The very same van in which Roxana had arrived at Gog Magog!
And perched on the driver’s box was Titus Twickerham!

Mister Twickerham waved his hat in the air. Then he drew up with a flourish. The horsemen leaped to their feet.

“Ho th-th-there, l-l-lad,” the groom stammered excitedly, as he strode toward Agba. “We have c-c-come for you and the horse.” Suddenly he realized that Agba was alone. His face went white. “The horse,” he asked, “he has not d-d-d—”

Sham let out a shrill whinny just then. The color came back to Mister Twickerham’s face. “L-l-lad,” he spoke in sugared tones, “you remember the m-m-mare they call R-R-Roxana?”

Agba nodded, his heart beating fast.

“W-w-well, my boy, one morning ’long about a year ago, I c-come to look at her, and b-b-bless my soul if she ain’t hiding a little horse-colt by her side.” Mister Twickerham came a step closer. “
And,
” he smiled, showing the gaping space in his teeth, “that little c-c-colt was the spit image o’ your horse!”

Agba looked to the other horsemen as if he could not believe the groom’s words.

“’E speaks the truth,” laughed one. “Don’t ’e, lads?”

“Aye! That he does!”

Agba’s heart warmed. If only he could see Sham’s colt!

“’Course, the Earl—he hated the sight of the colt,” the groom went on, “so he named him Lath because he was that skinny. And he says to me, ‘Twickerham, just let
that one
grow. Don’t ye bother to train him.’ ”

The coach horses began pawing the grass. Mister Twickerham ordered his assistants to take off their headstalls so they could graze.

“And now, Agba,” smiled the groom, “hark to this: Lath is r-r-rising two, and yesterday when the other two-year-olds was bein’ timed around the ring, Lath was watching from the p-paddock. Then what do you calculate happened?”

Agba’s eyes asked the question.

“Well, that Lath, he j-j-jumps the fence and starts racing around the ring on his own, and he catches up with the horses ahead o’ him and he overtakes ’em and he travels like a b-b-bullet until he’s ahead of ’em all! And some of the two-year-olds was m-m-months older than Lath, and couldn’t none o’ ’em catch him.”

Agba could scarcely contain his excitement. He had but one question in his mind, and the groom answered it as if it had been spoken.

“Aye, boy. By some chance his lordship sees the whole p-p-performance and his eyes p-p-pop so far out o’ his head I coulda hooked ’em with my bootjack. ‘T-T-T-Twickerham,’ he says slow-like, trying to hide his feelings, ‘Twickerham,’ he says, ‘I was wrong. M-m-maybe Agba’s little Arabian horse is the one to sire a new and noble b-b-breed of horses. Fetch him home, Twickerham! Home! ’ ”

Titus Twickerham’s face stretched in a grin. “So here we are, l-l-lad, waiting to take yer stallion home in t-t-triumph. And for
ye,
there’s a snowy white mantle and turban what the Duchess sent along. It c-c-come all the way from Morocco.”

A few minutes later Sham, wearing a blanket for the first time in two years, was loaded into the shiny red van while Grimalkin sat perched on his back, a satisfied grin on his face.
Agba stood at the back of the van, looking out between the well-padded stakes. He heard the crack of the whip. He felt the floor quiver beneath his feet. He saw the splendid outriders in their red jackets move into position. He stooped down and pressed his hand against Sham’s white spot.

At last Sham was being honored according to his merits! At last things were as they ought to be!

On to Gog Magog!

T
HE EARL of Godolphin himself was waiting to welcome Sham back to Gog Magog. And he led the way not to Sham’s old stall but to Hobgoblin’s! Hobgoblin’s name was no longer above the door. There were many letters there now. Agba studied them out.

T-H-E G-O-D-O-L-P-H-I-N A-R-A-B-I-A-N they spelled. Why, the Earl had given Sham his
own
name! A royal name! Agba wanted to wring the Earl’s hand, but a horseboy could not take such liberties. And just as his mind was casting wildly about for a way to thank him, the Earl himself put out his hand.

Agba placed his palm with all its horny little callouses within the cushioned white one of the Earl. But it was the Earl’s fingers that tightened in a clasp so firm it made the boy blink. They stood so for a long moment. Then the Earl cleared his throat. “Godolphin means
God’s Downs,
” he said, swallowing strangely. “And here, on God’s Downs, your Arabian will live out his days. Come, Agba, persuade him to enter his new quarters.”

Sham looked little and comical in Hobgoblin’s big stall, but he accepted it as if it were his right. He rubbed his tail against the thickly padded walls and sidled along them as if he found the softness exactly to his taste.

And wonder of wonders, he saw the Lady Roxana again. They came at each other with such joyous greetings that the sound of their reunion must have carried to Wicken Fen. Roxana did not seem to notice that Sham’s coat was shaggy and coarsened. And Sham seemed unaware that Roxana was no longer the delicate little filly he had known. She was a brood mare now, and her bones were well furnished.

“Not since the day they met have I heard a whinny so jubilant,” the Earl remarked to Agba.

Life now settled down to a pleasant pace. Sham had his own private paddock, and from it he could view everything that went on about him. Twice in the year that followed he saw his son, Lath, leave Gog Magog for the great races at Newmarket. He had no idea that Lath was the pride and toast of Newmarket, but each time he welcomed the young horse home with a deep-throated neigh.

When Roxana presented Sham with Cade, a second son, Sham sniffed noses with him and nibbled along the little fellow’s high crest. It seemed almost as if he were pleased and proud at having sired him! Grimalkin sniffed him, too; then wrinkled his nose as if he much preferred his own stablemate. Besides, his bones were growing old and he liked the comfort of the Godolphin Arabian’s bed.

Sham’s third son was born a year after Cade. They named him Regulus, and he, like Lath and Cade, had the same high crest and the finely drawn legs of his sire.

One day when Regulus was two years old, the Earl of Godolphin summoned Agba to his house. It was the first time in all these years that Agba had ever been inside the stately brick mansion. He crossed the threshold in awe. A servant showed him to the library where, in spite of the pleasant day, the Earl was seated before a crackling fire.

“Sit down, gentle friend,” the Earl said, indicating a leather hassock opposite him.

Agba was not accustomed to sitting anywhere but on the ground. Timidly he circled the hassock like a dog settling down for a nap. Then he bent forward and seated himself gingerly. When he realized that he was not going to topple off, he crossed his legs beneath him and waited for the Earl to speak.

The Earl’s face looked pinched and tired. He seemed preoccupied, as if he had forgotten Agba’s presence. Absently he reached for a pair of tongs, plucked a glowing coal from the fire and lighted his pipe with a hand that was not steady.

Agba turned his eyes away. He tried to observe the room
so that he might take away a picture memory of it. But suddenly, wherever he looked, the symbols of the wheat ear and the white spot flashed before his eyes. He thought he saw them on the backs of the books that lined the walls, in the wisps of smoke the Earl blew, in the dancing flames. The signs of success and of failure! He had almost forgotten them. Now they seemed everywhere at once. Agba longed to run out of the house to see if Sham was in trouble, but the quiet and the smoke were entwining themselves about his throat, choking him. And just when he seemed unable to take another breath, the Earl spoke.

“King Charles,” he began, “used to say of my father that he was never in the way, never out of the way. That,” he said with a direct gaze, “is my feeling for you.”

Agba’s eyes were fixed on the Earl’s face.

“It is right that you should know what I am about to say, Agba, for to your stallion may go the honor of improving the English race horse. Already the swiftness and the vitality of your golden Arabian are showing up in his colts. Had it not been for you, Agba, I might have discarded the purest blood of the Orient.”

Agba knew that in spite of these momentous words something was wrong. He waited tensely.

“The news that I am a poor man,” the Earl said at last, “may come as a shock to you. I have naught in this world but a title.”