King of the Wind (12 page)

As she entered the stable yard, holding her lanthorn aloft, the rays of light fell upon the whirling antics of Grimalkin.

If the woman had seen a ghost, her screeching could not have been more terrible. It penetrated the inn like a bolt of lightning. Out flew Mister Williams, followed by Silas Slade on crutches, all the journeymen who had not yet gone to their beds, and a constable of the watch, brandishing his horse-pistol.

Agba was frozen with fear. He could not move. His feet seemed part of the earth on which he stood. Even Grimalkin stopped in his tracks. Then with a flying leap he found the harbor of Agba’s arms.

“’E’s a footpad, constable!” yelled Mistress Williams. “A ’orsethief, ’e is! Jail ’im, I beg o’ ye!”

Mister Williams’ eyebrows were working up and down furiously. “The boy ain’t a bad one,” he pleaded to the constable. “’E comes from Morocco and ’e’s gentle as a butterfly. What’s more,” and he shook his head and pointed to his lips, “the boy can’t say a word.”

The constable took a quick look at the tell-tale turban hanging over the wall. Then, over the protests of Mister Williams, he clapped a pair of wrist irons on Agba and led him away to Newgate Jail.

A
FTER WALKING swiftly for twenty minutes, the constable and Agba stood before a massive stone building.

“Open up!” shouted the constable. “Open up!”

“Ho! It’s you, Muggins,” the sentinel bawled out. “Who’s the poppet in a sack yer draggin’ in? What’s his crime?”

While the sentinel and the constable were engaged in loud conversation, Agba’s eyes were drawn to the towers and battlements with muskets trained down on him.

The moon was washing the face of the jail with cold white rays. It made Agba feel cold, too. Then in a niche in the wall
he spied the statue of a white-robed woman. Curled at her feet was a cat so like Grimalkin that he might have sat for the image. Suddenly Agba felt warm again.

The constable laughed loudly when he saw Agba looking at the wall. “Don’t nobody try to scale
this
wall,” he said, his teeth showing like white fangs in the moonlight. Then he jerked Agba inside a yawning entrance where a turnkey stood, holding a torch in one hand and a great ring of keys in the other. With a whishing sound the turnkey closed the door behind them, and led the way down a narrow passage.

The stone floor of the passageway was cold and clammy. Once Agba slipped, and the constable boxed his ears sharply. Agba shook in terror. He wondered if he and Sham would ever meet again, would ever thunder across the fields again, would ever feel the wind beneath the sun.

Now the turnkey stopped before an iron-bolted door. He unlocked it with a loud jangling of keys, and motioned the constable and Agba inside.

Then he went away, carefully bolting the door behind him.

Wrist and leg irons hung everywhere on the walls and three tiny scales stood on a shelf in an open cupboard.

“This is the bread chamber,” the constable announced. “The scales are to measure your bread with. You get eight ounces a day. And good enough for a horsethief!”

Soundlessly the door opened and the chief warder himself entered. He was a squat man with a tightly drawn scar on his temple. He sat down at a table, reached for a crow-quill pen and pointed it at Agba.

“Where’d ye pick it up, Muggins?”

“At the Red Lion, sir.”

“Offense?”

“Horse-thievin’.”

“Name?”

“That I can’t say, sir. The keeper of the Red Lion says he comes from Morocco. He can’t talk.”

A look of doubt crossed the warder’s face. “Search him!”

The big hands of the constable began at Agba’s neck. They found the bag containing the amulets and Sham’s pedigree. Tearing the bag from Agba’s neck, the constable tossed it on the table. The amulets spilled out, making little twinkles of light. Quickly the warder scooped them into his pocket. Then he poked his fingers into the bag and pulled out the pedigree.

“Ah-ha!” he nodded, making a pretense at reading the Arabic writing. “Foul work afoot!” Fearing to show his ignorance, he tore the pedigree into little pieces and swept them to the floor.

Agba’s eyes widened in horror. Sham’s pedigree destroyed! But the warder was hurrying through the examination, not knowing what he had destroyed.

“What else has he got on him, Muggins?”

The constable’s hands suddenly found the furry warmth of Grimalkin.

“Pfft! Miaow! Pfft!”
Grimalkin hissed and spat and scratched.

Yelling in fright and pain, the constable grabbed Grimalkin by the tail. “Into the cistern ye go!” he shouted.

Agba’s bound hands flew out in a pleading gesture. They
must not take Grimalkin away! He would have no one at all to care for.

All at once the warder was on his feet, the pulse in the scar at his temple beating wildly. “Muggins,” he whispered hoarsely, “I live in the shadow of the statue out there night and day. The cat at the dame’s feet is supposed to be Dick Whittington’s own cat!”

He wiped the perspiration from his brow and slumped into his chair. Agba felt a thin thread of hope. He watched the warder’s face. He counted the pulse beats that showed in the scar. One—two—three—four—five—six . . .

“Who’s Dick Whittington?” faltered the constable.

“Who’s Dick Whittington!” the warder thundered. “Egad, man, he was thrice lord mayor of London. And ’twas a cat that made his fortune. ’Twas a cat he sold to the Sultan of Morocco to clean up the rats there. And ’twas the lord mayor himself who had the statue built.” He glowered at the constable. “How dare ye offer to kill a cat? How dare ye? It’s bad luck. Give it back to the boy, I tell ye.”

Muggins’ mouth fell open. Dazed, he handed the cat back to Agba.

“But,” added the warder, suddenly ashamed of his fear, “the cat gets no bread. And eight ounces is too much for the boy. Six will do.” Quickly he fastened a set of leg irons to Agba’s ankles, and summoned a guard who stood outside the door.

“Lock him up in the Stone Hold!” he commanded.

Dragging his heavy iron chains with every step, Agba was led away to the dungeon.

T
HE DAYS that followed were dismal and wretched for Agba. He had nothing at all to do. Once a guard told him to clean the dungeon, but he laughed coarsely as he said it, knowing there was neither broom nor rag with which to clean.

Agba could not even move without stumbling over someone’s legs or irons, and being kicked as a result. At last he crawled into a corner and sat motionless in a kind of dream, holding Grimalkin by the hour.

Days stretched out into weeks. He shared with Grimalkin
his bread and barley gruel and the cooked-out morsel of meat which the prisoners were given once a week. Grimalkin repaid Agba’s generosity. The dungeon was freer of mice and rats than was the warder’s own bedchamber.

On visiting days Agba heard the visitors’ bell clang loudly, again and again, followed by the scraping of chains as his prison mates shuffled to the visitors’ room. But no one ever came to see him. He and Grimalkin were left quite alone.

All this while the Quaker and his housekeeper, Mistress Cockburn, thought that Agba and Sham were happily located at the Red Lion. Busy though Mistress Cockburn was, she missed Agba’s quiet ways, and one fair summer’s day she decided to go to the Red Lion and take him a treat. She baked a goodly batch of sugar tarts and put them in a hamper along with some newly ripe peaches, the browned crust of a Cheshire cheese pudding, and a few garden carrots. Then she covered the hamper with a white linen cloth and set off for the inn.

She hummed a little tune as she boarded the coach, thinking how pleased the poor boy would be to taste his favorite sugar tarts. And she was thinking, too, how his somber black eyes would light up when he saw the cleanly scrubbed carrots for his beloved Sham and the Cheshire cheese nubbins for Grimalkin. As the coach jolted along, she kept peeking in under the white linen napkin to make sure that her tarts were not getting squashed nor the peaches bruised.

So busy was she, trying to think of little happenings to tell Agba, that she hardly noticed how fast the horses were traveling. And suddenly, far sooner than she had expected, the driver
was calling out, “Cow Cross Lane at the sign of the Red Lion.” She alighted as quickly as she could, brushed the dust from her bonnet, shook out the folds of her skirt, and walked briskly into the great room of the inn.

“Good day, sir,” she said to a busy little man with red eyebrows. “Are you the keeper of the Red Lion?”

Mister Williams’ eyebrows traveled up and down, and a pleased expression came over his face.

“That I am, my good woman,” he spoke in his best manner. “A vast weight you are carrying there, I mean the hamper, madam. Pray, may I help you?”

Mistress Cockburn thanked him kindly, then stated her business. “It is three calendar months,” she said, “since a little hooded horseboy left the household of my employer, Jethro Coke. And to say the truth, sir, I have missed the poor boy sorely. If you judge it proper, sir, I should like to trot around to your stable and surprise him at his work.”

Mister Williams opened his mouth to answer, but shut it quickly again, for his wife had risen up from behind the bar counter like a jack-in-the-box.

“You’ll find the thief in Newgate Jail,” she snapped. Then she took her broom and began sweeping her way toward Mistress Cockburn, who soon found herself out in Cow Cross Lane in front of the Red Lion.

She stood there, dazed, in the very center of the lane, unmindful that a coach-and-six was rattling toward her at a great pace. The driver had to turn sharply to avoid hitting her.

With much pulling and shouting he halted his horses. Then
the window of the coach was lowered, and the plumed head of an elderly but beautiful woman looked out.

“For your welfare, madam,” spoke a silvery voice, “I pray you to step back out of the lane.”

Mistress Cockburn came to with a start. “Begging your pardon,” she said with a pretty curtsy, “but the honestest lad I know has been sent to Newgate Jail, and I am all a-twitter.”

The plumed head disappeared. There was the sound of a low-voiced conference. Then the coachman, in scarlet livery, stepped down from his box and opened the door of the coach. Out stepped a gentleman. He was powdered and be-wigged like all noblemen of his day, but that was not what Mistress Cockburn noticed. What impressed Mistress Cockburn was the kindliness of his gray eyes and the courtesy with which he addressed her.