King of the Wind (7 page)

The stars were beginning to fade when at last he slept.

B
Y THE time dawn crept down the Atlas Mountains and filled the Meknes valley with long shafts of light, Signor Achmet and six horseboys, on their Arabian stallions, were on their way to the royal palace.

Agba, first of the six, rode with his eyes fixed on the sun. It was climbing higher and higher, veering southward, nearer and nearer to the tower of the mosque. Now its outer rim was almost touching the slender needle.

The Signor, too, was watching the sun. If he did not arrive at the exact moment the Sultan had specified, there was no
telling what the punishment might be. He quickened his pace. Agba and the other boys did not need to urge their horses. They were eager to go, tossing their heads with impatience. Just as the sun slid behind the tower, the procession moved up the steep incline that led to the entrance of the palace grounds.

And at that precise moment four bagpipers and four tomtom players tore the morning stillness to shreds. The palace gates were flung open and Sultan Mulai Ismael himself came riding toward them. He swayed on his horse like a ship at sea, and in his wake trailed an enormous following—the parasol holder, the fly-flickers, the groom, the spur-men, and slaves and foot soldiers without number.

There was a flurry of movement along the walls. A thousand guards stood at attention. A thousand spears, like so many serpents’ tongues, were thrust into the air. A thousand throats shouted above the drums and the bagpipes, “May Allah bless the life of our Sultan!”

Signor Achmet and the horseboys bowed until their noses brushed the manes of their mounts. Without answering the salutation, the royal procession swept past them, down the incline between rows of guards, and led the way to the city gates.

In single file the Signor and the horseboys followed. Through the narrow public streets they rode. Buyers and sellers and saints and beggars joined the parade.

Women, their faces half-hidden by veils, came out on the rooftops to watch and to add their high-voiced cries to the beating of the tom-toms and the skirling of the bagpipes.

Discordant as the music was, there was a kind of rhythm
and excitement to it, too. The horses kept time to it. The silken handkerchiefs of the fly-flickers and even the royal parasol waved to its rhythm.

As the parade left the market place, Agba felt someone pull at his mantle. He looked out of the corner of his eye and caught the toothless grin of the camel driver.

Agba smiled in quick recognition.

The camel driver bellowed a huzza. Then he extended his arms to heaven as if this moment of sharing Agba’s glory was reward enough for all the camel’s milk he had given him.

At last the procession reached the outer gate of the city. The music stopped. A great silence fell over the multitude as the Sultan, helped by his attendants, dismounted. With a jolting, camel-like trot he made his way to the six Arabians and tied a silken bag around the neck of each one. There was a dark red bag for the chestnut, a pale yellow one for the yellow dun, a gray bag for the dappled gray, a white bag for the white, a black one for the black, and for Sham there was a bag made of shiny gold cloth.

The Sultan’s shrill voice pierced the quiet.

“These bags,” he said, “contain the pedigree of each stallion. They also contain amulets of great power, amulets that will prevent and cure the bite of scorpions and protect your stallions from evil spirits. Guard these bags well. The King of France and Monsieur le duc will thus bear witness to my greatness.” He patted his chest and grinned until his eyes were hidden in their folds of fat.

“Ride under the sun,” his voice intoned. “Ride under the rain water, blessed of Allah. Ride the golden hills of the Atlas Mountains. Ride through the green valleys and the regions of the plains. Ferry across the winding rivers. And when you have
crossed the provinces of Errif and El Garb, then do you embark at Tangier and sail the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Travel in safety so that the King and Monsieur le duc will thus bear witness to my greatness.”

He turned to Signor Achmet. His voice changed. “Give your horses the heel!” he shrieked. “Salem alick! Farewell!”

“Alick salem!” cried the Signor, Then, clapping his spurs to his horse, he wheeled and rode out of the gate, followed by the six purest-bred stallions in the kingdom of Morocco.

In the twinkling of an eye, horses and riders were gone, speeding toward the ship prepared for them.

The Sultan returned to his palace with a smile of satisfaction, thinking how neatly his plans were working out.

He did not know that the captain of the vessel had pocketed the money sent to buy corn and barley for the horses and had stuffed the sacks with straw instead. Nor did he know that the horseboys would be made to man the heavy sails on stormy seas. Nor that day after day they would be fed only on bread and water until they were skin and bones when, at last, they reached the coast of France.

I
T WAS four weeks later to a day when Signor Achmet and his little company arrived at the court of Versailles. Monsieur le duc, the King’s adviser, was in the beauty salon at the time. He was calmly admiring himself in a mirror, when suddenly the pixie-like face of the King’s groom was reflected right alongside his own.

“My lord duke! My lord duke!” the groom puffed. “I have news! News!”

“What brings you to the beauty salon?” Monsieur spoke in an icy tone. “Is the stable afire?”

“Oh, no, my lord.”

“What is it, then?” he asked, viewing the back of his wig with a long-handled mirror.

The elfin figure of the groom was agitated with excitement. “Why, ’tis a gift to His Majesty, the King,” he breathed. “A gift of six horses. They stand within the stable this very moment.”

“Ha!” scoffed Monsieur le duc. “A hundred horses are in the royal stables. Yet you disturb my toilet with news of a paltry six more.”

“But, my lord! They’ve come by land and by sea all the way from. . .”

“Hold your tongue!” the Duke commanded. He turned to the gentleman-of-the-wigs. “You shall add forty more curls,” he said, rolling the words on his tongue as if he were tasting a French pastry. “You shall do twenty on either side to form the effect of pigeons’ wings. What think you of it?”

The gentleman-of-the-wigs raised the fingers of his right hand as if he were holding a teacup.

“
Exactement!
” he grimaced. “Forty it shall be! Twenty on either side! It will be my masterpiece!” And he whisked the wig from Monsieur’s head, carefully replacing it with the old wig which, to the eyes of the groom, looked almost identical.

The Duke turned to the groom. “Whence did you say the horses came?” he snapped.

“I did not say, my lord.”

“Well, speak up!”

“From Africa, my lord. From Morocco. And, my lord, the
bearer of the gift and his six horseboys will not leave the stable.”

“What’s that? What’s that?”

“They stand like stones. They will
not
leave. The chief fellow has a letter, and he will give it to no one but Monsieur le duc or His Majesty the King.” The groom tiptoed around the gentle-man-of-the-wigs and brought his face close to the Duke’s. “Methought you’d like to know,” he whispered, “that I have the King’s horse in readiness. In a moment he leaves for the chase. But, my lord,” the groom’s face broke into a sly smile, “methought
you
would like to come to the stable and read the letter first.”

Monsieur le duc patted the groom’s shoulder with a jeweled hand. Then, upsetting a powder table in his haste, he snatched up his plumed hat and hurried to the stables with the groom running bow-legged behind him.

As Mulai Ismael’s letter was being put into the Duke’s hands, King Louis XV, followed by twenty courtiers, walked into the royal stable. A great stillness seemed to come in with them. The only sound in that vast high-ceilinged building was made by Sham swishing a fly from his hip.

The young King stopped stock still. He seemed transfixed by the pitiful gathering before him. Slowly, looking from one to the other, he studied the six stallions and the lead horse of Signor Achmet. They were carefully groomed, but so bony that each rib showed. And beside each stallion stood a thin, ragged horseboy, holding his charge on a lead rope.

The King was about the same age as the horseboys, but there the likeness stopped. He wore high polished boots and golden spurs, and his breeches and coat were of velvet. The horseboys were barelegged, and the insides of their legs were covered with blue-green welts made by their stirrup straps on the long overland ride. And their bodies were wrapped in coarse, hooded cloaks.