Free King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry Page A

well.”
    This he meant to do. But Mister Williams was not the man for a spirited horse like Sham. He made quick, puppet-like motions as if his joints were controlled by strings. When hecame into Sham’s stall, he had a way of lunging in. Nearly always he carried some tool—a pitchfork or a hoe or a bellows. And he held it like a spear, ready for action.
    The old, plodding horses in the stable were used to Mister Williams, but Sham snorted and reared every time he came near. Then the good man would try to calm the horse by giving him a grooming. But here again the man was as awkward as a pump without a handle. He knew none of the niceties of grooming. He would rub along Sham’s barrel from shoulder to hip, never realizing that near the hip the hairs grew in a little swirl. This lack of skill irritated Sham, for Agba was always careful to rub his coat the way that the hairs grew.
    When it came to saddling, the innkeeper had an annoying habit of dropping the saddle on Sham’s back, and then shoving it forward into place, thus pinching and pulling the hairs the wrong way. When a rider mounted, the torment increased.
    It was not surprising that Sham resorted to all manner of tricks to get rid of the pinching saddle. He sidled along walls and trees, thus squeezing his rider’s leg. He twisted his body into a corkscrew. He reared. He kicked. He balked. He threw so many guests of the Red Lion that finally Mister Williams decided he must do something about it. He called in Silas Slade, a weasel-eyed man known as the best horse-breaker in all London.

    “Slade,” Mister Williams said, “I hain’t never seen a ’orse like this ’un. It’s ’is spirit . ’E not only unseats the clumsy fellows like me, but the best riders in the kingdom. ’E knows ’e’ll be licked fer it, but it don’t matter to ’im. The only ’uman bein’ what can ’andle ’im is a spindlin’ boy.”
    “ Hmph! ” snorted Slade, his eyes gleaming. “I’ve yet to see the beast I couldn’t break. ’E’s feelin’ ’is oats, ’e is. We’ll get the meanness out of ’im!”
    The first thing Mister Slade did was to saddle Sham in his expert manner and swing up. And the next thing he knew he was being carried into the inn and a doctor was bending over him, shaking his head gravely.
    When Mister Slade was poulticed and bandaged and his leg put in a splint, he called Mister Williams to his side. “I’ll break the brute yet,” he said between swollen lips. “See that ’e’s moved into a small stall without a window. Tie ’im so ’e can’t move. Give ’im no grain and only a little water.”
    Agba meanwhile had never left the vicinity of the Red Lion. He and Grimalkin had wandered forlornly about the countryside, sleeping in hedgerows, living on what food they could pick up in woods and fields.
    One moon-white night Agba’s loneliness seemed more thanhe could bear. He and Grimalkin were seeking shelter in a haycock. They had had nothing to eat that day, and neither of them could sleep. Grimalkin was hunting little gray field mice and Agba was looking up at the moon, seeing Sham in its shadows.
    The Sultan’s words were drumming in his ears. “As long as the horse shall live . . . as long as the horse shall live . . .” He must get back to Sham!
    He shook the straw from his mantle, swooped up Grimalkin, and ran silently through the night to the Red Lion.
    As he reached the inn, he could see by the light in the taproom the bustling form of Mistress Williams. Quickly he changed his plans. Instead of approaching the stables by means of the courtyard he would run around behind the brick wall that encircled the stables. If he scaled this wall, he could enter Sham’s stall without being seen by Mistress Williams.
    Agba felt like a thief, creeping along in the moon-dappled night, groping his way around the ivy-covered wall. Suddenly he stopped midway of the wall. Sham’s stall, he figured, would be about opposite where he stood. He