King of the Wind

In the novel’s final section, the Godolphin Arabian meets his namesake and finds glory in an account that blends historical fact with fiction. In reality, Edward Coke left Lath and Roxana to the Earl of Godolphin upon his death in 1733, and the earl later purchased the Arabian from Mr. Roger Williams. Henry reimagines the change of ownership as a dramatic rescue by having Agba locked up in Newgate Jail and Sham lost without his friend until the earl reunites them. The earl’s decision to send Sham and Agba into exile in Wicken Fen is another of Henry’s inventions. The battle with Hobgoblin is a legend that has developed around the Godolphin Arabian, and the Arabian and Roxana had their first colt when they were still owned by Coke. It is historically accurate that Lath won a prize of 1,000 guineas at a race at Newmarket on 23 April 1737, but it is unlikely that Queen Caroline and King George II presented the prize to the winner. Henry’s creative license gives the narrative a triumphant resolution in which Sham is at last acknowledged for his greatness. By transforming scattered details into a sequence of trial, exile, and vindication, Henry imposes a mythic structure on biography, encouraging readers to see the Arabian not simply as a historical animal but as a protagonist in an epic of endurance.

Agba’s devotion to Sham facilitates the horse’s eventual recognition and showcases The Beauty of Loyalty Between Humans and Animals. Agba jeopardizes his position at Gog Magog by unleashing Sham on Hobgoblin, but he does so because he loves the horse and “could stand the unfairness” of him being overshadowed by the other stallion “no longer” (140). The loyalty and trust between the boy and the horse remain firm despite the hardships of their subsequent banishment to the marsh:

Then Agba’s mind flew back to all the promises he had made Sham, and his eyes would search Sham’s to catch the faintest mistrust in their purple depths. The only answer he got was Sham’s lips nibbling along his neck. ‘We’re in this together,’ he said in his own way (146).

The intimacy of this moment shows how trust is sustained even when external recognition is stripped away, suggesting that loyalty itself functions as a form of survival. Ultimately, the protagonist fulfills his promises by riding Sham to his presentation to the king and queen of England. The Epilogue further emphasizes the theme by revealing that Agba returns to Morocco on the night that the horse’s long life comes to an end because “his life’s mission was fulfilled” (174). The lifelong loyalty between Agba and Sham illustrates the beautiful bonds that can develop between humans and animals. Henry also contrasts loyalty with commodification, since nearly every institution that handles Sham treats him as property; Agba’s fidelity insists that value resides in care rather than price or pedigree. This framing makes loyalty a counter-economy that resists the market logics surrounding horses, reframing worth as emotional rather than financial.

To achieve their happy ending, Agba and Sham must persevere through displacement and adversity. Henry draws a comparison between the “kind of dream” in which the boy spends his weeks of imprisonment and the “kind of daze” that the lonely and mistreated Sham lapses into during their separation (115, 124). During the scene in which the two main characters reunite, Henry demonstrates that the horse’s determination remains strong despite his weakened state: “Thrusting his forefeet in front of him, he struggled to his feet. Lying down was no way to greet friends!” (125). The refusal to greet lying down dramatizes dignity, showing how resilience manifests in physical gestures as well as in long-term endurance. Agba and Sham’s perseverance moves the earl to become a powerful ally to them: “Ill luck has dogged their footsteps. They have traveled a hard road and a long one” (129). 

In another example of Perseverance Through Displacement and Adversity, Sham defeats Hobgoblin, a much larger stallion: “Sham was little and quick. His legs were steel rods. He danced on them, making fierce thrusts. Hobgoblin was like a great war horse beside Sham” (140). The imagery of steel and dance fuses mechanical power with grace, presenting perseverance not just as endurance but as transformation into unexpected strength. The final chapter brings the theme home by suggesting that the horse and the stableboy had to experience their fraught voyage from Africa to Europe and their subsequent displacements and hardships in Europe to receive the honor of appearing before the king and queen of England and for Sham to leave a lineage that changed horse racing. Perseverance here includes learning to inhabit new landscapes; Wicken Fen seems punitive yet becomes a place of partial belonging where nonhuman communities acknowledge Agba and Sham when human ones do not. By framing exile as a site of belonging among animals, Henry suggests that perseverance also requires reimagining community beyond human society.

A crucial motif in this section is silence and voice. Newgate removes Agba’s ability to speak on his own behalf, while the warder’s destruction of the pedigree attempts to erase Sham’s identity. When Mistress Cockburn secures the return of the amulets and the bag, the narrative restores material tokens of lineage, which functions as a recovery of “voice” for both the boy and the horse. Later, the transfer of the amulets to Lath reframes voice as inheritance, since Sham’s story will be told through his sons at Newmarket, and the queen’s purple feather becomes a public sign that counters earlier misreadings. These exchanges of objects dramatize how voice circulates in material and symbolic forms, allowing Agba and the voiceless horse to claim presence in a world that tried to silence them.

In this last section, Agba’s belief that divine will shapes Sham’s personal destiny is vindicated. The boy’s arrest leads to Mistress Cockburn’s chance encounter with the nobles and Sham’s relocation to the earl’s stables. From this narrative’s perspective, God worked good out of evil by turning Agba’s imprisonment into a way for Sham to leave a legacy. Henry also uses the earl’s title as an opportunity to develop the theme: “Godolphin means God’s Downs. […] And here, on God’s Downs, your Arabian will live out his days” (153). The author’s attention to the name’s meaning suggests that the Earl of Godolphin was destined to play an instrumental role in the horse’s life. Henry’s utilization of the wind as a motif of divine will culminates in the final chapter when Agba makes peace with the fact that Sham will never be a racehorse: “Now he was forever unbeaten. In his own mind and in Agba’s he was still the wind beneath the sun” (165). Agba believes that it was God’s plan all along for Sham to have descendants who would go on to be accomplished racehorses rather than achieve athletic glory for himself. This offers the protagonist the comforting view that, even though things didn’t turn out according to his own plans, everything has worked out for the greater good. The closing image of the unmarked stone over Sham’s grave extends this sense of providence: The unmarked stone over Sham’s grave extends this vision of destiny by inviting readers to “write” their own tributes, implying that recognition is communal and ongoing rather than fixed by a single authority.