Chapter 1 Summary

In Morocco, in the Sultan's palace lives a young boy named Agba. Agba works as a stable boy in the Sultan's stables. Agba is waiting for sunset like everyone else, for it is the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. Agba, the stable boy, does not mind the fast. What does anger him though is, when Signor Achmet, Chief of the Grooms, tells him that the Sultan has decided that the horses must fast as well. Agba is in charge of ten of the twelve thousand horses in the Sultan's stables, and there is one of the ten, to whom he loses his heart. For this special mare, he fetches water from a pure spring beyond the palace gates. Agba can see the love in the mare's eyes, when he cares for her.

Agba is worried about the mare...