Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War (2 page)

Khanzada stared. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘I’ve never revealed to anyone my father’s last words to me. Just before he died, he whispered that when I was sick with fever a few months earlier, my astrologer, Sharaf, had told him that he’d read in the stars that if he wished me to live he must offer up what was most precious to him. So falling on his face he offered God his life for mine.’

‘Then it was indeed God’s will – God accepted the sacrifice.’

‘No! Sharaf told me that all he intended was that my father should offer up the Koh-i-Nur diamond – not his life. But my father misinterpreted his words . . . It seems overwhelming that my father loved me so much, saw me as so important to the future of our dynasty, that he offered his own life. How can I live up to such faith in me? I feel that I don’t deserve the throne I once so hungered for. I fear that a reign that began in such a way will be tainted . . .’

‘Such thoughts are absurd.You search too hard for patterns of cause and consequence. Many a reign begins in loss and uncertainty. It is up to you to make sure by your own actions that yours doesn’t end so. Any sacrifice Babur made was done through love for you and trust in you. Remember also he did not die immediately – you recovered and he lived eight more months. His death at that time might well have been pure coincidence.’ Khanzada paused. ‘Did he say anything else to you in his last moments?’

‘He told me not to grieve . . . he was happy to go. He also made me promise to do nothing against my half-brothers, however much they might deserve it.’

Khanzada’s face tautened. For a moment Humayun thought she was about to say something about his brothers, but instead, with a toss of her small, elegant head, she seemed to think better of it.

‘Come. That’s about enough of these musings. The cloth is spread in the
haram
. You must not keep your mother and the other ladies waiting. But Humayun . . . one last thought. Don’t forget that your name means “fortunate”. Fortune will be yours if you will be strong in mind as well as in body and seize it. Banish these foolish self-doubts of yours. Introspection may become a poet or a mystic but it has no place in the life of an emperor. Grasp with both hands what fate – and your father – have bequeathed you.’

With a last look up at the sky that showed him that the moon was now obscured by cloud, Humayun slowly followed his aunt towards the stone staircase that led down to the women’s apartments.

Prostrating himself before Humayun in the emperor’s private chambers some weeks later, Baba Yasaval, his usually blunt, ebullient master-of-horse, looked strangely nervous. As the man rose again and looked up at him, Humayun noticed that his skin seemed stretched unnaturally tight over his wide cheekbones and a pulse throbbed at his temple.

‘Majesty, if I might speak to you alone?’ Baba Yasaval glanced at the guards positioned on either side of Humayun’s low silver chair. It was an unusual request. Security dictated that the emperor was seldom on his own – even when he was in the
haram
guards were always near at hand, ready to turn an assassin’s blade. But Baba Yasaval, who had fought loyally for Humayun’s father, could be trusted.

Humayun dismissed his guards from the chamber and beckoned Baba Yasaval closer. The man approached but hesitated before speaking, scratching his stubbly scalp which, to remind him of the old ways of his clan, since arriving in Hindustan he had taken to shaving, except for a single lock of coarse, greying hair that swung like a tassel.

‘Baba Yasaval, speak. What is it you wish to tell me?’

‘Bad news . . . terrible news, Majesty . . .’ A sigh that was almost a groan escaped Baba Yasaval’s lips. ‘There is a plot against you.’

‘A plot?’ Humayun’s hand instinctively reached for the jewelled dagger tucked into his yellow sash, and before he knew it he had risen to his feet. ‘Who would dare . . . ?’

Baba Yasaval bowed his head. ‘Your half-brothers, Majesty.’

‘My brothers . . . ?’ Only two months ago he and they had stood side by side in the courtyard of the Agra fort as the gilded cart drawn by twelve black oxen and bearing their father’s silver coffin departed on the long journey to Kabul, where Babur had asked to be buried. His half-brothers’ faces had been as marked by grief as his own and in those moments he had felt a rush of affection for them and a confidence that they would help him complete the task their father had left unfinished: making the Moghuls’ hold on Hindustan unassailable.

Baba Yasaval read the incredulity and shock on Humayun’s face. ‘Majesty, I speak the truth, though I wish for all our sakes that I did not . . .’ Now that he had started, Baba Yasaval seemed to take courage, becoming again the tough warrior who had fought for the Moghuls at Panipat. His head was no longer bowed and he looked unflinching into Humayun’s eyes. ‘You will not doubt me when I tell you that I have this information from my youngest son . . . he is one of the conspirators. He came to me just an hour ago and confessed everything.’

‘Why should he do that?’ Humayun’s eyes narrowed.

‘Because he fears for his life . . . because he realises he has been foolish . . . because he knows his actions will bring ruin and disgrace on our clan.’ As he spoke these last words, Baba Yasaval’s face creased as he struggled to contain his emotions.

‘You have done well to approach me. Tell me everything.’

‘Scarcely a fortnight after His Majesty your father’s coffin left for Kabul, the princes Kamran, Askari and Hindal met in a fort two days’ ride from here. My son, as you know, serves Kamran, who offered him great rewards to join the plot. Hot-headed young fool that he is, he agreed, and so heard and saw everything.’

‘What are my brothers planning?’

‘To take you prisoner and force you to break up the empire and yield some of your territories to them. They wish to return to the old traditions, Majesty, when every son was entitled to a share of his father’s lands.’

Humayun managed a mirthless smile. ‘And then what? Will they be content? Of course not. How long before they will be at each other’s throats and our enemies begin to circle?’

‘You are right, Majesty. Even now, they can’t agree amongst themselves. Kamran is the real instigator. The plot was his idea and he persuaded the others to join him, but then he and Askari came almost to blows over which of them was to have the richest provinces. Their men had to pull them apart.’

Humayun sat down again. Baba Yasaval’s words rang true. His half-brother Kamran, just five months his junior, had made no secret of his resentment that while he had been left behind to govern as regent in Kabul, Humayun had accompanied their father on his invasion of Hindustan. Fifteen-year-old Askari, Kamran’s full brother, would not have been hard to persuade to join in. He had always followed worshipfully where Kamran led despite being both bullied and patronised by him. But if Baba Yasaval’s account was accurate, now he was almost a man Askari wasn’t afraid to challenge his older brother. Perhaps their strong-willed mother Gulrukh had encouraged them both.

But what about his youngest half-brother? Why had Hindal become involved? He was just twelve years old and Humayun’s own mother, Maham, had brought him up.Years ago, distressed at her inability to bear any more children after Humayun, she had begged Babur to give her the child of another of his wives, Dildar. Though Hindal had still been in the womb, Babur – unable to deny his favourite wife – had made Maham a gift of the child. But perhaps he should not be so surprised at Hindal’s treachery. Babur himself had been just twelve when he had first become a king. Ambition could flare in even the youngest prince.

‘Majesty.’ Baba Yasaval’s earnest voice brought Humayun back to the present. ‘My son believed the plot had been abandoned because the princes could not agree. But last night they met again, here in the Agra fort. They decided to bury their differences until they had you in their power. They plan to take advantage of what they call your “unkingly desire for solitude” and attack you when you next go riding alone. Kamran even spoke of killing you and making it appear like an accident. It was then that my son came to his senses. Realising the danger to Your Majesty, he told me what he should have confessed weeks ago.’

‘I am grateful to you, Baba Yasaval, for your loyalty and bravery in coming to me like this.You are right. It is a terrible thing that my half-brothers should plot against me, and so soon after our father’s death. Have you mentioned this to anyone else?’

‘No one, Majesty.’

‘Good. Make sure you keep it to yourself. Leave me now. I need to consider what to do.’

Baba Yasaval hesitated, then instead of departing threw himself on the ground before Humayun. He looked up with tears in his eyes. ‘Majesty, my son, my foolish son . . . spare him . . . he sincerely repents his errors. He knows – and I know – how much he deserves your wrath and punishment, but I beg you, show him mercy . . .’

‘Baba Yasaval. To show my gratitude to you not only for this information but for all your past services I will not punish your son. His actions were the indiscretions of a simple youth. But keep him close confined till all this is over.’

A tremor seemed to pass through Baba Yasaval and for a moment he closed his eyes. Then he rose and, shaven head bowed, backed slowly away.

As soon as he was alone, Humayun leaped to his feet and seizing a jewelled cup flung it across the chamber. The fools! The idiots! If his brothers had their way, the Moghuls would quickly return to a nomadic life of petty tribal rivalries and lose their hard-won empire.Where was their sense of destiny, their sense of what they owed their father?

Just five years ago Humayun had ridden by Babur’s side as they swept down through the Khyber Pass to glory. His pulses still quickened at the memory of the roar and blood of battle, the odour of his stallion’s acrid sweat filling his nostrils, the trumpeting of Sultan Ibrahim’s war elephants, the boom of Moghul cannon and the crack of Moghul muskets as these new weapons cut down rank after rank of the enemy. He could still recall the ecstatic joy of victory when – bloodstained sword in hand – he had surveyed the dusty plains of Panipat and realised that Hindustan was Moghul. Now all that was being put at risk.

I’ll not have it – this
taktya, takhta
, ‘throne or coffin’ as our people called it when we ruled in Central Asia. We’re in a new land and must adopt new ways or we’ll lose everything, Humayun thought. Reaching inside his robe for the key he wore round his neck on a slender gold chain, he rose and went to a domed casket in a corner of the chamber. He unlocked it, pushed back the lid and quickly found what he was seeking – a flowered silk bag secured with a twist of gold cord. He opened the bag slowly, almost reverently, and drew out the contents – a large diamond whose translucent brilliance made him catch his breath each time he saw it. ‘My Koh-i-Nur, my Mountain of Light,’ he whispered, running his fingers over the shining facets. Presented to him by an Indian princess whose family he had protected in the chaos after the battle of Panipat, it possessed a flawless beauty that always seemed to him the embodiment of everything the Moghuls had come to India to find – glory and magnificence to outshine even the Shah of Persia.

Still holding the gem, Humayun returned to his chair to think. He sat brooding and alone until the sound of the court timekeeper, the
ghariyali,
striking his brass disc in the courtyard below to signal the end of his
pahar
– his watch – reminded him that night was falling.

This was his first major test, he realised, and he would rise to it. Whatever his personal feelings – at this moment he’d like to take all of his half-brothers by the neck in turn and throttle the life from them – he must do nothing rash, nothing to show that the plot had been betrayed. BabaYasaval’s request for a private audience would have been noticed. If only his grandfather Baisanghar, or his vizier Kasim, who had been one of his father’s most trusted advisers, were here. But the two older men had accompanied Babur’s funeral cortège to Kabul to oversee his burial there. They would not return for some months. His father had once spoken to him of the burden of kingship, the loneliness it brought. For the first time, Humayun was beginning to understand what Babur had meant. He knew that he and he alone must decide what to do, and until then he must keep his own counsel.

Feeling the need to calm himself, Humayun decided to pass the night with his favourite among his concubines – a pliant, full-mouthed, grey-eyed young woman from the mountains north of Kabul. With her silken skin and breasts like young pomegranates, Salima knew how to transport his body and patently enjoyed doing so. Perhaps her caresses would also help clear his mind and order his thoughts and thus lighten the road ahead, which seemed suddenly and ominously dark.

Three hours later, Humayun lay back naked against a silk-covered bolster in Salima’s room in the
haram
. His muscular body, scarred as befitted a tested warrior, gleamed with the almond oil she had teasingly massaged into his skin until, unable to wait a moment longer, he had pulled her to him. Her robe of transparent pale yellow muslin – a product of Humayun’s new lands where weavers spun cloth of such delicacy they gave it names like ‘breath of wind’ or ‘dawn dew’ – lay discarded on the flower-patterned carpet. Though the pleasure Salima had given him and her response to him had been as intense as ever and Humayun had relaxed, his mind kept drifting back to Baba Yasaval’s revelations, re-igniting his anger and frustration.