Raiders from the North: Empire of the Moghul (39 page)

Six days’ steady advance – the pace set by the drummers’ rhythmic beating – brought Babur and his two thousand men to the approaches to the Khyber Pass. But on the seventh day, with the sun at its height, leaching all colour from the increasingly barren landscape, Babur thought he detected a movement among some rocks on a low hill just ahead to the right. Signalling a halt he stared up.

‘What is it?’ As Baburi spoke a shower of scree skittered down the hillside.

‘I don’t know. I’ve posted men in a protective cordon all round the column. How could ambushers have slipped through? Let’s climb up and take a look . . .’

Babur jumped from his horse. ‘Some of you, draw your bows and keep us covered,’ he called to his bodyguards. ‘The rest, come with us.’

A few minutes later, Babur looked around the bare, stony summit in disappointment. Nothing. Whatever it was, animal or human, must already have made off. Then from over the far edge he heard pebbles falling. Running across he saw a man in brown tunic and baggy trousers slithering frantically down a patch of scree to make his escape. Reaching for his bow, Babur took careful aim and sent an arrow hissing after him. The man screamed but disappeared into some rocky ground at the bottom of the hill.

With Baburi and his guards close behind, Babur leaped and skidded down the stony hillside after his quarry. Reaching the bottom he glimpsed the man half running, half staggering among the rocks, the arrow protruding from the muscle of his right arm, just below
his shoulder. Summoning a burst of speed, Babur caught up with him and flung himself at him, bringing him down among the pebbles. Soon his bodyguard had caught up and pinioned the man.

Babur stood up, brushing the dust from his clothes. ‘Who are you?’

‘Pikhi, headman of the Gagianis . . .’ the man gasped.

‘What were you doing?’

Pikhi’s eyes – elongated like a mountain cat’s – flickered, but if he had thought of lying, he seemed to realise the futility. ‘Watching your progress towards the pass.’

‘And why would you do that?’

‘There are Pathan tribes in the pass who will reward me and my people well for information about opportunities for plunder. Last year’s harvest was bad and the winter has been hard . . . My people have never been rich but this year we will starve unless I seek booty.’

‘I am a king leading an army . . . not a fat merchant with a camel train.’

‘Shall I slit his throat?’ Baburi drew his dagger, ready to inflict the habitual punishment on spies.

‘No . . . I may have a better idea.’

Babur turned back to Pikhi, who seemed to have composed himself to meet his end as befitted a headman. ‘You know these mountains well, and you want to live?’

‘Yes to both, of course – after all I got through your cordon easily enough, didn’t I?’

‘In return for your life, you will send messengers to your allies in the pass telling them that I, Babur of Kabul, am passing through. Any tribe that attacks me will be annihilated . . . And you will be our guide. At the first sign of trouble, you die. Is that clear?’

Sparing Pikhi had been a wise move. In three long marches he had brought them through the barren, snow-dusted Khyber Pass with its jagged grey defiles. As they descended to the mud-brick settlement of Jam, the air was already warmer and three more days brought them to the Indus. Babur gazed at the broad river, so
high with meltwater it was almost overflowing its banks. It formed the barrier between his world and the hot, mysterious lands of Hindustan . . .

‘This is the Indus, then?’ Baburi was beside him on a stocky gelding that, eager for a drink, was tossing its head impatiently.

‘Yes.’ As Babur stared at the swirling, eddying waters, some of his elation died. ‘We can’t cross here. Most of our animals and baggage would never make it . . . we’d lose everything. Send Pikhi to me. I must give our men at least some chance of booty.’

Ten minutes later the man was before him, brown felt cap in his hands.

‘We cannot ford the river here. I must wait for the waters to fall or find a place where it will be safe to swim our animals across.’

Pikhi shrugged. ‘The river is very high this year – it may be weeks before the flow reduces. Until then there is nowhere else to cross.’

‘What about boats? Why are there no fishermen?’

‘There were, Majesty, but hearing of your approach through the pass they fled in their boats . . .’

Babur swore. ‘Where else can we raid on this side of the river while we wait for the waters to drop?’

‘Two days’ march from here is Kohat, a wealthy place with ample herds and grain.’ Pikhi was looking sly. ‘The inhabitants’ clan is the blood enemy of mine. Last summer they raided my village in the mountains, killing our men, stealing our women and driving off our livestock. Any harm I can bring on them gives me only joy.’

‘Lead us there and you’ll have your freedom.’

For the tenth time, Babur cursed himself for a fool. It was only late April but the heat was beyond anything he and his men had ever known, the air was moist with the promise of rains that, according to the local people, would soon begin to fall. They were all sweating beneath their armour.

True, the last weeks, raiding west through the hill country of the Afghan tribes and storming their fortified stone retreats – the
sangars they built high in the mountains as carefully as an eagle constructs its nest – had been successful. The erection of a few towers of lopped-off heads had discouraged most opposition and at least ten chieftains had sworn their allegiance, crawling before Babur on all fours with grass between their teeth as was their custom. It meant, ‘I am your cow. Do with me as you will.’

Yet all he had captured were sheep, cattle, sugar, aromatic roots and countless bales of cloth. His men appeared satisfied but to Babur it seemed hardly worth the effort of bringing a couple of thousand men and countless pack-animals from Kabul. To his disappointment the Indus had not subsided until the time had passed when he could have crossed it and penetrated Hindustan. Subduing the peoples in the mountains and plains along its northern borders had been a poor substitute. Nevertheless, the expedition had achieved one purpose, Babur reflected, wiping sweat yet again from his forehead before it ran into his eyes. It had been useful in schooling his troops – and himself – for a greater enterprise.

Now he and his long line of men, the pack-ponies, donkeys and camels bringing up the rear, were curving north-westward along the Ghazni river towards the Sawaran Pass that would lead them back through the mountains. With God’s help they should soon see Kabul again and feel the cool air from the high northern mountains on their chapped, sunburned skin. There, he could plan afresh.

‘What is that?’ Baburi’s keen eyes had spotted something on the horizon. With the great orange sun setting right in their faces it was hard to see, but Babur looped his reins over the front of his saddle and shaded his face with both hands. He could see something too – a metallic sheen straight ahead, probably an effect of the light. But as they drew nearer he saw it was a great expanse of water that seemed to hang between earth and sky.

The surface of the water glowed with a reddish light that seemed to flash on and off. The reflection of the setting sun, perhaps? No . . . Babur heard Baburi gasp beside him as he, too, stared at the extraordinary sight. Thousand upon thousand of long-legged, red-feathered birds were beating their wings as they rose in flight, their
bodies a streak of blood across the livid sky, terrible and beautiful at the same time.

Despite the heat, Babur shivered with excitement . . . These southern lands had not finished with him yet. Like the birds, he was leaving but, also like them, he would return and men would gasp at the spectacle.

T
he summer heat had scorched the grass in the meadows beneath the citadel of Kabul to a golden brown and the ground beneath his weary horse’s hoofs was baked hard. The level of the lake had fallen, leaving a crust of cracked mud streaked with dried green slime around the edge; the water smelled fetid. After an absence of nearly five months, though, his first thoughts were of his mother and grandmother, and the stories he wanted to tell them of his expedition to the borders of Hindustan. Ordering his commanders to pitch camp, unload the lines of pack-animals and post guards around the piles of plunder until it could be distributed, Babur cantered up the ramp into the citadel.

As he emerged through the shadowy gatehouse into the bright courtyard, the drummers on the battlements beat out the customary welcome to the returning king. Babur eased his feet out of the stirrups and grunted in satisfaction. It was good to be back. Then he saw Baisanghar hurrying to greet him. His face told Babur immediately that something was wrong. ‘What is it, Baisanghar? What’s happened?’

‘Majesty, your mother is ill. She has what the people here call the spotted fever, brought by merchants from the east. It caused an epidemic in the town, which spread here to the citadel to the women’s quarters. The
hakim
has bled her but without result. Now
he is treating her with the juice of watermelons to cool her blood, but he fears for her life . . . Two of her attendants have already died, one only a few hours ago.’

‘When did the sickness start?’

‘Nearly a week ago. She speaks of you constantly. I sent scouts to watch for your return but I had no idea from which direction you’d come – or when. God has been good to bring you home . . .’

A chilling numbness crept through Babur that seemed to paralyse his body and brain. Dazed, he slid from his horse, handed his reins to a groom and walked slowly across the courtyard and up the steps to the women’s quarters. As he approached the tall silver-lined double doors, inlaid with dark blue lapis-lazuli, that led into his mother’s apartments, his whole body was trembling and he felt sick.

Scenes from his boyhood flickered through his brain. Khanzada slapping him for tormenting her mongoose and Kutlugh Nigar reproving her. His mother setting the feathered velvet cap of Ferghana on his head and placing his father’s sword, Alamgir, in his hand on the night the
khutba
was read in his name. But, above all, he saw the agony on her face when he had told her that Khanzada was to be given to Shaibani Khan. That had sapped the life from her long before the sickness had struck . . . Babur bowed his head in anguish.

As attendants swung the doors open, the close, heavy air of the sick chamber – sweat mingled with sandalwood and camphor – hit him. He caught the sad, sweet notes of a lute. As he entered he saw Esan Dawlat sitting by her daughter’s bedside, her head bent low over her instrument. ‘Grandmother . . .’

She looked up at his voice but completed the refrain she had been playing before handing the lute to a subdued, pinched-looking Fatima sitting just behind her. ‘Music seems to soothe her. I was afraid you would be too late. The
hakim
says the crisis is near . . .’

Babur could see his mother lying with her eyes closed. Her face and what he could see of her neck were covered with raised angry red spots. There were even some swelling her eyelids. He stepped
towards her, but Esan Dawlat waved him back. ‘The fever is deadly – especially to the young.’ Babur stared at her. He took another step forward but, with a speed almost unbelievable in a woman of her age, Esan Dawlat sprang up, rushed towards him and gripped his arms. ‘The
hakim
is doing all he can, and so am I. We can only wait and hope. Will it help if you catch it too? The best thing you can do for your mother, and for me, is to survive.’

‘But is there nothing I can do?’

‘There is one thing. When your mother is conscious she says little. But in her delirium she says much. Again and again she has asked God why she has no grandchildren, why you have no heirs. Let me tell her you will marry again, that there will be children she can hold on her knee when she recovers. All she feels in her soul is despair, leaving her no strength to fight. I must give her something to hope for . . .’

‘Tell her I will do anything she asks. Tell her she must recover so she can dance at my wedding feast and that there will be many grandchildren . . . Tell her I need her . . .’