Raiders from the North: Empire of the Moghul (48 page)

‘Go first. You’re heavier – I’ll take some of the strain.’

The mullah didn’t hesitate. Babur turned his back to the drop and, taking the improvised rope in his left hand, passed it behind his back so that he could grip it with his right hand, then braced himself against it. At a nod from Babur, Husayn lowered himself cautiously over the edge. At once, the material seemed stretched to near breaking point and the knot between the sashes began to slip.

‘Hurry!’ Babur yelled, and felt the rope go slack. He peered down into the street and saw the mullah lying in a tangle of red robes, rubbing his shoulder. The sound of angry, excited voices and of the trapdoor to the roof being pushed open told him he had no more time. He tightened the knot again, gripped the rope and, trusting to fate, leaped . . . He braced his feet against the walls, bouncing off them as he descended, but suddenly his hands slipped.

His landing was softened, though not much, by a stack of wood. The mullah was still lying groaning where he had fallen, and flushed faces were looking down on them from the roof. The men were shouting obscenities. Any moment now and they’d be coming down the makeshift rope themselves. As he struggled breathlessly to heave the mullah to his feet, Babur heard the clattering of hoofs. Some of his bodyguard were galloping in single file down the street towards him, two of them already fitting arrows to their bowstrings, ready to fire at Babur’s assailants on the roof who quickly melted from view.

‘Majesty, we’ve been searching for you ever since we became separated. Quickly! There are mobs all over the city . . .’

One of his men dismounted to offer him his horse. Wearily Babur staggered to his feet and jumped up. With two of his men riding double and the mullah, still moaning, behind another guard, the little group made swiftly for the safety of the Kok Saray.

‘I have withdrawn my armies westwards to protect my own borders and cannot offer you the assistance you seek. Indeed, why should I? You have spat in the face of my generosity and insulted my religion. Mullah Husayn has told me what passed in Samarkand –
how he was reviled, insulted and hunted through its streets like a dog. In spurning him and the true way, you and your people have spurned me. May God the merciful forgive your crimes against him.’

Babur stared down at Shah Ismail’s letter. It looked as if the mullah hadn’t told him that Babur – in person – had saved his miserable neck. Slowly, deliberately, he ripped the dark red wax seal stamped with the lion – the personal emblem of the shah – from the bottom of the letter, which he tore into small pieces. Then he thrust the lot into the heart of the bright green flames of the wormwood fire, kept burning day and night in his chamber in an attempt to defeat the chill that, at the height of winter, with snow drifting against the city walls, seemed to seep from the very stones of the Kok Saray.

‘It is only as we expected, Majesty . . .’ Baisanghar said quietly.

‘I know – but I still can’t believe the shah will let the Uzbeks take the city . . . I didn’t think his malice would extend that far . . .’ Babur watched the wax melt and the paper flare and burn, taking with them his hopes.

‘He is used to being obeyed. Once he had you in his power he expected you would yield to everything he wanted.’

‘That is just as Baburi warned . . . I’ve been naïve. But I did not believe the shah was dishonest . . . he never said that I or my people must convert and he must know he could not have coerced them without spilling blood. As it was, it took us a month to quieten the city after Mullah Husayn’s sermon.’

‘At least the Persians have gone, Majesty . . .’

‘Yes, but at the wrong time. I should have rid myself of them as soon as I became king. Then the people would have been less suspicious of me. Instead, I let them stay long enough to undermine me and then, just when I needed them to protect Samarkand, they left. The Uzbeks have already retaken Bokhara. As soon as the winter ends they will fall on us. Even though the system of messengers I have introduced tells me that Kabul and its territories are quiet, I cannot summon reinforcements from there or I will leave it vulnerable to attack or rebellion, just as when I first took Samarkand and unthinkingly hazarded Ferghana. I will, of course, fortify and
provision the city but do I have the support of the people? I can never hold the city if I face enemies within the walls as well as outside.’

‘I don’t know, Majesty.’

‘No, Baisangar, neither do I . . .’

What was the point of looking back? Already Samarkand’s wondrous, fantastical outline was fading into the pinks, mauves and oranges of a spectacular sunset. It was as if Nature herself was celebrating his departure. Perhaps tomorrow an equally glorious dawn would unfurl to welcome the Uzbeks as they swept in from their encampment five miles north of the city.

Who would have thought that, with Shaibani Khan dead, they’d have found new leaders and organised themselves so well? The Uzbeks were like a column of ants: when some were crushed, others surged forward and their relentless advance never faltered . . .

Not only had the shah refused to help him – damning Babur as a heretic king – but he had enraged the citizens of Samarkand yet further. Almost a month ago, during the first days of spring, Persian troops had overrun an isolated Uzbek encampment west of Bokhara where many women and children, as well as warriors, had been living out the winter. Rounding up their prisoners, the Persians had quickly made clear that they were not simply punishing the Uzbeks for their past attacks on the shah and his territories, but for the divisions between Shiite and Sunni. In the mosques of Persia, at Shah Ismail’s urging, the mullahs were now declaring all Sunnis enemies of God. And the Uzbeks – like Babur and the people of Samarkand – were Sunni. The Persians had offered the Uzbek men, women and children the chance to become Shiite then killed brutally and in cold blood those who did not immediately accept.

The inhabitants of Samarkand had made their feelings clear to Babur: if the Uzbeks wanted to return, let them. Better the enemies of their blood than the enemies of their faith. The brutal truth was that they trusted the Uzbeks to protect them from the shah and
Shiitism – they didn’t trust Babur. He was fatally compromised by his previous dalliance with the shah. In vain Babur had reminded them of the horrors perpetrated by Shaibani Khan but it seemed they had short memories. Faced with near rebellion and demands from the Uzbeks, galloping down in their tens of thousands from Karshi and other strongholds in the north, to relinquish the city, Babur had issued an ultimatum to his citizens: ‘Help me defend the city – our civilisation and culture – or I shall return to Kabul.’ They had refused his call.

At least his hold on Kabul remained firm and his family were safe there. He had sent Maham, Gulrukh and his sons ahead with a strong escort. Now he must follow. As so often in recent weeks, he thought of Baburi. His friend had been right all along. Babur’s passion for Samarkand – which had never truly belonged to him – had blinded him. Now he must pay for his folly, forget Samarkand and begin again from Kabul to seek other lands in which to satisfy his ambition for empire.

But he had one small consolation. He had returned the shah’s stud stallion – gelded.

O
n a day of shimmering heat in the summer of 1522, Babur’s sons were in the meadows beneath the walls of the citadel of Kabul. Fourteen-year-old Humayun was galloping his horse – a chestnut mare with shining coat and white fetlocks – through the long golden grasses, firing from the saddle at a row of straw targets. He was keeping perfect balance as he drew arrow after arrow from his quiver, fitted them to his tight, double-curved bow and sent them flying through the air. Each hit its mark. Kamran, on his rough-coated pony, was watching his half-brother with respect. Babur saw him gasp as Humayun looked up into the bright blue skies and, so fast it was hard to see him do it, unleashed another arrow to bring down a bird.

Babur smiled. Even from his vantage-point high on the battlements he could sense Humayun’s pleasure and his desire to show off – it was in the casual grace with which he held himself on his horse, the straightness of his back, the carriage of his handsome head. He looked every inch a warrior prince and knew it. But Kamran, just five months younger, was also growing up. Like his half-brother, he would be tall and, though not so powerfully built, was utterly fearless – a quality that had already led to several accidents.

Babur was glad his mother had lived long enough to see the two boys and to be reunited with Khanzada – something that in
her heart he knew she’d despaired of. With her daughter’s return to Kabul, Kutlugh Nigar had revived like a parched meadow after the rains. What Khanzada had told her of her sufferings at the hands of Shaibani Khan, Babur could only guess. Sometimes he’d seen a stricken look in his mother’s eyes as she had gazed at her daughter. Khanzada must have seen it too. He had noticed how tender and cheerful Khanzada was with her, as if she was trying to reassure her that, despite everything, her inner spirit was not broken. On one matter only Khanzada had refused to gratify her mother. Kutlugh Nigar would dearly have loved to see her daughter marry again as a way of extinguishing the past but, in her gentle way, Khanzada had rebuffed any such suggestion, however good the man, however prestigious the alliance.

Kutlugh Nigar’s death seven years ago had been as sudden as his grandmother’s. She had been embroidering the border of a cotton robe in her apartments as Khanzada read to her and had simply slumped forward with a little sigh that proved to have been her last breath. Her spirit had passed and there had been nothing the
hakim
could do. A few hours later Babur, unable to hold back his tears, had seen her buried next to Esan Dawlat in the hillside garden he had laid out when he had first come to Kabul. He had made a vow never to forget how, through his blackest, most dangerous moments, his grandmother and mother had supported and guided him and that without them he would have had no throne at all . . . It still saddened him that neither had lived to see his youngest sons.

He turned his gaze to where six-year-old Askari appeared to be tormenting his three-year-old half-brother Hindal with a pointed stick. Their nurse was trying to take the stick away and Babur saw Askari’s pointed little face screw up in a yell of defiance, which only provoked a sound cuff on the ear at which he surrendered his weapon and started to howl. Hindal – now that his nurse had intervened to protect him – was watching his brother’s discomfort with huge amusement on his round, chubby face.

He was lucky to have so many healthy sons, Babur thought, and to have a rich, secure kingdom. In the ten years since he had
relinquished Samarkand, he had continued to rule Kabul, quelling any opposition swiftly and winning his people’s respect for his ability to stamp on the brigand tribes that infested the kotals – the high, narrow passes around Kabul – and preyed on the caravans. The Khugiani, Khirilji, Turi and Landar bandits had all had cause to regret their crimes. Their severed heads, cemented into high towers overlooking the passes, were a warning to others and reassured the anxious traveller that he was entering a kingdom in which the ruler ruled.

The treasuries were full, as the faithful, quietly efficient Kasim – guardian of the Royal Treasuries in place of Wali Gul, whose aged mind had finally wandered too far – proudly reported to Babur each day of the new moon. Kabul’s merchants, feasting on roasted camel to celebrate every safe arrival of a caravan train, felt wealthy and secure. They might be happy but was he? Esan Dawlat – of all the women of his family the one who had understood him best – would have known instinctively the answer – that he was not.

Looking at his sons, Babur felt with renewed sharpness the unfulfilled longing that never quite left him. What would their future be? He had survived so much, learned so many lessons as a fighter and a leader of men. His experiences had taught him never to despair, never to allow setbacks to diminish his ambition. And that ambition was still for something greater than Kabul . . . something magnificent to bequeath to his sons and their sons after them . . .