Raiders from the North: Empire of the Moghul (8 page)

‘Where did you meet?’

‘Don’t worry – I didn’t disguise myself as a woman and slip into the grand vizier’s harem. It happened last year while she was accompanying her father on an embassy from Samarkand to Kunduz. Brigands attacked their party soon after they had crossed our northern borders. I and my troops had been sent to meet them. We were close when the attack occurred. We heard the clamour and rode to their rescue. That was when I saw her – she came out from behind the rock where she had been hiding, her veil and half her clothes torn off . . .’ Mahmud paused, clearly remembering the pleasurable sight.

‘The grand vizier should have been grateful to you.’

‘He was – but Kunduz is not as rich as Kabul.’ Mahmud shrugged. ‘And you, cousin, what brings you here?’

‘Beware the man who has no ambition.’ His father’s words flickered unbidden through Babur’s mind. But wasn’t it also right to be wary of the man who did? Had Mahmud really come to Samarkand at such a time merely for the sake of a girl, however desirable?

Babur decided to be frank. ‘The King of Samarkand, though my father’s brother, was no friend to Ferghana and meant to rob me of my throne. But as he lay dying, he ordered his men to bring me this.’ Babur held out his hand. Timur’s ring, cleansed now of blood, was on his index finger. It was a little too big, but he had secured it with
a twist of red silk. The metal gleamed in the light from a brazier of burning charcoal and he heard Mahmud’s sharp intake of breath.

‘You believe you are Timur’s heir?’

‘His blood runs in my veins. I will have his city.’

‘His blood runs in my veins also,’ Mahmud said slowly. Their eyes met and suddenly there was nothing boyish about either of them. Babur felt glad of the dagger in its jewelled scabbard tucked into the mauve sash around his waist.

‘Don’t worry, little cousin – though perhaps I should not call you “little”. I have seen kinder expressions on the faces of she-wolves whose young I’ve just slain.’ Mahmud was grinning again. ‘True, I came to Samarkand because I guessed there would be confusion in the city. But look around my camp and you will see I’ve brought no more than a few hundred men. I never planned to seize the city, merely to raid it, steal some of its wealth and quell this fire in my loins.’ He pulled a face and gave his groin a playful rub.

‘I wish you luck. May the fire soon be quenched.’

‘And you, cousin, how many men have you?’

‘When my main force arrives, we will be more than six thousand strong, including many archers.’ In reality, Babur’s army totalled some five thousand but it would do no harm to exaggerate a little.

Mahmud looked impressed. ‘I didn’t think Ferghana could muster so many.’

‘Many are my own retainers and their men, but others are from the hill tribes.’

‘Let’s attack together.’ Mahmud grasped Babur’s wrist. ‘When you have the grand vizier’s head on a spear, I shall have my wife.’

‘Why not?’ Babur smiled back. With his superior forces there could be little danger of Mahmud outmanoeuvring him and taking the throne.

Two months later the winter winds whipping around them were not as bitter as the pain Babur felt as his men plodded wearily eastwards back towards Ferghana. The horses, shaggy manes clotted with ice, were sinking into the snow to their hocks. As they snorted with the
effort, their breath rose in clouds of mist. In some places the drifts were so deep that the men dismounted to relieve the animals of their weight and struggled along beside them. Much of the baggage lay scattered and abandoned on the snowy wastes behind them.

This was not how it should have been, Babur thought grimly. The ring on his finger with its piece of red silk still hung a little loose. It seemed vainglorious now, a testament to his failure and humiliation.

Wazir Khan was by his side, shrouded in a heavy wool blanket with frost mantling his beard and brows. Wise Wazir Khan who had urged him to abandon their assaults when the pale skies pregnant with snow announced that winter had come early and vengefully. But Babur had not listened – not even when Mahmud turned for home, the longing in his loins unsatisfied, or when his own paid allies, the hill tribesmen, rode away, cursing about loot promised but not provided. And now he was paying the price for his stubbornness and pride. The walls of Samarkand were unbreached and inside them the grand vizier was sitting snug with the crown that was not his and with the daughter for whom he had such great plans – her maidenhead destined for the son of the King of Kabul, not Mahmud.

‘Majesty, we will return.’ Wazir Khan as usual had read his mind. His words forced through frost-bitten lips came slowly. ‘This was only a raid. We saw a chance and took it, but circumstances were against us.’

‘It hurts me, Wazir Khan. When I think of what might have been, I feel a pain sharp as any cut from a blade . . .’

‘But it has given you your first experience of warfare. Next time we’ll be better prepared and equipped, and you will know the sweetness of success.’

In spite of his misery, the words cheered Babur. He was young. He already had one kingdom. It was not weakness to recognise the inevitable – that he could not take Samarkand this winter. Weakness lay in despair, in giving up while he still had breath in his lungs and strength in his arms, and that he would never do. ‘I will return,’ he shouted, above the howling of the wind, and lifting his head gave the war whoop his father had taught him. The defiant sound was swallowed by the wintry storm but continued to echo in Babur’s head.

H
ow lucky that a winter that had descended so cruelly early had been followed by a premature spring. From the balcony of his chamber Babur watched boys casting stones on to the frozen Jaxartes, saw the ice fissure and the waters surge up. A few unwary sheep that had wandered on to the frozen watercourse were borne away in the chill torrent. Their thin, high-pitched bleating lasted only a few seconds.

On the plains beyond the Jaxartes, his chiefs were again assembled with their men. This time he had sent his messengers even further, calling in the nomad tribes from north, south, east and west and promising them rich booty. With Shaibani Khan still in his winter quarters in the far north, this must be the moment to strike, Babur thought. Soon he would give the command to ride.

But before he embarked on his unfinished business of Samarkand he must pay his respects to his mother. He hurried to her apartments. This time, his reflection in Kutlugh Nigar’s mirror of burnished brass looked very different from when he had gazed on it in the dark, uncertain hours after his father’s death. A few weeks ago he had celebrated his thirteenth birthday. Hairs sprouted on his chin and he was taller and broader. His voice had deepened and Timur’s ring no longer hung loose on his hand.

‘You are becoming a man, my son.’ There was pride in his mother’s
voice as she kissed him farewell. Even his grandmother seemed satisfied – and it took much to please the stern old woman, whose face was as wrinkled as a dried apricot but whose shrewd dark eyes missed nothing.

‘When the city is mine I will send for you all.’

‘You promise?’ Khanzada thrust out her chin.

‘I promise.’ He bent to kiss the sister who was now, to Babur’s satisfaction, a good six inches shorter than he.

As he strode away through the harem, he passed an open door. In the windowless chamber within, lit by the soft light of a row of oil lamps, a tall young woman in bodice and wide trousers of pink flowered silk was bending forward, combing her flowing hair. Babur stepped beneath the low lintel.

As soon as she saw him, she knelt before him so that her forehead touched the ground and her hair flowed round her like a pool of shining water. ‘Greetings, Babur, King of Ferghana. May God smile on you.’ Her voice, low but clear, held the cadences of the mountain people of the north.

‘You may rise.’

She got up gracefully. Her eyes were elongated, her figure slender and her skin the colour of honey. In the corner of her chamber Babur noticed two rustic wooden chests with garments tumbling out of them.

‘I was tired after my journey. I ordered my attendants to leave me . . .’ She paused and Babur noticed uncertainty in her face, as if she was weighing something up. He turned to go. There was still much for him to see to before the army departed.

‘I thank you, Majesty, for summoning me here.’ She took a step towards him and he caught her musky scent.

‘My father’s concubine is, of course, welcome in my house.’

‘And his son by his concubine?’

Babur felt a flash of irritation. ‘Of course.’ This woman, Roxanna – the daughter of some petty chief – had no right to question him so. He’d only learned of her existence a few weeks ago. For some reason his father had chosen not to bring her to his castle but had left her among her own people to be visited and tumbled when
he was away on hunting trips. He had told no one of her. Neither had he revealed that eight years ago, when she could have been no more than fourteen, she had borne him a son, Jahangir.

When, in the first days after the snows had ceased to fall, Roxanna’s father had arrived at the castle, no one had paid much attention to the shabby tribal chief with his straggling beard. Then he had drawn from his sheepskin robes a letter written by Babur’s father acknowledging Roxanna as his concubine and her young son as his seed. It asked that if anything happened to him, they should be admitted to the protection of the royal harem.

Kutlugh Nigar had responded with barely a shrug. It had been her husband’s right to take as many concubines as he wanted and, indeed, three other wives. She knew she had been his great love, his daily companion, the mother of his son and heir. No other couple on earth could have matched the depth of their physical and mental compatibility. The sole shadow in their union had been that only two of their children had survived. The unexpected existence of Roxanna and Babur’s half-brother mattered not to her – or so she had insisted to Babur who, embarrassed like all young people to discuss his parents’ affairs of the heart, had tried to curtail the conversation. ‘Let her come with her brat,’ she had concluded coldly. Later, Babur noticed that she had ordered Roxanna to be given apartments near her own. Out of sympathy for a young woman alone among strangers? No. So that she could keep an eye on her.

‘You are gracious, Majesty.’ Roxanna was smiling at him now. ‘Your brother thanks you also.’

Half-brother only, Babur thought, and did not smile back. He hadn’t seen him yet. The child was apparently ill with a fever – no doubt bitten by fleas or a sheep tick, Kutlugh Nigar had said on learning of it. ‘May your son soon be blessed by the return of good health,’ Babur said. Courteous words but he knew they sounded cold. He meant them to. Turning on his heel he walked swiftly away, his mind already on the great game that awaited him.

This time he had nearly eight thousand men under arms Babur thought, with pride, as the ranks of his horsemen fanned west across the plains. Behind them rode his liegemen and their forces, then the motley contingents of the tribal chiefs, like the wild Chakraks, who dwelled in the high wilderness between Ferghana and Kashgar with their horses, sheep and the shaggy yaks they preferred to cattle. The baggage wagons, hauled by long-horned oxen, creaked and groaned under the weight of equipment. This time Babur had left nothing to chance. Again and again, in his councils of war, he had gone over everything he would need for a lengthy campaign, from siege engines to ladders to be placed against Samarkand’s walls, to the cooking pots required to feed so many men, to the musicians who would play to lighten their spirits and give them the appetite for victory.

During the inactive winter months Babur, with Wazir Khan, had also considered how best to ensure Ferghana’s safety in his absence. He had decided to leave his vizier Kasim, whose loyalty and competence were beyond question, as regent. There had been no reports of Uzbek incursions, and if any danger should threaten, Kasim would at once send word to him.

What mattered now was to anticipate every move his enemies in Samarkand might make. Babur knew that, once again, the grand vizier – now daring openly to call himself King of Samarkand – would have been warned of his coming. The city’s granaries would still be well stocked with last autumn’s harvest and its gates and walls manned by soldiers whose loyalty the vizier had plenty of money to buy.