Empire of the Moghul: Ruler of the World (22 page)

Itimad Khan nodded, soft brown eyes downcast once more. Akbar turned away, contempt for the other’s weakness mingling with pity for his situation. He knew he himself had the strength of character never to allow himself to be placed in such a humiliating position, and he gave thanks for it. When his sons and then their sons read of his battles in Abul Fazl’s court chronicles they would see no such shaming weaknesses or failures but rejoice in his victories and power, as he did now.

The ocean was calm, lapping gently on the pale tangerine sands. Soft northerly winds were rippling the leaves of the tall palm trees
fringing the beach. However, Akbar could see that about a mile and a quarter further along the shore the forces of Ibrahim Hussain were massing in and around a small fort set on a promontory and designed to protect the land and sea approaches to Cambay, itself another two or three miles up the coast. A number of ships were riding at anchor near the promontory. Akbar turned to Ahmed Khan. ‘You were at Cambay with my father. What are those vessels?’

‘Most are the dhows of the Arabs who transport the pilgrims to Arabia for the
haj
and at other times trade in spices and cloth. These I have seen often during my previous time in Cambay. However, I have seen nothing before like those three dark, squarer, higher-sided ships with two masts which are nearer to us.’

‘Is that the barrel of a cannon protruding over the stern of one?’

‘I can’t be sure, Majesty.’

As Ahmed Khan spoke, sailors on the closest of the three ships began to unfurl one of its sails. As it dropped from the yardarm, Akbar saw that it had a large red cross painted on it. Other sailors were clambering into a rowing boat that had been lowered from the vessel and remained attached to it by a rope. Soon, with the help of the sailors rowing the small boat and the sail they had rigged on the main ship, the vessel was moving slowly down the coast towards Akbar’s position.

In the six weeks since his defeat of Itimad Khan, Akbar had ridden hard and fast to the ocean. Leaving all his heavy equipment behind, he had defeated and scattered the forces of Ibrahim Hussain wherever he encountered them. The previous day Akbar’s men had overwhelmed another small, half-derelict fort a few miles further south along the coast. Watching the approaching ship, Akbar was pleased that he had ordered draught oxen to be purchased from the peasants in the surrounding villages and the five small ancient cannon he had found inside the captured fort to be brought along in case they were of any use in the attack on Cambay.

‘Deploy the cannon so that they can fire on that ship if need be. Have the musketeers prime and load their weapons,’ he ordered. Half an hour later, when the dark ship with the red cross on its sail was more or less opposite Akbar’s army and only a quarter of a mile
offshore, it anchored again. A tall man in a shining breastplate climbed down a rope ladder into the rowing boat which had been helping to pull the ship along, followed by a white-turbaned figure in flowing lilac robes. When both men had seated themselves in the stern, the sailors cast off the rope attaching the boat to the bigger vessel and began rowing strongly for the shore. As soon as the boat reached the shallows, the tall man and his lilac-clad companion climbed over the side and splashed their way out of the water up the beach. Both had their arms outstretched, presumably to show they were unarmed.

Akbar looked on, intrigued. What was their purpose in approaching him at a time when they must know battle was imminent? ‘Search them for weapons and bring them to me,’ he instructed the captain of his bodyguard. The captain ran quickly over to the two men, who allowed themselves to be searched. Satisfied that they were indeed unarmed the captain led them towards Akbar. As they came closer he could see that the man in lilac looked like a Gujarati but the other was paler and his eyes were dark and round. His long nose jutted over a full mouth and a thick and curly brown beard. His plain steel breastplate covered his chest, but on his lower body he wore some kind of baggy pantaloons striped in black and gold which ended just above the knee. He was wearing red stockings and on his feet calf-length, salt-marked black boots of a design Akbar had never seen before.

‘Who are you?’ he asked as the two men bowed low before him.

‘I am Saiyid Muhammad, originally from Gujarat,’ replied the man in lilac, ‘and this is Don Ignacio Lopez, the Portuguese commander of those three large ships you see in the bay, whom I serve as translator.’

So the brown-bearded man was Portuguese – one of the travellers from far-off Europe who had arrived some years ago to found a trading post at Goa, a thousand miles further south down the coast, thought Akbar as he carefully appraised the newcomer. He had heard of the Portuguese, of course. They were acquiring a reputation for the supply of weapons of all sorts, and also for the fighting ability of their ships and sailors, but this was the first time he had encountered them.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

The interpreter spoke briefly to the Portuguese in a tongue Akbar had never heard before, and listened to his reply. Then he bowed again to Akbar. ‘Don Ignacio acknowledges you on behalf of his own king as a great general and mighty emperor of whose brave deeds he has heard much. Even though his three ships out there in the bay are powerful and equipped with many cannons, and despite Ibrahim Hussain’s offer of chests full of jewels and gold if he would aid him against you, my master wishes to assure you of his neutrality in the battle that looms between you and Ibrahim Hussain.’

‘I am glad to hear it. Is there any favour he requests in return?’

After another consultation, the translator said, ‘The ability to trade through Cambay, once it is yours.’

‘When the port is mine, he should approach me again and expect a favourable answer. Now you must depart. I can delay my attack on Ibrahim Hussain no longer.’

The two men bowed, turned and retraced their footsteps back down the beach and through the shallows before clambering back into the rowing boat. There were many questions Akbar would have liked to ask them but now was the time for action not reflection and he turned to Ahmed Khan. ‘Order the attack. We will ride along the beach near the tree line where the sand is firmer. Ibrahim Hussain and his men will be apprehensive, knowing their approach to the Portuguese for help has been rebuffed and that we have consistently defeated their forces and now outnumber them.’

Half an hour later, Akbar was thundering along the beach, sand flying from the hooves of his black stallion. Around him were his bodyguard, four of them holding green Moghul banners, two others sounding brass trumpets. As they neared Ibrahim Hussain’s defences, Akbar could see that these consisted mainly of makeshift trenches and barricades, swiftly dug from the surrounding sandy ground. The brick walls of the fort behind them were low and crumbling. However, Ibrahim Hussain clearly had some cannon, for Akbar saw orange flashes and then white smoke billowing from a two-storey building inside the fort. The first shot decapitated one of his trumpeters,
sending his head rolling along the sand until it came to rest a few feet from where his instrument had fallen.

Other riders fell too, hit by arrows and musket balls, but Ibrahim Hussain’s men were slow in reloading their cannon and Akbar was already jumping his stallion over the first barricade and across one of the trenches while they were still ramming the next round of cannon balls down the barrels. As his stallion leapt the trench Akbar slashed down at one of the Gujaratis hiding within, who was pulling back the taut string of his double bow ready to fire. Akbar’s sword caught the archer full across the mouth and he subsided, teeth exposed and face covered in blood.

Akbar heard another cannon shot and was showered with gritty sand as the ball hit the barricade in front of him. The Gujarati artillerymen had tried to depress the barrels of their weapons to fire on their advancing enemy but had only succeeded in destroying their own defences. Pulling hard on his horse’s reins, Akbar was through the new gap in the barricade and past the dismembered bodies of two Gujarati musketeers that lay bleeding into the sand.

Glancing sideways, he saw that other detachments of his horsemen had likewise got into the defences. He urged his stallion forward to where a band of Moghul soldiers had already dismounted and were attempting to climb over the crumbling brick wall into the fort itself. As he approached, some of them succeeded in pushing over the top section of a stretch of the wall and scrambling through. Akbar jumped from his horse and followed, grazing his left hand on a piece of metal inserted in the wall for support as he pulled himself over. He ran, legs pumping, as hard as he could after his men who were dashing towards the two-storey strongpoint which he could now see was the only building within the fortifications.

Another burst of flame. At least one cannon remained in action in the building. One of his men fell but then staggered up again, clearly having tripped rather than been hit. Breathing hard, Akbar was by now right on the heels of the foremost of his soldiers and together they ran into the strongpoint through a doorway left open by the fleeing gunners. Struggling to adjust their eyes to the darkness inside, they made out a steep stone staircase in one corner and
charged up it. At the top, a single Gujarati officer, made of stronger stuff than his comrades, was desperately trying to lift a cannon ball and roll it down into the barrel of a small bronze cannon. Hit in the back by a foot-long dagger thrown by one of Akbar’s men the officer collapsed over the wooden gun carriage.

‘Quickly,’ Akbar shouted to two of his bodyguards behind him, ‘you, plant our green banner on the roof of this building to show we occupy the fort. You, find Muhammad Beg. Tell him to order our remaining troops to ride round the fort walls as fast as they can to prevent the Gujaratis fleeing north back to Cambay.’

The excitement of battle was still on Akbar, mingling with his exultation that Gujarat was now securely annexed to his growing empire, when towards evening that day he stood on top of the small sandstone watchtower at the end of the inner breakwater protecting the port of Cambay. The green Moghul banner flew above the chief buildings of the port, whose inhabitants had opened the wooden gates as soon as news of Ibrahim Hussain’s defeat had been brought back by fugitives from the battle down the coast. Ibrahim Hussain, wounded in the shoulder by a battleaxe, had surrendered and was now in a dungeon awaiting his fate.

How beautiful the sea was, rippling pewter-coloured beneath a sky in which the late afternoon sun was becoming obscured by purple clouds gathering on the western horizon. Suddenly Akbar decided he must experience the ocean himself, something he had never done before.

An hour later, he was standing in the prow of a fifty-foot-long dhow which was bucking up and down in waves which were increasing in height all the time. The dhow’s captain had warned Akbar that the dark clouds he had seen piling the horizon from the watchtower presaged a storm but Akbar had insisted on his putting to sea. Now the captain, a short, bandy-legged man, was shouting orders for sails to be furled and for men to lean on the tiller to keep the bows into the wind to allow the ship to ride out the squall. Beside Akbar, one of his young
qorchis
was being violently sick, his
sour vomit speckling his own clothes and those of another squire next to him. A third, pale-faced and white-knuckled, was clinging for dear life to the base of the mast while muttering prayers for God’s protection.

Suddenly a particularly large wave shattered over the bows, soaking Akbar and Ahmed Khan at his side, with warm foaming water. Ahmed Khan himself was looking distinctly nervous as he turned to Akbar. ‘Majesty, let us move to a less exposed position. It would only be wise.’

Akbar, wet black hair blowing out behind him and legs slightly apart, braced against the unfamiliar motion, shook his head. ‘The pulsing ocean fills me with awe. Besides, the captain tells me the storm will soon abate. Ignorant of the ocean’s full strength I wanted to test myself on its waters and now, despite the dangers and discomforts, I am learning . . . The crashing waves and seemingly limitless power of the ocean are a salutary reminder to me not to become vainglorious and over-confident. Although I have led great armies, won great victories, filled my treasuries and come to reign over vast millions – many more than any other ruler – I am still just a man, insignificant and transitory in the face of eternal nature.’