Raiders from the North: Empire of the Moghul (38 page)

‘Let me go – send me out with a force. I’ll flush the bastards from their mountain hideaways and remove their heads from their shoulders . . .’

Babur looked at his friend. There was no doubting his seriousness: his voice shook with passion and there was an eager light in his eyes. He was a good, brave soldier but he had never been in command.

‘You’re sure you can lead?’

‘Of course. You’re not the only one to have faith in himself . . .’

Babur pondered. Others would grumble and wonder why he had chosen Baburi above them. Even Baisanghar would probably look askance. But why not follow his instincts and give Baburi the chance he was obviously aching for?

‘Alright. You go.’

‘And your orders are no quarter?’

‘No quarter to Muhammad-Muquim Arghun and his men, but spare the women and children.’

‘I won’t disappoint you.’ Baburi’s high cheekbones lent his face a predatory, wolfish look.

After he had gone, Babur thought for a moment, then took up his pen again to finish what he had been writing when Baburi had interrupted him: ‘This kingdom is to be governed by the sword and not the pen.’

Seven hog deer were already suspended from the huntsmen’s poles but this nilgai was a bonus. Babur had read of the antelope’s strange blue-grey coat, its black mane and the long, thick, silky hairs covering its throat but had never before seen one. The creatures concealed in the dense oak and olive forests in the east of his kingdom – gaudy parrots, shrieking mynah birds, peacocks and monkeys – astonished him. He was glad he had chosen this place for the royal hunt to celebrate Baburi’s crushing of the Hazaras. Five days ago, Baburi had returned to Kabul at the head of his men to fling the mangled head of Muhammad-Muquim Arghun at Babur’s feet. Now he, too, was watching the nilgai.

‘Yours,’ Babur whispered. It was only right.

Baburi fixed his indigo eyes on the nilgai, nosing among the juniper bushes, as he fitted his arrow to his bow-string and stretched the tight sinew till the double curved bow looked ready to snap.

Babur watched the white-feathered arrow embed itself in the soft throat of the unsuspecting deer, which, with scarcely a sound or a flicker of its long-lashed eyes, collapsed sideways to the ground. For a moment Babur saw not a stricken beast but Wazir Khan, an Uzbek arrow through his throat, sliding from his horse into a fast-flowing river and looked away. Memories and emotions came when they were least expected. He should know that by now. ‘Well done. You’re a good shot.’

‘For a market boy . . .’

The feast that night was the most lavish Babur had given since celebrating the taking of Kabul. In the orange light of torches, he sat on a pinewood dais in the courtyard of the modest fort he was occupying on this hunting trip, Baburi next to him. Soon Babur would order the ulush – the ‘champion’s portion’ – of the first sheep to be served to Baburi. He would toast him in the strong, full-bodied red wine of Kabul and award him the title of
Qor Begi
, Lord of the Bow, for his skill in battle.

But later, as he drank from his double-handled goblet, carved from ox horn and mounted in silver, and listened to his men roar out their songs of valour in the field and greater valour in bed, he felt dissatisfaction seep through him with the wine just when other rulers would have been content. After all, Baburi had quelled the Hazaras and cemented their heads into enough festering pyramids to strike fear into passers-by and serve as a warning for the future. Kabul – his haven and the balm to his dignity – was secure. He was enjoying planting his gardens and planning new buildings for his capital. Why wasn’t it enough? Because ambition still gnawed at his soul, sucking out the happiness.

Taking another deep draught of wine, Babur continued to brood. In a few days his grandmother and mother would arrive from Kishm. His mother would be all pleasure at their reunion but he knew that in her heart would be the unspoken question of when he would be able to redeem his promise to rescue his sister. In Esan Dawlat’s sharp eyes he sensed he would see the same question that troubled him: what to do next? What new conquest? Where and when? Neither Timur nor her revered Genghis Khan had ever rested in one place long, satisfied with what they had, as she would no doubt remind him . . .

‘You look like a man whose favourite horse has gone lame just before the big race.’ Baburi’s lean face was flushed with wine and round his neck hung the gold chain Babur had given him for his cunning and bravery against the Hazaras.

‘I was thinking . . . Ten years ago, when I least expected, I became a king. But what I always expected – even before then – was that destiny held something special for me . . .’ He ignored Baburi’s
usual sceptical glance. How could he possibly understand what it had been like growing up in a court where the father you loved talked only of the greatness that might have been and the greatness that might yet be . . .

‘The truth is I’m restless – unsatisfied. Kabul is all very well but I want more. Every day when I open my diary to write in it, I wonder what the future pages will say . . . Will they describe great glories, great victories, or will they be blank . . . ? I must not relax but hold firm to my destiny. I can’t allow the pages of my life to turn with nothing memorable inscribed upon them.’

‘So what are you thinking of doing . . . ? Attacking Shaibani Khan?’

‘As soon as my armies are stronger. But not yet. I’d be a fool to take him on so soon . . .’

‘What else, then?’

Babur took another long drink and felt the wine flow through his body, freeing his tongue and his imagination. Suddenly an idea that had long been at the back of his mind crystallised. ‘Hindustan . . . that’s where I’d like to go. Do you remember Rehana’s story? If I captured treasure, as Timur did, no one, not Shaibani Khan or even the Shah of Persia, could stand in my way.’ He swayed on his seat. Baburi’s hand was on his shoulder, steadying him, but he shook it off. In his mind he saw a little golden elephant with ruby eyes . . .

‘You should follow your instincts.’

Babur peered at him blearily. ‘What . . . ?’

‘I said follow your instincts . . . see where your so-called destiny that you love so much leads you . . .’

Though Baburi’s voice seemed to come from far away and was half drowned in the drunken hubbub around them, the message penetrated Babur’s mind with complete clarity, sobering him in spite of the wine . . . Yes, he would muster a force and raid south along the Kabul river towards Hindustan. He would gaze on the broad Indus, contemplate the prospect of awesome riches beyond and perhaps even seize some.

At Babur’s request, the court astrologers consulted the planets. Night after night they studied their charts and scrutinised the infinitely complex web of stars lighting the dark skies over Kabul. January, when the sun was in the sign of Aquarius, would be an auspicious time for him to launch his campaign, they pronounced at last, stroking their beards. Babur wasn’t sure he believed their predictions, but his men would. It was good for them to believe the stars blessed their journey into an unknown world. At least the astrologers’ advice gave him time to prepare: he could spend the next few months building up his forces and considering his strategy.

As the last of the autumn fruit was being gathered from the orchards around Kabul, Babur’s mother and grandmother arrived from Kishm. He hadn’t wanted to send for them too soon – the Hazara rising had made him cautious – but his heart swelled with pride to hear the trumpets sound and the drums over the gatehouse thud as they and their escort entered the citadel. Kutlugh Nigar had noticeably lost weight and looked tired and frail after the long journey – Babur saw how heavily she leaned on Fatima’s arm – but Esan Dawlat seemed vigorous as ever.

As soon as they were alone she took Babur’s face between her hands and stared at him. ‘You’ve become a man,’ she nodded approvingly, releasing him. ‘Look, daughter, your son has changed these past months – see how he has broadened.’ She slapped his chest and poked at one of his upper arms as if inspecting a prize animal. ‘Muscles like iron.’

Kutlugh Nigar gazed at him but said nothing. She had grown so silent – so different from the mentally strong woman who had determinedly guided his steps to the throne of Ferghana in the uncertain hours after his father’s death – so less physically strong than when she’d purposefully swarmed up the mountains not two years previously.

‘I’ve something to tell you both. When January comes I’m leaving Kabul to lead my army south towards Hindustan to try my fortune there. Baisanghar will be regent in my absence . . .’

As his words sank in, Esan Dawlat nodded her approval, but something stirred in Kutlugh Nigar. She rose from the gold brocade bolster against which she had been reclining and, shaking her head from side to side, seemed to be struggling to find words. It shocked Babur to see tears begin coursing down her cheeks – tears that she made no effort to brush away. Before his eyes her whole body began to shake and her hands to twist in her long dark hair, now streaked with white.

‘Daughter . . .’ Esan Dawlat’s voice was stiff with disapproval.

Babur took his mother in his arms, trying to soothe her as if she were a small child and he the parent. ‘What is it?’

‘Khanzada – have you forgotten your promise, Babur? You promised you would rescue her. Why are you wasting time riding south . . .’

It hurt as much as if she’d struck him. He flushed as the familiar mix of shame, frustration and grief washed through him. ‘She is always in my mind. I will keep that promise. But now is not the time. I must have more men, more money, before I can challenge Shaibani Khan. This raid may give me those things. But I swear to you that as soon as I can I will find Khanzada . . .’

At length his mother’s sobbing quietened and her body stilled. Babur kissed the top of her head, but the turmoil she had provoked inside him would take a long time to die away . . .

In the weeks that followed, he tried to lose himself in the preparations for the Hindustan campaign. He would take the same route – south-east along the Kabul river and down through the Khyber Pass – that Timur had used a century earlier.

In the brief time before the snows arrived, whitening the grassy meadows and softening the landscape so that it was hard to see where the mountains ended and the pale skies began, Baisanghar and Baburi trained the men – their own forces and new recruits from the local tribes. The tribesmen weren’t bad . . . Babur watched them learn to fire from the saddle at straw targets and spear melons and sheep’s heads on the ground as they thundered past . . . but who knew what awaited them?

On many a night Babur listened to travelling merchants regaling
open-mouthed and credulous listeners with tales of exotic creatures – even monsters – lurking in Hindustan’s forests of banyan trees, whose aerial roots would twist round the throat of an unwary traveller and squeeze the breath from him, of naked holy men, yogis, followers of their idolatrous religion with white ash on their faces who lived in dark caves and never cut their hair or beards. Childish nonsense, most of it . . . but he intended to be prepared.

It was a relief when January finally arrived. Though the snow still lay thick, the worst of the winter storms were over and they could ride.