Raiders from the North: Empire of the Moghul (19 page)

Babur tried to eat but felt little appetite. He longed to withdraw and be private with his mother, sister and grandmother but courtesy to his followers demanded that he wait. The singing was growing louder and more strident, the warriors roaring out the exploits of their ancestors, and Babur added his own voice. But at last, as some slumped forward, overcome by strong drink, and others staggered blearily from the chamber to relieve themselves in the courtyard outside, Babur could leave them and climb the winding stone stairs to the women’s chamber.

Kutlugh Nigar held out her arms to him and he came and sat
by her on the carpeted floor. From what remained on the brass dishes spread before them, he could see that they had eaten well. Yet, now that he looked at their faces again, he could see signs of strain. All three were pale and drained as if they had not felt the warmth of the sun or breathed fresh air for a long time. Someone would pay for this – in blood. But for their sakes he mastered his feelings. He must show them a calm face, whatever they told him.

For a time they were all silent. Now that the initial euphoria had passed, it was hard for anyone to know where to begin.

Finally, Esan Dawlat spoke: ‘So, Babur, you took Samarkand.’ Her shrewd little face cracked into a rare smile.

‘Yes, but I could not keep it.’ Babur bowed his head. There was something he must say. ‘Grandmother, I failed you. You wrote asking my help and I could not give it. I came too late and with too few men to free you.’

‘You did not fail us. And it was because of us that you lost Samarkand. You rode to our help at once. What more could you have done?’

Babur shook his head. ‘My first duty was to you and Ferghana. In Samarkand I was like a child with a new toy. I thought of little else. I should have sent back Wazir Khan to ensure that you and Ferghana were safe.’ He leaned against his mother and felt her fingers stroke his hair just as she had always done. It soothed him.

‘Tambal kept us well informed of some things,’ Kutlugh Nigar said. ‘I think it amused him. We learned, of course, of your cousin Mahmud’s treachery – that it was he who took Samarkand from you. He and Tambal set a trap for you, my son. They agreed that in Ferghana Tambal would depose you and put Jahangir in your place, knowing that this would bring you – and many of your troops – back to Ferghana and Mahmud would have his chance. You were such a new lord of Samarkand – they say its nobles felt no allegiance to you so it was easy for Mahmud and his young vixen of a wife, the grand vizier’s daughter, to bribe them.’

Babur closed his eyes at the confirmation of his worst suspicions. What a naïve fool he had been.

‘You should know, too, it was Mahmud’s wife who demanded
Ali Mazid Beg’s death.’ Esan Dawlat’s voice was bitter. The chieftain’s mother had been her friend and she had been fond of him. ‘She said that if she could not have your head, his would have to do in the meantime – in vengeance for her father. Mahmud could not deny her. They say she is the real ruler of Samarkand, greedier and more vindictive even than her father was.’

Babur blinked in surprise. He had not thought the slender young woman who had begged bravely for the grand vizier’s life could be so cold-blooded and ruthless. One day she would answer for her spite but that could wait. Now there were other things he must know, and come to terms with.

Gently he took his mother’s hand between his own. ‘Tell me about yourselves. How did they treat you during your imprisonment?’

‘We were closely confined with just a few attendants but we were afforded the dignity due to our rank and lineage. Tambal did not threaten or insult us,’ his mother said, ‘and recently – presumably when he heard of your successes – he gave us more spacious apartments.’

‘And he would not allow Roxanna to take our jewels, though they say she screamed and raged and even though she shares his bed,’ Esan Dawlat added, with contempt.

‘And my half-brother, Jahangir? What’s been his role in all this?’ Babur had often thought about the boy who had supplanted him and whom he had never even seen. When Babur had last been at Akhsi, preparing for his attempt on Samarkand, the brat had been sick.

‘He is a pawn and often ill. Tambal has only a few spoonfuls of royal blood in his veins so he could never claim the throne himself – the other chiefs wouldn’t let him. But as Jahangir’s regent he has the power he craves,’ Esan Dawlat said shortly. ‘Now he fears you. Why else should he release us if not to appease you?’

Babur thought back to his own early days as king, remembering how Tambal had tried to sow doubt among the other leaders. All the time he had had his own ambitions. What an opportunist the man was – too astute to join in with Qambar-Ali’s schemes and patient enough to wait for his moment. Was that why he had encouraged Babur twice to attack Samarkand? He could still recall the shining eagerness in Tambal’s eyes when Baisanghar had brought
Timur’s ring. He also remembered how quickly after the capture of Samarkand Tambal had returned to Ferghana.

‘The worst thing for us was not knowing for so many months what had happened to you. Fatima – you know what a gossip she is – brought us a tale – no more than a rumour but enough to frighten us – that you had fallen ill and died on the road back to Ferghana.’ His mother’s voice trembled. ‘But then we began to hear stories that you were alive and hiding in the hills. We didn’t know whether it was true until Tambal himself came to us in a rage . . . He told us you were attacking villages, destroying, pillaging and slaughtering, giving no quarter.’

‘So it is true, is it, Babur, what Tambal said? That you have become a common bandit and cattle-rustler?’ Esan Dawlat looked thoroughly approving.

Babur nodded and after a moment grinned at his grandmother. Sometimes he had worried what she and his mother would think of him, whether they would understand how a prince could embrace, indeed relish, the life of a mountain brigand.

‘Tell us about it, Babur.’

As the sputtering tallow candles burned low, Babur tried to conjure for them what his life had been. The excitement as, with his band of two or three hundred adventurers, he had swooped down from the hills. The exhilaration of night-time hit and run raids on forts held by Tambal’s forces and the elation of vanishing into the night, the dripping heads of his victims lashed to his saddle. The nightlong carousing when his head spun from drinking
kvass
, fermented mare’s milk, prepared by one of his men according to an old Mongol recipe. The only thing he left out was the wild polo games played with Chakrak heads – though he might tell Khanzada later.

Khanzada’s eyes were shining as he talked, her fists clenching and unclenching as if she saw herself there, fighting side by side with him. Esan Dawlat was also rapt, but he noticed his mother frown as he described times when he’d been just a heartbeat from death.

‘But I only attacked those who had betrayed me. And I never forgot you. Your freedom – not my throne – was what I wanted most.’ Glancing round, Babur saw that a shaft of pale, grey light was
already seeping through the narrow slit of window. It was almost day.

‘You have achieved it. But what is past is past. Now we must look to the future.’ Esan Dawlat’s tone was brisk and the look in her eyes as they rested on him made him feel uncomfortably like a child about to be quizzed by his teacher. ‘What have you learned, Babur?’ She leaned towards him and grasped his wrist. ‘What have your “throneless days” as you call them taught you?’

It was a good question. What had he learned during these desperate, dangerous times?

‘The importance of trustworthy friends and allies,’ he said at last, ‘and the ability to reward them well. Also the need for a clear objective, a single-minded strategy, and the determination to let nothing stand in the way of it.’

Esan Dawlat nodded. ‘Of course. And what else?’

‘I’ve learned that a ruler cannot always be merciful but needs to be stern – sometimes even harsh – to earn respect. Otherwise he may seem weak, more eager to be loved than to lead, and hence prey to any smooth-tongued schemer. I’ve learned that to win loyalty you must inspire not only admiration and gratitude but also a little fear. I should have had Baqi Beg, Baba Qashqa and Yusuf executed when I first came to rule Ferghana, rather than merely depriving them of their positions, and leaving them living and festering with resentment. Also, I should have made an example of some of the grand vizier’s supporters on capturing Samarkand.

‘Above all, I have appreciated the duty never to forget my destiny. It’s only now after everything that’s happened to me – to us – that I’m finally beginning to understand the man that Timur really was. How alone he must have felt sometimes . . . how difficult he must have found it to make his decisions work. After all, across the long years he alone always had to take responsibility for them . . . I’ve learned the courage to command too . . . No matter how many good counsellors, like Wazir Khan, I have, only I can decide my fate.’

Babur raised his face to his grandmother’s. ‘I will be like Timur, I swear it . . .’

‘Fine words, indeed,’ said Esan Dawlat. ‘Now, let’s get down to business. A new day dawns.’

E
san Dawlat looked satisfied as with her thin, veiny little hand she smoothed the parchment on which Babur’s scribe had sketched an outline of Ferghana. The drawing was crude, depicting the Jaxartes flowing on a straight east-west axis instead of showing how its cold waters curled through wide valleys and down rolling hills as they flowed from the snow-tipped mountains in the northeast. But that was irrelevant. What mattered were the pleasing numbers of towns and villages, marked with dots of vermilion ink, that Babur now controlled.

Two years of confinement had not dulled his grandmother’s knowledge of the political alliances of the nobles of Ferghana, their weaknesses and ambitions. Esan Dawlat still knew all there was to know about the complex blood lines and loyalties. But, above all, she seemed able to see into men’s minds, to understand their foibles, vanities and weaknesses and how best to exploit them. With her guidance, Babur had developed skills in persuasion, not to say manipulation, that he’d not known he possessed, coaxing several important chieftains to his cause. Others, sensing how the balance of advantage was shifting, had followed, calculating that even if Babur could not reward them immediately, the time would come when he could and richly.

With his burgeoning political acumen and his increasing armies,
Babur had been pushing steadily eastwards. Over the last six months, the fortresses of Sokh, Kassan and Karnon had all fallen to him, the latter two without a fight, and at last he was closing in on Akhsi. It wouldn’t be long before he could depose Jahangir and once again call himself King of Ferghana, he was sure of it. But he must curb his impatience until winter was over, he told himself, biting his lip as he considered the map. Little moved on the frozen landscape – only the odd fox or deer darting hither and thither in search of food and kites hovering in the icy skies as they kept watch for an unwary mouse. It was no time for campaigning, with icicles hanging from the battlements and the air so cold it hurt a man to breathe.

‘Babur, pay attention. There is something I need to discuss with you. Your mother and I are agreed that it is time you were married. You are seventeen years old. But, more important than that, the right match will strengthen your position.’

Esan Dawlat was looking at him triumphantly. ‘It has all been arranged – in principle, at least. Your mother and I started to plan while we were captive. As soon as we were freed, I began to sound out potential alliances for you, and two days ago a messenger brought me good news. The offer of marriage that, above all, I hoped would prosper has been accepted. If you are content – and I can’t think of a reason in the world why you shouldn’t be delighted – you may ride to claim your bride as soon as the snows begin to melt.’

Babur stared at her, open-mouthed, unable to think of any response – not even to ask who the girl was that his masterful grandmother had so thoughtfully obtained for him.

The air was still cold, but the patches of bright green beyond the walls of Shahrukiyyah were growing bigger as winter retreated. The excitement in the women’s quarters was unbearable – Khanzada in particular could talk of nothing but his coming marriage, Babur thought moodily, as he walked across the courtyard from the stables where he had been inspecting his horses. Their winter feed had left them thin and irritable. The hoofmarks where they’d kicked at the wooden slats penning them in showed their impatience to
be galloping over the hills again. Babur sympathised. He felt exactly the same.

In fact, he felt more than impatient. He was angry. Members of royal houses married for political, not personal, reasons and alliances were important – he had known that since boyhood. Even as a baby, potential betrothals had been spoken of for him, some even formalised. But with his father’s death and the ebb and flow of his fortunes, they had fallen away. Since then, he had assumed that when the time came to take a wife he would settle matters for himself. Instead, his grandmother and mother were treating him like a callow youth, not a king, arranging things slyly between themselves and presenting him with a
fait accompli
. Esan Dawlat seemed to expect to be congratulated whereas, much as he loved and respected her, he felt like wringing her neck.