Raiders from the North: Empire of the Moghul (33 page)

‘We’ve left them a feast.’ Baburi looked back at the circle of dark-winged birds wheeling in the air currents above Mirror Rock.

‘It would have been better if there’d been more,’ Babur muttered. Wiping out this raiding party was just a fleabite. Shaibani Khan, his power and strength, lay ahead. Still, he had left a message: his name scrawled in blood on a scrap of paper shoved between the teeth of an Uzbek. Shaibani Khan would soon know who had done this.

‘But we didn’t lose a single man and we’ve taken all their horses and the food they stole.’

Babur glanced at the lines of riderless horses at the rear of the column. The seven women his men had found – the youngest no
more than twelve – were wrapped in cloaks and riding in two donkey carts that the Uzbeks had taken from Tikand to carry their booty. Before he went much further, he must get rid of them. There was a small settlement east of here where, for the present at least, the women would be safe. He would send them there with an escort.

Babur rode on in silence, ignoring Baburi’s attempts to talk. What would he find as he neared Akhsi? Would other chieftains rally to Jahangir? Would they reach him before Shaibani Khan’s troops arrived before the gates? More than ever he missed Wazir Khan’s wisdom. He, too, had been born and bred in Ferghana. He would have understood Babur’s torment.

With darkness falling, they camped on the banks of a stream flowing from the Jaxartes. With Akhsi so close now – barely two hours’ ride away – Babur had to curb the desire to ride on. It was too dangerous to blunder about in the dark. Uzbek patrols might be anywhere.

He sat on the edge of the stream, watching the water ripple past. He had been foolish. Rather than hacking those Uzbeks to pieces at Mirror Rock, he should have questioned them, found out where Shaibani Khan was, the size of his force. Instead, bent on revenge, he had been intent only on their death. He still had much to learn . . .

‘Majesty. We found this shepherd nearby with his flock. You must hear his story.’

Babur looked round to see Baisanghar and behind him, between two soldiers, a man of about forty with a weathered face. He looked nervous but that was hardly surprising. He hadn’t expected to be grabbed and hauled into Babur’s camp.

‘Repeat what you told my men. No one will harm you.’

Baisanghar gripped the man’s shoulders and turned him to face Babur.

The shepherd cleared his throat. ‘Shaibani Khan captured Akhsi five days ago.’ His eyes flickered anxiously over Babur’s face. ‘They say he tricked King Jahangir. He told him he didn’t want Ferghana, only tribute. If the king would acknowledge him publicly as his
overlord and pay him what he asked he’d take his army back to Samarkand . . .’

‘Go on.’ Babur felt suddenly cold.

‘I wasn’t there, of course. So I can only tell you what I heard . . . They say the ceremony was held on the banks of the Jaxartes below the fortress. Beneath a pavilion of red silk, the king knelt to Shaibani Khan, who was seated on a divan covered with gold cloth, and called him “Master”. As he waited, head bowed, Shaibani Khan rose and drew his great curved sword. Smiling, he advanced on the king. “Now that you are my vassal I can do what I like with you,” he said, and hacked off his head. As he did so, Shaibani Khan’s warriors fell on the king’s courtiers who were standing at either side and murdered them too.’

‘Tambal? Was he killed? And what of Baqi Beg, Yusuf and the others?’

‘All dead. I also heard – from two stable-boys who escaped from Akhsi – that when Shaibani Khan entered the fortress he had the women of the harem paraded before him. Some he gave to his men, others he took for himself. Last of all he summoned Roxanna, the king’s mother. They say he held up her son’s severed head before her and, as she wept, wailed and cursed him, he ordered her throat to be cut – “to silence her whining”, he said.’

Babur’s head was reeling. His informant hadn’t seen any of these things for himself and perhaps the details were wrong, but Babur didn’t doubt the essence of the story – that Shaibani Khan had tricked and killed Jahangir and Tambal and had taken Ferghana for himself. Neither did he doubt Roxanna’s fate and for a moment felt a fleeting pity for his father’s concubine.

At dawn, after a restless night, Babur untethered his horse and rode alone towards a steep ridge from which he knew he could see Akhsi. His stallion was sweating as they breasted the summit. Far below, with the Jaxartes curling past, he saw the fortress built by his ancestors, their stronghold for so long.

A banner was streaming proudly above the gate. From this distance Babur couldn’t distinguish the colour but he knew it wasn’t the bright yellow of Ferghana. It was the black of Shaibani
Khan, who had stolen his ancestral lands just as he had seized Samarkand. Babur couldn’t hold back the tears that ran down his face or control the sobs that shook him. But it didn’t matter. Up here on the mountain ridge there was no one to see, only the hawks circling high above.

‘It is the only way.’ Esan Dawlat’s voice was insistent. ‘He will kill you just as he murdered Jahangir and your cousin, Mahmud Khan. He has sworn to exterminate every prince of Timur’s house and, I tell you, he means to keep his oath.’

‘I won’t run from him. I’m no coward . . .’

‘Then you are a fool instead. He commands armies of thousands. Over the summer, since he captured Samarkand and then Ferghana, the tribes of the northern steppes have rallied to his banner. His strength increases daily while yours diminishes.’ Esan Dawlat spat into the fire – something which Babur had never seen her do before. ‘What support do you have?’ she continued. ‘Fifty? A hundred? The rest have slunk back to their villages. You don’t even have a wife . . . or an heir.’

Esan Dawlat blamed him for that, but he was glad Ayisha had gone for good. The blunt message that had arrived from Ibrahim Saru that he had never intended to give his daughter to a landless pauper and that the marriage was dissolved had afforded Babur as much satisfaction as it had angered his grandmother. According to the messenger who had delivered the letter – and returned the wedding jewellery Babur had given her – the talk was that Ayisha was shortly to marry a man of her own tribe to whom she had been promised before Babur’s offer of marriage. At least Babur thought he might now understand the reason for her coldness towards him, but as far as he was concerned Ayisha could lie in another man’s bed – any man who could thaw her was welcome.

‘I have no time for a wife,’ he said bluntly. ‘It is my destiny to be a king and I must strike back . . .’

‘If you truly believe in your destiny you will listen. Even now, Shaibani Khan is searching for you. He knows it was you who
ambushed his men at Mirror Rock, and by now he will know, too, that you have returned here to Sayram. Many will be willing to take his gold for betraying you.’

‘I made a promise to Khanzada . . .’

‘Which you cannot honour if he cuts your head off your shoulders. And will it ease her suffering when Shaibani Khan tells her you are dead?’ Her face softened when she saw the bitterness in his eyes. ‘You are still so young. You must learn to be patient. When you live as long as I, you learn that circumstances change. Sometimes the bravest thing – and the hardest – is to wait.’

Kutlugh Nigar nodded. Since Khanzada had been taken she had became so silent it was hard to coax a word from her. ‘Your grandmother is right. You have no chance if you stay here. He will murder us all. I do not care for myself, but you must survive . . . Remember whose blood flows in your veins. Don’t let Shaibani Khan wipe you out like some petty bandit.’

Kutlugh Nigar wrapped her thick dark blue shawl round herself more tightly and held her hands over the brazier in the hearth. Winter would soon be upon them again, as the winds blowing around Sayram’s mud-brick houses and penetrating the wooden shutters were warning them.

Babur kissed her thin cheek. ‘I will think over what you have both said.’

Esan Dawlat picked up her lute. It was battered and some of the mother-of-pearl, inlaid to resemble clusters of narcissi, had fallen out, but as she plucked the strings the soft, sweet notes carried Babur back to the days of his boyhood in Akhsi.

Going outside, he walked across the courtyard, climbed on to the village wall and stared out into the gathering dusk. He would make his own decisions, but he knew his grandmother and mother were right. His priority must be to stay alive.

‘Majesty.’ He heard Baburi’s voice from below him. A trio of plump pigeons dangled by their feet from his belt – he must have been hunting. He climbed the short flight of steps on to the wall and stood in silence at Babur’s side.

‘Do you ever doubt your destiny, Baburi?’

‘Market boys don’t have destinies. They’re a luxury, for kings.’

‘All my life I’ve been told that I was put on this earth to achieve something. What if it isn’t true . . . ?’

‘What do you want me to tell you? That you are heir to Genghis Khan and Timur? That life should be good to you as of right?’

Baburi’s tone was impatient; rough, even. Babur had never heard him speak like that before. ‘I have been unlucky.’

‘No you haven’t. You were fortunate in your birth. You had everything. You weren’t an orphan. You didn’t have to fight for scraps like me.’ Suddenly anger blazed in Baburi’s indigo eyes. ‘I’ve watched you since we rode back here from Akhsi, drowning in self-pity, hardly speaking to those around you. You’ve changed. You weren’t like this when we went riding together or when you had Yadgar in your arms. That was living and you’ve forgotten what it was like. If this is how you behave in adversity, perhaps you don’t deserve this “great destiny” – whatever it might be – that you seem to carry around like a burden on your back.’

Before he knew it, Babur had taken a swing at Baburi and the two had tumbled from the walls on to the hard mud below. Babur was the heavier and had Baburi pinned under him but, quick as an eel, Baburi twisted to one side and, with the fingers of one hand poking into one of Babur’s eyes, caught him a hard blow with the other on the side of his head. Grunting with pain, Babur rolled off him, sprang to his feet and leaped on him again, winding him. Seizing Baburi’s head he began banging it hard against the ground, but a second later felt Baburi’s boot in his groin. In agony, he let go of Baburi and rolled aside.

The two of them – hair dusty and tousled – looked at one another. Baburi’s nose was bleeding and Babur felt blood running down his own face from a cut above his ear, while his left eye, where Baburi had jabbed it, was already hard to keep open.

‘You’d make a good street-fighter,’ Baburi said. ‘You’ll never starve – destiny or no destiny.’

As men, alerted by the sound of their fight, came running along the walls above them, led by an amazed-looking Baisanghar, the two of them started to laugh.

The air was so cold it stung Babur’s eyes. Every two or three steps his feet, in their hide boots, slipped on the ice. Yet this steep pass, leading south out of Ferghana, was the only viable escape route from Shaibani Khan whose patrols had been hunting Babur and his men like foxes, flushing them from place to place and laying everywhere waste.

The absence of horses or ponies made Babur feel vulnerable, even high on this icy mountain where they would meet no one. He and his people had always been horsemen but for the moment they must rely on the endurance of their own bodies. During the first few days of the journey up the lower slopes, Esan Dawlat and Kutlugh Nigar had ridden on the backs of one of the four donkeys Babur had brought with him to help carry their possessions. But as the ascent got steeper and the weather worsened, Babur had had to order the animals killed for food.

Thereafter, it had sometimes been possible for Esan Dawlat and Kutlugh Nigar to be carried in baskets on the backs of his strongest men. But for the rest of the time, they and their two serving women, like the forty or so men who remained with Babur, had had to walk, feeling their way upwards through the frozen rocks with their wooden staves. Kutlugh Nigar had surprised her son with her agility and balance, refusing help in favour of her own weaker mother. Babur could see her now, ahead of him, so muffled in sheepskins that almost nothing of her was visible, pulling herself up the rocks quicker than some of his men. She was faring much better than Kasim, who had fallen repeatedly and was clearly exhausted.