Swords From the East (62 page)

Another officer who took up the sword against me was Ibrahim Saru of the tribe of Minkaligh. He had been brought up from infancy in Iny mother's service and had attained the rank of Beg. Now he entered the fort of Asfera and read the public prayer for the king in the name of one of my enemies instead of mine.

In the spring after my father's death, I bade my followers mount and go with me to punish the revolt of Ibrahim Saru. For the first time I was about to lay siege to a stronghold, and to endeavor to direct my men aright in battle. No sooner had we come up and looked over the ground than the younger warriors in the wantonness of high spirits spurred toward the foot of the walk, climbed a rampart that the defenders had just built, and made their way into an outwork.

Seeing this advantage gained, the veteran officers pressed the attack. I had appointed Kasim Beg Master of the Household, as he had been during the life of my father, and this day he pushed on before the others and laid about him with his scimitar.

Tambal and others wielded their blades gallantly, but though Kasim Beg was an older man, he gained the prize of valor. Khoda-berdi, my tutor, was struck this day by an arrow from a crossbow and died. As my men had rushed into the assault without armor, several of them were slain and a great many wounded.

Ibrahim Saru had with him a crossbowman who shot astonishingly well, and struck down many of my followers. Huge stones were also cast down upon us by machines.

One of my men who had climbed up to the foot of the wall was hit by a stone. He came spinning down, heels over head, without lodging anywhere until he lighted, tumbling and rolling, at the bottom of the slope. Yet he had no hurt and mounted his horse at once.

We did not carry the fort in the first storm, and my officers set to work to build up frameworks of timber overlooking the walls, and to run beneath the gates. But all these contrivances were not needed. After forty days Ibrahim Saru made offers of complete submission and came out and presented himself before me with a scimitar suspended from his throat.

My father had tried in vain to win the great city of Samarkand. The rulers of Samarkand at this time had disgusted both high and low, soldiers and townspeople. Even the reverend kwajahs who had protected the poor, suffered hardships in their turn.

What added to the evil was that, as the reigning prince was tyrannical and debauched, his officers and servants all imitated him. Their war riors were drunken and unrestrained. When one of them had carried off a townsman's wife, the husband came and complained.

"You have had her for a good many years," he was told. "It is only fair that this man should have her for a day."

Another thing that disgusted honest men was that neither the shopkeepers nor soldiers themselves could leave their houses unguarded lest their children be carried off for slaves.

The people of Samarkand who a generation ago had lived in peace and ease, were stung to the soul and lifted up their hands in supplication for aid.

So it happened that the city was in disorder and tumult. A strong party of nobles proclaimed Sultan Ali Mirza, my cousin, king.

Almost at once, however, he was seized with some of his men in the citadel and condemned to be sent to the Gok-serai, and to have the firepencil put to his eyes.

The Gok-serai was one of the palaces Tamerlane built and is a place of both good and evil omen. For every prince of the race of Tamerlane mounts to the throne at this palace, and everyone who loses his life by aspiring to the throne loses it here.

Sultan Ali Mirza was accordingly carried to the Gok-serai and the firepencil applied to his eyes. But, whether it happened from intention or the surgeon's want of skill, no injury was done.

Pretending that he had been blinded and was in great pain, my young cousin made his way through the streets to take refuge in the sanctuary of Kwajah Yahia's house. In a few days he was able to make his escape from the city, with some men.

Kwajah Yahia, who was his friend, came to me with proposals of agreement between us. I went forward with my followers, and Sultan Ali advanced with his as far as the river Kohik. Each taking four or five men with him, we had an interview on horseback in the middle of the stream. It was settled that next summer he should move up with what forces he could muster from Bokhara and I was to come down with mine from the hills, to lay siege to Samarkand. We both had a just claim to the throne.

Accordingly in the next Ramazan I took to horse and ventured down into the long valley where the city lies.

My cousin did not show up, which was not a matter for great surprise, as he had more inclination to plan than to act. But fortune favored me in a singular way. We were moving down the river Kohik, which waters the valley, when we came suddenly upon a force of two or three hundred Moghul warriors. We took position around them, when they came forward and explained that they had been seeking me, to join my standard. In reality they had been off on a venture of their own-thanks to the general disorder-and my coming had surprised them.

With this reinforcement I laid siege to Samarkand.

For seven months my men camped in the cultivated fields outside the walls that were too strong to be assaulted. Hunger was the only weapon we could use, and in the end it opened the gates of the city to us. The Mirzas who had caused all the suffering in the city departed secretly with two or three hundred hungry and naked wretches, stealing away across the river. Word of their flight was sent to me at once, and we all mounted and rode toward the gates. The chief men of Samarkand and the young cavaliers who had looked anxiously for my arrival came out and greeted me.

So by the favor of God I gained the city and country of Samarkand.

But in the seven months the Mirzas had forged a weapon that later was turned against me. They had sent a galloper to beg aid of the Khan of the Uzbeks-the barbarians who lived in the northern deserts. At the time, I was not aware of this circumstance.

So great was my delight in entering the imperial city that I rode through the streets from the Shah's tomb to the grand mosque near the Iron Gate. I dismounted at the tomb of Tamerlane, and those of his descendants which are near the stone fort, as you go out at the gate.

We went to look at the observatory of Ulugh Beg the astronomer on the skirts of the hill of Kohik. Near this hill there is a pleasant spot, the Garden of the Plain, with a splendid edifice, the Forty Pillars. The pillars are all of stone, curiously wrought, some twisted, others fluted. In another garden is the China house, the walls of which are overlaid with porcelain.

Samarkand is a wonderfully elegant city surrounded by green meadows. As no enemy has ever stormed it, men have called it the Protected City. It was founded by Sikander.*
I directed its walls to be paced around the ramparts and found that its circumference was ten thousand, six hundred paces.

For a few weeks I sat upon the throne of Samarkand. I showed favor to the lords of the city and gave rewards to my followers-Tambal the Moghul, above all others.

My men had taken a deal of booty on first entering the city, but since the city and the outlying districts had yielded voluntarily to me or Sultan Ali, it was impossible to give the country up to plundering. And how could a place be taxed that had been ruined by the Mirzas and sacked by my men?

Samarkand was so stripped of everything that we had to furnish its people with seed-corn to plant the next harvest. How could any contribution be laid upon the exhausted city?

On this account, there remained little to give my soldiers, and many of them began to think of home and desert by ones and twos. All the Moghuls who had joined me at the siege went off, and finally Tambal came to me, saying: "It would be well to give over Andijan and the hill kingdom to your brother, Jahangir."

This I could not do for two reasons. Had Tambal's request been made before the greater part of my men went off, I might have complied with a good grace. But who could bear with a tone of authority? Only about a thousand men, Begs and warriors, remained with me in Samarkand.

Another reason was that my uncle, Mahmud Khan of Tashkent, had expressed a desire to rule Ferghana. He had given me not a particle of aid while I was fighting to keep Andijan; now that I had conquered Samarkand, he asked for Andijan.

When I had explained this to Tambal he also went off and left me.*

Many of the officers joined him and collected all the men who had left me from disappointment. These deserters had been in fear of me until then, but now they went boldly with Tambal into my hill kingdom, and they were good soldiers.

Just at this time I was stricken by severe illness. Worry prevented me from nursing myself rightly, and my efforts to keep the remaining warriors with me brought on a relapse so that for four days I was speechless and the only nourishment I received was from having my tongue moistened occasionally with wet cotton.

This brought about the very thing I had feared. Those who were with me, Begs, cavaliers, and soldiers, began to think I was dying and to look out for themselves. Letters meanwhile had been coming in from my mother in Andijan saying that she was besieged by the rebels and if I did not has ten to her relief, matters would end badly. How could I ride to the hills when I was unable to command the men in the city?

At this crisis a servant of one of Tambal's officers came to Samarkand on some kind of an embassy. The Begs who still attended me very mistakenly brought him into the chamber where I lay and then gave him leave to depart.

In a few days I got somewhat better, but I had a little difficulty in speech. Riders came in from Andijan with earnest requests from my mother and grandmother and the officer I had left in command of the city, begging me to hasten at once to their assistance. I had not the heart to delay. After a reign of a hundred days in Samarkand I marched out of the city, toward Andijan.

Within a week a galloper came to me with word that the very Saturday I had left Samarkand the fortress of Andijan had been surrendered to the enemy.

What had happened was this: The servant who had been suffered to depart during the worst of my illness arrived in Tambal's camp and related all he had witnessed, that the king had lost his speech and was able to take no nourishment, other than having his tongue moistened with cotton. He was made to confirm all this on oath, before my governor who stood at one of the gates of the city.

Dismayed at the news, and lacking heart for further fighting, my officer surrendered the place, although he did not want of either men or weapons or food.

For the sake of Andijan I had lost Samarkand. For my cousin Sultan Ali Mirza had come up as soon as my back was turned. And now I found that I had lost the one without preserving the other.

I now became a prey to melancholy, for since I had been a ruling prince I had never been separated from my country and adherents. With Kasim Beg and two or three hundred who still clung to me, I went to the summer pastures in the hills, after failing repeatedly to win back any city of Ferghana. Kasim Beg, who was never disturbed by misfortune, went among the wild tribes and the wanderers of the hills and persuaded many to join me.

In the lifetime of my father I had been betrothed to Aisha Sultan Begum, a distant cousin. Her father having died, she came with a small fol lowing into the southern hills to join me. In the month of Shahan I married her.

In the first stage of my being a married man, though I had no small affection for her, yet from bashfulness, I went to visit her only once in ten or twenty days.

My affection afterward grew less, and my shyness increased, so that my mother the Khanum used to fall on me and scold me with great fury, sending me off like a criminal to see her once in a month or so.

My mother and my grandmother had been sent to me in exile, with the families of the officers who remained faithful. And some of my old men began to desert from Tambal and the rebels and make their way back to me. My falcons diverted me from my troubles. The goshawks seldom failed to bring down pheasants and quail; and we hunted fowl with twoheaded arrows.

Yet, longing for conquest, I was not willing on account of one or two defeats to sit down and look idly around me. I had heard that the Reverend Kwajah Yahia at Samarkand was attached to me, and from time to time I sent persons to talk with him.

The Kwajah did not send me any message, but he went about forwarding my cause silently in Samarkand.

And then came tidings that Shaibani Khan and the Uzbek horde were invading the Moghul kingdoms.*

Chapter II

The Tiger Cub

Shaibani Khan had taken Bokhara and was marching on Samarkand. I went to the south of the city, beyond the hills. A week or two after my arrival news was brought that my cousin Sultan Ali Mirza had delivered up Samarkand to Shaibani Khan, the lord of the Uzbeks.

It happened as follows: The mother of All was led by her stupidity and folly to send a message secretly to Shaibani Khan, proposing that if he would marry her, her son should surrender Samarkand into his hands.

Shaibani Khan, advancing as had been arranged with the princess, halted at the Garden of the Plain. About noon Sultan Ali, without informing any of his nobles or cavaliers and without holding any consultation, left the town, accompanied only by a few insignificant attendants, and went to Shaibani Khan at the Garden of the Plain.

Shaibani did not give him a very flattering reception; and, as soon as the ceremony of meeting was over, made him sit down lower than himself. My cousin's chief councilor, the Kwajah Yahia, on learning that Ali had gone out, was filled with alarm. But, seeing no remedy left, he also went out of the town and waited on the Uzbek, who received him without rising.

So, that weak and wretched woman, for the sake of getting herself a husband, gave the family and honor of her son to the winds.

Nor did Shaibani Khan heed her a bit, or value her even as much as his handmaids. Sultan Ali was dismayed by the situation in which he now found himself, and deeply regretted the step he had taken.