Brothers at War

Chapter 21

‘Majesty, you must come at once.’ Humayun slid back into its embossed black leather scabbard the ivory and steel-hilted sabre — a recent gift from a vassal — that he had been examining. ‘What is it, Jauhar?’

Jauhar spread his hands in a helpless gesture and Humayun read such distress in his face that he asked no more questions but simply followed him. Dusk was falling and purple shadows softened the stark outlines of stone and brick as Humayun quickly descended into the courtyard. Just inside the gateway four of Ahmed Khan’s men were clustered around a tall chestnut horse. Drawing closer, Humayun noticed that its neck and shoulder were stained with something dark that was attracting flies, and as the men stepped back from the horse to salute him he saw a body slung face down over the saddle, limp as a dead deer. The discolouration on the horse’s coat was congealed blood. But it was the body itself that arrested his gaze. Though he didn’t want to believe it he thought he recognised that powerful form, whose lifeless arms and legs were so long they dangled down beneath the horse’s belly.

With an ever-increasing sense of foreboding Humayun slowly approached and, crouching down, raised the dead man’s head. Hindal’s tawny eyes stared blankly at him. Unable to bear their unblinking gaze, Humayun closed them. As he did so, the warmth of his brother’s dead flesh shocked him, then he realised that Hindal’s face had been resting against the horse’s flanks. He drew his dagger from his sash and waving back his guards cut through the ropes with which someone had secured Hindal’s body to the horse. Then he carefully lifted his brother’s corpse and laid it gently, face up, on the flagstones. As he knelt beside it, by the flickering amber light of a torch held aloft in the gathering gloom by one of Ahmed Khan’s men he saw a raw wound in Hindal’s throat that only an arrowhead could have made.

Grief washed through him. Hindal was the one of his half-brothers he had cared for most. Courageous, honest and principled, and less ambitious than his siblings, perhaps Hindal had been at heart the best of all Babur’s sons. ‘I wish you godspeed to Paradise, my brother, and that in death you will forgive me the hurt I did you in life,’ Humayun whispered. Images of Hindal in his youth and of him proudly recounting his rescue of Akbar filled Humayun’s mind, bringing tears to his eyes. It was some minutes before, brushing them away with the back of his hand, he got to his feet and asked, ‘Who found the body?’

‘I did, Majesty,’ said the torchbearer, who, Humayun saw, was no more than a youth.

‘Where?’

‘His horse was tethered by some juniper bushes half a mile from the town.’

So someone had drawn out the fatal arrow, tied Hindal to his horse and then left him where he would be found. Such an act bore all the hallmarks of Kamran, Humayun thought with a weariness of heart. Far from being grateful for his mercy, within two months of being set free Kamran and Askari had vanished from Kabul. United against him again, they had become raiders, sweeping down from remote strongholds at the head of bands of tribesmen — lawless Kafirs and Chakraks mostly, but whoever they could find; they weren’t particular — to attack Humayun’s outposts and the caravan trains that were the source of Kabul’s prosperity — its life’s blood. Kamran would not have forgiven Hindal’s betrayal in rescuing Akbar and he certainly had the malice to send Humayun the message of Hindal’s slaughtered body.

But what had actually happened? If the murderer was Kamran, had Hindal’s death been the result of a chance encounter or had Kamran deliberately hunted Hindal down in the northern mountains which he had made his retreat in the years since he had rescued Akbar? ‘Search my brother’s body and his saddlebag. Look for anything that might tell us how or why he met his end,’ Humayun ordered as he turned away, unable to face the task himself.

A few minutes later, a soldier came up to him where he stood in the gloom, lost in his thoughts and recollections. ‘We found nothing of importance, Majesty, except this note in the saddlebag.’ Humayun took the scrap of paper and read it by the light of a torch. In a few brief sentences addressed to no one, Hindal asked, if anything should happen to him, to be buried close to his father. He also wrote that he wished Akbar to have his ruby-inlaid dagger that had once belonged to Babur. ‘The dagger was still in his sash, Majesty.’ The soldier held out a silver scabbard, also inlaid with rubies, that glittered in the torchlight. So whoever had killed Hindal had not been a thief, Humayun thought. It also told him that death had come suddenly and probably unexpectedly to Hindal, who had had no time to draw his dagger. Again he saw Kamran’s green-eyed, sneering face. .

Three weeks later, the branches of the tall cherry trees brought by Babur as saplings to Kabul stirred in the breeze, shedding blossom that fluttered like pink snowflakes. Spring melt water from the mountains rippled through the two intersecting marble-lined channels that divided the garden into four quarters planted with pomegranate, apple and lemon trees. The scent of honey rose from the lilac clover covering the ground as, walking through the garden Babur had planted, Humayun came to the new grave in the middle of a grove of young willows. The inscription on the marble slab told the onlooker that here lay Mirza Hindal, youngest and beloved son of Babur, Moghul Emperor of Hindustan.

Gulbadan had chosen the delicate tracery of irises and tulips that the masons had carved round the stone’s edge and every day, on Hamida’s orders, the pale marble was sprinkled with dried rose petals. She had never forgotten her gratitude to Hindal for saving Akbar — if anything it had grown because Akbar was still their only child. The hakims blamed the long and agonising labour she had endured giving birth to him and had predicted that though she was still young — not yet twenty-five — there would be no more children.

Turning away from Hindal’s grave, Humayun walked the few paces to Babur’s simple tomb. Every time he came here, he sensed his father’s presence so keenly he could almost see him standing before him, eyes fixed understandingly upon him. Babur too had taken Kabul only to have his hopes of advancing quickly to invade Hindustan disappointed. Yet there was a profound difference between their circumstances. Babur’s problem had been that he lacked an army strong enough to take on Sultan Ibrahim, Hindustan’s powerful overlord. That obstacle had been overcome when his friend Baburi had brought him Turkish cannon and matchlocks — weapons then unknown in Hindustan. Humayun’s problems were more complex, more corrosive, because they came from within his own family. Because of Kamran and Askari, Humayun had been forced to delay his invasion of Hindustan just when the prospects of victory had seemed so good.

The chaos following Sher Shah’s death should have been a perfect opportunity for Humayun to invade — Sher Shah’s reign had lasted only five years and many would have returned to the green banners of the Moghuls.

Instead, the threat of Kamran and Askari had made it impossible for him to mount a prolonged expedition. Sher Shah’s chiefs had had time to rally and choose a new emperor. Rejecting Sher Shah’s elder son — a man better known for his love of luxury than for his military prowess — they had elected his younger son, Islam Shah, whose first act had been to order the murder of his elder brother. The message had not been lost on Humayun. If he had executed Kamran and Askari rather than pardoned them, then he, not Islam Shah, would have been sitting on the throne in Agra.

That his half-brothers should have been able to frustrate his plans for so long hurt as well as enraged Humayun.Where was their gratitude for his mercy? Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised at Kamran, whose hatred and jealousy of him were seemingly implacable, but why had Askari repaid his generosity with such deceit? When Askari had surrendered to him at Kandahar, he had seemed to feel remorse, even shame for his actions. Perhaps those feelings had been genuine but under Kamran’s influence hadn’t lasted. All his life Askari had been dominated by Kamran. .

Still brooding, Humayun walked slowly back to where Jauhar was holding the reins of his horse while it grazed the sweet grass beneath an apple tree. Climbing into the saddle, Humayun pushed the horse quickly back towards the citadel. He had made a decision. Hindal’s death had been a sign that there must be no more waiting, no more prevaricating, no more sentimental hopes that his half-brothers might still be reconciled. So far his efforts to flush them from their mountain hideaways had been futile. Something more determined was required. .

That night, as Humayun entered his audience chamber, he found his commanders and his counsellors already waiting. As he surveyed their faces, there was one man he still instinctively looked for — Kasim, whose calm commonsense and absolute loyalty had been one of the few constants of his turbulent reign. But last winter, crossing the icy courtyard Kasim had slipped and shattered his right hip. The hakims had sedated him with opium but the shock to his old body had been too great. He had slipped into unconsciousness and two days later passed away as quietly as he had done everything in life. Kasim had been with Babur from the first precarious days of his reign as boy-king of Ferghana, just as he had always been at Humayun’s side. Humayun had been so used to his calm, reassuring presence and to listening to his softly spoken and consistently valuable advice. His death had been a true severing from the past.

But it was the future Humayun needed to think about now. Sitting tall on his throne he began. ‘My patience with my half-brothers is at an end. They will always be a danger until their forces are destroyed and they are caught.’

‘Our troops have been unlucky. . one day we will succeed in taking them prisoner,’ said Zahid Beg. He regarded the failure to defeat Kamran and Askari as a blemish on his honour.

‘If we carry on as at present I doubt it — unless we are very lucky. I have long suspected that they have spies among our soldiers as well as in the city. That is why they always elude us, making us waste time and energy that would be better spent elsewhere.’

‘But what more can we do?’ asked Zahid Beg.

‘That is why I have summoned you here. Dealing with Kamran and Askari and their mountain raiders cannot be beyond us. Kabul is wealthy. The merchants who come here to trade and fill our caravanserais are numerous. The taxes they pay fill our treasury. I have been preserving this wealth for my long-postponed invasion of Hindustan but I intend to spend some of it to deal once and for all with the problem of my half-brothers. . ’

‘How, Majesty?’ asked Zahid Beg.

‘I will give my own body weight in gold to any man who captures either of my half-brothers. We will also redouble our own efforts — mobilise all our troops to hunt for them. I will lead them myself. I will also pay large sums to tribesmen to ride with us. They know every ripple and fold of the mountains. I pledge not to rest until my half-brothers are caught.’

‘Majesty, one of our patrols reports smoke rising from Karabagh,’ Ahmed Khan said, galloping up to Humayun and reining in his white horse so sharply it snorted in protest.

‘You think the settlement’s under attack?’

‘I’m sure of it, Majesty.’

‘Then let’s ride.’ As his horse’s hooves beat the sun-hardened earth beneath a glaring orange sun, Humayun allowed himself to hope that at last he was getting close to Kamran and Askari. For the past three weeks he and his men had been following in the wake of a large raiding party through the mountainous valleys north of Kabul, always arriving only in time to find settlements burned, orchards hacked down and bodies already putrefying in the intense summer heat. But Karabagh was only about four miles away. Humayun remembered it well from hunting trips in his youth — a large, prosperous place with almond and apricot orchards irrigated by a willow-fringed stream flowing past the mud walls that enclosed it.

The five hundred troops riding at his back — mounted archers and cavalrymen with bright, steel-tipped spears — should be more than enough to deal with whoever was attacking Karabagh, he thought. As he swept round the side of a hill on which a few young oak trees had taken root, Karabagh and its orchards came into view. It wasn’t the peaceful scene Humayun remembered. Fields and orchards had been set alight and through the acrid drifting smoke he saw that the gates into the settlement had been torn down. Even above the thundering of hooves he thought he heard screaming.

‘For justice!’ Humayun yelled and, circling Alamgir above his head, he urged his horse to a gallop, outstripping his bodyguards. He was the first through the shattered gateway and into the settlement, swerving his mount around the body of an old man from whose bloodied back a battleaxe protruded. To his right, some twenty yards away, Humayun saw two men — Chakraks from their shaggy, spherical sheep wool hats — dragging a terrified girl from a house. One of them was already loosening the drawstring of his baggy pantaloons. Seeing Humayun they gaped. Letting go of the girl, who scrambled out of the way, both men reached for their bows but Humayun was on them. With a sweep of his sword he decapitated the first man, sending his head spinning through the warm air to smash against a stone lintel. Then, pulling hard on his reins and leaning back, he brought his horse up on to its back legs and then urged it forward so its front hooves smashed down on the second Chakrak with a satisfying crunch of bone.

All around, his men, who had poured into the settlement behind him, were having the best of the fight. The raiders, intent on looting and raping, had been taken completely by surprise. Those who could were running to find cover. But all Humayun’s thoughts were now on his half-brothers. Wheeling his horse, he looked around for them among the heaving, struggling melee. ‘Majesty, get down!’ he heard Ahmed Khan yell above the shouts, groans and clashing of weapons, and ducked just in time to avoid a spear hurled at him by a wild-haired giant of a man standing on the flat roof of a house. Humayun pulled his battleaxe from the thongs securing it to his saddle and sent it hurtling through the air. It hit the man in the chest so hard he tumbled backwards off the roof as if struck by a musket ball.

Humayun’s blood was pounding in his ears. It felt good to be in the heart of the fight. Brushing the sweat from his face with his green face cloth, he saw what seemed to be the last surviving raiders running towards some horses tethered to the wooden frame above a well. ‘Let no one escape,’ he yelled as, pulling his own mount round, he bore down on them. Leaning forward, he grabbed one man by the shoulder as he was about to jump on to his horse and with a violent push sent him sprawling to the ground. Reining in, Humayun shouted at the man as he lay in the dust, ‘Whose men are you? Answer me at once or I’ll put my sword through your throat.’ The man was winded and still struggling to speak when Humayun heard a familiar voice behind him.

‘They are mine. I surrender. Let’s be done with all this.’

Turning, Humayun saw Askari standing about four yards behind him, thin face streaked with blood from a cut above his right eyebrow. At his feet were his curved sword and a throwing dagger. When they saw what their leader had done, Askari’s remaining men also dropped their weapons.

By now, Humayun’s men were all around. ‘Tie them all up,’ he ordered. Then, dismounting, he slowly approached Askari. Puzzlement at his brother’s behaviour and the knowledge of how close he might have come to death at his hands if Askari had used his weapons rather than discarding them, combined to make him take refuge in a simpler emotion — anger.

‘How dare you bring destruction and havoc to my people — our people?’

Askari said nothing.

‘You’ve never had the guts to act alone. Kamran must be nearby. Where is he?’

Askari wiped away the blood that was still leaking from the cut on his face. ‘You’re wrong. I haven’t seen Kamran for over five months. I don’t know where he is.’ His black eyes met Humayun’s.

Humayun came closer and dropped his voice so they could not be overheard. ‘I don’t understand. You could have attacked me from behind before I even knew you were there.’

‘Yes.’

‘So what stopped you?’

Askari shrugged and looked away. Humayun gripped his shoulder. ‘You don’t baulk at attacking innocent people, allowing these vermin’ — he gestured at a couple of sullen Chakraks whom his men had trussed up with rope — ‘to rape and murder, so why hesitate to attack your own flesh and blood. .?’

‘Humayun. . ’

‘No, now I think about it, I’m not interested. It was probably cowardice.You knew my men would kill you if you attacked me. I don’t want to listen to any more of your lies about how sorry you are and how everything that’s happened has been Kamran’s fault.’ Humayun turned away and shouted to his guards, ‘Take him away and keep him from my sight until we reach Kabul. Just looking at him shames me.’

Not until ten days after his return to Kabul, when the trees were turning red and gold as autumn came, did Humayun finally have Askari brought before him again. His words to his men had been the honest truth — he was ashamed of his half-brother, of the depths to which he had fallen and the dishonour it had brought to their family. Pallid and thinner than ever from his confinement in the common dungeons, Askari shuffled slowly into Humayun’s private apartments, hands bound, legs shackled and flanked by guards. ‘Leave us,’ Humayun ordered them, ‘but stay within call.’ As the double doors of mulberry wood closed behind them, Humayun walked to his gilded chair, sat down, and chin in hand looked Askari in the face.

‘There’s something I’ve never understood.Twice I’ve spared your life though you threatened mine. More than that, I invited you to be not just my brother but my ally in my invasion of Hindustan. . You must think I’ve wronged you, yet I offered you everything. . ’

Askari slowly shook his head. ‘You didn’t,’ he said in a low voice. ‘All you ever offered me and Kamran was a little of your reflected glory — not power and lands of our own. I see from your face that you don’t understand, but for you life’s always been about your so-called “great destiny”.’

‘It’s not just my destiny — it belongs to us all.’

‘Does it? What about the saying of our people, taktya, takhta, “throne or coffin”? That’s not about a shared destiny — it’s about winner takes all. Humayun, let us speak plainly — perhaps more honestly than we ever have in all these years. I don’t like you but I don’t hate you. . I never did. I was just looking out for myself as you would have done in my place.’

‘You’re just making excuses for thwarted ambition and greed.’

Askari looked down at his bound hands. ‘That’s what you call it. I’d say it was a desire for independence — the freedom I’d have enjoyed if our father had divided his territories fairly between his sons as our ancestors did.’ He paused.

‘But you didn’t have to betray me. Hindal didn’t.’

At the mention of Hindal Askari’s self-righteous expression altered. ‘Hindal was different from any of us. He was as gentle as he was big in stature. He was without guile and so naive that he expected everyone to be as honourable as he was. You lost a good ally when you stole Hamida from him. . ’ Suddenly there were tears in Askari’s eyes. ‘I wish. . but what’s the point. . ’

‘What do you wish?’ Humayun rose from his chair and came so close to Askari he could smell the pungent dankness of his skin and clothes after his days of confinement.

‘I wish I hadn’t killed Hindal.’

‘You? I thought it must have been Kamran. . ’

‘It wasn’t. It was me.’

‘But why? How had he injured you?’

‘I didn’t mean to kill him. It was an accident. A cruel coincidence of fate. I was on a raid with some of my men on a moonless night. In the darkness we encountered a small party of fast-moving riders who wouldn’t halt or identify themselves. I shot an arrow at their leader who tumbled from his saddle as the rest of his men fled in panic. When I looked at the body I. . I saw it was Hindal. . ’ Askari said dully, eyes avoiding Humayun’s. ‘I ordered my men to leave his body outside the walls of Kabul where it would be found before wild beasts took it so you could give him a decent burial.’

‘I did. He lies near our father as he wanted.’ Humayun was still adjusting to the genuine remorse he saw on his half-brother’s face when a thought struck him like a shaft of light suddenly illuminating a dark corner.

‘Hindal was the reason you surrendered when you did, rather than attacked me, wasn’t he? You might well have been able to kill me. . ’

‘Yes. My guilt weighed on me. Everything felt so futile. I didn’t want to add another brother’s death to the burden of regret I already carry.’

Humayun felt tears prick his own eyes as he thought over Askari’s tale. Why had Hindal put himself at risk by riding south with only a few men into lands where he must have known he might encounter Kamran’s and Askari’s robber bands? Was it wishful thinking to think Hindal might have been on his way to Kabul to seek a reconciliation with him? Now he would never know. .

For a few moments, both brothers were silent. Then Askari slowly crossed the room to the window and looked down into the courtyard. As he did so a half-smile crossed his face. ‘When we were children, Hindal and I used to stand here sometimes while the guards drilled in the courtyard. At other times we watched you and Kamran learning to fight with dagger and sword. We were very impressed — compared with us you seemed like grown men, warriors. . We also watched our father ride out on his invasion of Hindustan from here. We’d never seen anything like it — so many thousands of soldiers, so many baggage wagons assembled in the meadows below the citadel, so much noise and excitement in the early morning light. Hindal was yelling with excitement though he didn’t really understand what was happening. . Humayun. . ’

‘What?’

‘Do you intend to execute me?’

‘Probably not.’

Askari closed his eyes for a moment. ‘In that case, help me find a way to make peace with myself and with the past. . ’

‘How can I do that?’

‘Let me make the journey to Mecca, the haj. I want to atone for what happened to Hindal. . ’

‘You want to make the pilgrimage to Mecca?’ Why not, Humayun thought after a moment or two. Making the haj would take Askari nearly a thousand miles from Kabul and from Kamran for months — years even. It was a better solution than incarceration or exile and might even provide Askari with the spiritual comfort he seemed in such need of. ‘Are you certain this is what you want?’

Askari nodded.

‘Then I will send an escort with you under the command of one of my best young officers, Mohamed Azruddin.’

‘To spy on me?’ Askari smiled bleakly.

‘No. To protect you — it is a long and hazardous journey by sea as well as by land. . You may not believe me but I wish things could have been different between us. It is too late for that now — the past will always lie between us — but I pray that you find the peace you are seeking.’