Raiders from the North

Chapter 7

The mixture of snow and sleet penetrated even the thick sheepskin-lined jacket in which Babur was wrapped. He shivered as, head bowed against the elements, he rode at the head of his remaining men beside a small river, the edges of which were half frozen, up a remote valley among the high mountains to the north of Ferghana.

During the first difficult days after he had discovered that he had lost not one but both of his kingdoms, Babur had wanted to stay near Akhsi in the hope of being able to stake all on getting into the fortress to free his family. But Wazir Khan had with difficulty dissuaded him, pointing out that his enemies would expect such a desperate attempt and would be on guard against it. Wazir Khan, fatherly in his comforting support, had advised, ‘If you wish to save your grandmother, your mother and your sister, you must not throw your life away by taking extravagant risks but make your enemies fear you. To do this you must pressure them, attacking now here, now there, disappearing before they can concentrate their forces against you. Be elusive, ever-threatening. Your foes must never sleep soundly. And if you do this, Majesty, they will not dare to harm your family.’

At length, Babur had recognised the sense of what Wazir Khan was saying. Thinking carefully, he had suggested a plan. ‘We will need a safe base where we can see out the winter and plan our first raids. I remember that, as part of the military training you gave me each summer, you once took me on an expedition to the northern mountains and we stayed in an old mud fort at the head of a valley where a vassal of Tambal commanded the small garrison. That might make a good base. It is little visited. What d’you think?’

‘I remember the place. It is indeed remote and could serve our purpose well.’

And thus two weeks ago he and Wazir Khan had begun their ride towards the mountains. Only two hundred men were accompanying them. Babur had selected them carefully with Wazir Khan’s help, choosing only those who were young, like himself, and without family ties, or those who, like Baisanghar, formed the trusted core of his inner circle. The rest he had despatched to their homes, telling them to await his call, which they could be sure would come. The snow had started at the beginning of the second week of their journey and had grown thicker and more persistent the higher they had climbed, hampering their progress.

‘How far do you think we are now from the fort, Wazir Khan?’

‘If it weren’t for this foul weather, Majesty, we should be able to see it by now. But at least the defenders won’t see us coming. Let’s pause under cover of those trees and eat some of the dried meat we still have in our saddlebags while we send some scouts ahead.’

The snow continued to fall throughout the ninety minutes the five scouts were away, sometimes thickly, sometimes less so. When the men returned they and their mounts were crusted with snow and their leader spoke through lips that were almost blue with cold. ‘The fort is only about two miles ahead, around a bend. There are no hoofor footprints to show that the occupants have been out today, either to patrol or to man outposts. When we dismounted and crept closer, we could make out smoke rising from one part of the fort — presumably the kitchens — but, most importantly, the main gate stood open. Clearly no one is suspecting an attack in this weather.’

‘Well they’re going to get a nasty surprise. Wazir Khan, let us not hesitate but mount up at once and while the snow continues to fall, concealing us, let the scouts lead us quietly and quickly towards where the way bends towards the fort. Then let us gallop for the gate.’

Wazir Khan nodded, and within five minutes the column was on the move, riding in single file up the gentle slope towards the head of the valley. After about two miles, through the snowflakes, which were falling more lightly now, Babur saw the shadow of a rocky outcrop emerge. As he did so, his chief scout whispered, ‘The bend is at that outcrop. The fortress is only about a thousand yards ahead. The path becomes broader now.’

‘We’ll make our attack from here. Tell the men to have their weapons ready but to leave saddlebags and any other unnecessary equipment here in the shadow of the outcrop so that we can gallop to the fortress as fast as the snow will allow.’

Quickly the soldiers began to prepare but before many had completed their task the snow stopped entirely and there, ahead, was the fort — a dark shape against the white of the surrounding snow.

‘Mount up, those who are ready! We must attack before we are seen!’ yelled Babur who, even as he spoke, had drawn Alamgir from its scabbard. He leaped into the saddle and urged his black horse into a gallop towards the fort whose gate he could see remained open. With at most ten riders immediately around him, and the rest strung out to his rear, he felt the blood pound in his ears as he bent low to his horse’s neck. When he was only two hundred yards from the gate, he heard a shout from within the fort — they had been seen. The gate shuddered and juddered as men inside tried to push it closed to bar it against the sudden threat but the newly fallen snow piled against it stopped it moving far. Two men rushed out, futilely kicking at the snow and trying to force the gate over it.

‘Shoot them down!’ Babur shouted, but did not slacken his pace. Within seconds he saw one of the men fall, an arrow in his throat. Then he was at the gate. Slashing at the second man with Alamgir, he felt the sword bite home into soft flesh but did not pause to look where. Instead, pulling hard on the reins, he jerked his horse’s head round to guide it through the still partly open gate. The black horse snorted and Babur felt one of its legs slip but it made the turn, as did the three riders immediately behind him.

But the fourth did not. Babur heard a thudding crash as horse and rider came down, blocking the entrance. He was in the fort but — for the moment at least — with only three men to assist him. Looking about, he saw men rushing out through the tall wide door to what must be the fort’s main hall. Some were struggling to pull on chain-mail, others to draw their weapons.

‘Come! Attack them now!’ Babur kicked his horse into a gallop once more, and soon he and his three companions were among the panicking men, cutting them down. Suddenly Babur saw a tall man, who appeared to be one of their chiefs, duck back into the hall and urged his horse on after him, bending low to pass beneath the wooden lintel. Blinking in the semi-darkness, he saw that the twenty or thirty men who had emerged from the hall must have been pretty much the entire garrison. Only the officer remained within. He had run back towards a rack of weapons and grabbed a spear and shield before turning towards Babur.

‘Lay down your weapons on the orders of your rightful king, I, Babur of Ferghana.’

‘I will not. You are not my king. My name is Hanif Khan. I owe my loyalty to Tambal, who now controls the land. Vanquish me in combat if you can.’

Babur leaped from his horse and, with Alamgir in his hand, advanced towards Hanif Khan who — as soon as he was near enough — thrust at Babur with his spear. Babur jumped aside, but as he did so his left foot caught against the leg of one of the low tables on which lay the remains of a meal. Arms flailing, he fell on to the table, knocking over some rough wooden goblets and spilling their contents. The wrist of his sword hand caught against the lip of a large metal pot, half full of stew, knocking Alamgir from his grasp.

Hanif Khan rushed towards him, eager to take advantage of this piece of good fortune and to finish him off. Raising his spear above his head in both hands he was about to stab its point into Babur’s exposed throat when Babur grabbed a large wooden platter to use as a rough shield. The spear penetrated but did not split it. Rolling to one side amid the sticky warm mess of spilled food and liquid, Babur let go of the platter and grabbed the spear shaft, twisting it as he did so and wrenching it from Hanif Khan’s grasp.

Undaunted, Hanif Khan jumped back and pulled a slim dagger from his sash. Babur had no time to look for where Alamgir had fallen but hit the man hard with the spear, knocking the platter from its tip. As he did so, he felt a stinging pain across his cheek. Hanif Khan had thrown his dagger at Babur’s throat but missed his mark. Now Babur thrust at him with the spear point and Hanif Khan could only half turn aside before the spear caught his right side and he fell among some rough cushions beside the table. Babur twisted out the spear and, without a moment’s reflection, jabbed it hard into his opponent’s neck, pinning him to the cushions, which were soon soaked with his pumping red blood.

In no time, Wazir Khan, Baisanghar and the rest of his men were surrounding Babur congratulating him on his bravery. The fort was theirs. He had taken his first small step on the long road to recovering Ferghana. Going outside, Babur saw that the snow was falling again, turning scarlet where it covered the bodies of his enemies. He longed for the moment when he could thrust his spear through Tambal as he had just done through his vassal.

And so it had begun. Babur had become a raider, attacking swiftly and always leaving his name scratched in blood on a paper left stuffed into the gaping mouth of one of his dead enemies. And he had done well. Gradually he had increased the size of his forces, using soft words and sweet promises as well as harsh steel and the booty from his raids to attract new supporters and win over his adversaries. Within just twenty months of his capture of the mud fort, systematically and tenaciously, small fort by small fort, village by village, he had reclaimed much of the west of Ferghana. His strategy was working. Tambal no longer dared stir very far to the north or west from Akhsi towards Babur’s strongholds, and Babur had become powerful enough to feel able to issue demands to him.

The first, made six months ago and often repeated, had been for the release of his grandmother, mother and sister from imprisonment in Akhsi in return for a promise not to attack the fortress until a year had passed. Three months ago Tambal had sent messengers to Babur with oily assurances that Esan Dawlat, Kutlugh Nigar and Khanzada were all in good health and being treated with the respect due to women of the royal house. But he had not offered to let them go.

Now Babur was advancing eastwards towards the town of Gava fifty miles away, recently refortified by Tambal and garrisoned with Chakrak mercenaries. He had a particular score to settle there. The Chakrak commander of its garrison had been one of the first to pledge allegiance to his half-brother Jahangir and to Tambal as regent. The town’s capture would send another signal to Tambal that it was time to conciliate Babur by returning his family.

Babur and his men stopped by the bank of a small river to allow their horses to drink. As Babur was eating without relish a hunk of sour cheese, made from mare’s milk, he saw one of his scouts approaching on his horse. To Babur’s alarm a body was strapped limp across his saddlebow. Running towards the man, Babur shouted, ‘What has happened? Who is this man?’

‘He was a merchant. I found him lying half alive in a pool of blood by the side of the track with a sword slash across his stomach. I lifted him on to my horse but he died soon after. Before he did, though, he told me he had been heading for a small caravanserai about ten miles from here with three other merchants when about two hours ago they were attacked by a Chakrak raiding party. They killed his fellows and left him for dead before making off with all the goods.’

‘We must find the Chakraks and avenge him if we can. Send out some of your fellow scouts.’

‘Majesty, that may not be necessary. With his last breath the merchant told me that he’d overheard the Chakraks talking of making for the caravanserai to see if they could find more victims there. .’

‘In that case we make for the caravanserai.’

The singing was wild and raucous — just like the Chakraks themselves. Men’s voices, slurred with drink, soared to a new crescendo, belting out suggestions for obscene actions so gross and so physically impossible that, despite himself, Babur grinned. He glanced at Wazir Khan — he was smiling too.

Babur signalled to his men, who were all around him in the long grass, and, like him, lying flat on their stomachs, to keep down and wait. Then he wriggled closer to the single-storey, mud-brick caravanserai overlooking a ford across one of Ferghana’s swift-flowing rivers where the revellers were letting themselves go. The jingling of bells told him dancing girls were there. So did a sudden, indignant female shriek, followed by gusts of male laughter.

It was still only mid-afternoon, but the twenty or so Chakraks were clearly already pissed as rats. They hadn’t even troubled to tether their horses properly and some, with matted manes and tails so long they brushed the ground, had already trotted away. As for their booty, seized from the four merchants, they couldn’t even be bothered to carry it inside. The merchants’ grey pack mules, roped together and contentedly grazing, were still loaded with wicker panniers stuffed with what looked like furs and leather. All the Chakraks seemed to have taken inside were barrels of wine.

Barbarians, Babur thought. They were about to get what was coming to them and it was a nice thought. Raising his head above the long grasses, Babur looked round but could see no one. Just as he’d thought, they’d not even the wit to post a boy to keep watch over the animals or the bags. Rising to his feet, he crept towards what was more of a hole in the caravanserai’s thick walls than a window, just to the right of the low entrance, and peered cautiously inside. The room was bare, except for a long wooden table pushed against the back wall, some three-legged stools and a half broken bench. In the middle of the room a plump, snub-nosed girl, wearing a tightly belted red-flowered jacket over pale, baggy yellow trousers with bells around her ankles and her wrists, and another taller girl in blue trousers and jacket and with a tambourine in her grubby hands were whirling and gyrating, stamping their bare feet on the flagstone floor. As he watched, a couple of Chakraks, sweaty-faced under their round, shaggy sheepskin hats, lunged at them unsteadily, grabbing unsuccessfully for a breast or a buttock and tumbling to the floor, amid the cheers of their companions.

In one corner, a large black kettle was suspended over a smoky fire. In another, Babur watched a Chakrak drop his trousers and begin busily defecating, his comrades seemingly oblivious to the stink. Another got to his feet and spewed an arc of yellow vomit before slumping down again, flicking a gobbet of sick from his sleeve with a long fingernail. Babur ducked away again. He had seen enough in every sense.

Keeping low to the ground again, he made his way back to Wazir Khan. ‘They’re ours for the taking, the drunken fools. They’ve even left their shields and swords piled by the door.’

Wazir Khan raised an eyebrow. ‘Now, Majesty?’

‘Yes!’

Babur and Wazir Khan rose to their feet, signalling to their men to do likewise. They had done this so many times before that spoken orders were no longer needed. Finger to his lips, Wazir Khan gestured to several men to work their way around the caravanserai to the back, in case there were other ways out. Then Babur yelled his battle cry: ‘Ferghana!’

With Babur at their head, the men burst in. Stupid with drink and taken by surprise, the Chakraks put up little resistance. The only blade that Babur faced, as he and his men went ruthlessly to work, belonged to the snub-nosed girl. She whipped a dagger out of her bodice and made a spirited attempt to stab Babur in his arm but he turned her wrist with its jingling bells with ease and, flicking her round, put a boot to her wide rump and sent her sprawling.

In a couple of minutes it was all over and Babur’s men, barely out of breath, were cleaning and sheathing their swords. Not one had been wounded — but they were hardened warriors, used to fighting better men than these drunkards. ‘Take the bodies outside — let’s see who we have,’ Babur ordered, and hurried out himself, glad to leave the fetid, smoky room for the fresh air.

As soon as his men had hauled the dead Chakraks out by their boot-clad feet and arranged them in a line, Babur counted them. There were fifteen. Many had their throats slit, some were headless. His men had also neatly arranged the severed heads, a few with their shaggy hats still on. Babur ran his eyes over them, grunting with satisfaction when he recognised a face. He had vowed to kill every Chakrak who had betrayed him and each skirmish that brought him closer to his goal was highly satisfying.

At the sound of squealing Babur turned. Two of his warriors had each grabbed a dancing girl and were dragging them out of the caravanserai. ‘Do not force them — you know my orders. If they will go with you willingly for money, well, that is another matter.’ Babur turned away.

The girls were indeed willing and, after a few moments of brisk negotiation, led the warriors into an apple orchard beyond the caravanserai. Babur guessed they were the daughters of the squint-faced innkeeper who, at the first sign of trouble, had hidden himself under the table and was still there. Soon a regular procession of Babur’s men were making their way to and from the orchard. From the smiles on the faces of those returning, it seemed that the women were well used to providing favours to their father’s customers.

Wazir Khan was already organising the rounding up of the Chakrak ponies that had drifted off and was checking the goods the Chakraks had looted from the merchants. ‘Look, Majesty,’ he called to Babur, pulling out two brightly coloured rugs. From their sheen the weavers had mixed silk with the wool and the patterning was unusual — perhaps the merchants had been travelling from the east, from Kashgar, where the people were skilled in such things. With the furs and the leather, they would fetch a good price, which would help him pay his men, Babur thought, pleased.

It would also be a good move to give his men a feast. They had done well and he must show his appreciation. He would hold it as soon as they returned westward, back to Shahrukiyyah. There, in the fortress he had seized from Tambal’s forces six months ago and made his base, they would toast the memory of Ali Mazid Beg, lord of Shahrukiyyah until his murder in Samarkand. They would also drink to his son, slain as he tried to defend the fortress against Chakrak mercenaries despatched by Tambal as soon as he had learned of Ali Mazid Beg’s death.

At the memory of his loyal chief, Babur’s thoughts grew sombre as they often did these days. What had he achieved in the two years since Ali Mazid Beg’s corpse had been hoisted over the Turquoise Gate? Was he any closer to freeing his family or to regaining Ferghana, never mind Samarkand? How much longer could he go on as a king without a kingdom? It would take time to build an army large enough to storm Akhsi, liberate his womenfolk and regain his throne. As for Samarkand, his brief days there as ruler were just a shadowy memory. It was hard to believe they had actually happened. The grand vizier’s ghost had had the last laugh after all.

The thought angered Babur. He lashed out with his foot at one of the severed heads, sending it flying across the grass. His men deserved some fun, he thought, and so did he. ‘Cut branches for sticks,’ he shouted. ‘Let’s play some polo with these vermin’s heads. We’ll use the trees over there for goals.’

For an hour, he lost himself in a wild game, swerving from side to side on one of the nimble Chakrak ponies and whacking with the branches stripped of their twigs at the severed heads so that they bowled and bounced through the grass. The heads were soon unrecognisable — features smashed, eyeballs tumbling out — and Babur and his sweating fellow players, as well as their mounts, were flecked with blood.

Tiring of the sport at last but having released some of his pent-up anger and frustration, Babur halted his steaming mount. Glancing round he caught Wazir Khan watching him. For once there was no approval on his face. But Babur refused to feel ashamed. His enemies deserved everything they got, dead or alive.

‘Let’s go,’ he ordered. ‘It is a long way to Gava and we mustn’t keep our hosts waiting.’ Kicking his horse so sharply that it sprang straight into a gallop, Babur rode from the inn down towards the ford over the river without a backward glance at the mangled, bloody heads already being pecked at by crows and the two girls slightly bow-leggedly picking over the bodies of the Chakraks for anything Babur’s men had missed which they could add to the proceeds of their whoredom.

Yellow, pink and white flowers sprinkled the bright green upland meadows when, three weeks later, Babur and his men came galloping through them towards Shahrukiyyah. The raid against Gava had been bloody but successful. Babur himself had shot down the town’s commander with an arrow despatched from the saddle at a distance of three hundred yards. All the hours of practice with his small, sharply curved double bow using a bronze ring to protect his thumb as he drew back the taut string had paid off. He could empty a quiver of thirty arrows in under a minute.

After that, resistance had ceased. Pissing themselves with fear, the garrison had surrendered not only themselves but also their full war chest, whose contents now reposed in the bulging leather saddlebags of Babur and his men.

Wazir Khan would be pleased. Babur had been missing his old friend but he had injured his thigh after being thrown when his horse shied at a snake the day after the attack on the caravanserai. Babur had insisted he return to Shahrukiyyah to rejoin Baisanghar, whom he had left there in command.

Tonight they would celebrate, he would decide which of his men to honour with the ulush, the champion’s portion awarded at feasts to the warriors who had fought bravest and best — and he would tell Wazir Khan and Baisanghar about the raid on Gava. Wazir Khan would laugh at his stories, and perhaps even the serious Baisanghar might manage a smile.

As soon as he entered the courtyard of the stone fortress, Babur jumped down from his horse and looked around for them. There was no sign of Baisanghar but Wazir Khan was in front of the stables inspecting a horse’s fetlock. Babur frowned: his friend was still limping heavily as he came towards him. Then he noticed Wazir Khan’s beaming face.

‘Great news, Majesty! Truly momentous news.’

‘What has happened?’

‘A week ago a messenger came from Akhsi, from Tambal speaking, or so he says, for your half-brother Jahangir and agreeing to send your mother, your grandmother and your sister to you.’

‘Did he ask anything in return?’

‘Nothing explicit, Majesty. All he added were fine words about his respect for you.’

Babur’s heart leaped. At last. The knowledge that his family would soon be with him again was overwhelming.

‘When will they be here?’

‘By sunset tomorrow, if all has gone well.’

The next evening, in the gathering dusk, Babur was on the battlements, where he had been for most of the day, straining his eyes impatiently eastward where the road wound up to a pass. At last, emerging from the gathering gloom, he spied an undulating line of camels with baskets hanging at either side of them. Behind them rode the detachment of soldiers Wazir Khan had sent, under Baisanghar, to meet and protect the women on the final stage of their journey.

Babur could not see who was riding in the baskets, but it must be his family. Unable to contain himself any longer, and without pausing either to summon guards to accompany him or to have a mount saddled, he jumped on to a horse and urged it out over the grassy meadows towards the small caravan.

Tears were flowing down his sunburned cheeks but he didn’t care. There was no one to see them and, anyway, what did it matter? They were tears of happiness, not of weakness. Dashing them from his cheeks with one hand as he clung to his horse’s mane with the other, Babur urged the beast to a pace so fast he felt he was flying.

Suddenly four soldiers detached from the escort and, spears tilted, galloped towards him. Although Baisanghar had probably guessed who was riding bareback so swiftly and wildly towards them, prudent soldier that he was he must have ordered the men to confirm his identity. As the riders drew near, Babur swung his own horse round sharply to force it to a standstill. Lathered with sweat, it snorted in protest.

Babur threw back his head and yelled his ancestral cry. ‘Ferghana!’

The riders, quite close enough now to recognise him, saluted and Babur cantered on to where the camels had halted. If his heart had not been so full, there would have been something comical about the sight of Esan Dawlat’s head poking out of a pannier like a chicken being carried to market. She was so light that there had been no need to stuff the basket on the other side with anything heavier than cabbages and her lute which was secured to the outside of the basket with hide thongs. Kutlugh Nigar and Khanzada were riding in baskets suspended on either side of a bigger camel with a creamy, long-haired coat that spat at Babur’s approach. On the camels behind, Babur recognised several of his mother’s waiting women, including Fatima, and his vizier, Kasim.

The camel drivers jumped down, tapped the camels’ knobbly knees with their sticks and forced them to the ground. Remembering what was due to age, Babur ran first to his grandmother and lifting her from the basket knelt before her. He could find no words and neither, for once, could she. He felt her hand rest briefly on his head. As he rose again and looked into her small bright eyes he saw, to his relief, that her spirit seemed unquenched. She still looked what she had always been, a khanim — a woman of the blood of Genghis Khan.

Then he turned to his mother, lifted her to the ground and clung to her, breathing in the familiar warm scent of sandalwood. When he released her, he saw tears in her eyes. ‘It is good to see you again, my son,’ she said simply, and a smile lit her face that was thinner and more lined than he remembered.

Khanzada had, by now, climbed from her basket herself and she flung herself at him. Her pet mongoose, which she was holding in her left hand, squeaked in protest. Last time he had seen her she had been a skinny girl with a few spots. Now she was a woman, her body rounded, her face smooth and beautiful — but with the same grin, he was relieved to see. He hugged her then stepped back to look at her properly.

Khanzada was scrutinising him too. ‘You’re taller,’ she said, ‘and your shoulders are broader. And you look terrible. Your chin is all stubbly and your hair is wild — it’s nearly as long as mine! And look at your nails — they’re black.’

Behind him, Babur heard Esan Dawlat click her tongue in reproof at Khanzada’s disrespectful words and he smiled. They were together again at last and everything was as it should be. Later, they would talk and he would learn all that had happened to them, but for now this was enough.

As they approached the fort, trumpets blared and drums thundered their welcome to the royal women of Ferghana, free at last and — for the moment at least — safe.

While the women settled into the chambers Babur had ordered to be prepared for them on the top floor of the fortress, he summoned the cooks to check that all was in place for the celebration he had planned. It would be a far cry from the magnificence of Samarkand, to which he had once hoped to welcome them. However, twenty lambs had been slaughtered and were already roasting over fires in the courtyard. Chickens had been plucked and drawn and were now being baked in butter with walnuts and apricots. Apples were being glazed with thick, golden honey and red pomegranates stuffed with almond paste and pistachios. He was particularly pleased as he looked at a pile of silvered almonds that his men had seized during one of their raids. Esan Dawlat loved these more than any other sweetmeats.

As the moon rose in a clear, star-lit sky and guards kept watch from the fortress walls in case of any sudden attack, the feast began. Babur and his men ate in a long, low chamber on the ground floor while, in their own apartments above, the women were served the choicest portions. As the candlelight danced and flickered, one of Babur’s men began to sing in a deep, rich voice. The others kept the rhythm, striking the hilts of their daggers on the low wooden tables around which they were seated, cross-legged. They were happy, Babur thought. The release of the women had pleased them too. It had wounded their honour as well as his that they had lacked the strength to set them free.

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 naive 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.’