Raiders from the North

Chapter 9

The hunting around Shahrukiyyah was good. Deer and fat squealing boar abounded in the dense forests while the coppices and pasture provided pheasants, hares and foxes enough for excellent sport. Babur narrowed his eyes as he pulled back his bow-string, then smiled as he watched his arrow cut through the air and hit its mark — the white throat of a young buck that staggered, then fell. Since his return from his marriage in Zaamin two months ago, he’d been spending a lot of time out hunting.

Now, with dusk falling, Babur turned his horse for home, his hawk again quiescent beneath its gilded leather hood, the deer slung from poles and rabbits and pheasants dangling limply from his huntsmen’s saddles. He felt a dark mood envelop him. Never before had he quarrelled with his grandmother, but Esan Dawlat’s interference was growing intolerable. She was actually keeping count of his couplings with Ayisha and complaining constantly. ‘At first you went to her twice a week. Now it is only every seven days — sometimes longer. . You are insulting her. Remember your duty to Ferghana,’ she had snapped this morning, oblivious both to his embarrassment and his anger. ‘You know no fear as a warrior, so why hide from a woman. .?’

Stung, he had yelled back, ‘You are not my commander, nor I your stud stallion required to service to order your choice of mare.’

He had not objected to the marriage, and understood the reasons for it, but he had not sought it either, and the cold disdain of his bride — apparent even on their wedding night — had persisted and hardened. She rarely spoke to him and, when she did, it was only to reply monosyllabically to his questions or requests. He had never seen her smile — not once. A smile might have softened her and, in turn, softened his feelings towards her. Instead, lying with her seemed almost like sleeping with a warm corpse — no response, no passion, no engagement, just those unblinking dark eyes seemingly focused on the middle distance as he spent himself in her unresisting body.

What was in Ayisha’s mind? Why wouldn’t she respond to him either physically or mentally he wondered, yet again, as he rode along a track green with the tender shoots of spring. Was the fault his or hers? Surely it was hers. What was wrong with her? At her request, she and her Mangligh attendants had their own chambers away from the rest of the women’s. Whenever he approached he could hear them speaking their strange language and sometimes laughing, but as he entered they would at once fall quiet. Ayisha would salute him with a formal bow of her head, then wait in silence, expressionless eyes downcast, for his bidding, like a slave rather than a wife. Except that a slave was humble and Ayisha was not.

It seemed to Babur that she wore her pride like a weapon against him. Her detachment goaded him. Sometimes when he made love to her, he became rough in spite of himself, trying with his sheer physicality to force a reaction from her — anything. But there was nothing, and although she did not resist, he was left feeling like a ravisher, a forcer of women, instead of her lawful husband. At other times he had tried to be gentle, caressing the soft lines of her body, cupping her breasts, kissing her nipples and her small rounded belly — just as he had treated the pliant women of his adolescent dreams — but unlike them Ayisha had not responded, remaining rigidly indifferent.

When, blushing and stammering, he had asked Khanzada — who had been so eager for the companionship a royal sister-in-law would provide and so generous with her carefully chosen presents — whether Ayisha had ever confided anything about him or his behaviour, she shook her head. She told him that immediately after the marriage she had often visited Ayisha but had found only the most formal and aloof welcome, no willingness to empathise or to unbend and share confidences — so she had ceased her unreciprocated visits. It was, Khanzada said, as if Ayisha wished she were somewhere else, and in her mind pretended she was.

Babur was still caught up in his thoughts as he and his men galloped into the jumble of mud-brick houses, wooden shacks and round hide tents that clustered beneath the walls of Shahrukiyyah. The poorly clothed inhabitants were squatting over smoking fires to cook their evening meals while their children played barefoot in the sloping alleyways, jumping over the little rivulets that carried sewage and other refuse down the hill. As they approached the stone gatehouse with its iron-bound doors, a small child — no more than two or three years old — suddenly ran out in front of Babur. His horse reared, neighing in alarm.

Pulling hard on the reins, Babur turned the chestnut so that its flailing hoofs missed the child, who was now standing wide-eyed, wailing and immobile with fear. A rider behind Babur was not so quick to react and it seemed he would ride the child down. But there was a shout and a youth dived forward, seizing the child, pulling it to the ground and shielding it with his body. The rider, cursing volubly as he fought to control his black horse, managed to jump over them but one of his horse’s rear hoofs caught the youth hard on the back of the head.

Babur dismounted and knelt by the unconscious young man whose arms were still round the child — a little girl, Babur could now see. She was whimpering, a thin trail of snot running down her upper lip. As one of his men lifted her out of the way, Babur turned the youth on to his back. He was about the same age as himself, Babur thought, with an aquiline nose, high cheekbones and a stubbly chin. He probed his head, with the expertise gleaned from many battles, and found beneath the dark hair a place that was spongy and sticky with blood. The youth, whose breathing was shallow, seemed deeply unconscious. He had taken a hard blow, risking his life for the little girl. It would be a shame if he didn’t live to know he’d saved her.

‘Bring him up to the castle. Let’s see what our hakims can do for him.’ Babur remounted and, feeling even more sombre than before, continued towards the castle gates.

That night, Babur knew he should go to Ayisha. It would please his grandmother and his mother and perhaps, once she was pregnant, Ayisha herself might find some contentment. More importantly, the prospect of a grandchild might prompt Ibrahim Saru to honour his promise of crossbowmen to help Babur retake his birthplace, Akhsi. It was full spring now and high time for Babur to be moving against his half-brother Jahangir. Instead, each time he sent a messenger to Zaamin asking for news of when the crossbowmen would arrive, the reply was the same: soon they would come, soon. .

After he had bathed, Babur set out dutifully for his wife’s quarters, but when he saw the green, leather-lined double doors ahead, he stopped. No. As he had shouted at Esan Dawlat, he wasn’t a stud beast required to perform to order. He was a man who knew his own mind and would do as he pleased. Turning on his heel, he walked quickly away.

At least Babur’s pessimism about the youth proved misplaced. Six hours later, a servant brought word that he had recovered consciousness. That should have been the end of it. But for some reason Babur was curious to know more and, on the second day after the accident, ordered the youth, if he was well enough, to be carried to him on a litter.

The young man was very pale but saluted Babur from his prone position, touching his hand to his chest and inclining his head — a gesture that clearly hurt because he winced.

‘You were brave to save the child like that. I’m glad God has been compassionate to you, preserving your own life. What is your name?’

‘Baburi, Majesty.’

Babur looked down at him in frank surprise. Baburi was an unusual name, but also so similar to his own. ‘Where are you from? What is your tribe?’

‘My father was a warrior of the Barin people and served your father, but he died when I was a baby. I have no memory of him. My mother took me to Samarkand but she died of smallpox when I was seven. I’ve fended for myself ever since.’

‘What are you? A soldier?’

‘No, Majesty.’ Baburi raised his eyes to Babur’s. They were a dark blue, almost indigo. ‘Till recently I was a market boy. I hawked cabbages on the streets of Samarkand.’

‘How did you come to be in Shahrukiyyah?’

‘When you captured Samarkand, Majesty, I got a job as a water-carrier with one of your chiefs. He has since gone home to Ferghana but I decided to stay.’ Baburi spoke directly, with a simple dignity.

‘But I have not seen you before?’

‘That isn’t surprising. I work in the kitchens now, skinning animals and pulling the guts out of chickens. It isn’t glorious but it’s a job.’ A half-smile curled his lips. ‘It could be worse.’

He’s laughing at me, Babur thought, astonished. I amuse him. ‘I’m sure it could be worse — sometimes we must accept what fate doles out, even disembowelling chickens. But now perhaps fate has something different in store. Your bravery suggests you could be a soldier.’

‘I’d like that. . After all, I’ve proved I’ve got a good thick skull to take a blow. . And it would be preferable to the kitchens — even if occasionally I have to spill human guts or even lose some of my own.’ Still the youth smiled.

‘Very well. As soon as you are recovered, you shall join my cavalry.’

Babur had expected rapturous gratitude but the youth’s smile disappeared. His expression changed to one of discomfort and his pale face flushed. ‘What is the matter?’

‘I can scarcely ride, Majesty.’

Babur bit his lip at his own stupidity. In a society of nomads where only the poorest were ignorant of horses, it was a shaming thing to have to confess. How could a poor market boy have learned to be a good enough horseman to join the cavalry?

Anxious to spare Baburi further embarrassment, he said quickly, ‘You have already shown you have no fear of horses. Tell the master-of-horse to arrange your training as a cavalryman as soon as you’re fit.’

‘So, we are agreed. If no Mangligh crossbowmen have come from Zaamin by the time of the new moon after next, we will march on Akhsi anyway.’ Babur gazed at his counsellors, seated cross-legged in a half-circle round him.

There was still no news of the Mangligh reinforcements and Babur had had enough. The lands he had seized were still securely in his hands, the forts he had taken well garrisoned under chieftains he could trust, but he could not afford to wait much longer. He must regain Akhsi and quickly. Then he could truly call himself Ferghana’s king and plan for a greater future.

‘In the meantime, Majesty, we must continue to drill our troops. We have enough siege engines and enough catapults but many of the men are still undisciplined. Under fire they may forget what we have tried to hammer into their heads. And we must also build up our supplies. Though we do not want a long siege, it may come to it,’ said Wazir Khan.

‘You’re right. And when we march out, we must send raiding parties ahead to seize flocks before they are taken to feed the garrison of Akhsi. Baisanghar, I look to you to have men ready for such a task — men we can trust. There is to be no killing or looting of my people. We will pay for what we take. I am a king returning to his own, not an Uzbek bandit out on a raid.’

Babur rose, pleased that he had taken control and that the waiting would soon be over. Feeling restless, he hurried out into the courtyard and ordered his favourite horse to be saddled. Taken by surprise, the grooms rushed to obey while his bodyguards, shouting for their own mounts, added to the confusion. They were getting sloppy and lax. He noticed the broad-shouldered, slim-waisted figure of Baburi, broom in his hands, coming from the stables and summoned him with a wave.

‘Majesty?’ Today Baburi seemed unwilling to look Babur in the eye.

‘How is your riding?’

Silence.

‘I gave orders that you were to train for the cavalry.’

Still silence.

‘And I am not used to being disobeyed.’ Babur was perplexed. The youth had seemed so eager yet he had done nothing. He had wanted to help Baburi and had thought he detected a spark in him, but he must have been wrong. Baburi was as dull as the cabbages he had once peddled. Disappointed, Babur turned away. As he did so he noticed a bruise on the side of Baburi’s high-cheekboned face. ‘Wait. What is that mark?’

‘Your master-of-horse hit me.’

‘Why?’

Now, at last, Baburi looked at him. ‘Because I said that I wanted to ride, to be a cavalryman. He said I was fit only for shovelling horse shit.’

‘Did you mention that it was my personal wish?’

‘Perhaps not in so many words. I thought he would have heard. And he gave me no chance to explain before he hit me. Afterwards, it was all I could do to restrain myself from thumping him. It didn’t seem the time for explanations. . or for pleading. If you were serious, I knew it would get sorted out sometime. If not, the stables were better than the kitchen.’

Babur turned to one of his guards. ‘Fetch Ali Gosht.’

A few moments later, the man was kneeling before him. He was of the Saghrichi tribe, descended, like Babur himself, from Genghis Khan, and famous for his skill with horses. It was said he could break a stallion in two days. Ali Gosht was loyal and conscientious, if quick-tempered and conscious of the dignity of his hard-won position. Babur suspected Baburi had not chosen the time or manner of his approach with particular care. No doubt Ali Gosht had assumed that Baburi was being presumptuous — a trait for which the Barin clan had no mean reputation. It was his own fault, Babur thought, for not making his orders clear.

‘I intend this man to be a member of my cavalry. We will start his training now. Fetch a horse from the royal stables.’

‘Yes, Majesty.’

Twenty minutes later Babur, with Baburi clinging to his mount — a quiet mare — rode out of Shahrukiyyah, the usual escort of guards close behind. It was a warm afternoon and bees hummed in the patches of thick white clover that covered the meadows and sweetened the air. Babur reined in and turned in his saddle to watch Baburi’s progress. He was sitting a little straighter now, no longer clutching the horse’s mane. ‘Grip with your knees. Keep your ankles in, your heels down and your feet in the stirrups.’

Baburi nodded, with a frown of concentration. He had natural grace in the saddle and would make a good rider, Babur thought. What had his life been like till now? It was hard for Babur to imagine. Images came into his head of the scrawny old man with his mildewed onions in the square in Samarkand where Babur had hidden after creeping into the city through the tunnel. Perhaps Baburi had been somewhere in the square that morning.

‘Come on,’ Babur shouted. ‘Hurry up.’

‘I will — if I can persuade the horse to agree, Majesty.’

A few days later, Babur was handing his horse to his groom outside the stables, when he saw Baburi inside, bending down with his back towards him to groom his horse’s legs. Babur walked over to him quietly and extended his hand to tap his shoulder to ask him how he was progressing. As he did so, his wrist was gripped and twisted. Baburi had whipped around and grabbed him. As soon as he saw who it was, he let go and dropped to his knees. ‘Forgive me, Majesty, I didn’t realise it was you.’

‘Of course you did not, but even so why did you react like that?’

‘Instinct. When you live on the streets as a child and you sense someone sneaking up behind you, you must act quickly to protect what you’ve got — whether food or a coin or indeed your freedom. There were plenty of men ready to abduct children to sell them into slavery or worse.’

‘Was there no one to look out for you?’

‘Not after my mother died. Sometimes people were kind but usually because they wanted something — even if it was only gratitude or flattery or to have you do their bidding. Those you were most likely to be able to rely on — for information on the back way into a bakery to steal a loaf or a good place to sleep in winter — were your fellow street children and even they looked after themselves first.’

‘Was it really like that? Are people so selfish?’

‘Perhaps I exaggerate. I made some good friends,’ Baburi said, then added, with a wry smile, ‘Is it so different at court? How many can you rely on unquestioningly among your counsellors? Who doesn’t put his own interest before yours, seeking some advantage for himself, some honour or reward to raise himself above his peers? How many of your fellow rulers — relatives or not — wouldn’t sneak into your territory to plunder it when your attention is distracted, like I did into bakeries when the owner was serving someone else?’

Babur suddenly scowled, reminded so forcibly of the actions of his half-brother Jahangir and his cousins Tambal and Mahmud. ‘I still prefer life in the castle to that on the streets — and so do you, or you wouldn’t be here.’

‘At least I have a choice. You are a chieftain or nothing. You can never live an obscure, quiet life. Someone will see you as a threat and kill you. I’m free to choose my fate, so my options are more numerous if less exalted. Yes, I do prefer it here, but I shan’t get too comfortable.’

‘Quite right. My father used to say it was possible to be too clever for one’s own good and that, I think, applies to paupers as well as princes.’ With that Babur turned away, satisfied to have had the last word.

As he had done a dozen times before over recent weeks, Babur tied the length of coarse blue cloth round his waist. His black trousers were ragged at the hem and the leather jerkin he pulled on over the dun tunic was shiny and worn.

‘Take care, Majesty.’ Wazir Khan looked worried.

Babur guessed he disapproved of these night-time excursions and, even more, of his growing closeness with Baburi, his companion in them. But for Babur his adventures were becoming addictive insight into the lives of his people. ‘I will.’ He smiled at his old friend as he slipped from the chamber and hurried down a narrow back staircase to a small courtyard at the back of the fort where, as they had agreed, Baburi was waiting for him in the darkness.

Silently, they made for a side gate where Wazir Khan’s guards, knowing who they were, let them pass without challenge. Several hundred yards beyond the castle, grazing contentedly, were the two ponies Babur had ordered to be saddled and tethered there.

They untied them, jumped on to their backs and, with a click of their tongues and a drumming of their feet on the ponies’ well-fed sides, cantered into the darkness. It was extraordinary, Babur thought, how in just a few short weeks Baburi was becoming like the full blood-brother he had never had. He was teaching him to fight with a sword, to wrestle, even to fire arrows from the saddle — as Wazir Khan had once taught him. Baburi had indeed proved a natural horseman and, made wiser by a few bruising falls, could now almost keep pace with Babur.

Baburi, in turn, was teaching him the songs and dances of the people — and even the concealment skills and deftness required of the sneak thief. It had been Baburi, too, who had taught him how to dress as a peasant for their nocturnal ramblings. When they rode out into the night, they bargained in the villages and settlements for goods in the bazaars and sat hunched round communal fires sipping smoky tea while the elders told their stories.

Sometimes Babur heard them inveigh against himself and the other warlords who made the lives of ordinary men so precarious. At first such comments had angered him, but now he listened, trying to understand what was in the hearts and minds of his people. However, both he and Baburi laughed at the outrageous rumours circulating about the peccadilloes of those in the fortress. Kasim — Babur’s quiet, unassuming vizier — was said to have a male member of which a stallion would be proud but to be able to enjoy sex only when dressed as a woman and shackled to his bed.

But tonight there was an even more potent attraction than a discussion of Kasim’s appetites. In Dzhizak, the village they were making for, was a brothel they had visited several times already — a broken-down wooden shack where the women danced in the firelight, flaunting their wares, and the men could take their pick. At the thought of the luscious breasts and wide hips of one of them, Yadgar, Babur’s pulse quickened. In daytime his thoughts were on preparing for his coming campaign, but when night fell he could scarcely contain his eagerness to gallop through the soft darkness to her.

Yadgar’s warm, available body and hot, questing mouth had revealed a new world and taught him many techniques and sensations. She was so different from Ayisha who, in all their couplings, had never caressed him. Her hands were always clenched by her sides, her lips cold and shut against him. Perhaps if he had been a more experienced lover on his wedding night, things might have been different. . But that was in the past. When he was again King of Ferghana he would make Yadgar his concubine. He would enjoy enhancing her lush beauty with bright gems and watching the shimmer of golden chains against her amber skin, the lustre of pearls rising and falling on the soft cushion of her breasts, moist with the sweat of their lovemaking. The thought made him kick his pony on urgently.

Soon they reached the willow grove that marked the outskirts of Dzhizak and called out to the night-watchman that they were travellers in need of refreshment. After he had examined their faces by the light of his guttering torch he grunted and let them continue. They dismounted and led their ponies past the low, mud-brick houses and down the narrow alley to the bazaar, where the thin yellow light from the merchants’ oil lamps barely illumined the piles of gritty, poor-quality rice and mouldering root vegetables. The ground was speckled with sheep and goat droppings and a sprinkling of chicken turds deposited by a few scrawny hens.

The brothel lay on the far side. Yes, Yadgar was there. Babur could see her warming her hands over the dung fire. So was Baburi’s usual choice — a wild mountain girl, boyish and slim, with red glints in her hair and an impudent little face.

As soon as she saw them, Yadgar came running, the cheap bells on her sturdy ankles jingling as she leaped at Babur, flinging her arms round his neck as her mouth sought his. She pressed herself close, laughing as she felt his instant response. Taking him by the hand she led him inside the brothel where, in a wooden cubicle barely large enough for the mattress on the floor, she shrugged off her clothes and went expertly to work with her hands and lips, before spreading her thighs to allow him to enter her warm, moist body.

The pale pink dawn was rising as Babur and Baburi, sated and happy and more than a little drunk from the strong spirits served in the brothel, came back within sight of Shahrukiyyah. They had spoken little on the return ride except to trade a few frank comments about their women and to boast of the frequency and inventiveness of their own performances. Inside the castle, Babur returned to his apartments, waving away the attendants who always seemed to materialise out of nowhere so that he could savour a few last moments of freedom and irresponsibility.

As the doors of his chamber closed behind him, he was already tugging off his clothes. He was unprepared for a sharp blow to his left ear. He turned to see Esan Dawlat, hand still raised, eyes blazing. Never had she come to his apartments like this. Two of her elderly waiting women were standing behind her, eyes downcast but half-smiles on their lips.

‘If you are sure you and your market boy have quite finished your whoring, we have matters to discuss,’ his grandmother snapped. ‘A messenger arrived during the night from Samarkand with a letter. It is from the chamberlain of your cousin Mahmud.’ She flourished a bit of paper in his face.

‘What does my cousin say? Does he want to make me a present of the kingdom he stole?’ Babur rubbed his ear. He wasn’t surprised Esan Dawlat knew he had been with a woman. She always knew everything. But he felt embarrassed she was seeing him in peasant garb, fresh from Yadgar’s embraces and probably still smelling of her.

‘Your cousin says nothing — and never will again unless you count the boom of a drum. Shaibani Khan has taken Samarkand and had Mahmud flayed alive. His skin has been made into a drum to be beaten above the Turquoise Gate every time Shaibani Khan enters and leaves the city.’ Esan Dawlat’s shrewd old eyes were pinpoints of anger at the outrage inflicted by an Uzbek barbarian on a Timurid prince.

‘Listen.’ Squinting, she began to read: ‘“The Uzbeks fell on us like an army of ants devouring everything in their path. They overwhelmed the city’s defences by sheer weight of numbers and have butchered hundreds of our citizens. Bodies are piled in the marketplaces and rot in the wells. I and a few members of the court have survived in hiding thus far but we are in terrible peril. . They have left us few places to conceal ourselves. May God show us the mercy that, in his infinite wisdom, he has denied to others.”’

Babur felt instantly sober. While he had been cavorting, a thunderbolt had struck. ‘I will summon my council and decide what to do. But we must have more information. The news in that letter must already be old. I will send scouts westward. .’

Esan Dawlat nodded. It seemed there was nothing further she wished to say to him. A flick of her fingers brought her serving women to her side and she was heading for the door of his chamber. Babur himself opened it for her and watched her resolute figure walk briskly down the dimly lit passage back to the women’s quarters, her servants bobbing behind her.

He washed quickly, still in shock at the tidings from Samarkand. Despite everything, he would not have wished such a fate on Mahmud, and the thought of Shaibani Khan’s men defiling Timur’s exquisite city and murdering its people hurt. If he’d wanted revenge on his cousin or Samarkand’s fickle citizens, he would never have resorted to such obscene butchery. .

Three-quarters of an hour later, dressed once more as befitted a king, Babur looked at his counsellors, many recently roused from sleep for this early-morning meeting. On his finger was Timur’s ring — a mark of the gravity of the situation. ‘You have heard the news, of course?’

His counsellors nodded.

‘I fear it is true, but in case it is a trick to distract us from attacking Akhsi, Baisanghar, I want you to send scouting parties west towards Samarkand to see what they can learn. I want regular reports of whatever they find — even if all seems peaceful I want to know. When they reach the city, I want a full account of it. If the Uzbeks are indeed there I need to know whether it seems Shaibani Khan plans to hold the city or whether this was just a raid. Go now.’

Baisanghar rose.

Babur turned to his scribe. ‘I must despatch a letter.’ The man smoothed a piece of paper on his writing block, then dipped his pen into the onyx jar dangling from his neck on a thong that held the thick black ink he mixed each morning.

‘My beloved father-in-law,’ Babur began. Then running quickly through the flowery courtesies — enquiries after Ibrahim Saru’s health and hopes for his unbounded prosperity, all as necessary as they were insincere, he cut to the chase: ‘In your beneficence, you promised me crossbowmen to help me regain my throne and make your daughter a ruling queen. My heart grieves that, despite my many entreaties, those troops have not yet come. Those around me begin to whisper that perhaps you are not a man of honour. I refuse to entertain such thoughts. But if you cannot assure me now that your men are on the road to Shahrukiyyah, I shall be forced to assume that you have, indeed, broken our agreement.’

He scratched his signature and ordered the scribe to affix his seal. This was Ibrahim Saru’s last chance. It was intolerable that an uncouth tribal leader should toy with him.

For the next hour Babur and his counsellors, grim-faced and earnest, debated, but without more information their discussion was sterile. All they had were questions that could not yet be answered. Frustrated, Babur dismissed the council but asked Wazir Khan to remain.

‘Majesty?’

‘If Shaibani Khan has taken Samarkand, I’ve been trying to work out what I would do next if I were him and I keep reaching the same answer. I would send my forces east to destroy us here before moving on to Akhsi and crushing Jahangir and Tambal. Shaibani Khan has sworn to obliterate the descendants of Timur. He would enjoy boasting that he had wiped out the last two remnants of the male line of Ferghana.’

For once Wazir Khan had no words of comfort. For a while they sat in silence, each locked in his own thoughts.

But at least they didn’t have to wait long for more news. By sunset, further reports were reaching Shahrukiyyah of a momentous catastrophe to the west. A band of agitated merchants who had been camped on the hills beyond Samarkand brought tales of a clash between horsemen outside the city walls. They had not waited for the outcome but, gathering their pack animals, had fled eastward. Other travellers brought stories heard along the road that Shaibani Khan and his hordes had swooped down from the north and fallen on Samarkand.

The night Babur couldn’t sleep, the still, warm air — oppressive and heavy — adding to his restlessness. Yesterday he would have sent for Baburi to amuse him with his stories or to gallop with him to the brothel and Yadgar, but not now. He sat alone by the window, gazing out. The heavy ring glinted on his finger. What would Timur have done? Would he have been prepared to wait passively to see what fate dished out to him? No. He would have found a way to take the initiative, to turn circumstances to his advantage.

Babur continued to sit, jaw in hand, as one by one the candles sputtered out and he was left in the darkness. Again and again, he kept turning everything over in his mind. As a thin line of golden light appeared on the eastern horizon, a glimmer of hope began to shine in the dark corners of his mind. Suddenly he knew what he would do. It was a huge risk, and it would cut him to the heart, but it was the only chance he had. .

As soon as it was full daylight, he summoned his council. ‘Shaibani Khan is a threat to the entire House of Timur. If he wipes me out he will turn next on my half-brother Jahangir. It will be only a matter of time. He wants all the Timurid lands and he will have them — unless we put aside our own quarrels. That is why I intend to offer Jahangir and Tambal an alliance. If they and the clans loyal to them will help me push the Uzbeks out of Samarkand, I will relinquish Ferghana to them. .’

Wazir Khan’s sharp intake of breath told Babur how much he had shocked him. ‘But, Majesty-’

‘It is the only way. Kasim, you will be my ambassador.’

Babur looked sternly at his council, feeling a new steeliness within him. ‘For the moment, until we have an answer from Akhsi, you will say nothing of this to anyone. Those are my orders.’

As Babur rose, he saw how troubled Wazir Khan looked. In former days he would have talked through his plans with his old friend to try to convince him. But no one could help him now. This was his destiny, his choice. If his boldness worked, he would again be in golden Samarkand. He had never ceased to think of it as his rightful property or to mourn its loss, this place his father had ached to possess and to which mountainous little Ferghana, with its unruly chiefs and bleating sheep, had always been a poor second. If he was to succeed where his father had not, ambition, not sentiment, must be his watchword.

The following days brought further trickles, then a stream, and finally a flood of refugees to the settlements around Shahrukiyyah. Babur sent men to question them and learned that most were from villages near Samarkand. Ominously, few were from the city itself and there was no sign of Mahmud’s chamberlain who had written in such despair. Neither was there any news of Mahmud’s wife, the grand vizier’s daughter. .

From the battlements, Babur watched the drab procession of travel-stained, weary people, who had simply grabbed what they could and fled for their lives — old men and snotty-nosed infants loaded onto carts, some of which had been hauled the one hundred and fifty miles by hand, desperate-looking mothers clutching babies to their skinny breasts. All hungry mouths — a burden not a help. Babur ordered distributions from his granaries and those of the other fortresses he held, but even those supplies would not last for long.

He had hoped that some of the soldiers of Samarkand might have managed to flee the Uzbeks and would make their way eastwards, but the reports arriving from Baisanghar’s scouts blasted any such idea. It was clear there had been great slaughter as the Uzbeks had hacked and hewn their way to victory. The meadows around Samarkand were strewn with the bloated corpses of its soldiers. Few had escaped. Only an army of ghosts would march to Babur’s assistance.

Everything now depended on Jahangir and Tambal. Should he have ridden to them himself under a flag of truce? he wondered. Would Kasim convince Jahangir and Tambal that their best — perhaps only — chance of survival lay in accepting his offer of a peace settlement and an alliance against Shaibani Khan or would they be blinded to the threat of Shaibani Khan by their suspicion of his own motives?

He was with his mother and grandmother when he heard that Kasim had returned. Without explanation, and avoiding Esan Dawlat’s sharp eyes, he hurried to his chambers where he had ordered his ambassador to be brought. Kasim was his usual quiet, self-possessed self, betraying not a hint of excitement or agitation about the news he was carrying.

‘Well?’ It was all Babur could do not to grab him by the shoulders.

‘I bring an answer, Majesty. They accept your terms.’ Now, at last, Kasim allowed himself a faint smile. ‘See, Majesty.’ From a dark-red camelskin bag, fastened with plugs of ivory, he extracted a letter.

Babur scanned it and his heart beat faster. Yes! Passing over the empty courtesies he found what he was looking for. He read the words to himself several times, savouring them. ‘What you propose, my brother, is the only way to save us all from the Uzbek menace. By the time you receive this, my troops will already be preparing to march to Shahrukiyyah. I am sending you four thousand cavalry and a thousand archers, all that I can spare.’ It was signed by Jahangir and stamped with the royal seal of Ferghana.

It cost Babur a pang to run his fingers over the thick wax — the right to affix the royal seal was his: by blood and birth he was King of Ferghana. But he had made his choice and must abide by it. He must also trust Jahangir and his controller, Tambal, to keep their word. If they betrayed him now, they would all be ruined.