Raiders from the North

Chapter 12

On a February evening Babur gave the logs burning in the large, open fireplace a poke with a stick to coax more warmth from them. Although his face and the front of his body were warm from the direct heat, his back felt chill, despite his thick brown wool cloak, as cold winds billowed the hangings from the small, unglazed but roughly shuttered windows of the mud-brick house. At least these draughts would carry some of the woodsmoke out through the chimney. It was so thick and acrid that Babur’s eyes stung and watered.

He reflected that these were by no means the only tears he had shed since the late autumn day when, with the snows whirling round them, his party of at most two hundred had breasted the broad pass and descended to the small settlement of Sayram. In truth, it was little more than a walled village of shepherds with two or three inns to house occasional travellers. But it had two attractions for Babur. Its muscular headman, Hussain Mazid, was a cousin of Ali Mazid Beg, murdered by Mahmud at Samarkand, and utterly loyal to Babur. The other advantage was the settlement’s remoteness. Though it lay on a minor trade route from Kashgar, it was as many miles distant from the forces of Shaibani Khan as it was from the outposts of Ferghana.

Babur knew he had been right not to accept Jahangir’s offer of sanctuary made in the aftermath of his expulsion from Samarkand. In the first place he had doubted its sincerity and in the second he had not wished to put himself in the power of his half-brother and his puppet-master, Tambal. Neither did he wish to play the poor relation, accepted on sufferance as he had once tolerated Jahangir and his scheming mother, Roxanna.

Babur’s refusal had meant that he couldn’t entrust his womenfolk to Jahangir either. Without his own presence, they would once more have been little better than hostages. In any case, both Kutlugh Nigar and Esan Dawlat had refused outright even to contemplate such a prospect. They had preferred to share the danger and deprivation of his wanderings.

At least now they had a roof over their heads and privacy in the small room they shared in this draughty building. But Babur wept to see them take turns to use the only fine-toothed ivory comb they had left to remove the white eggs of lice from their unfurled long hair. Neither had uttered a complaint about that or the bedbugs, which, breeding deep in crevasses in the wall, infested bed linen and garments whatever precautions were taken. Nor had they complained about the cold or the limited food — gristly horsemeat and turnips served daily from a large fat-encrusted cauldron in the kitchen. Esan Dawlat had compared it to the food of her revered ancestor, Genghis Khan.

In his despair, Babur had expected his mother and grandmother to blame him for surrendering Khanzada to Shaibani Khan but, as usual, Esan Dawlat had surprised him. Late one morning she had found him still in his sleeping quarters, silently sobbing, curled into a foetus position with his head turned to the mud wall. ‘What is it, Babur, that makes you so forget your position and your manhood?’ she had asked. When he had not replied, she had asked again, more gently, ‘Come now, what is it?’

He had uncoiled himself and faced her, eyes red-rimmed with tears. ‘Don’t you know? Can’t you guess? I’m despondent that I’ve lost Samarkand once more but, above all, I feel such terrible, terrible guilt about meekly yielding Khanzada to Shaibani Khan. I feel dishonour that I failed in my duty as the head of our family, and as a man, to protect my only sister, whom I love so much. I feel a desperate impotence that I’m in such a diminished position that I can still do nothing to recover her.’

Esan Dawlat had taken his large hand in her small ones. Then she had reminded him of the fate of Genghis Khan’s first wife. ‘Long before he became the Great Oceanic Ruler, he married a young Qongarit woman, a sturdy beauty named Borte, and, with the support of her clan, attempted to increase his power through a conflict with a neighbouring clan, the Markit. However, he was inexperienced and the Markit were cunning. In a surprise raid on his camp, the Markit carried off Borte and killed or scattered most of Genghis’s followers. He fled alone into the Kentei mountains where the Markit were unable to find him, so well did the mountains protect him. For the rest of his life, Genghis Khan prayed every day to the deity of the mountain, and every day offered him a sacrifice.

‘Only a year later, with the help of forces recruited by the Qongarit, he defeated the Markit and recovered Borte. When, several months afterwards, she gave birth to her first child, Jorchi, no one dared question his paternity. He grew up to become one of Genghis Khan’s greatest generals.

‘Both you and Khanzada have Genghis Khan and Borte’s blood in your veins. You have the courage never to despair but to confront harsh fate and come through to eventual victory.’ Esan Dawlat had gripped his hand firmly. ‘Strengthen your will, difficult as it may be. Steel yourself to look only forward, not back.’

Even now, despite his grandmother’s words, the thought of Shaibani Khan’s rough hands on his sister’s soft flesh exploring the most intimate parts of her body came into his mind, provoking nausea and revulsion. Clenching his fists, he summoned all his mental strength to push the images away. Then he prayed that his sister would retain the will to live — as Borte had done — and submit to Shaibani Khan. Her resistance could only lead to her death. He would fight for both of them to crush Shaibani Khan and rescue her and the family honour.

Although it was approaching midnight and all in the hall around him were asleep, as the occasional stertorous snore testified, Babur was too disturbed by his recollections, too full of powerless, restless anger at what had happened and, above all, too worried about what lay ahead for himself and his family to attempt to sleep. Instead, blood pumping furiously but futilely, he pulled his cloak about him and stepped over the recumbent bodies of some of his retainers into the cold of the night to compose his thoughts, cool his mind and slow his pulse.

Outside, the sky was a mass of stars and the snow that had fallen earlier had frozen into grains of ice, which the biting wind was blowing in flurries across the compound. Babur made his way to the mud walls surrounding the village. He climbed up the rough steps on to them and looked out over the shadowy white landscape. Above the pass, the mountain peaks glistened silver as the moonlight struck them. The pure beauty of the scene took his breath away.

Suddenly, from the direction of the animal pens, he heard an isolated cry, then another shout followed by uproar. A minute or so later a dark animal shape shot across the snow directly below him and off across the frozen ground out into the darkness. As it went, pursued by unavailing arrows fired by the men who had been guarding the animal pens and had come running after it, Babur saw that it was a long, lean grey wolf, with something in its mouth — probably a chicken.

‘Did you get him. .’ Babur called to one of the guards as he ran close by beneath the walls.

‘No, Majesty. That is a cunning wolf that has been harassing our animals for the last few nights. At first he found a way into the horses’ enclosure and tried to attack one of last year’s foals. It had been sick and we were nursing it. The horses beat him off with their hoofs. Last evening, he got into the sheep pen and by the time we drove him off he had bitten one of the smaller ewes so badly we had to kill it — in fact, Majesty, it was in your stew this evening as a change from the horsemeat. But tonight the wolf got into one of the hen houses and took one before the cackling of the rest disturbed us. He’s been rewarded for his persistence.’

Babur peered out into the dark again, towards where the victorious wolf had vanished. Perhaps it had a message for him. Face reality, persist as Genghis Khan — and Timur — had done. Try a different approach to your goal. Never give up until you have your reward. The wolf had been rebuffed in his attempts on both the sheep and horse folds but had succeeded in his attack on the hens. Perhaps he himself should concentrate less on Samarkand and Ferghana for a while and consider whether there were other places where he might establish himself as a ruler before expanding his empire. His hero Timur after all had rampaged from China to India and Turkey.

As Babur descended from the walls and retraced his steps to the house, he passed the low, single-storey hut where the women servants lived. For the first time in a long while, he found himself repeating out loud his father’s mantra: ‘Timur’s blood is my blood.’ For what remained of the night he, for once, slept deeply and well.

‘The grey is faster than the roan. . anyone can see that.’

‘You’re wrong, Baburi. When the snows melt and we can ride again I’ll prove it to you.’ Babur held his hands to the fire.

Hearing the door open and feeling a chill blast of air, Babur looked round to see Hussain Mazid approaching, his height and bulk almost comically accentuated by the small hunched form of an old woman, wrapped in a dark green quilted jacket, by his side. Despite her apparent age and fragility, she was keeping up pretty well with Hussain Mazid with the aid of a stick.

The ill-assorted couple stopped before Babur and made the customary salutations.

‘This is Rehana, Majesty,’ Hussain Mazid explained, seeing Babur’s surprise. ‘She was my wet-nurse when I was young and she still serves the family. This morning she came to me early. She said that, woken by the disturbance following the wolf’s raid on the animal pens last night, she heard you talking to yourself about Timur as you passed the kitchen of the women servants’ quarters where she was boiling some tea. She reminded me — as I well knew from her tales in my childhood — that her grandfather had ridden with Timur in his raid on Delhi and had often spoken to her of it. She asked whether you too might wish to hear his stories. I told her you wouldn’t want to be bothered with an old soldier’s tales second-hand from an old woman. But she insisted, so I have brought her to you.’

At this, Rehana looked up at Babur and he was touched by the pride in her eyes.

‘I would be glad to hear of my ancestor’s deeds. Make Rehana comfortable by the fire and have one of the servants bring us tea.’

Slowly Rehana eased her old bones on to a stool.

‘Do begin.’

Rehana seemed suddenly shy, as if uncertain where to start now that her request to speak of a revered relation in such exalted company had been granted. She stammered, then fell silent.

‘What was your grandfather’s name?’ Babur prompted her gently.

‘Tariq.’

‘What was his position in Timur’s army?’

‘He was a horse archer — one of the best.’

‘And where did he first see Timur?’

‘In Samarkand in the summer of 1398, just as the preparations for his attack on Hindustan — Northern India — were getting under way. His father — a veteran of one of Timur’s previous campaigns — had brought him to join up, and he was among the recruits Timur reviewed in the Garden of Heart’s Delight just beyond the walls of Samarkand.’

‘What did he remember of how Timur looked then?’

‘He was nearly sixty — only twenty years younger than I am now,’ said Rehana, with the pride that old people have in reaching a good age. She paused as if expecting congratulation.

Babur did not disappoint her. ‘I would never have thought you had seen so many seasons.’

She smiled. ‘But my grandfather said Timur was tall and still unbowed, with thick white hair. His brow was broad, his voice deep and his shoulders wide. When he walked he had a pronounced limp from a serious injury to his right leg when, as a youth, he had been thrown from his horse. It had left that leg much shorter than the other. .’ Rehana was in full stride now, timidity gone, rocking a little as she spoke. Babur guessed she had told this tale many times before in her long life.

‘Mounting his gilded throne, Timur addressed his men. “We prepare to go across the Hindu Kush, down through the passes, across the Indus to Hindustan’s rich capital of Delhi. Not even Alexander reached that city. Or Genghis Khan who only got as far as the Indus. The prize is great. Hindustan is full of riches — gold, emeralds and rubies. It has the only mine in the known world for the bright diamond. But its inhabitants do not deserve such jewels. Although some of the rulers follow our God, most of the people are cowardly infidels, worshipping idols of distorted half-human, half-animal deities. God will take any who die fighting them straight to Paradise. He will grant us great victories over them and their rulers who weakly tolerate unbelief among their subjects. We will take immense booty.”

‘Soon afterwards the army departed. A thick pall of dust hung over the parched grasslands outside Samarkand as ninety thousand men — mostly on horseback — manoeuvred into formation and moved off. Within three days they had passed Shakhrish, the Green City, Timur’s birthplace, and descended the strongly garrisoned defile known as the Iron Gates out on to the scrubby red desert plain, the Kizl Kum.

‘On and on they marched, across the Oxus, past Balkh and Andarab, all the time still within the boundaries of Timur’s empire. And then Timur took an advance party of thirty thousand — my grandfather among them — up through the Khawak Pass on to the roof of the world and into the Hindu Kush. There, they encountered early winter and conditions unknown to plainsmen. Their horses slipped on the ice. Some fell with their riders to their death. Others broke legs and were fit only for the cooking pot.

‘Timur ordered the men to rest by day and travel by night when the ice was frozen solid and less slippery than during daytime when it had a coating of meltwater. Soon they reached an escarpment that was impossible to descend without ropes. Now — my grandfather told me — Timur had to be lowered on a litter by his men a hundred feet down a rocky cliff since he could not make the climb down himself. The cold had reopened the old scar on his right leg and he dared not trust the limb with his full weight. And all the time they were fighting off ambushes by the local tribe, the infidel Kafirs. The snow was often stained bright red with blood. .

‘But after many struggles they reached Kabul. My grandfather told me it was a fine city, overlooked by a hilltop fort, and at a point where great trade routes meet. Smaller and less grand than Samarkand, of course, but very splendid nonetheless.’

‘Indeed, I believe it still is,’ Babur murmured to Baburi. ‘One of my father’s cousins rules it.’

‘You have relatives on every throne, just as I have friends behind every market stall in Samarkand. .’

‘Ignore us, Rehana, and continue.’

‘By September, Timur had crossed the Indus using a bridge made of boats lashed together and was just five hundred miles from Delhi. Everywhere his troops took prisoners, destined for the slave markets of Samarkand on their return but for the present forced to serve them as they marched. My grandfather had five. His particular favourite was a small, dark-eyed orphan called Ravi.

‘In December, Timur’s advance patrols sighted the great domes and minarets within Delhi’s walls. But the Sultan of Delhi had a strong army, including a hundred and fifty of his most feared weapon — the armoured elephants with their shining coats of overlapping steel plates and curved scimitars attached to their long ivory tusks.

‘Timur wanted to avoid a costly and uncertain assault on the walls and provoked the sultan’s cavalry to make a sally against him. But before long the sultan’s troops, amid heavy fighting, retreated back into the city through the same gate out of which they had charged.’

Rehana paused. ‘Here I come to a melancholy part of the story. The prisoners had let out a huge cheer of support for the sultan’s men, hoping to be freed if the sultan were victorious. Timur had heard this and feared that their ardour might lead them — they numbered nearly a hundred thousand — to rebel when the next battle took place.

‘Determined and unsentimental, he ordered that all the prisoners should be killed. What is more, each man should execute his own captives.

‘Men wept as they killed in cold blood. Even women prisoners who had become loving concubines were slain, and some say Timur made the women of his harem kill captives who had served them. My grandfather killed his adult prisoners but could not kill Ravi. He ordered him to run and hide among some dunes. However, when he returned later, he found Ravi’s body half concealed by a scrubby bush under which he must have been trying to hide, his head cleft almost in two. I always remember my grandfather saying that it looked like a ripe melon cut in half on a market stall in Samarkand and that the carnage all around looked and smelled as if he were among the butchers’ stalls there.

‘Timur hoped that the killings would provoke the Sultan of Delhi into another attack and he prepared for battle. To guard against the much-feared elephants, he ordered his soldiers — whether cavalry or infantry, officers or men — in front of their lines to dig deep trenches and pile the earth they dug out into ramparts. Next, he had the blacksmiths stoke their fires to their whitest heat and beat out three-pronged, sharp-tipped iron stakes to strew where the elephants were most likely to charge. He had buffaloes roped together by the head and feet with leather strips, then tied up behind the stakes and in front of the trenches. He ordered camels to be loaded with wood and dried grass, lashed together and held in reserve. Finally, he told the archers to fire only at the elephants’ drivers who sat exposed on the beasts’ necks just behind their ears. With them dead, the elephants would run out of control.

‘In the middle of December — I remember my grandfather said the skies were grey and the weather cool — the sultan’s men indeed sallied out once more, just as Timur had hoped, the great brass kettle-drums on the beasts’ backs sounding and the very ground seeming to shake under their huge feet.

‘But then my grandfather saw the wisdom of Timur’s plan. The elephants never reached their lines. Stumbling on the pointed iron tripods, they came almost to a halt among the bullocks. Then Timur unleashed his masterstroke. He set fire to the wood and dry grass on the camels’ backs, then drove them towards the elephants. The great beasts panicked and fled, throwing the soldiers from their backs as they did so and trampling others in their fear, crushing their heads beneath their feet. Victory was Timur’s. Delhi was his.

‘Although Timur’s official command was that no man should enter Delhi without permission, it was one of the few of his orders not strictly enforced. Our soldiers were everywhere, looking for booty — for women too, I dare say. My grandfather was among them, drinking spirits from a tavern abandoned by its owner, when rumours spread of a rising by the local inhabitants who had already killed several of our men. .

‘Half drunk, the soldiers rushed out into the streets. In their dizzy heads they saw enemies everywhere and killed anyone who crossed their path. Soon they were setting fire to shops and houses just to see the flames rip through them.

‘As the drink drained from my grandfather, he grew ashamed and entered a tall, narrow house. Here he found a small boy, about the age of Ravi, hiding in a marble bath. The reminder of Ravi and his cleft head sobered him further. He gestured to the boy to conceal himself instead in a large chest in the corner of the room and told him not to come out until it was safe.’

Rehana fumbled in the inside pocket of her quilted coat and drew out a small object wrapped in a fragment of gold-embroidered purple silk. As she removed the cloth, Babur saw a very small golden elephant with rubies for eyes. She held it out to him. ‘The boy gave him this and my grandfather passed it to me as he had no other surviving grandchildren — the others had died from the smallpox that broke out just after my birth.

‘Before he left, my grandfather wrote a notice in our language of Turki to say that the house had been searched and contained nothing of value. Knowing he was one of the few of our soldiers who could read, he also drew a picture showing a man barred from entry. He pinned both to the door.

‘After two days Timur stopped the massacres and burnings. My grandfather’s note and drawing must have been good because when he returned that way he found the house intact and the boy sitting on the front step. .

‘My grandfather — like all the other soldiers — acquired much treasure.’ Rehana’s eyes closed in near ecstasy. ‘In the sultan’s palace they found subterranean vaults filled with gems — smooth, lustrous pearls, scarlet rubies, sapphires blue as the sky, glittering diamonds from the mines in the south — and piles of silver and gold coins, all exactly as Timur had promised. My grandfather was given his share. In addition, he took ornate armour and two white parrots he found in a cage in a deserted house.

‘Suddenly, after just three weeks in Delhi, Timur gave the order to leave. Slowly his armies made their way back north and east, sometimes travelling only four miles a day, so burdened were they with their riches. Long before they reached Samarkand, my grandfather had gambled away his booty, except this golden elephant and the white parrots.

‘But his eyes always lit up when he spoke of Hindustan — India. His tales were seldom of battles and even less of his own doings. Much more often he spoke of the well-watered green fields where many fat cattle and sheep grazed, of beautiful sandstone and marble buildings and of Hindustan’s great wealth in gems. Above all, he said that the wonders of that land were beyond description. They must be seen to be believed. .’

Rehana had finished, and a smile illuminated her lined face.

‘You have brought one of Timur’s greatest triumphs to life for me.’ Babur had been transported by the pictures she had painted. ‘What you have told us of Timur’s methods and of Hindustan is so remarkable that I will ask one of the scribes to write it down, not only so that others can be reminded of his great deeds but so that I can consult it again. Thank you.’

Rehana rose and, with the aid of her stick, made her way out of the room. To Babur it seemed that her step was a little lighter.

‘Majesty.’ Hussain Mazid had spoken. ‘Why didn’t Timur absorb Hindustan into his empire?’

‘I don’t know. My father was fond of quoting some lines of a poem about Timur’s raid. I can’t remember the words precisely but it was something like “Nothing stirred, not even a bird, within Delhi for two months after its sack”, and that Timur’s route through Hindustan was “lined with a multitude of corpses which infected the air”. Poets exaggerate but perhaps even Timur felt it would be too difficult to rule a place where he had wrought so much destruction. . Perhaps he was also conscious that he was growing old and still had much to do — more conquests to make, more booty to win. After all, he stayed in Samarkand only four months after his return from Delhi, then moved west to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to capture Aleppo and Damascus and — at the battle of Ankara — to take prisoner the great emperor of the Ottoman Turks, Bayazid the Thunderbolt. He imprisoned him in a cage that accompanied the court on its travels. They say he cried like a baby behind his bars. . And of course, Timur died on the road to China. . Hindustan was just one of his campaigns. .’

‘Rehana is certainly right about Hindustan’s fine jewels. Sometimes traders used to bring them to Samarkand to sell and they were of great lustre,’ said Baburi. ‘I often wondered what it would be like to see that country.’

‘Perhaps you will,’ Babur said thoughtfully. ‘Last night on the battlements I pondered whether I should consider beginning my empire somewhere other than in Samarkand. Rehana bringing me her ancestor’s story of Timur’s conquest of Hindustan seems almost like an omen.’

‘Come on,’ Babur yelled. The barely thawed ground beneath his naked soles was stony and the hill was steep but he drove his aching body on. Baburi was quick — Babur could hear his steady panting just a couple of yards behind — but he was quicker and the knowledge pleased him. . With the coming of spring, the desire for action stirred within him once more, and with it the determination to be ready, to harden his body for the challenges ahead. Every day for the past two weeks he had gone running through these remote hills and valleys and dived naked into the chill rivers with only Baburi for company. There was little danger of meeting anything more hostile than a herd of mangy goats.

In his mind he felt more than prepared. His struggle with Shaibani Khan was not over — and never could be until he had fulfilled his promise to Khanzada to rescue her. After that, who knew? Samarkand held a special place in his heart but he was unable to get out of his thoughts the rich and exotic world beyond the jagged, snowy summits of the Hindu Kush. If Timur had gone there, why shouldn’t he?