Raiders from the North

Chapter 20

On a day of shimmering heat in the summer of 1522, Babur’s sons were in the meadows beneath the walls of the citadel of Kabul. Fourteen-year-old Humayun was galloping his horse — a chestnut mare with shining coat and white fetlocks — through the long golden grasses, firing from the saddle at a row of straw targets. He was keeping perfect balance as he drew arrow after arrow from his quiver, fitted them to his tight, double-curved bow and sent them flying through the air. Each hit its mark. Kamran, on his rough-coated pony, was watching his half-brother with respect. Babur saw him gasp as Humayun looked up into the bright blue skies and, so fast it was hard to see him do it, unleashed another arrow to bring down a bird.

Babur smiled. Even from his vantage-point high on the battlements he could sense Humayun’s pleasure and his desire to show off — it was in the casual grace with which he held himself on his horse, the straightness of his back, the carriage of his handsome head. He looked every inch a warrior prince and knew it. But Kamran, just five months younger, was also growing up. Like his half-brother, he would be tall and, though not so powerfully built, was utterly fearless — a quality that had already led to several accidents.

Babur was glad his mother had lived long enough to see the two boys and to be reunited with Khanzada — something that in her heart he knew she’d despaired of. With her daughter’s return to Kabul, Kutlugh Nigar had revived like a parched meadow after the rains. What Khanzada had told her of her sufferings at the hands of Shaibani Khan, Babur could only guess. Sometimes he’d seen a stricken look in his mother’s eyes as she had gazed at her daughter. Khanzada must have seen it too. He had noticed how tender and cheerful Khanzada was with her, as if she was trying to reassure her that, despite everything, her inner spirit was not broken. On one matter only Khanzada had refused to gratify her mother. Kutlugh Nigar would dearly have loved to see her daughter marry again as a way of extinguishing the past but, in her gentle way, Khanzada had rebuffed any such suggestion, however good the man, however prestigious the alliance.

Kutlugh Nigar’s death seven years ago had been as sudden as his grandmother’s. She had been embroidering the border of a cotton robe in her apartments as Khanzada read to her and had simply slumped forward with a little sigh that proved to have been her last breath. Her spirit had passed and there had been nothing the hakim could do. A few hours later Babur, unable to hold back his tears, had seen her buried next to Esan Dawlat in the hillside garden he had laid out when he had first come to Kabul. He had made a vow never to forget how, through his blackest, most dangerous moments, his grandmother and mother had supported and guided him and that without them he would have had no throne at all. . It still saddened him that neither had lived to see his youngest sons.

He turned his gaze to where six-year-old Askari appeared to be tormenting his three-year-old half-brother Hindal with a pointed stick. Their nurse was trying to take the stick away and Babur saw Askari’s pointed little face screw up in a yell of defiance, which only provoked a sound cuff on the ear at which he surrendered his weapon and started to howl. Hindal — now that his nurse had intervened to protect him — was watching his brother’s discomfort with huge amusement on his round, chubby face.

He was lucky to have so many healthy sons, Babur thought, and to have a rich, secure kingdom. In the ten years since he had relinquished Samarkand, he had continued to rule Kabul, quelling any opposition swiftly and winning his people’s respect for his ability to stamp on the brigand tribes that infested the kotals — the high, narrow passes around Kabul — and preyed on the caravans. The Khugiani, Khirilji, Turi and Landar bandits had all had cause to regret their crimes. Their severed heads, cemented into high towers overlooking the passes, were a warning to others and reassured the anxious traveller that he was entering a kingdom in which the ruler ruled.

The treasuries were full, as the faithful, quietly efficient Kasim — guardian of the Royal Treasuries in place of Wali Gul, whose aged mind had finally wandered too far — proudly reported to Babur each day of the new moon. Kabul’s merchants, feasting on roasted camel to celebrate every safe arrival of a caravan train, felt wealthy and secure. They might be happy but was he? Esan Dawlat — of all the women of his family the one who had understood him best — would have known instinctively the answer — that he was not.

Looking at his sons, Babur felt with renewed sharpness the unfulfilled longing that never quite left him. What would their future be? He had survived so much, learned so many lessons as a fighter and a leader of men. His experiences had taught him never to despair, never to allow setbacks to diminish his ambition. And that ambition was still for something greater than Kabul. . something magnificent to bequeath to his sons and their sons after them. .

‘Majesty, we have reports of a group of riders approaching Kabul from the west.’ Baisanghar’s words interrupted Babur’s reverie. As usual he looked anxious. When the elderly Bahlul Ayyub had died in his sleep, Babur had not hesitated to make Baisanghar grand vizier of Kabul — consolation to him for his short tenure as grand vizier of Samarkand.

‘What are they? Merchants?’

‘I’m not sure, Majesty. They are following the caravan route, but they’ve only a few pack-mules — no more than they’d need to carry their tents. Yet our informants say they have two great carts loaded with some curious metal contraptions and each pulled by thirty oxen. .’

‘How many men are there?’

‘Perhaps fifty, and strangely dressed in leather tunics with high, conical hats wound about with bright orange cloth. .’

‘A group of travelling acrobats, perhaps. .’

‘I think not, Majesty.’

‘I was joking, Baisanghar. Have them kept under surveillance. When will they be here?’

‘In three days, perhaps four.’

‘Let me know when they arrive.’ All kinds of people passed through Kabul — Mongolians in embroidered brocade tunics with green leather bowcases and saddles, straggle-bearded Chinamen with their air of impenetrable superiority, swarthy-faced, thick-set merchants from Mesopotamia, as jealous as any Afghan tribesmen of their honour and as quick to pick a fight, and dark-skinned, bright-turbaned dealers in sugar and spices from deep inside Hindustan. If these new arrivals were interesting he’d summon them to the citadel. . It might amuse Humayun and Kamran to see visitors from some far-off place.

In fact, Baisanghar’s estimate was wrong. Just two days later, on a day of thin, grey drizzle, the party and its mysterious wagons were spotted approaching Kabul. They ignored the city but pressed on up the steep road to the citadel. Watching from the balcony of his private apartments, Babur could see the two wagons sliding about in the oozing mud that the rain had created from the normal layer of dust. Whatever was inside them seemed to be covered with thick felt against the weather. The bullocks were struggling, their heads low beneath the heavy wooden yoke, their shoulders straining.

The leading rider, a tall man with his face wrapped in a dark cloth against the penetrating rain, looked back at the struggling beasts. Babur saw him wave. He was no doubt shouting instructions because eight of the men at once dismounted and began pushing the carts from the back. One slipped and fell face down in the mud.

The leader seemed to lose patience. He turned his grey horse and kicked it on up the slope. Reaching the steep, paved ramp leading up to the first entrance gate to the citadel, he seemed to be urging his mount to go still faster. Only when two guards leaped in front of him did he bring it to an abrupt, slithering standstill. On his balcony, Babur couldn’t hear what was being said but everything about the man suggested this was no merchant but a warrior. The angle of his head as he responded to the guards’ questions was arrogant, and as he impatiently flung back his wet travelling cloak, Babur glimpsed the hilt of a sword in a strangely shaped scabbard — curved like a scimitar but narrower.

‘Guards,’ Babur shouted from his balcony, ‘bring that man to me now.’

Five minutes later, with four guards in front of him, six behind, the man entered. His cloak had been taken from him and so had his sword — the curved steel scabbard hanging from the thin metal chain at his waist swung empty. But the cloth still concealed the lower part of the man’s face and his conical hat was pulled low over his brow. The guards allowed him no closer to Babur than twenty feet.

‘On your knees before the king!’

The man not only knelt but spreadeagled himself full-length on the floor in front of Babur in the full, formal Timurid salute of the korunush.

‘You may stand.’ Babur was more curious than ever. Why should a man who had demanded entry to his citadel as if of right perform such obeisance unasked? And, even more curious, why was he still face down, arms extended? Hadn’t he understood what Babur had said?

One of the guards was about to jab him with the butt of his spear but Babur held up a restraining hand. Feeling for his dagger, he walked slowly towards the man until he was standing over him. ‘I said you may rise.’

A quiver ran through the recumbent figure. After a moment’s hesitation the man pushed himself back on to his heels but kept his head bowed. Then, slowly, he raised his face, and above the dusty, sweat-stained cloth Babur saw a pair of indigo eyes.

‘Baburi!’ He couldn’t quite believe it, not after all these years. Stooping he grabbed Baburi’s arm and pulled him upright. The face was more lined, but those high cheekbones, those intensely dark blue eyes were unmistakable.

As Babur continued to stare, Baburi pulled off his sodden headdress releasing long dark hair that was now touched with grey. ‘Forgive me. .’ The words seemed to come hard to Baburi and his eyes were shining very brightly.

Babur raised a hand. ‘Wait. .’ He signalled to the guards to go and waited until the double oak doors had closed behind them before turning back to his erstwhile friend. ‘I don’t understand. .’ Baburi flushed. ‘I’ve come back to ask your forgiveness. I left when I shouldn’t have done. I knew it — even in the first hours — but pride wouldn’t let me return. .’

‘No. .’ Babur gripped Baburi’s arm tighter. ‘I should ask your pardon. You were right — everything you said was right. I was the one with the pride, not you. I thought Samarkand belonged to me, that it was my destiny, that any price, even doing the shah’s bidding, was worth paying. I should have listened to you. . I couldn’t hold the city for even a year. The people preferred even the barbarian Uzbeks to me. .’

‘But I was your friend. . I knew you needed me and I failed you. All these years I’ve felt the shame of it. .’ Baburi’s voice shook a little.

‘You were the only man who was ever completely honest with me — the only one who could forget I was a king and with whom I could be myself. . and I did need you. I searched for you. . I never forgot you. . I hoped you’d come back one day but then I ceased to hope. . I feared you might even be dead.’

‘How could I return unless I had some way of making amends?’

Babur let go of him. ‘I never did understand you. .’

‘No. We’ve always seen the world differently and we always will.’

‘So why come back to me now, after all this time?’

‘Because at last I can give you something. For the past eight years I’ve been in the army of the Sultan of Turkey. I rose high and I did him a service. In a battle I saved the life of his son. He asked how he could reward me — and then I knew the time had come when I could return. Listen. .’ Baburi’s eyes, so sombre a moment ago, were gleaming. ‘The Turks have weapons of a type unknown in our world. With them you can do anything, conquer anybody. I’ve brought some to you and I’ve brought you Turkish mercenaries who, like me, know how to use them. Together we can train your army. . so that you can fulfil that destiny of yours that you carry like a millstone round your neck. .’ As he said these last words, Baburi grinned and Babur saw again the street-wise companion whose sound common sense could wound like a barb but should never be ignored. ‘What are these weapons?’

‘Have you heard of bombards — cannon, they sometimes call them — or matchlock muskets?’

Babur shook his head.

‘They are devices so powerful that eight years ago — just before I joined the Turkish sultan’s army — his forces used them to defeat Shah Ismail of Persia at the battle of Chaltran, depriving him of much of Mesopotamia and fixing his borders. I talked to men who were there. They say thousand upon thousand of the shah’s Kizil-Bashi — the Redhead cavalry — were cut down like poppies in the field. The weapons use the same black powder as we do when we lay mines beneath the walls of places we are besieging, but in Turkey they have a new name for it, “gunpowder”, and a new use. You’ll be amazed. .’

But Babur wasn’t really listening. It was only just beginning to sink in that the friend he had missed so much through all these years, his irreplaceable brother-in-arms, had come back. Looking at Baburi, all the burdens of kingship, the disappointments and frustrations fell away. In their place came such a riotous rush of feelings, such a wild joy that he felt he might choke. Whatever Baburi was saying didn’t matter. .

As if he had read Babur’s mind, Baburi fell silent. For a moment they just stared at one another. Then, instinctively, they leaped forward to embrace, half laughing, half crying. Babur felt young again, filled with the wonder of the moment and with no thought of tomorrow.

‘Tell me what these years have brought you, Baburi. Do you have wives. . sons?’ Babur asked that night, as they sat alone in his private apartments. He could still hardly believe that Baburi was with him. He was half afraid that if he blinked he would find him gone.

‘I told you many years ago that I had no wish for wives or children. .’

‘But don’t you want sons to carry on your name? Who will remember you when you are gone?’

‘Friends like you, perhaps. That would be enough. .’ Baburi paused. ‘Anyway, a man would need a more settled existence than mine if he wished to marry.’

‘Where did you go after you left Kabul?’

‘I guessed you’d look for me so I went where you couldn’t find me. I joined a caravan of merchants travelling westward to Isfahan. It was a long, difficult, sometimes dangerous journey — Uzbeks and marauding nomad tribes attacked us. By the time we finally reached Isfahan, some of the merchants had been killed and their goods plundered but my skill as a warrior had attracted notice. The caravan master asked me to travel on with a group of merchants carrying wool and silks northwards to Tabriz. There I learned you had been driven out of Samarkand and that the Shah of Persia was no longer your ally. I almost returned but somehow I couldn’t. . perhaps it was pride. . perhaps I was uncertain of my welcome. . I don’t know. . Then I heard that the Sultan of Turkey was recruiting mercenaries and paying them well. I joined a group of wanderers like myself, some from as far north as the borders of the Caspian Sea, and together we made our way to Istanbul.’

‘ To enlist in the sultan’s wars. .’

‘Yes, though I’d rather have been fighting yours. . being proved right about Samarkand and the shah gave me no pleasure. I often thought how hard it must have been for you to lose it again. .’

‘I deserved it. .’

For a moment they bowed their heads, lost in memories. Then Baburi seemed to shake himself out of it. ‘I’ve heard you’ve taken more wives and that you’ve two more fine healthy sons as well as Humayun and Kamran?’

‘True.’

‘What a family man you’ve become. It seems a long time since you and I rode with fire in our loins to the village whorehouses. . do you remember Yadgar?’

‘Of course.’ Babur grinned. ‘Sometimes I wonder what became of her. I hope she didn’t fall prey to the Uzbeks.’

‘Is Maham still a beauty?’

‘She is — she’s not grown fat — and Gulrukh is still plain. What did you expect. .? Maham is still the one I care for most, the one I most desire, but. .’ Babur hesitated ‘. . she did not become the companion I had at first hoped for. Our bodies and affections meet, but not always our minds. . I could talk to my grandmother, my mother and Khanzada about anything — appointments, campaigns — but not Maham. She really doesn’t understand. . isn’t really interested. .’

‘Perhaps you expected too much. The women of your family were brought up to know about such things.’

‘It’s more than that.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Maham’s been unhappy. After Humayun she had no more children that survived. Despite three further pregnancies, two were stillborn and the third — a son — died in my arms just minutes after my hakim summoned me to Maham’s chamber. She was exhausted. I watched the light in her eyes fade as the new son we’d both longed for struggled for breath then went still. When I look back, it’s as if something died in her, too, at that moment.’

‘She has Humayun. .’

‘Yes. But she still feels she’s failed. . Even though she loves me and I care for her, it’s cast a shadow between us.’

‘Is that why you took more wives? For companionship? To find a soul-mate?’

‘I had no such expectations. I married again for practical reasons. It’s good for a king to have many heirs and it was a way to reward loyal followers and bind powerful clans to me.’

‘These new wives of yours, what are they like?’

Babur thought of tall, muscular Bibi Mubarak, daughter of the powerful chieftain of the Yusufzai clan from the mountains above Kabul, and of fat little snub-nosed Dildar, whose father had fled the Uzbeks in Herat and made the long journey to Kabul to offer his allegiance. ‘They’re not amazingly beautiful, if that’s what you mean. But they are good women. .’

‘Good in bed?’

‘Good enough. .’

‘Which are the mothers of your two youngest sons?’

‘Six years ago Gulrukh gave birth to a brother for Kamran, little Askari. Then three years later, Dildar also had a boy.’

‘And Maham? It must have been hard for her.’

Babur’s face tightened. ‘It was. . Years ago, as a new young wife with everything ahead of her, she accepted my marriage to Gulrukh without question. But her grief when I took other wives was unnatural. When rumours spread that they might be pregnant her sorrow was uncontrollable. Not even Baisanghar, her own father, or Khanzada could quieten her. One night she attempted to cut her wrists with the shards of a broken pot. My hakim had to sedate her with a potent mixture of wine and narcotic kamali. .’

‘And is she still so unhappy?’

‘No. . and there’s a reason. About four years ago, while I was away on an expedition along the borders of Hindustan, Maham wrote telling me that Dildar was pregnant. Her letter ended, “Whether it is a boy or a girl, I will take my chances. Give the child to me and I will raise it as my own and be content once more.”’

‘What did you do?’

‘It was difficult. I knew I was wronging Dildar but how could I deny Maham something that might comfort her? I wrote back that though the child was still in Dildar’s womb, it was hers. As I said, it turned out to be a boy. .’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Hindal.’

Baburi’s eyes flickered. ‘Which means Conqueror of Hindustan.’

‘I chose it in a moment of euphoria. The news of his birth came while I was still away on that expedition. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but I took it as a sign that Hindustan, with its great wealth, its great possibilities, was where my destiny lay, if only I could find a way. .’

‘Just as we talked about all those years ago when we raided its borders. Do you remember those seemingly limitless skies, that intensely orange sun?’

‘Of course — and the lake we saw filled with thousands of birds, wings as red as if they’d been dipped in blood. . They were hard to forget.’ Babur rose from the yellow brocade cushions he’d been leaning against and went over to an open casement. Torches flickered on either side of the gatehouse in the courtyard below where all was quiet, as it should be in the darkest hours of the night. ‘But Hindal is three now and I’m no closer to realising my dreams of a great empire in Hindustan or anywhere else. . I know I should be grateful for what I’ve got. When they look at me, my nobles and commanders — even Baisanghar, who has been with me all these years — see a king secure on his throne with little to trouble him. They don’t understand the dissatisfaction and lack of fulfilment that envelop me. And why should they? I can never tell them. .’

‘What about Khanzada? Surely your sister knows you too well to be fooled.’

‘She suspects my restlessness — I’m sure of it. But after all she has been through, I didn’t want to load her with my gnawing ambitions and selfish preoccupations — so paltry in comparison with her sufferings. . And I couldn’t talk of it to Maham, she just wouldn’t understand. . whenever I try to speak to her of my dissatisfaction she becomes upset as if I were criticising her. If you’d been here, it might have been different. It’s hard to describe to you what my life has become. I have absolute power and live in opulence but sometimes this enviable existence feels like unfulfilling drudgery with nothing to look forward to except more of the same. Often, to deaden my discontent, I hold drinking parties with my nobles where we sample the potent vintages of my kingdom — like this red wine of Ghazni that we are drinking now. We revel till dawn when my attendants carry me, head bobbing in oblivion, back to my apartments. Sometimes I take opium and bhang — marijuana. They take me to a bright, vibrant world where everything seems possible.’

‘There’s no shame in that.’

‘But where’s the nobility? Where’s the glory my soul still hankers for? I’m scarcely four decades old but I feel as trapped as my father did in Ferghana. What’s more, the old Timurid world — my world, our world — is gone. The Uzbek barbarians have shattered it for ever. What is left for me?’ Babur’s voice trembled. He turned to Baburi and, after a pause, added, ‘I know I must seem ungrateful and conceited. . I’ve never said these things to anyone and perhaps I shouldn’t be saying them to you. . you used to mock my moments of doubt. .’

‘No, not your doubt, only your self-pity. But my life these past years has taught me many things. I was so arrogant, so convinced I was right. I had far more pride than you, though you were the king, not I. Now I understand. . I know how it feels to want something badly and be unable to find a way to it.’

‘What was it you wanted so much?’

‘To come back. .’

‘You’ll stay?’

‘Yes. . at least, until we have another fight. .’

Baburi slapped the end of the five-foot-long bronze tube. ‘This is the barrel. First linen bags filled with gunpowder and then the shot are loaded and rammed down into it. And this,’ he pointed to the swelling at the bottom end of the barrel, ‘is the breech. See this little aperture? They call it the touch-hole. It is where — just before firing — the gunners insert a long, sharp metal spike — the awl — to break open the bag of powder. Finally, a man applies a lighted taper to the touch-hole to create the flashing spark that sets off the main charge in the barrel.’

‘How far can it throw the shot?’

‘It depends on the length of the barrel and its diameter — the bore. The longer the barrel and the bigger the bore, the further the range. Many of the Turkish sultan’s guns have barrels ten feet long or more and some weigh as much as twenty thousand pounds. But they’re small compared with the bronze cannon they call the Great Turkish Bombard that Mehmet of Turkey used seventy years ago when he captured Istanbul. You should see it! The seventeen-foot barrel has a thirty-inch bore and it could fire a twelve-hundred-pound stone shot over a mile away. They say you could hear its blast ten miles off. But it could only fire about fifteen shots a day and needed two hundred men to operate it. It was so heavy it took seventy oxen and ten thousand men to shift it, unlike this one.’

‘Show me what it can do. .’ Babur wanted to see the miracle weapon at work. The target was a ten-foot-high pile of large stones that Baburi’s men had set up three hundred yards away.

Baburi shouted an order to five of his mercenaries, who were wearing round leather skull-caps, leather jerkins and breeches. One man rammed a linen bag down the barrel of the cannon into the breech with a long stick like a polo mallet, except that the top was wrapped in sheepskin. Then another two, grunting with the effort, heaved a round stone shot into the barrel and — again using the stick — sent it rumbling down into the breech. As they finished, the fourth man approached and inserted the awl to puncture the bag of powder inside and scattered a little loose powder around the touch-hole — ‘Just to make sure,’ Baburi explained.

‘Stand back.’ He waited till he was content that Babur was far enough away, then walked forward to the cannon and checked the angle of the barrel.

Satisfied, he stepped back and signalled to the fifth man to advance. He held a forked staff with a length of oil-soaked cord attached to it, the tip glowing. The man looked towards Baburi.

‘Fire!’

The man pressed his smouldering taper to the touch-hole and leaped back. Seconds later, with a boom the missile shot out of the barrel and across the meadow to smash into the target. A cloud of dust erupted, and as it cleared, Babur saw that the tower of stones was now a pile of fragments.

‘Look at that.’ Baburi’s voice was full of pride. ‘At Chaltran, Sultan Selim used a row of cannon just like these, protected by a barrier of carts, and there was nothing the Persians could do. . Afterwards, the Turks surged forward, and shot down any Persians who still resisted with their matchlock muskets. Look. .’

Baburi clapped his hands and one of his men carried over a long, thin wooden box that he placed at his feet. ‘You taught me a long time ago to be an archer. You made me a Qor Begi, a Lord of the Bow. Now I can teach you to be a marksman with one of these.’ Baburi bent and took a long metal object from the box. ‘It’s fashioned from the finest steel.’

‘It’s shaped like a little cannon.’

‘Exactly. It’s a musket — a cannon in miniature. See, it has a long metal barrel for firing a ball. This matchlock mechanism, as it’s called, is how it works. You put the gunpowder here, into the pan, then light the end of a thin piece of rope. When the flame reaches the gunpowder, it ignites it and the force fires the ball from the barrel.’

‘How far?’

‘More than two hundred yards but it’s most accurate up to about fifty. Try it.’

As soon as one of the Turks had set up a melon on a pole as a target, Baburi poured a small amount of gunpowder into the pan and loaded the shot. ‘ To help take the weight as you aim, you should rest the barrel on this frame.’ Baburi indicated a tall metal stick about four feet high that forked at the top to make a cradle. Thrusting the end of the stick into the ground, he showed Babur how to rest the barrel of the musket in the centre of the cradle. ‘Look straight down the barrel at your target and, remember, when it fires you’ll feel a kick, so brace yourself. Ready?

Babur took the musket, placing the butt against his shoulder, closed his left eye and focused his right along the shining barrel. When he thought he had the melon in his sights, he nodded. Baburi lit the piece of rope, which began to smoulder.

‘Keep it steady. .’ Baburi was still speaking as, with a sharp crack, the ball shot out and the top of the melon disintegrated in a spray of orange pulp. . ‘Good. But now let me show you what my trained musketeers can do with these. .’ He gestured to another row of targets: fifteen straw dolls lined up on a trestle table some fifty yards away. An equal number of Baburi’s men lined up, primed and loaded their weapons and, one after another, fired with perfect precision, each man knocking over his target, then stepping back smartly to reload and stand to attention. Immediately the fifteenth man had reloaded, they swung round a hundred and eighty degrees, rested their muskets again in the cradles and fired at a row of clay pots set up even further away. Again, each man’s aim was perfect.

‘Of course, in the heat of battle, fingers fumble, targets move, but I’ve seen these guns shatter advancing lines of soldiers.’

Babur put his arm around Baburi’s shoulders as he tried to put into words the vision that had been forming in his mind as he had watched his friend demonstrate the power of these miraculous new weapons. It was as if Canopus had risen above the enshrouding clouds to blaze brightly on him and his dynasty once more.

‘You’re not just my friend. You’re my inspiration. You’ve brought me far more than weapons. . Until now, although I’ve long wished to make one, a full-scale attack on Hindustan was not possible. I had neither the numbers of men nor any special advantage. The rulers there are numerous and strong. Their overlord is the proud, arrogant Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi. To win Hindustan I must defeat his huge armies and his ranks of war elephants. But with these new weapons I now see how I can do it. I may not be destined to have a great empire like Timur’s in the lands of my birth but with your cannon and muskets I can surpass his raid over the Indus to Delhi. We will fulfil the dreams we had all those years ago.’