Raiders from the North

Chapter 6

The Turquoise Gate sparkled as the bright light reflected off the high glaze of its blue, green and gold tiles. Babur felt as if he was riding into the heart of the sun as he approached the gate to make his ceremonial entrance into Samarkand. His green silk robes flowed around him, stirring in the light breeze. Timur’s golden ring, with its snarling tiger, gleamed on his finger, and the necklace of uncut emeralds around his neck rose and fell with his breathing. Conscious that thousands of eyes would be watching him, he forced himself to look stern, though he felt like throwing back his head, filling his lungs and yelling his triumph to the skies.

Behind him rode his chiefs and their men. From the motley collection of tribesmen who had ridden with him from Ferghana, Wazir Khan had fashioned, in just two days, an army to impress and awe as it processed through the city. The chambers of the Kok Saray had yielded many riches in which to dress his rough, nomadic warriors from engraved helmets and cuirasses to bright silks hoarded by the grand vizier while his people lived impoverished.

He would bring prosperity back to this great city, Babur vowed as, to a chorus of trumpets and the echoing boom of taut-skinned kettle-drums, he passed beneath the gate above which the vizier’s headless body dangled, already blackening in the sun, in its iron cage. As he moved onward he could see before him the city’s blue domes and minarets. Soon he was passing one of the great markets with walled caravanserais on either side to accommodate travelling merchants. His father had spoken often of the wealthy caravan trains of Timur’s day — the lines of swaying, snorting camels and fast-trotting mules carrying furs, leather and fine cloth from the west, brocades, china and pungent musk from the east, and, from distant lands across the Indus, fragrant nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon, as well as bright gems.

The crowds along the streets were restrained but not hostile. Babur could feel their curiosity as he rode into the vast Registan Square where, beneath striped green silk awnings, was a marble dais. His uncle’s former counsellors and the leading nobles of Samarkand were waiting in meek lines at its foot.

He dismounted, stepped on to the dais and made his way to its centre where a gilded throne, with carved tiger feet, waited. With so many scrutinising him, he was suddenly self-conscious as he gathered his voluminous robes about him and sat down with as much dignity as he could manage. He was still so young — not quite fourteen. What would people think to see a boy seated before them? But, he told himself, Samarkand was his — by blood and conquest. He lifted his chin and stared proudly ahead.

Sitting stiffly on the splendid throne, he received the oath of allegiance from his new subjects and in turn distributed offices and more of the vizier’s hoarded wealth. But as rank after rank of figures advanced to prostrate themselves before him, Babur knew there was scarcely a man among them he could trust. The thought sobered him and the grand vizier’s contemptuous words thrust themselves into his mind: ‘You’ll never hold Samarkand.’

He would prove to the people he was fit to rule. Hadn’t he already shown mercy and generosity? He had pardoned all who would submit to his authority. The women of the grand vizier’s harem would, in due course, be found places in those of Babur’s chiefs instead of being ravished in the first moments of victory. As for the vizier’s daughter, he had already despatched her to his cousin Mahmud in Kunduz. She had shown little reluctance. Indeed, she should be pleased. Not only would she be wife to a royal prince of the House of Timur, but Mahmud had saved her only two years previously from being raped by brigands. He had been so smitten with her that he had laid siege to Samarkand for her sake.

Yes, he had acted well, Babur reflected. The people had no reason to fear him and every reason to respect him. All the same, the grand vizier had planted a malignant canker in his mind. .

Suddenly Babur heard Wazir Khan proclaim, ‘Hail, Babur, King of Samarkand!’ The cry taken up by thousands of voices filled the square and roused Babur from his thoughts. He was a fool to let a dead man whose body now hung in a cage to rot torment him. As he had agreed with Wazir Khan when they had arranged the ceremony, Babur took the cry as his cue. He rose and turned slowly to face each side of the crowded square, allowing all to gaze up on their new king. Then he told the populace, ‘My rule will bring peace and prosperity to all the citizens of Samarkand. As a token of this, I will remit a month of the taxes levied on the city’s markets.’

The crowd roared its approval. Though his own expression remained impassive, jubilation welled inside him again. Timur had been thirty-one, more than twice his age, when he had seized Samarkand. It had been his first great conquest, the springboard to a mighty empire. And so it would be for Babur.

Tonight he would have food distributed throughout the city to alleviate the sufferings of the siege as a further demonstration of his largesse. For himself and his men, there would be feasting and here, at least, he could already outshine Timur, whose tastes had been austere: his favourite dishes had been roasted horsemeat, boiled mutton and rice. They would eat fat sheep brought into the starving city from the meadows beyond and already turning on the spit. Partridges and pheasants were simmering in succulent sauces flavoured with pomegranates and tamarinds. Ripe melons bursting with juice sweet as honey and purple grapes with the bloom still on them were being piled on jewelled salvers. Babur’s mouth watered.

The ceremonials were at an end but Babur still had something to do before the celebrations began. Slowly he stepped from the dais and remounted his horse. Signalling to Wazir Khan and his guard to follow, he trotted out of the square in the direction of the Gur Emir, the ribbed, egg-shaped, blue-tiled dome with its two slender minarets that was Timur’s tomb.

At the tall, arched gatehouse of the walled complex, Babur jumped down. For reasons he could not have explained, he needed to be alone. He asked Wazir Khan and his guards to wait, then went inside. He crossed a courtyard where sparrows fluttered amid the branches of a mulberry tree, took off his embroidered boots, as custom demanded, and entered the tomb.

The contrast with the bright light outside made it hard to see and he came blinking into an octagonal chamber. The sombre richness he saw in the shafts of tawny light filtering through fretted arches high in the wall made him gasp. He ran his fingers over marble walls inlaid with green alabaster and surmounted at head level by a band of gilded tiles. Above that, the walls were embellished with carved papier-mache painted blue and gold and set around panels in which verses from the Koran were written in exquisite calligraphy. He craned his neck to see the domed ceiling painted with gilded stars dancing riotously in their private heaven.

Directly beneath the dome a sarcophagus lay on a plain marble platform. It was at least six feet long, with a lid of green jade so dark it looked almost black — a fitting monument to Timur but not, as Babur knew, where he lay. To one side of the chamber, a sloping vaulted passage led to a lower crypt. After a few moments, Babur entered it. The passage was so narrow that his shoulders brushed the cold walls as slowly he descended — bare feet slipping on smooth stone — to emerge into a much smaller, simpler room. A small marble screen high in the wall and carved like honeycomb was the only source of light, which fell in faint shafts on to the carved white marble coffin that contained Timur’s body.

When Timur had died on his march to conquer China, his attendants had perfumed and preserved his corpse with rosewater, camphor and musk before carrying it back in glory to Samarkand and laying it here. Despite the lavish funeral ceremony, it was said the great conqueror had not, at first, found peace. Night after night the sound of wild howling that rose from his tomb had terrified the citizens of Samarkand. The dead emperor seemed unable to take his eternal rest. The screeches had lasted a year until, finally, the desperate people had gone to Timur’s son. They had tumbled to their knees before him, begging him to free the prisoners, especially the craftsmen, Timur had seized during his wars of conquest and brought to Samarkand to beautify his capital so that, as the released men journeyed to their earthly homes, Timur could finally make his way to his heavenly one. Seeing the frightened, harrowed faces of his subjects, Timur’s son had listened. The prisoners had been sent back to their homelands and Timur had howled no more.

Tales for old women, Babur thought. But there was another story he did believe — it was said that an epitaph had been engraved on the underside of Timur’s coffin lid: ‘If I am roused from my grave, the earth will tremble.’

Babur approached the coffin reverently. Almost afraid, he stretched out his hand to touch the lid where, standing out boldly, was a carved inscription recounting Timur’s ancestry. My ancestry, Babur thought. My blood. He lowered his head and pressed his lips to the chill stone. ‘I will be worthy of you,’ he whispered. It was a promise to the great Timur, and to his dead father. But, above all, it was a promise to himself.

The soft morning breeze stirred the gauzy, pearl-sewn hangings of the pavilion in the Baghi Dilkusha, Timur’s Garden of Heart’s Delight, where — nearly two months after his triumphal entry into Samarkand — Babur was asleep. Of all the parks that Timur had built in the fields and meadows around Samarkand, this was Babur’s favourite. The previous evening, with the sun already setting, on impulse he had summoned Wazir Khan and his bodyguard. They had ridden out through the Turquoise Gate and down the two-mile avenue of stately, gently swaying poplars that led eastward to the garden. Though night had been falling as they galloped in through the gateway, Babur had been able to see Timur’s domed and colonnaded summer palace, gleaming like a great pearl through the dark trees and the pale outlines of the airy pavilions that surrounded it.

Babur had chosen to sleep in one of the pavilions, its graceful marble pillars inlaid with Chinese porcelain and surrounded by elms, plane trees and slender, dark green cypresses. He knew that Timur, too, had liked to sleep in his gardens. He had even ordered his throne to be placed on a platform erected above the intersection of two watercourses. The four gushing channels represented the four rivers of life and symbolised his dominion over the four quarters of the globe.

The more Babur contemplated Timur, the more breathtaking his vision and ambitions seemed. It was easy to speak of himself as Timur’s heir, but when he considered what that meant, he felt humbled and exhilarated.

Something — perhaps the cackle of a pheasant — roused him from his dreams. He sat up with a start and looked around him. The luxury — the floors inlaid with black ebony and pale ivory, the marble sculptures, the golden flasks and cups encrusted with emeralds, turquoises and rubies — was still hard to take in. He touched the rose-coloured silk, shot through with golden thread, of the mattress on which he was lying. This mattress was itself screened from his attendants by a delicately wrought silver and gilt screen set with rose quartz.

Whatever the grand vizier’s crimes, at least he had preserved the treasures of Timur’s summer palace. At the first sign of trouble, he had ordered all the costly carpets, hangings and vessels to be carried to Samarkand where he had secreted them in underground treasure chambers within the citadel. His officials, anxious to ingratiate themselves with their new ruler, had been quick to reveal them to Babur’s men. Though some of the palace’s precious inlay had been chipped away and several lesser pavilions constructed mainly of timber had been knocked down to provide fuel — probably by his own men during the siege, Babur reflected — it had not taken long to restore its beauty.

Babur grinned as he contemplated what his mother, grandmother and sister would say when, as soon as it was safe, he summoned them. His letters, scratched on the fine, thick paper for which Samarkand was famous, had not done justice to its grandeur, history or scale. After all, this was a city founded eighteen centuries previously by golden-haired, blue-eyed Alexander who, coming from the far west with his armies, had, like Timur, brushed aside all opposition. Babur had ordered Samarkand’s outer walls with their thick ramparts to be measured and discovered it would take a man eleven thousand paces to walk round them. Timur had indeed protected his city well — though one of Babur’s first acts had been to brick up the tunnel through which he himself had sneaked in. He did not wish others — and there were many whose eyes would be on the rich prize of Samarkand — to follow literally in his footsteps. He had also ordered a thorough search for any other tunnels.

Babur lay back on the duck-down pillows. The past weeks had been so rich in new sights and experiences that it seemed incredible so little time had passed. In his letters to his grandmother, who was interested in such things, he had tried to capture his astonishment at the sight of the round, three-storey observatory on high Kohak Hill outside the city where Timur’s grandson, Ulugh Beg, had studied the solar and lunar calendars. Babur had gazed in utter amazement at Ulugh Beg’s sextant, a perfect arc of marble-clad brick, nearly two hundred feet long with a radius of some 130 feet and decorated with the signs of the zodiac. Ulugh Beg had made his observations and taken his measurements using an astrolabe mounted on metal rails at either side of the sextant.

If Timur had conquered the world, his armies moving like a cloud of locusts over a green field, it was Ulugh Beg who had captured the heavens. He had composed the royal astronomical tables still used by the star-gazers of Samarkand. Babur wished he had paid more attention to his lessons but, even so, the sophistication of the observatory filled him with pride at his ancestors’ achievements. Ulugh Beg’s own son, concerned where his father’s quest for knowledge and enlightenment might lead and encouraged by fanatical mullahs, fearful that their mysteries might be penetrated and their dogmas questioned, had had him murdered.

Babur had inspected the religious college Ulugh Beg had built. It filled one side of the Registan Square, and was decorated with turquoise and navy blue tiles, their pattern so intricate that men called it hazarbaf, ‘thousand-weave’. The huge Bibi Khanym mosque in the heart of the city had overwhelmed him. Nothing could have been more different from the plain, austere mosque in his castle of Ferghana where, what seemed a lifetime ago, in the shafting moonlight, his chiefs had sworn their loyalty to him.

A priest told Babur how Timur’s favourite wife, Bibi Khanym, the ivory-skinned Chinese princess whose luminous beauty could move the great conqueror to tears, had intended the mosque as a surprise for Timur on his return from a campaign. But the architect she had summoned from Persia to build it had, in a moment of reckless passion, seized her and left a love-bite on her neck. When Timur returned just days later and saw the blemish on his wife’s otherwise flawless skin and heard her story, he had sent soldiers to seize the architect who, in terror, had flung himself from one of the sky-touching minarets he had just built. Whatever the truth of the tale, the tall, graceful portal flanked by columns more than 150 feet high, and the mosque’s even higher dome — decorated with mosaics — had left Babur dumb with awe.

Babur yawned and stretched. His mother would be all pleasure and delight when she reached Samarkand, and Khanzada would be dizzy with excitement and curiosity. But he wasn’t so sure about Esan Dawlat. His grandmother was hard to please. He could imagine her small dark eyes scrunching up in her wrinkled face as she shook her head and told him not to get carried away with his initial victory but to think about what next.

Yet he had claimed his prize well, Babur thought. Fate had held it out to him in an open hand and he had grabbed it. He clapped, and instantly an attendant appeared with a ewer of warm, rose-scented water that he poured into a large silver bowl. Carrying it carefully, he approached Babur, intending to wash him with the cloth he was also holding, but Babur waved him away, still unused to having someone to do everything for him, and asked him to place the bowl and cloth on the stand as his side. As he gazed at his reflection in the smooth surface of the water he felt an unexpected yearning to dip his head into the chill waters of one of Ferghana’s mountain streams.

But then he caught the delicious scent of new baked bread and roasting partridges. He was a fool to feel wistful or homesick when he was in Paradise. His men, too, seemed content — which was rare, he mused, as he scrubbed his neck and shoulders. But, after all, they had the booty he’d promised. The coin-stuffed coffers of Samarkand had proved deep enough for him to be generous. He had given each of his chieftains a hundred thick gold pieces and their men had been well rewarded with silver. Neither had he forgotten to send some of the bounty back to Ferghana to his regent Kasim, to reward him and Babur’s other followers and to assist him in retaining the allegiance of the fractious surrounding tribes. Many of Babur’s men had acquired new wives too. As he anticipated, the young women of the grand vizier’s harem had gone to them willingly enough. A victorious warrior with a bag of money was not a bad bargain.

It was time to dress. Suppressing his impatience, he allowed his attendants, swarming sycophantically round him, to clothe him in a white silk shirt, and trousers of soft deerskin. Then, from the many they held out to him, he selected a brocade tunic — brilliant green in deference to his new people, but striped with the yellow of Ferghana — with enamelled clasps. The exquisitely stitched garments, the best that Samarkand’s tailors could provide, felt very different from the practical sheepskins and coarser cloth of Ferghana. An attendant wound a fringed sash round his waist, arranging the folds with mathematical precision, and another knelt to guide his feet into gold-tooled, knee-length leather boots. Then, finally, from a sandalwood casket, Babur selected some jewels. He had no interest in such things but later he would pray in public in the Bibi Khanym mosque and he must appear to his watching subjects every inch a king whose riches — and consequently his bounty — were, in a world of ever-shifting alliances and loyalties, inexhaustible.

With his mace-bearer ahead and four tall bodyguards behind, Babur walked along a marble path to where his counsellors were waiting for him in the gardens, sitting cross-legged on carpets beneath a flowered awning. Babur found these endless meetings irksome but there was much to be done. The uncertainty and strife after his uncle’s death, and the siege, had done a great deal of damage. Though the fields and meadows around Samarkand were fertile enough, the farmers had been too afraid to tend them, and much of this year’s harvest had been lost. Babur had ordered seed corn from his own supplies, brought from Ferghana, to be distributed among them for the next spring. Also, many of the herdsmen had fled, driving their flocks westward and away from the fighting. They would need to be coaxed back.

But at least he had good men to help him, Babur thought. Wazir Khan, of course, was chief among his ichkis, his inner circle of counsellors. But there was also Baisanghar, who commanded much respect among the soldiers of Samarkand. Only after the city had fallen had Babur realised just how much the weak resistance he had encountered had been due to Baisanghar’s cajoling, subverting and bribing. In gratitude he had given him overall command of the defences of Samarkand.

His eyes fell on the weathered face of Ali Mazid Beg. He had been wise to make him a counsellor. It was partly a reward for past loyalty — the chief had been one of the few to support Babur unequivocally from the outset — but it was also shrewd. Ali Mazid Beg was one of the most influential tribal leaders of Ferghana. That he had remained with Babur in Samarkand had helped in persuading others — including some who Babur had feared might return at once to Ferghana — to stay.

But, of course, many had not. Loot was what they had come for, and once they had it, they were restless for their homelands. The wild, unruly Chakraks, whose reputation for fickleness and brutality was notorious even in a world where treachery and cruelty were common, had melted away to their inaccessible mountain fastnesses and more were following each day as autumn drew on.

Babur’s counsellors knelt at his approach but he waved them to their feet, eager to get on with the business of the day. He had already learned that a king’s duties were not concerned merely with great matters. Only yesterday he had arbitrated in a tedious dispute between two hawk-featured carpet dealers, squabbling like children over the value of a red, pink and blue rug from Tabriz in far-distant Persia. It had cost him much to keep a straight face.

‘Majesty, here are today’s petitions.’ His chamberlain presented him with a silver dish piled with papers weighted down by a square of brass to prevent them flying away in the breeze.

Babur’s heart sank as he looked at the dense scrawl covering the topmost document. Probably an argument about a sheep or a goat or grazing rights on a barren hillside. ‘I’ll look at them later.’ He wished he could go hunting instead. He waved to his council to be seated and took his own place on an ivory-inlaid stool on a low wooden dais. It was much less comfortable than sitting cross-legged on the floor as they were.

‘When will the review of the city’s fortifications be complete?’ he asked Baisanghar.

‘Soon, Majesty. The final count has been made of the weapons in the armouries but the masons are still checking the condition of the outer walls and ramparts. They say that the earthquake two years ago left some cracks in the foundations that may need attention.’

Babur nodded. ‘Any repairs must be made quickly. That Samarkand fell so easily will not have escaped attention. Wazir Khan, have there been any signs of Shaibani Khan’s men?’

‘We are on constant alert against their return but the many scouts we have about our borders report no trace of Uzbek patrols. Shaibani Khan will know he has little time to mount a campaign before winter.’

‘But he will come,’ Babur said thoughtfully. Shaibani Khan had already killed one king of Samarkand: why should he hesitate to destroy another, especially one who was just a youth and newly on his throne?

‘Yes, Majesty, I’m sure of it. We all are. But he won’t be here until the spring. By then we will be prepared for him and his scum.’ Wazir Khan’s confidence warmed Babur.

The sudden sound of voices made them all look round. Across the gardens, with their beds of bright orange marigolds and pink roses, Babur saw a small, stooped figure following a guard towards them. He was dressed in travelling clothes and, as he came closer, he unwound the purple scarf he had wrapped around his head so that he did not breathe in the dust of the road and Babur recognised the lined face and thin white hair of his grandmother’s elderly steward, Walid Butt. To Babur it seemed he looked distressed, not just by his long journey in the saddle — itself a considerable trial to a man of his age — but by the import of the message he was carrying.

For a moment, despite the late summer warmth, Babur felt a chill pass over him. Was Esan Dawlat dead? Rising to his feet, he stepped swiftly from the dais and put an arm round the old man’s shoulders. ‘Speak, steward. What news do you bring?’

Walid Butt hesitated, as if he was not sure how to begin. Babur wanted to shout at him to get on with it, but out of respect for a man he had known his whole life he curbed his impatience.

‘Forgive me, Majesty, for appearing before you like this, but my journey has been a hard and a hasty one.’ The steward fumbled beneath his cloak for a leather bag that hung from his neck on a short strap and produced a letter impressed with the royal seal of Ferghana.

Babur grabbed it and tore it open. He recognised his grandmother’s writing and breathed more easily, but his relief was short-lived. Esan Dawlat’s first words danced before his eyes. ‘If you do not answer our call of distress, we face ruin.’ He scanned the rest quickly, his shock growing as he took in what his grandmother was saying.

‘What is it?’ asked Wazir Khan.

‘I have been betrayed. My bastard half-brother Jahangir sits on the throne of Ferghana — a child puppet put there by my cousin Tambal, who has bribed the tribal leaders with promises of reward. . He is using Jahangir for his own advantage. .’ Babur let the letter slip from his fingers to the ground where the breeze blew it a short distance until it caught on one of the rose bushes. I have lost the throne of my homeland, he thought.

While Wazir Khan retrieved the letter and read it swiftly, another even darker concern gripped Babur. Again he took Walid Butt by the shoulder, this time so firmly that the old man, who had scarcely an ounce of flesh on his frame, winced. ‘My grandmother, my mother and my sister, when did you last see them? Where are they? Are they safe?’

Walid Butt gazed sorrowfully at him. ‘They and your vizier Kasim are prisoners in the castle. Your grandmother managed to smuggle this letter to me and ordered me to bring it to you. But whether they are alive or dead, I do not know. I have been travelling these past two weeks.’ His voice cracked.

Suddenly realising he was hurting him, Babur relaxed his grip. ‘You have done well, steward. You must eat and rest. Thank you for your service.’ As Walid Butt was led away, it seemed to Babur that, if the breeze strengthened only a little, his frail form would be blown away.

Babur’s mind was reeling, his initial disbelief giving way to anger. How dared Tambal take his kingdom and imprison his family. .? But he struggled to master himself. Everything could depend on the decisions he was about to take. He looked up to see his council watching him expectantly and took a deep breath.

‘Wazir Khan, prepare my bodyguard. We will ride at once for Ferghana. Baisanghar, assemble a force. Call up my chiefs and their men — two thousand should be enough to deal with Tambal and his indisciplined tribal levies. I expect most of the citizens of Ferghana to return to my side as their rightful ruler when I arrive at Akhsi. However, leave enough troops here to defend this city should Shaibani Khan return, and follow us within the week. Also, have battering rams, siege engines and catapults made ready in case I send for them. Ali Mazid Beg, you will be regent of Samarkand in my absence. Guard it well.’

The three older men nodded. Babur turned away, already ripping off his jewelled fripperies and calling for his riding clothes and his arms.

As he rode shoulder to shoulder with Wazir Khan, galloping over meadows still baked hard by the summer heat, Babur was in torment. Guilt, fear for his family and fury against those who thought they could supplant him with a nine-year-old battled inside him. What a fool he had been these last weeks, wandering around Samarkand lost in a dream, planning how to show off his fairytale city to his family.

He had neglected what was most important, arrogantly assuming that in Ferghana he would now be a hero whom no one would dare challenge. Instead Tambal and his supporters had bided their time, like wolves waiting until the shepherd’s back was turned to run in among the flock. And they had surely been cunning or Kasim, his grandmother and his mother would have suspected a plot and warned Babur earlier. If anything had happened to the women of his family. . If Roxanna should use her power as mother of Ferghana’s new king to rid herself of enemies and rivals. . He could not bear to think of it.

Each night when, exhausted from long hours in the saddle, they made camp, Babur found it hard to sleep. He grudged every second that he was not riding eastward and became angry with Wazir Khan for insisting he must rest. But on the fourth night, there was no question of sleep. As he lay on the ground, his body began shaking violently and his brow was clammy with sweat. By the time dawn broke, his teeth were chattering so much that he could barely speak. When he tried to stand, his legs gave way and he fell helplessly to the ground. At once Wazir Khan was beside him, feeling his pulse and pulling back his eyelids to check his pupils. ‘Majesty, you cannot ride today.’

For once, Babur lacked the strength to argue. He felt Wazir Khan cover him with thick woollen blankets, but as he tried to look up at him, the world swam before him and grew dark. Then it went black.

Water was trickling between his parched lips. Babur’s tongue, half stuck to the roof of his mouth, loosened, seeking the drops eagerly. He had no idea where he was. All that mattered was getting some of that precious moisture. At last his eyes jerked open. The familiar figure of Wazir Khan was leaning over him, a long strip of cotton cloth in one hand and a water bottle in the other. When he saw that Babur was conscious, he put them down and knelt back.

Babur was still burning with thirst. ‘More water,’ he wanted to say, but managed only a dry-lipped croak. Wazir Khan understood. He placed the end of the cloth between Babur’s lips and continued what he had been doing, unknown to Babur, for the past hour: pouring a thin stream of water down the cloth so that it flowed a few drops at a time into Babur’s mouth.

After a long while, Babur choked, spluttered and managed to sit up. Wazir Khan put the cloth and the water bottle to one side and felt his forehead. ‘Your temperature is falling at last, Majesty.’

Looking around him, Babur saw they were inside a small cave with a fire at the centre. His head spun and he closed his eyes. ‘How long have I been ill?’

‘Four days, Majesty. It is now midday on the fifth.’

‘What was it? Not poison, surely. .?’

Wazir Khan shook his head. ‘No. Just a high fever — probably the result of a sheep-tick bite.’

Babur almost smiled — a tick bite at a time like this.

‘Fetch some broth,’ Wazir Khan called to one of his men. When the bowl of millet-flour soup was brought he knelt beside Babur, holding it to his lips with one hand and supporting his head with the other. The warm liquid tasted good but Babur could only manage a little before his stomach clenched and he waved the bowl aside.

‘Has there been news from Samarkand? Baisanghar must be almost ready to bring the army after us.’

‘No, Majesty. There has been nothing.’

‘Or from Ferghana?’ Silently Babur cursed the ill luck that had struck him down. By now, riding hard and light, the mountains of Ferghana should have been in sight.

Wazir Khan shook his head. ‘I did not look for any news. I sent out no scouts. My concern was to keep you hidden until you had recovered. There will be many spies between here and Ferghana. If reports reached Ferghana that you were ill — or dead. .’

He left the words unspoken but Babur understood. If the traitors pulling the strings of their little puppet king thought he was dead, his womenfolk might not see another sunrise.

‘Thank you, Wazir Khan. As always, you think of things I fail to.’ Wazir Khan’s words reminded him chillingly of his predicament. Babur lay back, willing the strength to flow back into his limbs but miserably conscious of how weak he was. ‘I will rest for the remainder of today, but tomorrow, we will ride.’

‘Yes, Majesty, if you are able to.’

‘I will be.’ Babur closed his eyes again, praying that he was right.

He slept most of that day and night but woke as soon as the dim light of the following morning crept into the cave. Sitting up cautiously he found that his head was clearer and that, though he still felt a little unsteady, he could stand unaided. With one hand against the lichen-covered wall, he walked stiffly towards the cave opening and ducked outside. Wazir Khan and some of his guards were squatting around a small fire of sheep’s droppings that was burning brightly. A copper kettle was suspended above it from a makeshift frame.

Wazir Khan handed him a clay cup of hot water that tasted of smoke and a piece of dry bread that he began to chew. He noticed that the horses, tethered by a clump of gorse bushes, were already saddled and loaded. Wazir Khan had, as always, done well. Within half an hour they had kicked earth over the remains of their fire, filled their leather water bottles from a stream and were mounting.

Babur pulled himself into his saddle with none of his usual spring, feeling the eyes not only of Wazir Khan but of the rest of his men upon him. For a moment he swayed, but then he kicked his horse on in the direction of the sunrise and Ferghana.

Babur’s heart quickened as, in the distance, he made out the Jaxartes river and his home. The robust little castle of Akhsi, half built into the cliff above the river, was the place of his earliest and fondest memories. At this moment, the glories of Samarkand could not compete and he felt tears rising.

‘Majesty, it is dangerous to go further tonight.’ Wazir Khan’s eyes, too, were bright with tears. ‘They’ll be watching for us. We should stay concealed until I’ve sent out scouts.’

Babur wanted to gallop to the gates and demand entry, but Wazir Khan was right. He got shakily down from his horse, feeling the feverish ache in his limbs, and listened as Wazir Khan selected his two best and swiftest horsemen to ride onwards and find out what they could.

The fortress was at least an hour’s journey, perhaps more in the gathering darkness, and the scouts would need to take care not to be seen. It would be some while before they returned. Perched as Babur and his men were high on the side of a hill and reluctant to retreat back over the crest, their position was too exposed to risk a fire to warm themselves or cook over. Not that they had much to cook. In the six days since Babur’s recovery, they had travelled too fast to forage or hunt, Instead they had relied mainly on the now mouldering bread, cheese, apples and dried fruit they had brought from Samarkand. Babur wrapped himself in a blanket and chewed a strip of dried melon. Its sweetness disgusted him and he spat it out, taking a long draught of water to rid himself of the cloying taste.

The scouts returned two hours before dawn, and the news was bad, as Babur had suspected it would be. The castle gates were barred and many defenders were keeping watch from the walls. According to a herdsman the scouts had surprised as he sat around his fire in a riverside pasture with his two young sons, who had been too terrified to speak anything but the truth, many of the nomadic tribal leaders had sworn to support Babur’s half-brother. It didn’t surprise Babur to learn that the chieftain whose men he had ordered hacked to death for stealing the peasant’s goods and raping his wife outside Samarkand was among them. And of course, Jahangir’s grandfather. Babur thought of the sly-faced old man who had brought Roxanna and her brat to the castle. He should never have taken them in — but what else could he have done? Jahangir was his half-brother. Blood was blood.

It was no surprise either that Yusuf, his father’s stout treasurer, together with Baba Qashqa, his comptroller of the household, and Baqi Beg, his thin, fidgety astrologer, had joined his half-brother since — though Babur had allowed them to live — he had forced them to yield their profitable appointments.

His thoughts returned to his grandmother, mother and sister. The scouts had not been able to find out anything about them. He cursed his powerlessness. What could he and two dozen bodyguards do anyway? He must wait for his army to join him.

As the sun rose behind Mount Beshtor, making the ever-present snow on the summit sparkle like crystal, Babur wrapped his cloak round him, and, signalling he wished to be alone, began to tramp up the hill on which they had camped. The emerald-green grass was slippery with dew beneath his feet. It smelled fresh and sweet. But before long winter would descend and these slopes would be frozen hard and white. It was a worrying thought. How could he campaign in winter?

The wind blowing in from the east had a cold bite. Babur settled in the shelter of a slab of rock and his keen eyes scanned the landscape whose contours he knew so intimately they felt like part of him — every sweep of green meadowland, every steep-sided valley with its patches of grey scree, every jagged mountain peak, every bend in the Jaxartes. The sense of loss overwhelmed him and he bowed his head.

The sun had risen high in a bright, cloudless sky when Babur heard the distant thud of hoofbeats coming from the west. Leaping up, he turned to look behind him and, sure enough, in the distance, he could see a long line of riders coming along a valley. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to count them — perhaps two hundred, maybe more — and caught the flash of a green standard. It must be the advance guard sent by Baisanghar.

Feeling new energy surging through him, driving out the despair, he turned and ran down the hill towards the camp, slipping and rolling in his eagerness. ‘Wazir Khan, the troops are coming,’ he shouted, as he ran into the camp.

‘You are sure they are our men?’

‘I’m certain. They carry the green banners of Samarkand.’

‘I will send a patrol to guide them to us, Majesty.’

Heart pounding, Babur watched the men gallop off. Now we’ll flush those scum out of the castle. Tambal will repent his treachery and as for the rest. . Babur ran to his saddlebag and unstrapped his father’s sword. As he drew it from its scabbard, the rubies in the eagle hilt flashed in the sunlight. It felt good to balance it in his hand and he imagined bringing it down, in a slashing sweep, on Tambal’s bare neck, as he had done on the neck of Qambar-Ali on the first day of his rule in Ferghana.

It wasn’t long before the riders were in view, Baisanghar himself at their head.

Babur stepped forward. Beneath his pointed helmet, Baisanghar looked exhausted. ‘When will the main army get here? Are they far away?’

Baisanghar hesitated a moment before he answered. ‘There is no main army, Majesty.’

The light in Babur’s eyes died. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Mahmud of Kunduz, your cousin, has seized Samarkand. He must have been plotting with Tambal and had his armies ready. He waited until I had ridden from the city with the advance guard, then made his attack. He was aided from within by some of the former associates of the grand vizier whom the vizier’s daughter, Prince Mahmud’s wife, seems to have suborned through messengers promising extravagant rewards. We had been riding for five days before men reached me with the news of Samarkand’s fall. I’m sorry, Majesty. I have failed you.’

‘Mahmud. .’ Babur could hardly take in what Baisanghar had said. That the cousin he’d known all his life and had thought of as a friend — the cousin to whom he’d only recently sent the gift of a bride — should betray him like this seemed impossible. ‘What of Ali Mazid Beg?’

‘He is dead, Majesty. His body, not the grand vizier’s, now swings above the Turquoise Gate, and many others who were loyal to you are dead.’

Babur turned away, disgust at his cousin and grief for the loyal Ali Mazid Beg almost overwhelming him. At the same time, his mind was trying to grapple with something else: the sheer enormity of his loss. His reign over Samarkand had been — what? A hundred days. .? And now he was king of nothing, not even of Ferghana. He was still clutching his father’s sword and the solid feel of the hilt in his hand comforted him. This was not to be his fate, he vowed, gripping the hilt still tighter. He would not let it be. However long it took, however much blood he spilled, he would take back what was his. Those who had injured him would pay.