Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War

by Alex Rutherford

  Chapter 9

  Brothers

  The hot, still air, already heavy with the moisture that in a week or so would begin to pour from the skies, was oppressive. Beneath his chain mail and fine-woven cotton tunic, sweat trickled down Humayun’s back. His face too was beaded with it. Impatiently he wiped it away with a face cloth only to feel the salty drops immediately re-form. The drumming of his bay horse’s hooves as he galloped back towards Agra, bodyguards ahead and a detachment of cavalry including his loyal orange-clad Rajputs behind him, seemed to pound out a bitter message. Defeat and failure. Defeat and failure. The words echoed around his head but even so he could scarcely believe what had happened.

  The troops he had hoped to reassemble had melted away. Some had returned to their own provinces but more had deserted to Sher Shah’s advancing armies. That they should believe the son of a low horse trader could overthrow the Moghuls . . . the enormity hurt more than a physical wound, but even worse was the thought that, for all his courage in battle, he had allowed it to happen.

  Where was his good fortune now? At Panipat, Hindustan had dropped like a ripe, juicy pomegranate into the Moghuls’ outstretched hands. The ease with which he had defeated Bahadur Shah and the Lodi pretenders had made him think his dynasty invincible. Perhaps he hadn’t understood the nature of his new empire – that rebellion was endemic. However many insurrections he quashed, however many rebels’ heads he struck off, there would always be more. Inspired by Sher Shah’s success, enemies were now menacing him from the west and south as well as from the east.

  In his frustration, Humayun slapped his gauntleted hand so hard against the pommel of his saddle that his startled horse skittered sideways, tossing its head and snorting, almost unseating him. Gripping hard with his knees he managed to steady it, then relaxing the reins leaned forward and patted its sweating neck to reassure it. Anyway, with luck he and his advance party should be in Agra before nightfall. Though it would be another week, maybe longer, until the rest of his army – the artillery wagons, baggage carts and thousands of pack beasts – reached the city, he would have a little time to consider his next move. According to his scouts, Sher Shah had halted his advance, at least for the moment, not moving far beyond Kanauj. Perhaps he too was taking stock . . .

  In fact it wasn’t till after midnight that Humayun’s exhausted horse carried him through the dark streets of Agra, along the banks of the Jumna and up into the fort. The kettledrums above the gatehouse boomed out into the night as, by the orange light of torches flickering in sconces high on the walls, he rode up the steep ramp into the courtyard. A groom rushed to take the reins as Humayun lowered his weary body from the saddle.

  ‘Majesty.’ A dark-robed figure moved forward. As it came closer, Humayun recognised his grandfather, Baisanghar. Normally so strong, even forceful, his face looked haggard, for once showing every one of his seventy-two years and it told Humayun immediately that something unforeseen and unwelcome had occured.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘Your mother is ill. For the past six weeks she has complained of a pain in her breast so sharp that only opium can bring her relief. The hakims say they can do nothing for her. I wanted to send messengers to you but she insisted I should not distract you from your campaign . . . yet I know she longs to see you. It’s all that has kept her alive . . .’

  ‘I will go to her.’ Hurrying across the stone flagstones towards his mother’s apartments, Humayun no longer saw the red sandstone fortress around him. Instead, he was a boy again in Kabul – galloping his pony through the grassy meadows, firing arrows from the saddle at the straw targets Baisanghar had set up and already rehearsing wildly inflated stories of his skill and daring with which to impress Maham.

  As he entered his mother’s sickroom, the soothing smell of frankincense filled his nostrils. It came from four tall incense burners set up around her couch in which the golden crystals of resin were smouldering. Maham looked very small beneath the green coverlet, the skin on her face paper thin, but her large, dark eyes still had their beauty and they warmed as they rested on her son. Humayun bent and kissed her forehead. ‘Forgive me – I come to you with the sweat and dust of the journey still upon me.’

  ‘My beautiful warrior . . . Your father was so proud of you . . . he always said you were the most worthy of all his sons, the most fit to rule . . . Among his last words to me were, “Maham, although I have other sons, I love none as I love your Humayun. He will achieve his heart’s desire. None can equal him.”’ She touched his cheek with her dry hand. ‘How is it with you, my son, my emperor? Have you defeated our enemies?’

  So they had kept the news of his reverses from her, Humayun thought with relief. ‘Yes, Mother, all is well. Sleep now. I will come to you in the morning and we will talk again.’ But Maham’s eyes were already closing and Humayun doubted she’d heard him.

  Khanzada was waiting for him in the antechamber. She looked drawn – Humayun guessed she had spent many hours by Maham’s bedside – but her face lit at the sight of him. ‘I gave thanks when I heard you had reached Agra in safety,’ she said as he kissed her cheek.

  ‘I must speak with the hakims . . . ’

  ‘They have done what they can. We even sent messengers to consult Abdul-Malik, knowing how his skill saved your father when he was poisoned. Though he is old and half blind, his mind is still clear. But when told of the symptoms he said nothing could be done except to ease Maham’s pain.’ Khanzada paused. ‘She was waiting for one thing only – to see you again, Humayun. Now she will die happy . . . ’

  Humayun looked down at Timur’s ring on his battle-scarred hand. ‘I lied to her just now . . . I told her I had conquered our enemies. But as she looks down on me from Paradise I will make her proud – I swear it . . . ’ Without warning, he felt tears running down his cheeks.

  Two days later, Humayun was one of the four men carrying the sandalwood coffin containing his mother’s body, washed in camphor water and wrapped in soft woollen blankets, down to the Jumna where a boat was waiting. A bright, flower-filled garden – one of several planted by his father Babur on the far bank of the river and now coming to maturity – would be her resting place. Humayun glanced at Baisanghar, walking beside him. Despite his age he had insisted on accompanying his daughter on her final journey. How stooped and frail he looked – no longer the warrior who had hazarded his life to help Babur capture Samarkand.

  An even deeper melancholy took hold of Humayun – not only grief at Maham’s death but a sense that many of the certainties of his youth were crumbling. All his life he’d been a pampered prince, brought up to expect great things as of right, confident of his place in the world. Never before had he felt so insignificant, so vulnerable to the buffeting of others’ actions. Never before had he felt it so difficult to control his destiny.

  As he and the other coffin bearers reached the riverbank, Humayun raised his face to the heavy grey skies. Without warning, the rain began to fall, at first in large, fat drops but soon in a ceaseless sheet that drenched his dark mourning robes. Perhaps the rain was a sign, sent to cleanse him of his doubts, to tell him that though some things must end, there could always be a fresh beginning for a leader who never despaired in the face of grief or adversity but kept his belief in himself and in his ultimate triumph.

  Humayun looked around at his counsellors, like him dressed in the mourning that custom demanded they wear for forty days. Maham had been dead for only fourteen of those days but if the alarming reports reaching him were accurate, little time was left for observing the courtesies to the dead.

  ‘You’re certain, Ahmed Khan . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty’, responded his travel-stained chief scout.‘Sher Shah is advancing fast with an army at least three hundred thousand strong. I saw the vanguard with my own eyes just five days’ ride east from here.’

  ‘This matches other reports that have been coming in, Majesty,’ said Kasim. ‘Despite the start of the rains, Sher Shah
is making good progress.’

  At least Sher Shah hadn’t caught up with his retreating army, Humayun thought. The main force had reached Agra safely nearly a week ago though many had deserted along the road. ‘So he means to attack us here in Agra . . . How many troops do we have left?’ Humayun turned to Zahid Beg, the tall, thin officer he had made his commander-of-horse in place of Baba Yasaval.

  ‘Around eighty thousand including the returning forces from Kanauj, Majesty, but the number diminishes every day . . . ’

  Raising his head, Humayun looked down the length of his audience chamber to the courtyard beyond. The rain had ceased temporarily and in the shafts of sunlight the red sandstone glowed.This fortress had been the Moghuls’ greatest stronghold ever since they had swept down to conquer Hindustan. Last night before retiring into the pleasures of the haram he had stood on the battlements with his astrologer, Sharaf, and together they had gazed into the night sky. But Sharaf had been unable to find any messages written there – or in his charts and tables.Was the silence of the stars God’s way of showing him that he and he alone must find a way of saving his dynasty. . . ?

  ‘Ahmed Khan’s news confirms what I had already feared. We have no choice but to retreat from Agra,’ Humayun said at last. There was an audible gasp.

  ‘Abandon Agra, Majesty?’ Kasim looked shocked.

  ‘Yes. That is the only way.’

  ‘But where will we go?’

  ‘Northwest, to Lahore. That will buy us time and I will be able to summon more troops from Kabul – the clans there will welcome a chance for some plunder . . . ’

  A long silence followed, then Baisanghar spoke. ‘Many years ago when I was still young and with Babur in Samarkand, we faced an enemy – Shaibani Khan and his numberless Uzbeks whom we knew we could not defeat. The only alternative to retreat was the death of thousands of our people. Babur, with the courage and foresight that made him so great, understood that. Though it grieved his warrior soul to yield Timur’s city to the barbarian Uzbeks, he knew he must . . . Just as we must leave Agra . . . ’

  Humayun looked down. Baisanghar’s words were the truth. But what he hadn’t said was that, as part of the bargain, Shaibani Khan had demanded Khanzada as a wife and Babur had been forced to yield her up. For ten years she had endured life in the haram of a man with a visceral hatred of Timur’s descendants who had enjoyed trying to break her spirit. He had failed.Whatever happened, he, Humayun, would make sure that no such fate overtook her again.

  ‘We are retreating, not running away. Though we will ride out tomorrow morning at dawn, everything must be done in an orderly fashion . . . Kasim, assemble the officers of the imperial household and ensure that they and their servants carry out my commands swiftly and without question. The contents of the royal treasuries in Agra must be transferred into strongboxes. Anything else of great value must also be packed to go with us – I will leave Sher Shah nothing that will help him. Zahid Beg, prepare our troops. Tell them that we are riding to Lahore to join our forces coming from Kabul. And make sure all our muskets and all the ammunition are securely loaded on to bullock carts and the cannon made ready for travel. Say nothing, do nothing to suggest defeat or flight or that we are in any way afraid of Sher Shah.’

  Humayun paused and looked around. ‘And you, Ahmed Khan, choose your fastest and best young riders to carry letters to my half-brothers with orders to leave sufficient troops to hold their provinces but to join me with the rest at Lahore. I myself will write the letters and mark them with the imperial seal so my brothers are in no doubt it is the emperor who commands them. Now hurry, there is little time . . . ’

  Humayun neither slept nor visited the haram that night – there was too much to attend to. In any case the hours of darkness were punctuated by the frequent arrival of scouts bringing fresh and ever more disquieting news of the progress of Sher Shah’s advance troops. If they maintained their present pace, their vanguard could reach Agra in as little as three or four days’ time, Humayun calculated.

  Even before the sky was lightening to the east, the first detachments of Humayun’s army, pennants streaming in the warm breeze, were moving out, their task to secure the route ahead. Once word spread that he was leaving Agra, the populace might become restive and dacoits might take the chance for some mischief. The task of Humayun’s vanguard – in their burnished steel breastplates and mounted on fresh horses from the imperial stables – was to impress them with a show of power. And he was still powerful, Humayun told himself. He still had nearly eighty thousand men under arms – far more than he and his father had had at Panipat.

  Looking down from his apartments into the courtyard below, he saw the royal women and their attendants preparing to climb into the carts and litters that had been prepared for them. They would travel in the heart of the column, with guards positioned around them in a protective cordon, and to the front and rear would be further lines of specially assigned cavalry. But Humayun had ordered that Khanzada and his half-sister Gulbadan should ride close to him on one of the imperial elephants. Salima, still his favourite concubine, would follow behind on another.

  Behind the women would come the baggage wagons with all the equipment for the imperial camp – the tents and mobile bathhouses, the cooking pots and other utensils necessary for the four-hundred-mile journey northwest. And, of course, the imperial treasure in the huge iron-bound travelling chests whose intricate locks required four separate silver keys – each in the keeping of a different official – and a fifth golden key that was hanging from a chain around Humayun’s neck. Humayun was glad that before first marching out to face Sher Shah he had had the foresight to order his treasure in Delhi to be sent to Agra for safe keeping. With his own money and gems and what he had captured from Bahadur Shah, he should have more than enough funds to recruit and equip a new army to match Sher Shah’s.

  At the very end of the line would come further ranks of cavalry and foot soldiers, including some of his best archers, so skilled they could fire forty arrows a minute. And strung out all around the column and out of sight for much of the time would be Ahmed Khan’s scouts, ever watchful for trouble.

  Two hours later, mounted on the long-legged, muscular bay stallion that had carried him so swiftly back to his capital after the disaster at Kanauj, Humayun himself rode slowly down the ramp of the Agra fort. Beneath his jewelled helmet, his eyes looked straight ahead. This was no time for backward glances or nostalgic thoughts. This was only a temporary setback and soon – very soon, if God so willed – he would return to claim what was his. Yet there was still one thing he must do before departing. Riding down to the riverbank, he dismounted and boarded the small boat waiting to carry him across the Jumna to Maham’s grave. Arrived at the simple white marble slab, he knelt and kissed it. ‘Sher Shah is a man of our own faith,’ he whispered. ‘He will not violate your grave and one day I will return to you. Forgive me, Mother, that I cannot observe the forty days of mourning, but the fate of our dynasty is in the balance and I must strain every nerve and sinew to defend it . . . ’

  The rains that had fallen almost daily since they had left Agra seemed to be easing and – just as Humayun had hoped – though Sher Shah had seized Agra, he had not pursued him further. According to Humayun’s spies, the khutba had been read in Sher Shah’s name in the mosque of the Agra fort, proclaiming him once more Padishah of Hindustan, and he was now holding court in the pillared audience chamber. Well, let the usurper enjoy his moment of glory – it would be brief.

  He and his column were making good progress, Humayun reflected – usually twelve or thirteen miles a day, perhaps more, as they travelled northwest over the flat, featureless terrain. If they could continue at this pace they should reach Lahore within a month. So far they had suffered no serious attacks. As the Moghul column passed by villages, the people seemed afraid to come close, watching the passing ranks of soldiers and wagons from the safety of the sodden fields or peeping from their thatched, mud-brick houses.All that moved wer
e hollow-ribbed dogs and scrawny, yellow-feathered chickens.

  There had been only one attack on his column. One evening in a rapidly falling dusk made darker by a veil of drizzle, a band of dacoits had fallen on a baggage cart carrying spare tents and cooking equipment that had become bogged down and separated from the main column. It had been some hours before its absence had been spotted and Ahmed Khan sent scouts to search for it. They had found the drivers’ sodden bodies lying with arrows in their backs and the wagon gone. But even in the darkness, the thieves and the stolen wagon had not been hard to track. By the time the first fires of the day were flickering into life, Ahmed Khan’s men had brought the dacoits, trussed like fowl for market, into the camp. Humayun had immediately ordered their heads to be cut off and cemented into a pyramid of stones as a sign that he would permit no lawlessness among his subjects.

  Neither would he tolerate it amongst his troops. Though not of his blood, these Hindustanis were his people – his subjects – and he would not have it said that he allowed his men to pillage them at will. He’d given strict orders that there was to be no looting and had already had six soldiers flogged, spread-eagled across wooden frames in front of their comrades, for stealing a sheep and a seventh executed for raping a village girl.

  All the same, as he passed the village temples with their carved stone bulls garlanded with marigolds, and their statues of bizarre gods – some multi-armed, some part man, part elephant – he couldn’t help wondering whether he’d ever understand fully the land to which fate and a hunger for empire had brought the Moghuls. His own god was single, indivisible and all-powerful and it was sacrilege to attempt to create his image. The Hindu gods seemed legion and in their voluptuous bodies and sinuous limbs more suggestive of earthly delight than eternal salvation.

  Sometimes as he rode, Humayun discussed his thoughts with Khanzada and Gulbadan, speaking with them through the pale pink silk that covered their swaying howdah, fastened with gold chains to the back of one of his best elephants. The practical Khanzada didn’t share his curiosity about the religious practices of his Hindu subjects – why they venerated stone yoni and lingams – representations of the female and male sexual organs – why their priests daubed their foreheads with ashes and why they wore a long cotton thread suspended over their right shoulder.