‘The main body of Uzbeks are fleeing the city northwards through the Shaykhzada Gate in the hope of re-joining Shaibani Khan — our archers are firing at them as they go. However, the local people have trapped some in the gatehouse of the Iron Gate.’
‘Excellent. We must clear the city of the last of our enemies and man the walls before Shaibani Khan can return.’ Babur called for his horse and, bodyguard behind him, set out towards the Iron Gate. The fabulous blue dome of Timur’s mosque caught the light, but beyond it smoke was rising and Babur heard screams. As he approached the Iron Gate he saw that flames were pushing through the roof of the gatehouse and that the screams were coming from Uzbeks trapped inside. Drawing nearer, he saw a man try to escape by climbing through a window only to be pushed back into the flames by some citizens of Samarkand, who immediately closed the shutters and barred them from the outside. Another Uzbek, his clothes on fire, plunged from the top floor and crashed to the ground where the crowd immediately surrounded his body, stabbing frenziedly at him to ensure he was dead. Soon the cheering people were flourishing his bloody head as a trophy.
At Babur’s arrival, one of the citizens — his face smoke-blackened — rushed towards him and, recognising the royal standard of Ferghana held by one of Babur’s guards, fell to his knees. ‘Majesty, we have trapped them and are burning them. They are suffering like they made us suffer. None will die an easy death, I promise.’ His shining eyes contained only blood-lust as he looked to Babur for congratulation, but the sweet stench of burning flesh sickened Babur and he simply nodded and waved the man away.
He turned his back on the flaming gatehouse where, already, the agonised cries of the Uzbeks were growing less frequent and rode back slowly towards the Registan Square. Samarkand, it seemed, was his again but he could scarcely believe how quickly and easily it had fallen.
There was a clattering of hoofs ahead and a familiar figure came into view. It was Baisanghar, and among the riders accompanying him, he glimpsed Baburi.
‘Hail, Babur, King of Samarkand!’ Baisanghar shouted, and behind him the other men took up the cry. Babur raised a hand and rode slowly past, still coming to terms with what had happened. He should be ecstatic, but instead he felt a strange detachment. Suddenly, more than anything, he wanted space and time to think.
That night in the Kok Saray, Babur ordered pen and paper to be brought to him. When his servant asked whether he also wished for a scribe, he shook his head. He had decided something. He was nineteen, a fully grown man, and he had achieved momentous things. From now on he would keep a diary in which he would speak from the heart. He alone would know what was written there.
He dipped his pen into the ink, thought for a moment then began to write: slowly at first but then more fluidly as his emotions welled up inside him:
For generations Samarkand belonged to the House of Timur. Then the Uzbeks — the alien foe from outside our civilised world on the fringes of mankind — seized and ravaged it. Now the city that slipped from our hands has by God’s grace been given back. Golden Samarkand is mine again.
With a deep sigh, he put down his pen and snuffed out his candle. He lay down and, moments later, was asleep.
Chapter 11
Bitter Almonds
The first frosts had made the delicate outlines of Samarkand’s egg-shaped domes, slender minarets and tiled gateways look as if they had been covered with silver leaf. Now, as bitter winds howled through the leafless orchards and the snow tumbled in earnest, the city seemed to Babur like a bride beneath her veils — her grace shrouded from the eyes of men but not entirely concealed.
His favourite chestnut horse was snorting clouds of misty breath and lifting its hoofs high out of the soft snow. Wolfskin cap on his head, fur-lined robes wrapped tightly round him, and feet in sheepskin boots, Babur was returning from his inspection around the exterior of the city walls. His bodyguards were close behind him. Wazir Khan, ill these past two weeks with a fever, was, for once, not with him, but Baburi was, his face protected from the scouring cold by a swathe of brilliant green cloth.
It was too cold to talk, even if they could have heard each other’s words through the wind and the scarves that muffled their heads. Babur’s lips were so numb he would have struggled to utter a word but as they rode towards the Turquoise Gate, hung with icicles, he forgot how chilled he was. The exhilaration of success pumped an inner warmth through him, like a draught of strong spirit.
Yet as he and his men trotted in through the gateway and headed westward towards the citadel, he felt the stirrings of an anxiety that had seldom left him during the three months since he’d taken Samarkand. For the present, winter’s frozen grip offered protection against attack, but what would happen when the snows melted? Although Shaibani Khan had not immediately laid siege to the city, preferring to return to his northern fortresses to overwinter, he would surely not just accept the loss of Samarkand, and Babur had known from the outset that, given his limited resources, it might be harder to hold the city against Shaibani Khan than to take it from him. Immediately after its capture, he had set his men to strengthen the fortifications by building extra watch-towers and raising the wall itself in places until the frost had virtually ended their work.
Riding into the courtyard of the Kok Saray, Babur wondered whether to go and see his grandmother, mother and sister in the luxurious apartments they’d occupied since arriving in Samarkand soon after his victory. Instead he decided to visit Wazir Khan. He must be improving by now. . Jumping down from his horse and slapping his hands against his sides to warm himself, he strode to the low, stone-built house where Wazir Khan lodged. He missed him and was impatient for his recovery.
Stamping the snow from his boots and pulling off his cap — the long hairs of the wolfskin spiky with ice — Babur went inside. On ducking through the low doorway into Wazir Khan’s chamber, he saw his old friend lying on his back in his bed, an arm flung across his face as if asleep. Coming nearer, he was shocked by how violently Wazir Khan was shaking despite the goatskin coverlets the hakim had piled on him and the fire in the hearth. Yesterday he had been shivering only a little.
‘How is he?’
The hakim was stirring some concoction in a copper pot over the fire. ‘He is worse, Majesty. I am brewing an elixir of wine, herbs and cinnamon to try to drive the fever from him.’ The man’s tone was sombre, his face preoccupied — very different from his respectful jollity at their previous meetings.
A knot tightened in Babur’s stomach as, for the first time, he considered the possibility that Wazir Khan might die. ‘You must save him.’
‘I will try, Majesty, but decisions about life and death are for God alone. All I know is that if he does not improve soon, he will be beyond any powers I have. .’ The hakim turned back to his pot and began stirring vigorously again.
Babur went to Wazir Khan and gently moved his arm from his face, which was covered with a film of sweat. Wazir Khan stirred and, for a moment, his one eye opened. ‘Majesty. .’ His usually strong, deep voice was a thin, painful croak.
‘Don’t try to speak. You must save your strength.’ Carefully, Babur took hold of Wazir Khan’s shoulders, trying to still the shaking, willing some of his own strength to flow into his sick friend. Through the thick fabric of his robe, he could feel the hectic heat of Wazir Khan’s body.
The hakim approached with a clay cup.
‘Let me.’ Babur took the cup and raising Wazir Khan’s head with one hand, held it to his lips with the other. Wazir Khan tried to drink, but the warm red liquid ran down his stubbly chin. Cursing his own clumsiness, Babur tried again, recalling how, in the dank cave, Wazir Khan had once nursed him through a fever, painstakingly and devotedly trickling drops of water down a strip of cloth into his dry mouth. He raised Wazir Khan’s head higher — that was better. Wazir Khan managed to swallow a little of the hakim’s brew, then a little more. When he had finished, Babur laid his head back on the pillow.
‘I will send word if there is any change i
n his condition, Majesty.’
‘I will stay.’ Wazir Khan had no one closer to watch over him. It was many years since the smallpox had taken his wife and son, and nearly a decade since his daughter had died in childbirth. Babur gathered up a couple of brocade bolsters, shoved them against the wall next to Wazir Khan’s bed and flung himself down on them. If these were to be Wazir Khan’s last hours on earth, he would be with him.
As night drew on, Babur watched, and sometimes helped, as the hakim hovered around the bed, checking Wazir Khan’s pulse, rolling back an eyelid to peer into his eye and placing a hand on his forehead to gauge his temperature. Sometimes Wazir Khan lay quietly, though still shaking and shuddering. At other times, he would shout out. Most of his words were incomprehensible but Babur caught something among the ramblings. .
‘Doves. . doves with ruby-red blood on their feathers. . See how they fall, Majesty. .’
He must be re-living that day on the battlements of Akhsi when Babur’s father and his dovecote had tumbled to oblivion. After all this time Babur could still feel Wazir Khan’s iron-strong hands dragging him back from the edge of the ravine where his father’s broken body had lain. . He owed so much to Wazir Khan, who had been as a father to him since that time, yet there was nothing he could do to save him.
As Wazir Khan fell silent again, Babur shut his eyes. How would he manage without him?
‘Majesty. . Majesty. . Wake up!’
Babur sat up with a start. The room was in almost total darkness except for a flicker of light from an oil lamp the hakim was holding high in his right hand.
Blinking, Babur stumbled to his feet. He didn’t want to look at the bed because of what he might see. Instead he fixed his eyes on the hakim’s face. ‘What is it?’
‘God has spoken, Majesty.’ The doctor moved over to the bed and allowed the small halo of light from his lamp to fall on Wazir Khan.
He was sitting up against the pillows. He was no longer shivering, his one eye was bright and clear and there was a half-smile on his wasted face. The fever had gone. For a moment Babur couldn’t take in what he was seeing, but then he rushed to the bed and threw his arms round Wazir Khan in a gesture of overwhelming relief and affection.
‘Majesty, please, my patient is weak. .’ the hakim protested but Babur barely heard him, conscious only of the profoundest gratitude. Wazir Khan had been spared. .
Leaving him to rest, Babur went outside. The cold air stung his bare face but he didn’t care. Released from the sickroom, worries over, he felt his own youth and strength surge up inside him and, with it, the need for young, carefree company. Though dawn was still only a pale sliver on the eastern horizon, he asked for Baburi.
A few minutes later he appeared, bleary-eyed and fastening his sheepskin jerkin. Babur could see his warm breath rising in white spirals as he looked around him, clearly puzzled to have been summoned so early. ‘Come on — we’re going for a ride,’ Babur called to him.
‘What?. .’
‘You heard me — get a move on. .’
Ten minutes later, they were galloping out of the Turquoise Gate, the hoofprints of their horses pockmarking the fresh snow as sunlight began to warm the landscape. It was good to be young and alive, whatever was to come.
At first it was hard to be certain. At this time of the year, the pale, almost colourless light played tricks on men’s eyes. Babur stared hard towards Qolba Hill. As he watched, he thought he saw more of them — yes: he was right — the distant black shapes of horsemen.
Wazir Khan was also gazing fixedly at the hill.
‘Uzbeks. .?’
‘I fear so, Majesty. Probably scouts.’
Babur turned away. Over the past three weeks rumours — at first vague and insubstantial, then more detailed — had begun reaching Samarkand. The two facts on which all seemed agreed were that Shaibani Khan was in Bokhara, to the west of Samarkand, recruiting mercenaries, and that he was summoning those Uzbek fighters who had wintered with their clans and promising them a rich prize.
On Babur’s orders the armourers of Samarkand, who had laboured hard through the winter, had redoubled their efforts and were working night and day, the sound of clashing metal filling the air as they forged sharp-edged blades and spears in their furnaces and tempered them on their anvils. He would have enough weapons and he had done what he could to improve the fortifications, but what about men?
He frowned. At the last count he had seven thousand, including the Mangligh crossbowmen who had remained in the city through the winter. Since he had learned that the Uzbeks might be on the move, he had despatched messengers to other chieftains in the region — even to Jahangir and Tambal in Akhsi whose troops had returned after Babur had taken Samarkand — asking their help against the common enemy. So far none had answered.
‘I’m not surprised the Uzbeks are coming, Wazir Khan. I knew it was only a matter of time. While you were ill, Baburi and I sometimes talked about it. .’
‘And what did the market boy say?’
The unaccustomed sharpness in Wazir Khan’s tone startled Babur. ‘Market boy he may have been, but he still talks sense. . and he knows Samarkand and its people. .’
‘He should remember who he is and you should remember who you are, Majesty. . You are the king. . It doesn’t look good to be seen to consult an upstart like him rather than older, wiser and better-born men. . I’m only saying what your father would, if God had spared him. .’
Babur glared at Wazir Khan. Perhaps his grandmother had been getting at him — Esan Dawlat never hid her contempt for Baburi or her disapproval of Babur’s association with him. Then he remembered how much he owed Wazir Khan and how ill he had recently been. ‘I will never forget I am king and of Timur’s blood. I enjoy Baburi’s company. . but I ask his advice because it is sound. Like you, he doesn’t tell me what he believes I wish to hear — but says what is in his mind. That doesn’t mean I always agree with him. . I take my own decisions. .’
‘As your oldest adviser I had to say something. Baburi may be shrewd, but he’s pleased with himself and hot-tempered, too. If you’re not careful, your friendship with him will make others who feel overlooked jealous and resentful. . Sometimes, I confess, even I’ve not felt immune from this. .’
Seeing how troubled Wazir Khan looked, Babur touched his shoulder gently. ‘You are my greatest support, valued above all my other ichkis, and I know you only speak for my own good. I will be careful. . Now, summon the council. They need to know what we’ve seen on the hill. .’
As Wazir Khan walked quickly away despite his limp, Babur stared towards Qolba Hill again, but the black shapes had vanished. Was Wazir Khan right to warn him about Baburi or was it just that Wazir Khan couldn’t understand his need for company of his own age? Events had already shown him that a king’s life could be as precarious as a market boy’s. If he was going to prosper and triumph, as Timur had done, he needed help wherever he could find it. For the present, survival was what mattered and Baburi knew all about that. .
Babur hurried to his audience chamber where he saw on a low table inlaid with shimmering mother-of-pearl the plan of the regions around Samarkand he had ordered to be prepared. Half an hour later, his counsellors were clustered round him.
‘There’s no point waiting meekly within the walls. With the men we have it won’t be easy to repel Shaibani Khan’s attacks or to withstand a long siege. We’ll stand a far better chance of success if we take the fight to him in the early spring before he has had time to gather all his forces. Even though we’ll still be outnumbered, we can strike fast and hard when he least expects it. If, as I believe he will, he advances against us direct from Bokhara, his swiftest route is along this river flowing eastwards towards Samarkand.’ Babur traced the almost straight path with the tip of his gold-hilted dagger. ‘But before he reaches Samarkand, he will need to rendezvous with his other troops before moving against us in force. . This will be our moment to attack.’
His counsellors murmured agreem
ent except for Baisanghar who was looking anxious.
‘What is it, Baisanghar. .?’
‘Shaibani Khan is not predictable. That is one of the few things we have learned about him — to our cost. I remember how his barbarians descended out of nowhere to kill your uncle and massacre our men. .’
‘That is why I am sending spies to Bokhara. I won’t be lured out of Samarkand by tricks — as we ourselves tempted Shaibani Khan. But as soon as I’ve proof that he is moving against us, I’ll lead our troops westward and surprise him. If he does advance along the river, I propose we lie in wait here.’ Babur drove the tip of his dagger into the map at a place three days’ ride from Samarkand where the river narrowed as it passed through low, stony hills.
Ten days later Babur was riding at the head of his men towards the very place he had described at the council meeting. A week ago his scouts had confirmed that Shaibani Khan’s men were indeed on the move, with great numbers of horsemen, heading for the river. Babur had ordered his armies out from Samarkand, leaving a garrison of just sufficient size to defend it if it came under surprise attack. He and his troops had kept themselves at a distance from the river while scouts had tracked the Uzbeks’ progress towards and along it. That morning they had reported that the Uzbeks had already broken camp and, if they kept up their normal pace, they would reach the narrows about midday.
Babur had given his orders to Wazir Khan, Baisanghar and Ali Gosht, his master-of-horse. Babur and the advance guard, galloping fast in spearhead formation, would slam from the flank into the centre of the Uzbek line of march and punch through, slaughtering as many Uzbeks and causing as much chaos as possible, before regrouping and attacking again from the other side. As soon as they had seen him drive through the Uzbeks, his main forces should advance swiftly under the command of Wazir Khan to attack the front of the column while another detachment under Baisanghar swept round to encircle the Uzbek rear. Ali Gosht should hold the small remainder of the troops in reserve.
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