‘Khanam’s a beauty, isn’t she? The pick of all my daughters. Her mother was Persian.’ Mirza Husain’s voice cut into his thoughts.
‘Your daughter is very beautiful,’ Humayun replied dutifully though for his taste she was a little too thin and certainly nothing to compare with Salima’s voluptuous charms. Her death – the cruel and sudden extinction of so much beauty and vitality – still haunted him. It seemed a symbol of how much he had lost these past months.
Mirza Husain bent nearer, reducing his voice to a whisper that only Humayun could hear. ‘And she is ripe for marriage. I am wealthy. Her dowry will be considerable . . . almost imperial . . . ’ He smiled, the implication of his words unmistakable.
Humayun looked at Khanam, long hair reddened with henna falling round her as she continued to play. Why not? he thought. Babur had made several dynastic marriages to secure his position.Though Khanam didn’t stir him particularly, her looks were well enough. She shared his blood and her father would be a useful friend in the struggle against Sher Shah.Why not form an alliance to be consummated one day in the marriage bed? It seemed that for once Kasim’s information had been wrong – Mirza Husain was willing to help him. But of one thing Humayun was certain. Before he could think of taking a wife he must defeat his enemies and be sure of his throne. The time had come for plain speaking.
‘Mirza Husain, I would be glad one day to consider Khanam as a wife. She is a fine-looking, accomplished young woman. First, though, my thoughts must be on war and the recovery of my lost lands, not on marriage, and I want your help.You have been generous with your hospitality and your gifts but I need your armies. Let us proclaim our alliance to the world.’
Humayun sat back against the cushions, expecting Mirza Husain’s gratitude, even joy. The prospect of marriage with the Moghul emperor was beyond anything the sultan could have hoped for his daughter. But he saw that his host’s smile was no longer so good-natured.The curve of his lips seemed to harden and his eyes to grow cold. ‘Khanam, enough! Leave us now.’ His tone was sharp.
Khanam looked up in surprise and at once stopped playing. Rising, with a swish of her long, dark blue robes she hurried from the chamber.
‘Cousin, let us understand one another.’ Mirza Husain spoke quietly. ‘I did not invite you here. You came. I received you out of duty. Sher Shah is in Lahore, barely six hundred miles away – perhaps nearer for all we know – with armies far outnumbering yours and mine combined. For the present I dare not antagonise him. I can give you money and I will willingly give you my daughter if you will promise to protect and honour her but no more than that. Take Khanam with my blessing, as my gift to absolve me with honour of further obligations to you in your present troubles, but leave my lands before you bring disaster upon me and my people.’
Mirza Husain’s voice had risen so all could hear and Humayun saw Hindal looking at him with astonishment. Hot anger flooded through him. Kasim had been right after all. ‘Mirza Husain, the blood of Timur – of the
amirzada –
runs through your veins yet you speak like a merchant not a warrior . . . ’
Mirza Husain flushed.The taunt had bitten home, Humayun saw with satisfaction. No man liked to hear such words – even less to hear them under his own roof.
‘Your ambition is dangerous,’ said Mirza Husain. ‘Accept your setback. Leave Hindustan. Go back to Kabul, to your homelands there. They are a sufficient kingdom. You cannot flourish where you do not belong.’
‘You forget yourself. My father conquered Hindustan and founded an empire which he bequeathed to me. I do belong there.You should not be trying to buy me off with a bag of gold and your daughter . . . Instead, you and I should be planning how to recapture my lands. Immediately we have won our first victories, others will rally once more to my banner. Yet you refuse to recognise this. You have grown so fat on trade you seem to have forgotten our warrior code and the obligations and ambitions it carries with it . . . ’
In his anger, Humayun had forgotten that others as well as his brother were close by. Several of Mirza Husain’s nobles were seated round low tables beneath the dais and suddenly he became aware of the silence that had fallen and of their startled glances. This was no time to provoke a fight or even an open breach. Humayun forced a smile to his lips though he felt like taking his host’s plump throat in his hands. ‘But I forget myself. I am your guest. I speak my mind too plainly. This is neither the time nor the place for such a discussion, Mirza Husain. Forgive me. We will talk again tomorrow when we can be alone and when we have both had a chance to reflect.’
But the look on Mirza Husain’s face told Humayun that he had little to hope for from the ruler of Sind.
Chapter 11
Hamida
F
our hours after Humayun had led his column out through the gatehouse on which the green Moghul banners no longer fluttered, the fortress palace of Sarkar finally faded from view. As he rode slowly northeastwards, Humayun was locked in his thoughts. Though Mirza Husain’s hospitality had remained ostentatiously lavish, there had been no point staying any longer in Sind. With so few men to back him, Humayun had no power to coerce Mirza Husain to help him and every day that passed had seemed a humiliation to him.
It felt good to be on the move again and at least he had exacted a high price from Mirza Husain for the four cannon he had decided to leave behind in case they slowed his progress. Eager to be rid of his unwanted guest, the sultan had paid handsomely. He had also given Humayun grain and other supplies to feed his men and fresh pack animals to carry them. If all went well, in two months’ time Humayun would be entering the desert kingdom of Marwar whose Rajput ruler, Raja Maldeo, seemed more ready to assist him than his cousin. The raja’s ambassador, a tall, thin man in brightly coloured robes with his long hair bound in the Rajput fashion, had reached Sarkar two weeks before. He had spoken eloquently to Humayun of Raja Maldeo’s contempt for Sher Shah and his enmity towards him.
‘The interloper Sher Shah has demanded the raja’s allegiance in his fight against the Moghuls. He has insulted my master’s honour by daring to threaten the kingdom of Marwar if he refuses to join him. But my master will never unite with a mongrel dog from the marshes of Bengal. Instead, he extends his hand to you, Majesty. He invites you to Marwar as his honoured guest so that you and he may discuss how to combine against the interloper. With your approval he will also summon other Rajput rulers who, like him, have been affronted by Sher Shah’s impudence.’
The screeching of a flock of green parakeets flying low overhead recalled Humayun to the present. He glanced at Hindal, riding by his side on the long-necked, powerfully built chestnut stallion he had purchased from an Arab horse-dealer in Sind.
‘In another ten miles we’ll make camp for the night,’ Humayun said.
‘We should. The women will be tired . . . ’
‘I’ll order some sheep to be killed and roasted. Tonight you and I and the women of our households will feast in my tent together with our chief commanders and courtiers. And I will have tables set up outside for our soldiers. It will raise the spirits of us all . . . ’
‘Do you really think the Raja of Marwar will help us?’
‘Why not? I often heard our father speak of Rajput pride. If Maldeo truly believes Sher Shah has insulted him, he’ll not rest until he has avenged the slight and what better way than to ride at our side with his Rajput warriors to destroy Sher Shah? Of course the raja will expect favours in return but the courage of the Rajputs is legendary. Maldeo will be a worthy ally and when I sit on my throne in Agra once more I will reward him.’
‘You still have faith in our dynasty and its destiny, after all that has happened . . . ?’
‘Yes. Even in my bleakest moments when I think of all the blood that has been shed and of Kamran’s and Askari’s treachery, I don’t doubt it. I believe that fate summoned the Moghuls to Hindustan. Don’t you feel it too?’
Hindal, though, said nothing.
‘Our father endured many setbacks and he never gave up,’ Humayun persisted. ‘If you doubt me, read his diaries or talk to our aunt. Khanzada is growing old but our father’s passion, the passion of our ancestors, lives on undimmed in her. She was the one who tore me from my opium dreams and made me see that a sense of greatness isn’t enough – that we must be prepared to fight and struggle and sweat blood for what is ours.’
‘Ours?’
‘Of course. Though our father named me emperor, we are all Babur’s sons, all part of the Moghul destiny – you, me and even Kamran and Askari. We bear the same responsibilities. Our dynasty is young, the roots barely finding a purchase in this alien soil, but we can – we will – be great so long as we do not lose our self-belief or tear our dynasty apart by fighting one another.’
‘Perhaps you are right. Sometimes, though, it all seems such a burden that I wish I were back in Kabul, that our father had never heard of Hindustan . . . ’ The expression in Hindal’s tawny eyes was unconvinced and his tall, thick-set body seemed to slump despondently in the saddle.
Humayun reached out and touched his brother’s muscular shoulder. ‘I understand,’ he said quietly, ‘but it was not our choice to be born who we are.’
Three hours later, the camp fires were being lit in the lee of a low, stony hill that Ahmed Khan – riding ahead with his scouts – had found. Humayun’s large scarlet tent was pitched in the centre with Hindal’s next to it. Fifty yards away were tents for Khanzada and Gulbadan and their attendants and for the small group of women in Hindal’s entourage, all enclosed by baggage wagons drawn up around them in a protective circle with their traces knotted.
Men squatted on the ground, slapping a mixture of flour and water into flat loaves to bake on hot clay tiles in the fire. Soon the aroma of lamb was mingling with the smell of wood smoke as the cooks’ boys slowly rotated the sharpened stakes on which chunks of new-slain sheep, salted and rubbed with herbs, had been spitted. The fires hissed as the fat ran into the leaping flames. Humayun’s stomach growled as, inside his tent, he drew off his gauntlets and Jauhar unclipped his sword belt.
‘Jauhar, this is the first feast I’ve held since we left Lahore. Though it will be poor compared with the celebrations I once held in my palaces, we must put on a good display. All must eat and drink their fill . . . For those eating in my tent, have the silver and gold dishes unpacked . . . and I wish you to play your flute for us. It is a long time since I have heard you.’
Later that night, dressed in a dark green tunic over buckskin trousers and jewelled dagger tucked into his yellow sash, Humayun looked around him with satisfaction. To his left, Hindal and the senior officers were sitting in a semicircle on the ground, laughing and talking. Zahid Beg was gnawing on a lamb bone. Despite his leanness, he could easily out-eat any of Humayun’s other commanders and took pride in his gigantic appetite. Humayun smiled to see him discard the bone and hack off a fresh hunk of roasted flesh with his dagger.
On the far side of the tent, encircled by high screens that concealed them from view, a small group of women including Khanzada and Gulbadan were seated. Their conversation sounded decorously muted and their laughter was more restrained than the men’s but almost as frequent. Humayun hoped they had everything they wanted and decided to see for himself. Looking round the edge of the screen he saw Gulbadan talking to a young woman seated close beside her, feet gracefully curled beneath her. The woman’s face was in shadow but as she leaned forward to take a sweetmeat from a dish, candlelight illuminated her features.
Humayun felt a tightening in his stomach as he took in the graceful set of her small head on her long slender neck, the pale oval of her face, the shining dark hair pulled back and secured with jewelled combs and the luminous eyes which, suddenly aware of his scrutiny, she turned towards him. Her gaze was open and appraising – no trace of nervousness that she was looking at the emperor – and it sent an almost visceral shock through him. As Humayun continued to stare, the young woman dropped her gaze and turned back to Gulbadan. Her profile – they were sharing some joke by the way she was smiling – showed a small nose and delicate chin. Then, leaning back, she was once more lost to the shadows.
Humayun returned to his place with the men, his polite interest in the women’s well-being completely forgotten. As the feast continued he found it hard to concentrate, so haunted was he by that glimpse of an unknown face. He tapped his brother on the shoulder.
‘Hindal, there’s a young woman sitting by your sister whom I don’t recognise – take a look and tell me if you know her.’ Hindal rose, went across to the screen and peered round. Then slowly he returned to Humayun’s side.
‘Well?’
It seemed to Humayun that Hindal hesitated before answering. ‘Her name is Hamida. She’s the daughter of my vizier, Shaikh Ali Akbar . . . ’
‘How old is she?’
‘About fourteen or fifteen . . . ’
‘To which of the clans does Shaikh Ali Akbar belong?’
‘His family is of Persian descent but were long settled in Samarkand until, in our father’s time, the Uzbeks drove them out. Shaikh Ali Akbar fled as a young man and eventually found his way to my province of Alwar. I made him my chief counsellor there.’
‘Is he a good counsellor?’
‘Yes. And something more than that, perhaps. The blood of a famous mystic runs in his veins – Ahmad of Jam, who had the ability to foretell events. In his lifetime he was known as
Zinda-fil
, “the Terrible Elephant”, because of his powers.’
‘Tomorrow morning before we march send Shaikh Ali Akbar to me. I wish to talk to him.’
Humayun barely slept that night. Though in Sarkar he had told Mirza Husain he would not take a wife until he had won back his throne, he knew in his very soul that he must marry Hamida. There was no thought, no logic to it, just an overwhelming attraction. A feeling which, despite his many previous lovers, he had never experienced with such overpowering intensity before, not even when he had chosen Salima. It was not simply the desire to possess Hamida physically – though that was certainly a part of it. Instinctively he sensed within her a beauty of mind, a strength of spirit radiating out towards him. He knew that not only would she make him happy but that with her by his side he would also be a better ruler, more able to achieve his ambitions. However hard he tried to dismiss such thoughts as irrational and better fitted to a blushing adolescent, they returned with renewed vigour. Was this what the poets described as falling in love?