Swords From the East (64 page)

It was now the season of the ripening of the grain, and nobody had brought in any new corn. All this time the rounds of the ramparts were regularly gone over, every night, sometimes by Kasim Be-, sometimes by myself. Setting out in the beginning of the night, it was morning before we completed our rounds.

Yet the siege had drawn out to great length, the inhabitants were reduced to extreme distress, and things came to such a pass that the poorer sort were forced to feed on dogs' flesh. The horses were obliged to be fed on the leaves of trees, and it was ascertained that the leaves of the mulberry answered best. Many men used the shavings of wood which they soaked in water and gave to their horses.

For three or four months Shaibani Khan did not attack the fortress, but approached every night, beating kettle-drums and shouting.

The ancients have said that, to defend a fortress, a head, two hands, and two feet are necessary. The head is a leader, the two hands are relieving forces to advance from outside, and the two feet are water and provisions within the fortress.

Although I had sent messengers to all the chiefs round about, no help came from any of them. Indeed, when I was at the height of my power I had received none, and had therefore no reason to expect it now.

Provisions coming from no quarter, and no reinforcements appearing on any hand, the soldiers and inhabitants began to lose all hope-went off by ones and twos-escaped from the city and deserted. Shaibani Khan, who knew our distress, came and encamped at the Lovers' Cave.

The famine had reached its extremity. Even men who were about my person and high in my confidence began to make their escape. There was no side to which I could look with hope. In these circumstances Shaibani Khan proposed terms. Had any stores remained within the place I would never have listened to him. Compelled, however, by necessity, we discussed capitulation.

About midnight I left the city secretly by the Sheikh-Zadeh Gate, accompanied by my mother. Two other ladies and my most trusted followers escaped with us. My eldest sister was intercepted and fell into the hands of Shaibani Khan.*

Entangled among the great branches of the canals during the hours of darkness, we lost our way; but by the time of early morning prayers we arrived at the hillock of Karbogh and the northern road. On the road I had a race with Kamber Ali and Kasim Beg. My horse got the lead. As I turned on my seat to see how far I had left them behind, my saddle-girth being slack, the saddle turned round and I came to the ground right on my head. Although I sprang up and mounted immediately, yet I did not recover the full possession of my faculties until the evening, and the world passed before my eyes like a dream.

The time of afternoon prayers was past before we reached the first hamlet to the northward, where we alighted and, having killed a horse, cut him up and dressed slices of his flesh. We stayed a little time to rest our horses, then mounted again and proceeded to Dizak.

Here we found nice fat flesh, bread of fine flour, well-baked sweet melons, and excellent grapes in great abundance-thus passing from an extreme of famine to plenty, and from calamity to peace.

In my whole life I never enjoyed myself so much. Enjoyment after suffering comes with increased relish and affords greater delight. This was the first time I had ever been delivered from the injuries of my enemy.

Chapter III

The Big Khan and the Little Khan

This winter many of my soldiers, principally because we could not go out on plundering parties, asked leave to go to Andijan.t
Kasim Beg strongly advised me that, as these men were going that way, I should send some article of my dress as a present to Jahangir Mirza my brother. I accordingly sent him a cap of ermine. Kasim Beg then added: "What great harm would there be in sending some present to Tambal?"

Though I did not altogether approve of this, yet I sent Tambal a large sword which had been made in Samarkand. This was the very sword that afterward came down on my own head, as shall be mentioned.

I lived now at the house of one of the headmen of a hill village with a few lean and hungry followers. I was accustomed to walk on foot all about the neighborhood-generally barefoot, and when the habit of walking barefoot was formed I found we did not mind rocks or stones in the least. In one of these walks, between afternoon and evening prayers, we met a man who was going with a cow in a narrow road. I asked him the way.

"Keep your eye fixed on the cow," he answered, "and do not lose sight of her until you come to the beginning of a road, when you will know your ground."

Kwajah*
Asidullah, who was with me, enjoyed the joke, observing: "What would become of us wise men if the cow were to lose her way?"

I now began to reflect that to ramble in this way from hill to hill without house and without home, without country and without resting place, could serve no good, and that it was better to go to Tashkent to the Khan, my uncle. Kasim Beg was very much opposed to this journey. He had once put to death three or four Moghuls as an example and punishment for marauding, and he had apprehension of going among their countrymen. Whatever remonstrances we could use were of no avail. He separated from me and moved off with his brothers and adherents, while I proceeded by the pass of Abburden and advanced toward Tashkent, to join the Khan.

Sultan Mahmud Khan, my uncle, was not a fighting man and was totally ignorant of the art of war. He had pretensions to taste, and wrote verses, though his odes, to be sure, were rather deficient. I had composed the following rubai, in a well-known measure:

I presented my rubai to the Khan and expressed to him my apprehension of the future but did not get such a frank or satisfactory answer as to remove my doubts.

Yet he was not unkind to me. When the army was led out, he placed me beside him in the salutation of the standard.

The ceremony was in this fashion: When the Moghul warriors had formed the ivim, or circle, they blew the horns according to their custom. When the Khan alighted, they brought nine ox-tail standards and ranged them beside him. An officer fastened three long slips of white cloth beneath the tails of the standards. One corner of a cloth the Khan took, and, putting it beneath his feet, stood upon it. I did likewise with another slip, and the son of the Khan stood upon a third.

Then the Moghul who had tied the cloths made a speech in the Moghul tongue holding the shank bone of an ox in his hand, facing the standards and making signs toward them. The Khan and all his chiefs took mare's milk in their hands and sprinkled it toward the standards.

Upon this all the drums and trumpets struck up at once, and all the warriors raised the war-shout.

These ceremonies they repeated three times. After that they all leaped into the saddle, raised the war-shout, and put their horses to the gallop. This custom of the time of Genghis Khan has been preserved until now.*

From day to day we departed on great hunting matches, and once I managed to furnish a dinner that made all the officers and young men of the army merry.

While I remained at Tashkent at this time I endured great distress. I had no country or hopes of a country. When I went to my uncle the Khan's council I was attended sometimes by only one person, sometimes by two, yet I was fortunate in one respect, that this did not happen among strangers but with my own kinsmen.

At length I was worn out with this unsettled state, and became tired of living. I said to myself, rather than pass my life in such wretchedness it were better to take my way and retire into some corner where I might live unknown and undistinguished. Far better were it to flee away from the sight of man! I thought of going to Cathay, and resolved to shape my journey in that direction, as from my infancy I had always had a strong desire to visit Cathay. Now my kingship was gone; my mother was safe with her brother, the Khan-every obstacle to my journey was removed. Besides, it was twenty-five years since the Khan had seen my younger uncle, Ahmed, who dwelt in Moghulistan on the road to Cathay, and I had never seen him at all. It would be well if I went and visited him.

But I had about me a number of men who had attached themselves to me with very different hopes, and, supported by these hopes, had shared with me my wanderings. It was unpleasant to tell them of my wishes.

At this very crisis, a messenger came from my younger uncle, Ahmed Khan, bringing tidings that he was himself coming hither. A second messenger followed with word that he was close at hand. We advanced to meet him as far as some tombs, and, not knowing precisely the time the Little Khan would arrive, I had ridden out carelessly to see the country, when all at once I found myself face to face with him.

The younger Khan, Ahmed, surnamed The Slayer, came with but few followers; they might be more than one thousand and less than two. He was a stout, courageous man, powerful with the saber, and of all his weapons he relied most on it. He used to say that the mace, the javelin, the battle-ax, if they hit, could only be relied on for a single blow. His trusty, keen sword he never allowed to be away from him; it was always at his waist or in his hand. As he had grown up in a remote country, he had something of rudeness in his manner and harshness in his speech.

I immediately alighted and advanced to meet him; at the moment I dismounted the Khan knew me, and was greatly disturbed; for he had intended to alight somewhere and, having seated himself, to embrace me with great decorum; but I came too quick upon him. The moment I sprang from my horse I kneeled down and then embraced. He was a good deal agitated.

On the morrow the Little Khan, according to the custom of the Moghuls, presented me with a dress complete from head to foot, and one of his own horses, ready saddled. The dress consisted of a Moghul cap with gold thread, a long frock of satin of Cathay, a Cathayan cuirass with a whetstone, and a purse-pocket. All the younger Khan's men had dressed themselves out after the Moghul fashion, in satin embroidered with flowers, quivers and saddles of shagreen, and Moghul horses dressed up in singular style. When I rode back with him, tricked out in all the Moghul finery that has been mentioned, the men in Tashkent at first did not know me and asked what sultan that was.

As soon as the two Khans met, they sat down and talked about the past and told old stories until after midnight. They decided to march speedily against Tambal, who held Iny city of Andijan.

The inhabitants of the hill country, who were warmly attached to me, had longed for my arrival; partly from dread of my renegade officer Tambal, partly from the distance at which I had been, they had remained passive until now. No sooner, however, had I entered Ferghana, the country around Andijan, than all the wandering tribes poured in from the hills and the plains. All the fortified places except Andijan declared for me.

Tambal, without being in the least worried, lay with his forces facing the Khans. He had encamped and fortified his position with a trench. It came into my head to go on in advance of my uncles one night, to the vicinity of Andijan, to confer with the chief inhabitants about getting me, some way or other, into the fortress.

After Samarkand and Bokhara in the lowlands, Andijan is next in size. It has three gates. The citadel lies on the south of the city. Around the fortress, on the edge of the stone-lined moat, is a broad highway covered with pebbles. All round the city are the suburbs, which are only separated from the moat by this highway that runs along its banks.

To carry out this plan, I set out one evening and about midnight arrived within a league of Andijan. I sent forward Kamber Ali Beg and several cavaliers with instructions for one of them to make his way into the city and confer with the Kwajah and leading men. My party and I remained on horseback where they had left us.

It might have been about the end of the third watch of the night, and some of us were nodding, others fast asleep, when all at once saddle drums struck up, with warlike shouts and hubbub. My men, being off their guard and drowsy, were seized with panic and took to flight, no one trying to keep near another. I had not even time to rally them, but advanced toward the enemy. Three warriors accompanied me-all the rest had run off.

We had moved forward only a little way when the enemy, after loosing a flight of arrows, raised the war-shout and charged toward us. One cavalier, mounted on a white-faced horse, came near me. I let fly an arrow which hit the horse and he instantly fell dead. At this they pulled up their bridles a little.

My three companions said: "The night is dark, and there is no knowing the number of the enemy. We are only four men, and how can we hope to win? Let us follow our comrades!"

We galloped and overtook our men; we horsewhipped some, but could not make them stand. Again we four turned and gave the pursuers a few arrows. They halted a little, but when they saw we were only four, they came on once more.

In this way we covered our people, and held the enemy in check. They kept pursuing us until we reached a hillock, where one of my officers met us.