rub his body down with bundles of fresh herbs, brush and perfume his long hair and dress him in his finery, Babur was ready. As he stepped into the sunshine, the eagle feathers in his cap sent long shadows dancing over the ground as he moved.
Suddenly shrill cries rose from the other side of the encampment. ‘From the women’s quarters, Majesty,’ said an attendant, seeing Babur’s puzzlement. ‘They are bidding farewell to the bride, just as in a few hours she must bid farewell to her virginity.’ The women’s voices gathered intensity, becoming almost a screech. It wasn’t a pleasant sound — not at all like the joyous singing heard in the villages of Ferghana when a marriage was taking place. It was more like a lament.
Babur was glad to see a finely dressed Wazir Khan duck out of the low entrance to his tent pitched beside Babur’s. ‘Greetings, Majesty, on your wedding day.’ Wazir Khan’s one-eyed gaze was warm and Babur felt grateful he would be at his side. ‘Have you eaten, Majesty?’
‘I’m not hungry. I’ve just drunk some water.’
Babur saw understanding in Wazir Khan’s expression.
‘Our guard will soon be here to escort you to the wedding tent.’
‘Wazir Khan. .’ Babur wasn’t sure what he wanted to say and before he could even think, the sound of drums and trumpets filled the air, drowning the women’s eerie wailing, and he saw Wazir Khan’s men approaching in a double line, wearing the bright yellow of Ferghana and preceded by his own musicians. A groom was leading Babur’s chestnut horse, splendidly caparisoned with a yellow saddlecloth, yellow ribbons woven into its mane and tail and a bridle set with yellow tiger’s eyes.
Babur climbed into the saddle and allowed his men to lead him to the same tented chamber in the centre of the camp where, last night, he had feasted and where Ibrahim Saru and his daughter now awaited him. As Babur dismounted, the black-clad Mangligh guards outside the tent saluted him. Slowly, and in a blare of trumpets, he made his way to where Ibrahim Saru, dressed in dark purple velvet, was waiting to greet him.
To one side, separated off by a three-foot-high latticed wooden screen, were the ladies of Ibrahim Saru’s court. The lower halves of their faces were veiled but above the filmy gauze, their dark eyes, elongated and thickly lashed, were examining him with frank curiosity. In their centre, in places of honour, he saw his grandmother, mother and sister. Esan Dawlat was sitting very erect, a blue shawl embroidered with gold stars clasped tight round her head and shoulders. Kutlugh Nigar, in a loose yellow silk tunic and with several long strands of pearls hanging round her neck, was looking proudly at him while Khanzada’s eyes — far rounder than those of the Mangligh women — were shining.
In the centre of the vast tent, seated on a golden cushion on a maroon-carpeted dais his bride was waiting. A brazier of charcoals scented with incense was burning in front of her so she was concealed not only by the heavy cream veils, falling from beneath a cap of golden cloth, but by wisps of smoke spiralling into the air, drawn upwards by the open flap in the roof. As Babur walked up to her, Ayisha remained motionless, betraying no awareness that Babur, so soon to be her husband, was standing before her. He wished he could see her expression.
The trumpets faded, and for a moment there was complete silence.
‘Ayisha!’ At her father’s voice, the girl rose. She was tall but whether fat or thin, gracefully proportioned or clumsily built, Babur couldn’t tell, though he caught a brief glimpse of long feet elaborately hennaed in diamond patterns.
‘Come.’ Ibrahim Saru motioned to Babur to step on to the dais and face his bride. Next, he gestured to his daughter to give him her right hand from beneath her veils. Taking it, he placed it in Babur’s right hand. Ayisha’s hand was cool and dry.
A tall, black-clad, white-bearded mullah stepped forward and in a deep, resonant voice half sang, half spoke what Babur assumed must be prayers or benedictions. Though he listened carefully, he couldn’t recognise the tongue in which the man was speaking. It must be Persian. As the priest finally came to an end and stepped back, prayer book clasped to his chest, Ibrahim Saru flung a fistful of grain over the young couple. A chorus of roaring male voices rose, filling the tent, and fistful after stinging fistful of grain was suddenly flying through the air. The Mangligh women began to ululate, high and piercing, like a flock of birds in flight.
Ayisha turned to Babur. He smiled and hoped for some sign from her, but after a moment she pulled her hand from his and stepped down from the dais. At once the Mangligh women rose from behind their screen and surging forward swooped on Ayisha. To Babur’s astonishment, shrieking with merriment, they began pulling her cream veils from her, spinning her round and round and ripping at the fragile cloth.
What were his family and his chiefs making of all this? Babur saw Wazir Khan standing near the entrance to the tent, his expression as nonplussed as Babur knew his own must be. Still seated decorously behind the screen, Khanzada had allowed her jaw to drop in frank amazement while Esan Dawlat and Kutlugh Nigar were gazing fixedly ahead, as if too well bred to notice such bizarre happenings.
Ayisha was still half cocooned as musicians, with long brass pipes, cymbals, bells and taut-skinned drums, suddenly struck up. The women stepped back from her and began to sing, clap and stamp, beating out the rhythm with their hands and feet. Babur realised that the men had drawn right back against the walls of the tent and that the women had formed a human barrier around the bride so that she was visible only to him and to her father. Now Ayisha started to dance, sinuously twisting and turning until the last of her draperies, except the veil concealing the lower half of her face, fell away.
Babur saw a pair of coal-dark eyes flicker over him. Her hair, instead of hanging free, was plaited and coiled round her small head. Her long body, in dark purple trousers gathered at the ankles, a tight-fitting bodice that left her midriff bare and a long, filmy coat that fastened at her breast, looked slim and muscular. A dark gem — an amethyst perhaps — sparkled in her navel.
‘Take her. She is yours.’ Ibrahim Saru shoved Babur towards her. ‘The wedding couch waits — go. Enjoy her, then the feast. .’
Seeing his startled expression, his father-in-law laughed. ‘Don’t the princes of Ferghana have fire in their loins?’
Babur flushed and took Ayisha’s hand. Ibrahim Saru flung a cloak around his daughter, clapped twice and the musicians rose. Still playing their wild music, they formed up into two rows.
‘They will play you to your marriage bed. My nobles and I will follow you.’ Ibrahim Saru was beaming broadly.
Babur’s head throbbed as the caterwauling musicians led the wedding procession out of Ibrahim Saru’s magnificent tent into the sunlight. The wedding tent, pitched close to the women’s quarters, was gaudy with flags and pennants in the yellow of Ferghana and the black and red of Zaamin. Not a pleasant combination, Babur thought.
The musicians fanned out, taking up positions at either side of the entrance. Attendants in red and black knelt and touched their foreheads to the ground as Babur led Ayisha inside. The large tent was sumptuously carpeted but barer than Babur had expected. At its centre was a thick mattress covered with a pale, flowered silk sheet that glimmered in the light shed by two huge candelabra on either side. Over the mattress was a rectangular wooden frame hung with curtains lined with squirrel fur which could be pulled all the way round to screen the bed. And that was all. No chests, mirrors or stools.
Babur barely had time to take it in before giggling women were leading Ayisha to the mattress and drawing the curtains around her so that she was hidden from view. A moment later and male attendants were pulling at his clothes. Babur fought the impulse to lash out at the eager, questing fingers lifting his cap from his head, untying his coat and tunic, unfastening his trousers and drawing off first one boot, then the other. In a few moments he was naked. The attendants draped a silk robe round him, then began to call out. Babur couldn’t understand what they were saying but guessed they must be speaking to the women who hastily came out from behind the curtains and, eyes averted, hurried from the tent. The male attendants followed, closing the tent flaps tightly behind them.
He and Ayisha were alone. For a moment he hesitated. Then, letting the robe drop to the floor, he approached the mattress and pulled apart the curtains. Ayisha was lying naked, her hair still tightly bound but the soft curves of her body fully open to his view. Her slender arms and long, slim legs were decorated with the same elaborately hennaed patterns Babur had glimpsed on her feet. Her nipples had been painted crimson and ringed with circles of henna. She was eyeing his own nakedness with what seemed to Babur unnerving coolness. What was she thinking? His scars at least showed he was no mere boy but a warrior who had shed blood.
Babur lowered himself beside her and lay so that their bodies were close but not quite touching. After a moment — saying nothing because he was unsure what to say — he placed a gentle, exploratory hand on the warm
