embarrassed she was seeing him in peasant garb, fresh from Yadgar’s embraces and probably still smelling of her.
‘Your cousin says nothing — and never will again unless you count the
‘Listen.’ Squinting, she began to read: ‘“The Uzbeks fell on us like an army of ants devouring everything in their path. They overwhelmed the city’s defences by sheer weight of numbers and have butchered hundreds of our citizens. Bodies are piled in the marketplaces and rot in the wells. I and a few members of the court have survived in hiding thus far but we are in terrible peril. . They have left us few places to conceal ourselves. May God show us the mercy that, in his infinite wisdom, he has denied to others.”’
Babur felt instantly sober. While he had been cavorting, a thunderbolt had struck. ‘I will summon my council and decide what to do. But we must have more information. The news in that letter must already be old. I will send scouts westward. .’
Esan Dawlat nodded. It seemed there was nothing further she wished to say to him. A flick of her fingers brought her serving women to her side and she was heading for the door of his chamber. Babur himself opened it for her and watched her resolute figure walk briskly down the dimly lit passage back to the women’s quarters, her servants bobbing behind her.
He washed quickly, still in shock at the tidings from Samarkand. Despite everything, he would not have wished such a fate on Mahmud, and the thought of Shaibani Khan’s men defiling Timur’s exquisite city and murdering its people hurt. If he’d wanted revenge on his cousin or Samarkand’s fickle citizens, he would never have resorted to such obscene butchery. .
Three-quarters of an hour later, dressed once more as befitted a king, Babur looked at his counsellors, many recently roused from sleep for this early-morning meeting. On his finger was Timur’s ring — a mark of the gravity of the situation. ‘You have heard the news, of course?’
His counsellors nodded.
‘I fear it is true, but in case it is a trick to distract us from attacking Akhsi, Baisanghar, I want you to send scouting parties west towards Samarkand to see what they can learn. I want regular reports of whatever they find — even if all seems peaceful I want to know. When they reach the city, I want a full account of it. If the Uzbeks are indeed there I need to know whether it seems Shaibani Khan plans to hold the city or whether this was just a raid. Go now.’
Baisanghar rose.
Babur turned to his scribe. ‘I must despatch a letter.’ The man smoothed a piece of paper on his writing block, then dipped his pen into the onyx jar dangling from his neck on a thong that held the thick black ink he mixed each morning.
‘My beloved father-in-law,’ Babur began. Then running quickly through the flowery courtesies — enquiries after Ibrahim Saru’s health and hopes for his unbounded prosperity, all as necessary as they were insincere, he cut to the chase: ‘In your beneficence, you promised me crossbowmen to help me regain my throne and make your daughter a ruling queen. My heart grieves that, despite my many entreaties, those troops have not yet come. Those around me begin to whisper that perhaps you are not a man of honour. I refuse to entertain such thoughts. But if you cannot assure me now that your men are on the road to Shahrukiyyah, I shall be forced to assume that you have, indeed, broken our agreement.’
He scratched his signature and ordered the scribe to affix his seal. This was Ibrahim Saru’s last chance. It was intolerable that an uncouth tribal leader should toy with him.
For the next hour Babur and his counsellors, grim-faced and earnest, debated, but without more information their discussion was sterile. All they had were questions that could not yet be answered. Frustrated, Babur dismissed the council but asked Wazir Khan to remain.
‘Majesty?’
‘If Shaibani Khan has taken Samarkand, I’ve been trying to work out what I would do next if I were him and I keep reaching the same answer. I would send my forces east to destroy us here before moving on to Akhsi and crushing Jahangir and Tambal. Shaibani Khan has sworn to obliterate the descendants of Timur. He would enjoy boasting that he had wiped out the last two remnants of the male line of Ferghana.’
For once Wazir Khan had no words of comfort. For a while they sat in silence, each locked in his own thoughts.
But at least they didn’t have to wait long for more news. By sunset, further reports were reaching Shahrukiyyah of a momentous catastrophe to the west. A band of agitated merchants who had been camped on the hills beyond Samarkand brought tales of a clash between horsemen outside the city walls. They had not waited for the outcome but, gathering their pack animals, had fled eastward. Other travellers brought stories heard along the road that Shaibani Khan and his hordes had swooped down from the north and fallen on Samarkand.
The night Babur couldn’t sleep, the still, warm air — oppressive and heavy — adding to his restlessness. Yesterday he would have sent for Baburi to amuse him with his stories or to gallop with him to the brothel and Yadgar, but not now. He sat alone by the window, gazing out. The heavy ring glinted on his finger. What would Timur have done? Would he have been prepared to wait passively to see what fate dished out to him? No. He would have found a way to take the initiative, to turn circumstances to his advantage.
Babur continued to sit, jaw in hand, as one by one the candles sputtered out and he was left in the darkness. Again and again, he kept turning everything over in his mind. As a thin line of golden light appeared on the eastern horizon, a glimmer of hope began to shine in the dark corners of his mind. Suddenly he knew what he would do. It was a huge risk, and it would cut him to the heart, but it was the only chance he had. .
As soon as it was full daylight, he summoned his council. ‘Shaibani Khan is a threat to the entire House of Timur. If he wipes me out he will turn next on my half-brother Jahangir. It will be only a matter of time. He wants all the Timurid lands and he will have them — unless we put aside our own quarrels. That is why I intend to offer Jahangir and Tambal an alliance. If they and the clans loyal to them will help me push the Uzbeks out of Samarkand, I will relinquish Ferghana to them. .’
Wazir Khan’s sharp intake of breath told Babur how much he had shocked him. ‘But, Majesty-’
‘It is the only way. Kasim, you will be my ambassador.’
Babur looked sternly at his council, feeling a new steeliness within him. ‘For the moment, until we have an answer from Akhsi, you will say nothing of this to anyone. Those are my orders.’
As Babur rose, he saw how troubled Wazir Khan looked. In former days he would have talked through his plans with his old friend to try to convince him. But no one could help him now. This was his destiny, his choice. If his boldness worked, he would again be in golden Samarkand. He had never ceased to think of it as his rightful property or to mourn its loss, this place his father had ached to possess and to which mountainous little Ferghana, with its unruly chiefs and bleating sheep, had always been a poor second. If he was to succeed where his father had not, ambition, not sentiment, must be his watchword.
The following days brought further trickles, then a stream, and finally a flood of refugees to the settlements around Shahrukiyyah. Babur sent men to question them and learned that most were from villages near Samarkand. Ominously, few were from the city itself and there was no sign of Mahmud’s chamberlain who had written in such despair. Neither was there any news of Mahmud’s wife, the grand vizier’s daughter. .
From the battlements, Babur watched the drab procession of travel-stained, weary people, who had simply grabbed what they could and fled for their lives — old men and snotty-nosed infants loaded onto carts, some of which had been hauled the one hundred and fifty miles by hand, desperate-looking mothers clutching babies to their skinny breasts. All hungry mouths — a burden not a help. Babur ordered distributions from his granaries and those of the other fortresses he held, but even those supplies would not last for long.
He had hoped that some of the soldiers of Samarkand might have managed to flee the Uzbeks and would make their way eastwards, but the reports arriving from Baisanghar’s scouts blasted any such idea. It was clear there had been great slaughter as the Uzbeks had hacked and hewn their way to victory. The meadows around Samarkand were strewn with the bloated corpses of its soldiers. Few had escaped. Only an army of ghosts would march to Babur’s assistance.
Everything now depended on Jahangir and Tambal. Should he have ridden to them himself under a flag of
