wall, took the man climbing below with him in his death fall to the rocky ground beneath.
Babur raised his shield to protect himself from the next volley and, yelling for his men to follow, charged towards the strong point. Two more arrows thudded into his shield but the thick hide and wood did its work. However, behind Babur a young soldier fell, an arrow in his neck. Then Babur was in the strong point, which had no door. He slashed at the first man he encountered before he could drop his bow and pull out his sword. A second had his fingers on his sword hilt but Babur gave him a slashing cut across the wrist, almost severing his hand. The man turned and ran out of the opposite doorway and along the walls towards the gatehouse of the Turquoise Gate another fifty yards away.
The other occupants of the strong point tried to follow, but Babur and his men killed two as they tried to extricate themselves from the close-quarters melee. His archers brought down two more as they rushed for the gatehouse, although one succeeded in half-staggering, half-crawling into its protective embrace.
‘Majesty, we’ve put them to flight!’
Babur turned to see Wazir Khan, breathing heavily but triumphant, dagger in one hand and bloodied sword in the other. ‘Not quite. Post guards to hold this section of the walls and the gate. You are to stay here in command. Meanwhile I and the rest of the men will try to get into the gatehouse to open the gate to the rest of our troops.’
Wazir Khan looked abashed but Babur was not going to risk his increasingly lame counsellor in street fighting when a man’s ability to run fast might make the difference between life and death.
Shield in front of his head and running bent double, Babur covered the fifty yards to the gatehouse. Inside, he found that the only Uzbek left was the man who had almost lost his hand. He had collapsed against the wall, breathing heavily and cursing in his pain as his lifeblood pumped from his wound on to the stone floor. The clatter of feet from the stairs leading down to the gate told Babur where the rest of the defenders had gone. He and his men followed cautiously, fearing an attack as they emerged from the staircase, but none came.
‘Smash the lock and open the gate,’ Babur yelled.
Axes ready, two of his bodyguard ran to carry out the order. There was the sound of metal against metal as they slammed their axes into the lock and a final crash showed they had succeeded. Soon, the ancient, iron-studded gate was swinging open to admit the remainder of Babur’s troops, including the Mangligh crossbowmen.
With Alamgir in his hand, Babur glanced about. It was very quiet. Where were the Uzbeks hiding? Babur put caution aside and advanced up the wide street, yelling, ‘Ferghana! Ferghana!’
His shouts echoed in the silence. There was no volley of arrows or even an answering cry of Uzbek defiance. Then, to Babur’s astonishment, doors and shutters began to open. He darted for cover and again reached for his bow and an arrow, but the heads poking out were not those of Uzbek warriors. They belonged to the ordinary people of Samarkand — merchants, shopkeepers, innkeepers — who, recognising Babur, were calling out blessings upon him and his men, thanking them for their liberation. Soon they were pouring from their houses, almost insane in their joy and jubilation
‘Quick! This way!’ a man was calling. ‘I saw one of those Uzbeks run up here.’ He pointed to a narrow alleyway where tell-tale drops of blood were already congealing in the dust. Before Babur could order his men to investigate, two ordinary citizens — one burly enough to be a butcher and the other a smaller, wiry man with a wart on the side of his nose — disappeared in that direction. Within moments they had reappeared, dragging a young Uzbek by the legs so that his head banged along the ground. A Mangligh bolt was protruding from his chest, and as he struggled for breath, he begged for mercy. Before Babur could say anything, the burly man drew his knife and cut the boy’s throat from ear to ear, beaming as the warm blood splashed his boots.
All around, citizens were arming themselves with anything they could find — stones, pitchforks, blacksmith’s tools. . A light in their eyes reminded Babur of wild dogs as they ran with him and his troops through the streets, searching for Uzbeks and continuing to stab and club any they found long after they were dead, so great was their hatred, so bad had been the treatment they had received.
But apart from those injured on the walls who had not been able to get far, there were few — and still no resistance. The Uzbeks must be fleeing before them. Reaching the Registan Square, Babur called a halt. Maybe the Uzbeks were convinced he had attacked with a much greater force than he had or perhaps this was a trap and they were waiting in ambush a little way ahead. Babur consulted briefly with his commanders, then ordered detachments of soldiers to advance cautiously into the west, north and east of the city.
By now it was mid-morning and beneath a streaked and brilliant sky more and more people were surging into the square. They were carrying food — bread, fruit, even skins of wine — which they thrust on Babur’s men. A babble of excited voices was rising all around him. This was chaos — what if the Uzbeks were regrouping and about to counter-attack? Babur’s men could not fight amid this throng.
Babur ordered his guards to push back the jubilant people. Making barriers of their spears, his warriors advanced, shoulder to shoulder, and slowly succeeded in driving the crowds back, clearing the entries and exits to the square. That was better. ‘I want all of these buildings searched, and men posted at every high vantage-point around the square,’ Babur ordered. Even now Uzbek archers might be concealed among all the blue-tiled domes and minarets of the palaces, mosques and
‘Majesty. .’ A young soldier, broad face beaded with sweat, was at Babur’s elbow. He sounded as if he had been running hard.
‘What is it?’
‘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.
