battle. Perhaps the Uzbeks — now that their murdering was done — wished to see it and test its powers.
Half an hour later, Babur and his men emerged into open pasture where they could again see the tracks of horses heading north. Drawing Baisanghar and Baburi to his side, Babur told them of Mirror Rock. ‘If that is where the Uzbeks have gone, we may catch them off-guard. They will not expect to have been followed. But we must be cautious. . If I remember correctly, the rock is only three miles from here. Tell the men to keep silent and have their weapons ready. .’
The Uzbeks were shouting and laughing, their voices rising from over the brow of a low hill as Babur and his men approached. He signalled his men to dismount and, leaving half a dozen soldiers to guard the horses, led the rest on foot up the slope of the hill from behind which the raucous noises were coming. Keeping very low, they peered down.
It was nearly midday and the sunlight reflecting off Mirror Rock was so dazzling that Babur had to shut his eyes. Even so, hot white spots danced beneath his eyelids. He had forgotten the rock’s brilliance. Shading his eyes with his hand, he looked again. The Uzbeks were lolling on the ground beneath the rock. Wineskins — some empty, some still full — lay around them. So did their weapons. There were no more than about fifty men. Their horses, laden with spoils from Tikand, were tethered beneath a clump of trees to the right-hand side of the rock.
Sudden high-pitched screams somewhere over to his left made Babur swing round. Two Uzbeks were dragging a half-naked woman by her arms to the foot of the rock. A chorus of further cries — high and piercing — rose from behind the rock where the Uzbeks must have left their female captives, to be brought out and enjoyed at their leisure.
The Uzbeks stripped the screaming, writhing woman of her robe, exposing her soft, pale body. Then, while one knelt and pinioned her wrists, two others each held one of her spreadeagled legs and a fourth, grinning, began to loosen his belt. Thoughts of Khanzada flashed through Babur’s brain. He leaped to his feet and loosed his first arrow. The man was still fumbling beneath his tunic as the tip pierced his throat. With a ludicrous expression on his face he tumbled backwards, hand clutching his genitals.
Babur’s second arrow penetrated the left eye of the Uzbek holding the woman’s wrists who, on seeing what had happened to his comrade, had stupidly looked directly up the hill towards where Babur was silhouetted against the skyline.
With a cry of ‘For Ferghana!’ Babur raced down the hill, his men around him, their minds set on bloody revenge for the inhabitants of Tikand.
‘We’ve left them a feast.’ Baburi looked back at the circle of dark-winged birds wheeling in the air currents above Mirror Rock.
‘It would have been better if there’d been more,’ Babur muttered. Wiping out this raiding party was just a fleabite. Shaibani Khan, his power and strength, lay ahead. Still, he had left a message: his name scrawled in blood on a scrap of paper shoved between the teeth of an Uzbek. Shaibani Khan would soon know who had done this.
‘But we didn’t lose a single man and we’ve taken all their horses and the food they stole.’
Babur glanced at the lines of riderless horses at the rear of the column. The seven women his men had found — the youngest no more than twelve — were wrapped in cloaks and riding in two donkey carts that the Uzbeks had taken from Tikand to carry their booty. Before he went much further, he must get rid of them. There was a small settlement east of here where, for the present at least, the women would be safe. He would send them there with an escort.
Babur rode on in silence, ignoring Baburi’s attempts to talk. What would he find as he neared Akhsi? Would other chieftains rally to Jahangir? Would they reach him before Shaibani Khan’s troops arrived before the gates? More than ever he missed Wazir Khan’s wisdom. He, too, had been born and bred in Ferghana. He would have understood Babur’s torment.
With darkness falling, they camped on the banks of a stream flowing from the Jaxartes. With Akhsi so close now — barely two hours’ ride away — Babur had to curb the desire to ride on. It was too dangerous to blunder about in the dark. Uzbek patrols might be anywhere.
He sat on the edge of the stream, watching the water ripple past. He had been foolish. Rather than hacking those Uzbeks to pieces at Mirror Rock, he should have questioned them, found out where Shaibani Khan was, the size of his force. Instead, bent on revenge, he had been intent only on their death. He still had much to learn. .
‘Majesty. We found this shepherd nearby with his flock. You must hear his story.’
Babur looked round to see Baisanghar and behind him, between two soldiers, a man of about forty with a weathered face. He looked nervous but that was hardly surprising. He hadn’t expected to be grabbed and hauled into Babur’s camp.
‘Repeat what you told my men. No one will harm you.’
Baisanghar gripped the man’s shoulders and turned him to face Babur.
The shepherd cleared his throat. ‘Shaibani Khan captured Akhsi five days ago.’ His eyes flickered anxiously over Babur’s face. ‘They say he tricked King Jahangir. He told him he didn’t want Ferghana, only tribute. If the king would acknowledge him publicly as his overlord and pay him what he asked he’d take his army back to Samarkand. .’
‘Go on.’ Babur felt suddenly cold.
‘I wasn’t there, of course. So I can only tell you what I heard. . They say the ceremony was held on the banks of the Jaxartes below the fortress. Beneath a pavilion of red silk, the king knelt to Shaibani Khan, who was seated on a divan covered with gold cloth, and called him “Master”. As he waited, head bowed, Shaibani Khan rose and drew his great curved sword. Smiling, he advanced on the king. “Now that you are my vassal I can do what I like with you,” he said, and hacked off his head. As he did so, Shaibani Khan’s warriors fell on the king’s courtiers who were standing at either side and murdered them too.’
‘Tambal? Was he killed? And what of Baqi Beg, Yusuf and the others?’
‘All dead. I also heard — from two stable-boys who escaped from Akhsi — that when Shaibani Khan entered the fortress he had the women of the harem paraded before him. Some he gave to his men, others he took for himself. Last of all he summoned Roxanna, the king’s mother. They say he held up her son’s severed head before her and, as she wept, wailed and cursed him, he ordered her throat to be cut — “to silence her whining”, he said.’
Babur’s head was reeling. His informant hadn’t seen any of these things for himself and perhaps the details were wrong, but Babur didn’t doubt the essence of the story — that Shaibani Khan had tricked and killed Jahangir and Tambal and had taken Ferghana for himself. Neither did he doubt Roxanna’s fate and for a moment felt a fleeting pity for his father’s concubine.
At dawn, after a restless night, Babur untethered his horse and rode alone towards a steep ridge from which he knew he could see Akhsi. His stallion was sweating as they breasted the summit. Far below, with the Jaxartes curling past, he saw the fortress built by his ancestors, their stronghold for so long.
A banner was streaming proudly above the gate. From this distance Babur couldn’t distinguish the colour but he knew it wasn’t the bright yellow of Ferghana. It was the black of Shaibani Khan, who had stolen his ancestral lands just as he had seized Samarkand. Babur couldn’t hold back the tears that ran down his face or control the sobs that shook him. But it didn’t matter. Up here on the mountain ridge there was no one to see, only the hawks circling high above.
‘It is the only way.’ Esan Dawlat’s voice was insistent. ‘He will kill you just as he murdered Jahangir and your cousin, Mahmud Khan. He has sworn to exterminate every prince of Timur’s house and, I tell you, he means to keep his oath.’
‘I won’t run from him. I’m no coward. .’
‘Then you are a fool instead. He commands armies of thousands. Over the summer, since he captured Samarkand and then Ferghana, the tribes of the northern steppes have rallied to his banner. His strength increases daily while yours diminishes.’ Esan Dawlat spat into the fire — something which Babur had never seen her do before. ‘What support do you have?’ she continued. ‘Fifty? A hundred? The rest have slunk back to their villages. You don’t even have a wife. . or an heir.’
Esan Dawlat blamed him for that, but he was glad Ayisha had gone for good. The blunt message that had arrived from Ibrahim Saru that he had never intended to give his daughter to a landless pauper and that the
