Raiders from the North

ancestral foe. The Persians would depart to their distant homeland. Soon he would be able to think of further conquests.

Baburi would be nursing his wounded pride and his wounded nose somewhere. Now that his own temper had cooled, the deal had been done and the envoy was gone, Babur was anxious to see his friend and heal their rift. There was so much he had not said, so much he had said badly. .

Still wearing the bright green tunic — chosen in tribute to Samarkand — in which he had received the Persian envoy for his farewell audience, Babur walked through the camp to Baburi’s tent, pitched close to Baisanghar’s.

The flaps were thrown back and he went inside. The rugs on the floor were spotted with blood and the few possessions, mostly clothes, strewn hither and thither as though someone had hastily searched through them, deciding what to take and what to leave. In one corner was what looked like splintered wood. As Babur went closer he recognised the bow and gilded quiver set with golden tiger’s eyes he’d given Baburi the day he’d made him Qor Begi, Lord of the Bow. The bow was snapped in two, and the quiver smashed, as if someone had stamped on it — the gems had fallen from their mountings. Babur picked one up. The round little stone felt cold.

He hurried outside, almost tripping over the black leather gauntlet Baburi wore to go hawking but which now lay on the floor. Baisanghar was giving orders to two guards.

‘Where’s Baburi?’

‘I haven’t seen him since this morning, Majesty.’

‘Check whether his horse is here.’

Baisanghar despatched a guard to the corral where the handsome chestnut Baburi had taken from an Uzbek chieftain should have been grazing, but Babur already knew the answer. ‘He’s gone. .’

‘Majesty?’

‘Baburi — he’s gone. Send riders to look for him and bring him back. Do it now, at once!’ He realised he was shouting.

Startled, Baisanghar hurried off, and Babur went back inside Baburi’s tent. He picked up the broken bow. Baisanghar’s men could ride their horses into the ground but it wouldn’t be any use. If Baburi wanted to disappear he would.

Chapter 19

The Kizil-Bashi

This glorious, mellow, sunlit day in the autumn of 1511 deserved a special mention in his diary, Babur thought, as he rode at the head of his army towards the Turquoise Gate where banners of bright green — not Uzbek black — again bellied in the breeze. Last time he’d entered Samarkand as its king more than a decade ago he’d been just a youth. Now he was twenty-nine, toughened and tempered by all that had happened to him since.

The city had fallen without a struggle. Babur and his army of twenty thousand, swelled by the Persian cavalry, had been too much for the occupying Uzbeks. They had fled, preferring to take refuge in their stronghold of Karshi in the northern mountains than fight a far superior force. On learning of their flight Babur had taken Shaibani Khan’s skull, filled it with blood red wine and drunk deeply, before passing it round to his commanders.

My time has come, he thought exultantly, as he passed beneath the glinting gateway to the deep, echoing boom of kettle-drums. Tonight, he and Maham — travelling with the other women of the royal household in mule carts with trappings of gold and green — would make love. According to his astronomers, the planets were in perfect conjunction for the conception of a son. He would have a further heir and Maham would cease to weep because she had borne him no more children since Humayun.

As he emerged from the purple shadows beneath the gate into the city, the excited, approving cheers of his people — a human rainbow in their brightest robes — burst over him, joyously shouting his name and Timur’s, as if his great ancestor were there by his side. As he rode up the broad avenue leading to the citadel and the Kok Saray he saw that the shopkeepers had draped their stalls with brilliant brocades and the ruby-red velvet for which Samarkand was celebrated. From rooftops and windows, women threw handfuls of dried rose petals that fluttered in the air like pink snowflakes.

But abruptly the happy shouting faltered. A hoarse, angry voice rose above the crowd: ‘Kizil- Bashi! Kizil-Bashi!’ Redheads! Redheads! Glancing back Babur realised that the people were looking at the Persian cavalry as they came through the Turquoise Gate. The cry was now taken up by hundreds of voices. People were pointing and jeering at the Persians with their conical red caps and the long strip of scarlet cloth hanging down behind that showed they were not Sunni Muslims, like the people of Samarkand and Babur, but Shiites, like their master, the shah.

No matter, Babur told himself, staring resolutely ahead. He’d soon be rid of the Persians and his subjects would realise they had had nothing to fear from them or their differing version of Muslim faith. Yet he couldn’t banish the jeers and catcalls from his mind.

This new sombre mood was still on him when, three hours later, he stood alone in his public audience chamber in the Kok Saray, contemplating the gleaming cobalt blue, turquoise, yellow and white geometrically patterned tiles on its walls and domed ceiling that had so astonished him the first time he’d seen them. He’d anticipated this moment for so long, yet the glory of his return felt diminished, tarnished.

The magnificence around him seemed to fade, to be replaced by Baburi’s face. Baburi should have been here, observing him with that quiet irony in his indigo eyes. But what would he have said at this moment? That he’d been right all along, that Babur was not his own master, just another ruler’s toy? As he looked into the future he had assumed would be so glorious, Babur felt truly alone. .

‘Majesty, they are waiting for you.’ The lines on Baisanghar’s grave face were deep. He was no longer the vigorous warrior who had ridden all those years ago to Ferghana to bring him Timur’s ring. It had been right to make him grand vizier, Babur reflected. His long, loyal years of fighting and service deserved such a reward, and Maham was pleased to see her father so honoured.

Did Baisanghar ever feel the frustration that sometimes overcame himself? Did he ever long again to sweep down on a raid from the mountains on a moonlit night with a cold wind scouring his face? Or to sleep on hard ground under the stars, sword by his side, unsure what the next day would bring except that it would be hard and dangerous? Babur’s hankering for action was absurd, he knew, but after only six weeks in Samarkand he was restless. He wanted to get back to Kabul to assure himself that all was well there, even though he had left it strongly garrisoned. He was also eager to recover Ferghana, which, since the Uzbek collapse, had been dismembered by petty local warlords with more fleas than real troops. He could swat them with one blow of his fist if only he were free to leave Samarkand, but he had to establish order in the city. He had summoned the leading citizens to announce how Samarkand was to be governed and now they were waiting — no doubt hoping for lucrative sinecures.

Babur entered his audience chamber and mounted his dais. At Baisanghar’s command, his waiting subjects prostrated themselves on the soft, rich carpets the Uzbeks hadn’t had time to loot. Mechanically acknowledging them, Babur’s mind was elsewhere. The Persian troops should have departed by now. Yet, though some had left as soon as the khutba confirming Babur as king had been read, a thousand were still camped in the riverside meadows outside the Needlemaker’s Gate. With them was the shah’s own priest, Mullah Husayn. Whenever he broached the question of the Persians’ departure with their commander — a cousin of Shah Ismail, haughty and cold — the answer was the same: he was awaiting orders from the shah. As soon as he received them he and his men would ride away.

Babur couldn’t order them to go but he could insist that they kept off the streets of Samarkand. The populace’s hostility hadn’t died away. In fact, the news that he had become the shah’s vassal had only fed their suspicion, instead of reassuring them that they had a powerful protector as Babur had hoped. He had received several visits from the city’s mullahs, seeking assurances that the shah was not planning to interfere with their religion. An aged priest from one of the madrasas, his thin face nearly as pale as his