Raiders from the North

white robes, had gone further, upbraiding Babur for his dealings with the heretical Persians and demanding he expel them. ‘Even the Uzbeks — wicked defilers of our city though they were — are true believers. .’ he had said. ‘Even the Uzbeks. .’ Babur had never thought to hear words like that. Somehow he must send the Persians on their way. .

‘Majesty,’ Baisanghar interrupted his thoughts, ‘your subjects are waiting to hear you.’

Babur unrolled the piece of paper on which was written the latest list of public appointments — a stout merchant in robes of peacock blue was gazing at him expectantly — but as he did so the velvet-covered, gilded throne on which he was sitting lurched sideways. Babur tried to right himself but he and the throne were flung to the floor. A rumbling, roaring, cracking sound filled the air and everything shook. A lump of masonry, bright tiles still attached, crashed down beside him.

Bitter-tasting dust clogged the air and Babur felt he was choking, but as he gasped for breath, his mouth filled with grit. He couldn’t even open his eyes. Bracing himself, he covered his head with his hands, waiting for a piece of masonry to land on him. But after a few more moments the shaking stopped as abruptly as it had begun. With groans rising from all around, Babur raised his head cautiously and managed to open his streaming eyes a little. Though some stones had been dislodged, the main walls and ceilings of the Kok Saray had withstood the earthquake. Timur’s builders had done a good job. But looking around he saw Baisanghar lying unconscious, his brilliant green robes of office now grey.

‘Guards,’ Babur yelled, not sure who would answer him. Almost at once he heard running feet. Through the drifting, stifling dust he recognised two of his bodyguards who had been on duty in the antechamber. ‘Send for my hakim and fetch any other doctors you can find. The grand vizier is hurt — others too.’ Babur got to his feet, staggered to Baisanghar and put his fingers to the side of his neck as he’d so often done to wounded comrades in battle. Yes, he was alive — he could feel the faint but rhythmic pulsing of his blood. On his forehead a huge bruise was purpling. Baisanghar’s eyes flickered open and he looked up at Babur, confused.

‘It was an earthquake. . The hakim is coming.’ Babur ripped off his outer robe, rolled it up and placed it beneath Baisanghar’s head. ‘I must go to the women’s quarters.’

All around him in the audience chamber dazed men were picking themselves and others up, but a few were lying still. Scrambling over chunks of masonry, Babur ran from the chamber, making for the broad flight of stairs leading to the top storey and the women’s apartments. Hurling himself up them, he saw deep fissures in the dark stonework and that lamps and torches had tumbled from their niches — he kicked them aside — but again Timur’s walls had held.

At the top, he saw that the tall double doors — resilvered and inlaid afresh with turquoises since the day when a youthful Babur and his men had battered them down — were still standing, though a crack gaped in the stone lintel above and part of the elaborately tiled ceiling had collapsed, littering the floor with shards as bright as butterfly wings. Of the attendants who should have been outside there was no sign. They would pay for their negligence, Babur thought, as he threw his weight against the doors and pushed them open.

The first face he saw was Maham’s, her long hair hanging around her. She was standing in the centre of the chamber, which, apart from a few tumbled pieces of furniture, spilled food and broken clay dishes, was untouched. A sobbing Humayun was in her arms but her eyes were bright and clear.

‘See, Humayun? I told you there was nothing to be afraid of. . It was only a foolish giant stamping his feet to annoy us. . I said your father would come.’ Babur kissed her forehead and took Humayun from her, feeling the warmth of his body which, now he was three, was losing some of its puppy fat. The boy’s hazel eyes — so like his mother’s — looked into his own. He stopped crying and smiled.

‘How bad is the damage?’

‘Bad enough. Many houses and granaries have been destroyed, Majesty. They were not as sturdily built as the Kok Saray About a hundred are dead and nearly three hundred injured.’ Beneath his great turban of office, Baisanghar’s face was still heavily bruised though he had recovered quickly.

‘The royal treasuries will pay for the rebuilding — tell the citizens so — and distribute grain from our stores to anyone in want. . With winter approaching, my people must not starve.’

‘Yes, Majesty.’

After Baisanghar had left him, Babur sat alone in the octagonal gilded room he used as his chamber of private audience. He had been lucky. Both of his wives — Maham and Gulrukh — and his two sons, Humayun and Kamran, were unharmed. Khanzada was safe in Kabul with Kutlugh Nigar. But for this to have happened so early in his reign was a bad omen. The people were already blaming the catastrophe on the presence of the Persians. The insistent, repetitive cry of the muezzin calling all to midday prayer interrupted his bleak thoughts. It was Friday and he would go to the Great Mosque to pray in public. It would please the people and he himself might find some spiritual balm, something to quell his restlessness and unease.

Twenty minutes later, regally dressed in a green brocade tunic with a tasselled dark green woollen sash, a fur-lined cloak, an enamelled gold chain around his neck, yellow deerskin boots on his feet and Alamgir hanging at his side, Babur rode out from the Kok Saray towards the soaring recessed arch, the iwan, that led into Timur’s mosque. His guards had to use their spears to clear a path through the thronging streets but, unlike the usual babble of people hurrying to Friday prayers, the crowds today seemed sullenly silent.

On reaching the paved courtyard outside the mosque, Babur dismounted amid drifts of golden leaves that had fallen from the trees and, followed by his guards, entered. The mullah — the old man who had come to beseech him about the Persians — was in his carved marble pulpit to one side of the mihrab, preaching. Babur knelt in the space allotted to the king at the very centre of the mosque and bent forward to touch his forehead to the floor. The mullah was speaking of the transitoriness of human life and offering consolation to those who had suffered in the earthquake. Babur, conscious of hundreds of eyes upon him, listened attentively.

Suddenly the mullah fell silent. Looking up in surprise, Babur saw that he was gazing towards the entrance. Turning he saw what the mullah had seen — the tall, stout, extravagantly bearded figure of the shah’s priest, Mullah Husayn. He was wearing the pointed red cap and sweeping red robes of the Shiite. His escort of six Persian cavalrymen were also in the unmistakable insignia of the Kizil-Bashi. The elderly mullah in the pulpit watched as the Persian advanced towards him, ignoring the hisses rising from all around.

Husayn looked directly at Babur. ‘As a guest in your city, may I have Your Majesty’s permission to deliver a sermon on this the day of prayer for all believers, Shiite and Sunni.’

Concealing his anger at what could only be a deliberate act of provocation and was certainly a breach of etiquette, Babur gave a curt nod and gestured to the old mullah to step down.

Husayn took his place. ‘I am grateful for the king’s permission to speak. May God’s manifold blessings be upon him. Several months ago, with the help of the Lord of the World, the mighty Shah Ismail of Persia, you were delivered from a great evil. Your enemies, the Uzbeks, were forced to flee and you have your king again. The shah is pleased that this is so. He is also pleased that His Majesty King Babur has acknowledged him as his overlord. . The shah welcomes your king as his brother. But, of course, brothers should be of the same faith. The shah has asked me to receive your king as a faithful Shiite so that he may, in turn, bring all his subjects to share the light. .’

There was a collective gasp. .

‘No!’ Babur was on his feet. ‘I gave the shah my allegiance but my religion is my own. I will never convert or allow the forcible conversion of my people. For centuries they have been ruled by the House of Timur. They cannot be coerced. Neither can I. Tell that to your master. .’

Husayn’s dark eyes flashed and his hands clutched the edge of the pulpit. Clearly, he was unaccustomed to being gainsaid, even by kings. ‘My master has been generous. Do not forget that you owe him more than a kingdom.’

Babur chose his next words with care. ‘I am indebted to the shah for many things. I also know he is an honourable man who would never impose impossible conditions on a loyal friend. Clearly there has been a misunderstanding. I will send messengers immediately to Persia to resolve it. I suggest that you return there too. Your master will be missing your spiritual guidance and is doubtless anxious for your presence.’

Husayn was shaking his big, bearded head from side to side. Enough, Babur thought. Signalling to his guards he walked from the mosque. Until that moment the worshippers had been passively watching and listening, but now he could hear murmuring behind him — like an approaching swarm of hornets it was growing louder and louder. As he walked across the courtyard and mounted his horse, people spilled out of the mosque, some shouting angrily