ceremony. I will return to our camp to await news of the pursuit.’
His victory had been so swift that it was not yet midday when Babur turned his horse and rode back towards his camp, past the bodies of elephants lying like great boulders amid the dust, mostly surrounded by the wreckage of their
In his red tent once more, Babur paced back and forth. Where were Humayun and Baburi? He was less worried about his friend than his inexperienced son. Although Humayun had fought in skirmishes before, and performed well, this was his first command at a big battle and the leadership of the right wing in the pursuit was a major and novel responsibility for him.
Babur distracted himself by making short visits to the wounded and to reward soldiers reported to have fought particularly bravely, as well as in hearing reports of the plunder captured from Ibrahim’s camp. Already it seemed he had a vast haul of jewels and gold at his disposal.
Six hours had passed before a guard entered Babur’s tent to announce, ‘The pennants and flags of Prince Humayun’s column have been seen approaching.’
He had barely finished speaking before a breathless Humayun entered, rushed to his father and embraced him. ‘Our victory is complete. We are masters of Hindustan. We followed a large group of Ibrahim’s men more than ten miles to the south-west until they made a stand in a mud fortress by a river. After an hour’s fight we forced them to surrender. A little further to the west we found a group of nobles’ tents that were being defended by a few guards or servants against what looked more like bandits or looters than soldiers from any army.
‘When we had killed the attackers, a beautiful woman of about my mother’s age emerged from a white tent with cream and gold awnings. She was wrapped in one of those garments the Hindustanis call saris. It was a fine silk and had many pearls and jewels sewn on to it. She asked who was in command, and on being told it was I, and that I was your son, requested to be brought before me. She told me she was the mother of the ruler of Gwalior, a wealthy kingdom to the south of Delhi. She had heard her son had been killed fighting courageously for Ibrahim.
‘Instead of fleeing when she learned the news she had determined to wait to receive his body and perform the proper funeral ceremonies. They’re infidels who cremate the bodies of their dead on pyres. Then a fleeing soldier galloping past their camp had yelled that our forces were killing the prisoners, so many of her men, except a brave few, had abandoned her. And the brigands — dacoits, she called them — whom we defeated had seen their chance of plunder and had attacked the camp. She had feared for her life and her honour but, most of all, she had feared for her six-month-old grandson who, with his young mother, the dead ruler’s favourite wife, was still in the tent.
‘I told her to fear no more, that we were a cultured, civilised people, not savages like the dacoits. Tears of gratitude wetted her face and she gave me this, which I now give you as a token of our great victory.’ As he spoke Humayun handed Babur a soft red leather pouch secured by a gold leather thong. Babur undid the tie and pulled out a large stone that glistened and sparkled in the gloom of the tent. ‘It’s a diamond, Father, from the mine at Golconda a thousand miles to the south — the biggest I’ve ever seen. The jeweller of the royal family of Gwalior once valued it as worth half of the daily expenditure of the whole world. It is called the Koh-i-Nur, the Mountain of Light. .’
Babur was held by the gem’s perfect purity and brilliance. Light radiated from it as if from a star — the Canopus, he thought, smiling at his fancy. . Still, the jewel’s intense brightness seemed to belong to the heavens rather than the earth whence it had been dug. .
‘Indeed, my son, you have merited your name, Fortunate. Long may it continue until-’ Babur broke off in mid- sentence. Through the open entrance of the tent he had glimpsed two attendants carrying a stretcher covered with a sheet towards him. From all the shouting and bustle, it was clear that Baburi’s column had now also returned. Where was he? Why hadn’t he come to report and share in the joy of conquest? Then Babur saw that a hand wearing a richly chased golden ruby ring was trailing in the dust from beneath the sheet. He had given that ring to Baburi many years ago to mark the success of one of their campaigns. As the two handsome young men carrying the bier lowered it gently to the ground before Babur, he recognised them as Baburi’s attendants.
Slowly Babur bent and, with a trembling hand, pulled back the bloodstained cloth and gazed at the monstrously mangled body of his brother-in-arms.
‘We came upon a large body of Ibrahim’s men retreating towards Delhi in good order with forty elephants in their vanguard and the same number in their rear. Our master Baburi ordered an immediate charge and we routed your enemies, who fled in all directions. But during the last moments of the fight, our master was knocked down, trampled and crushed by one of the elephants, wounded and enraged by a spear thrust deep into its mouth,’ said one of the attendants.
Only Baburi’s face — even paler than in life — was untouched. His intense indigo eyes still stared up at Babur and there was a half-smile on his face. Babur could not prevent himself weeping as, leaning over the bier once more, he closed Baburi’s eyes and kissed him on his forehead. ‘Goodbye, my brother. .’
Chapter 23
The sun’s metallic glare hurt Babur’s eyes. Advancing over the arid landscape where even the scrubby bushes were coated with dust, he was glad of the shade of the green and yellow brocade canopy supported on golden poles by the four riders around him. A strong wind was whipping up the dust — he had already learned that his new subjects called it
Immediately after Panipat, he had ordered Humayun and four of his commanders with their men to leave behind their heavy baggage and ride hard and fast to Ibrahim’s capital at Agra — a hundred and twenty miles south-east of Delhi along the Jumna river — to seize the fort and the imperial treasuries there before the garrison had time to organise their defences. Now, three days later, Babur was taking the bulk of his victorious army south to Delhi. At the rear, almost obscured beneath a billowing cloud of dust, were ranks of plodding war elephants — still streaked in red paint — that his men had rounded up after the battle.
Babur should have been jubilant but grief for Baburi was blunting his triumph. In the first hours after he had learned of Baburi’s death, he had shut himself away in his tent, unwilling to see anyone or to address the many tasks and decisions that awaited him as the new ruler of Hindustan. Baburi’s death wasn’t just the loss of a best friend — it felt like the passing of his previous life. He would never — could never — have a friend like that again — a friend who had shared his youth and his fluctuating fortunes.
When he’d first met Baburi he’d been not yet twenty, the ruler of a small part of Ferghana, more a footloose warlord than a king. Now he was a father and emperor of a large realm who must always be conscious of his dignity and keep his distance in his dealings with others of whatever rank. From now on, his closest companions would inevitably be his sons. Much as he loved them it would not be the same as with Baburi. The difference in age and experience between them, the respect, the filial obedience they owed him would always lie between them, as would his overwhelming desire to protect them, and to teach them how to live and rule. They could not challenge him, laugh at him — as well as with him — as Baburi had done. .
So many memories, so many thoughts and feelings, kept running through Babur’s mind — the first time he’d seen Baburi’s sharp-featured, streetwise face and intensely indigo eyes as he’d rushed to save a child from beneath the hoofs of Babur’s horse; Baburi’s first tentative efforts to ride; the freedom of their youth; their wild, drunken nights together in the whorehouses of Ferghana; all those years of companionship and humour, of huddling together for warmth as cold winds buffeted their tent, of raids and battles, some victorious, some otherwise. .
So many of those events had played out against the backdrop of the world he and Baburi had belonged to, a place of cold, tumbling, twisting rivers, of enfolding hills, sharp-sided valleys and endless plains that were sweet with clover in the summer but in winter froze hard as iron. A place of rich cities with domes and minarets of turquoise and green, ancient
