‘The water channels will intersect there, in a pool at the center, which will have fountains and water lilies. I intend to plant apple, pear and quince trees in the garden to remind me of our homeland. The gardeners say they will need to be watered every day in this climate but labourers are plentiful and cheap.’
Babur and Humayun were standing on the north bank of the Jumna river, about a mile downstream from where its brown waters took a sharp, right-angled turn by the Agra fort. Babur was showing his son the progress the workers had made on the first garden he had commissioned in Agra.
‘What else will you have planted?’
‘I want lots of sweet-smelling plants that will produce scent during the evening — one of my favourite times for sitting in the garden. The chief gardener tells me that there are many kinds of stocks and also the creamy, white, night-flowering champa flower that will suit my purpose. He is a good man and works well to my instructions, even though he was once one of Sultan Ibrahim’s gardeners.’ Babur paused. ‘I only wish more people, both inside and outside our borders, were as ready to accept us as the new masters of Hindustan. I understand — even if I don’t accept — the hostility of those who had close ties to Sultan Ibrahim. I can hardly blame his mother for what she did — it was a kind of display of loyalty, I suppose. Nor am I too worried about the Shah of Persia at the moment, even though he is always craftily probing our north-western borders in Afghanistan, trying to buy supporters around Kandahar and Quetta. We have enough money from the miserly Ibrahim’s brimming treasuries to outbribe the shah — at least for now.’
‘Who is it then that concerns you most?’
‘The Rajputs, to the west of us here in Agra. From their strong citadels and mountain fortresses they used to maintain a kind of armed neutrality with Ibrahim, even sometimes hiring him soldiers to fight in his distant campaigns. They are brave, brave soldiers — a warrior people with a heroic code of honour, never retreating and never surrendering.’
Babur paused again. ‘Reports have kept reaching me over the past few weeks of the boasting of Rana Sanga, the ruler of Mewar, the strongest and most wealthy of the Rajput kingdoms, that he will rid Hindustan of us, the upstart invaders, and put a true Hindu — himself, of course — on the throne for the first time in three hundred years.’
‘Will the rest of the Rajput kingdoms support him?’
‘Probably not. They’re a jealous, independent lot, as touchy of their honour, as suspicious of each other and as quick to pick a fight as some of our own Afghan chiefs. The other Rajput rulers won’t want to see him even more powerful.’
‘How much trouble could he make on his own?’
‘Plenty. He has a large, loyal and well-trained army. Even though he’s ageing, he’s still a good tactician and a great warrior, who prides himself on always leading the charge himself. He also makes a virtue of the number of times he’s been wounded and lost parts of his body. I hear that his court poet brags on his behalf that he is “a mere fragment of a man but what a fragment”. He lost one eye in a fight with his brother, his arm in a battle against Sultan Ibrahim, and he limps from a severe leg wound. He has eighty wounds scattered across what remains of his scrawny body and his poet claims the randy old goat has fathered a son for each of them.’
‘I’d heard that too. He must have plenty of wives — and clearly at least one part of his anatomy remains intact. How long can we leave him to posture without confronting him?’
‘That’s the very question I’ve been turning over in my mind. It’s only nine months since we defeated Ibrahim. Our grip on our conquest is not yet secure and the future of our dynasty here in Hindustan hangs in the balance. I would like to think that you, your brothers and your children will enjoy these gardens. Only this morning I learned that Rana Sanga has made another incursion into our territory on the pretext of chasing rebels. Admittedly it lasted only a week but he penetrated deeper than before. .’
‘We can’t let him ride into our domains whenever he wishes. If we let him continue to treat them pretty much as his own it will be seen as weakness — and rightly so. He needs teaching respect now.’
‘I’m losing your youthful ardour for war, but you are right. We’re going to have to fight him some time and better to do it sooner than later to safeguard our martial reputation and, more importantly, while we’re still the only people in Hindustan with cannons and muskets. At least another campaign will curb any restlessness among our own young bloods. The prospect of battle and plunder will give them something to think about. I will call a military council for tomorrow to begin our preparations. .’
Babur turned in his saddle. Humayun was quite close behind but his bodyguard was strung out some way further back. He was hot and sweating, and dust had stuck to every inch of his exposed flesh, crusting around his eyes, but he was delighted that at forty-four he had ridden a hundred and fifty miles in two and a half days and had still been able to out-gallop his men to this hilltop vantage-point.
The rocky outcrop gave a fine view over the dry deserts of Rajasthan, but there was little enough else to be pleased about. He had ridden the hundred and fifty miles in pursuit of Rana Sanga but he and his men had not even come in sight of the rana’s main army, not even a glimpse of their dust on the horizon. He had been on campaign for the last six weeks but during that time had been unable to bring his enemy into a pitched battle in which his muskets and cannon — including one he had had newly cast which could throw a ball over three-quarters of a mile — could be deployed to good effect.
The wily rana had wisely preferred a war of movement, using his more mobile forces to make hit-and-run raids on Babur’s forts and supply caravans, just as Babur had once done from the hills above Ferghana against his half-brother Jahangir’s men. The raids had weakened the morale of Babur’s battalions, leaving them edgy and always on the lookout for attack. The raids had also forced Babur to detach more and more of his best troops from his main force to guard the baggage train.
Humayun was at his side now. ‘I can still outride you just as I could when you had the little white pony ten years ago. .’
‘You have the best horse and there’d be a different result if we were on foot,’ responded Humayun, provoked almost despite himself into adolescent competition with his father and an adolescent touchiness about any perceived failure.
‘I was only joking. Anyway, neither of us seems able to catch the rana and he’s older than both of us and crippled. The plain out there is deserted. We need to think again. Let’s dine alone so that we can talk frankly.’
The two servants dressed in white tunics and baggy trousers disappeared through the tent flaps carrying the remains of the last course of the dinner — oranges, nuts and sticky sweetmeats. Babur and Humayun lay back from the low table against the large purple cushions embroidered with elephants and peacocks that had once graced Ibrahim’s palace in Delhi. Each had a gold goblet of red wine, newly arrived from the vineyards of Ghazni, south of Kabul.
‘I’ve been thinking how we can entice Rana Sanga into conflict.’ Humayun put his goblet down. ‘We both know that, for the Rajputs, honour — their personal honour, their family honour — is everything. We should occupy a place of particular importance to the rana so that he will believe his honour has been impaired if he doesn’t re- capture it quickly.’
‘A good idea in principle but have you actually got anywhere in mind?’
‘I asked some of the native chiefs we number among our allies. They tell me that Sanga’s mother was born in a small village called Khanua at the edge of his territories twenty miles north-west of Agra — about seventy-five miles south-west of here. He built a shrine there to one of his gods in her honour and still worships there once a year.’
‘You’ve certainly done some thinking. I’ll send scouts first thing in the morning to check the terrain between Khanua and here and also to see whether the place itself looks a good one for us to fight. If all goes well, I should be able to order our forces to concentrate there within a few days. But you’re not the only one who’s been thinking. I’ve been worrying about how to hearten those of our men unsettled by Sanga’s success in his hit-and-run raids.’
‘Where have your thoughts led you?’
‘Perhaps in a strange direction. All of my previous campaigns have been against armies that included at least
