Raiders from the North

some men who shared our faith. This time our opponents are all Hindus — that is to say, infidels. We will declare holy war — jihad.’

‘But now we’re in Hindustan, some of our allies among the local rulers are Hindus, too.’

‘We’ll make sure we detach them from the main army for this battle. In any case, I’ve been worried about the loyalty — or, at least, the effectiveness — of some of them for a while now. They can garrison rear areas or some such.’

‘It may work.’

‘It will work. . I’ve even thought of how to symbolise this change. This fine red wine of Ghazni I’ve drunk tonight will be the last alcohol I shall taste. I’ll pour the remainder of the shipment away in front of our men when I tell them of the jihad.’

‘But you’ve drunk all my life. .’

‘Yes and I’ve enjoyed spirits, bhang and the fruit of the opium poppy, I know. We people of Timur’s blood — and of Genghis’s — have taken strong drink since long before the mullahs brought the true religion to us. Fermented mare’s milk — kvass — was, after all, what kept Genghis’s people alive in the winter cold on the high steppes. All but the strictest mullahs realised it would be impossible to change people completely and at once. They lauded abstinence as the ideal and helped the pious and ascetic to achieve it but tolerated drinking among men of the world. They encouraged us to forswear it for short periods — such as during our holy month of Ramadan and as we became older and could sooner expect to be called to account by our creator.’

Babur took another sip. ‘Yes, wine is good and I’m known to enjoy it. That’s why my renouncing it will have a big impact on morale. That’s why I’m expecting you to renounce it too.’

Humayun grimaced.

‘You must — at least for a while. . I’ll make the announcement to our troops in a couple of days or so when I’ve had a chance to tell the mullahs and detach our Hindu allies to other tasks.’

Babur’s army was drawn up in a hollow square at the centre of which was a raised wooden dais, covered with gold cloth, on which their emperor stood in his green robes. His belt was of intertwined pearls and round his neck he wore a gorget of uncut rubies and emeralds. His gold crown was on his head and his sword, Alamgir, was at his side. Next to him, Humayun was similarly royally attired, and they were surrounded by their senior mullahs, all in black and each with the Holy Book in his right hand.

Babur began to speak: ‘Men, we march tomorrow for what I intend to be our climactic confrontation with this upstart Rana of Mewar, who dares invade our territories. He is not a man of our religion. He does not follow the one true God but worships many. He mistakenly believes he will be reincarnated on earth many times. That may be what makes him so reckless. We must show him the superiority of our religion and of our courage. We are not afraid to lose our one life because we are certain of Paradise if we fall martyrs in our battle against the infidel. I have consulted our mullahs, these wise and holy men you see around me. They have agreed that because we fight against infidels, to demonstrate the superiority of our divinely inspired courage, we should declare this a jihad, a holy war. We fight for our God, for our beliefs. We will conquer in their name. Allah akbar! God is great!’

A loud cry of approval went up from the army’s front ranks, spreading and growing in volume and fervour as it was relayed to the outermost. Soldiers raised their swords and banged their shields.

After a few minutes, Babur lowered his hands repeatedly, palms down, to signify he wanted silence once more. As the crowd hushed he spoke again: ‘You know me as a man who has not always succeeded in following all of God’s teaching. Weak, as we all are, I have indulged my senses. You know I have enjoyed alcohol. You may have heard of the wine of Ghazni — the finest of the year’s crop — that I had shipped down the Khyber Pass only a week ago to indulge myself. To show my passion for our holy war I now renounce alcohol and so does my son, Humayun. To symbolise this, we will pour away the fine Ghazni wine I imported into Hindustan with such effort.’

As he spoke, he and Humayun both raised axes above their heads and brought them crashing down on the wooden barrels of wine that had been placed before the dais, smashing them open so that the ruby-red wine flowed out to soak into the dust. The roar that followed was even greater than the first. Babur’s nobles and generals, as well as many of the common soldiers, vied with each other to shout that they, too, wished to reform and renounce intoxicants. . that, purified and renewed, they would conquer. .

Babur stood at the top of a low hill overlooking the red sand of the Rajasthan desert at Khanua. Behind him was the village itself, mainly mud-brick houses but, at its centre, the intricately carved sandstone Hindu temple raised by Rana Sanga in memory of his mother. Babur had made the shaven-headed, white-robed priests watch while his men defaced or chiselled out all references to the rana or his mother on the temple. Then he had expelled the priests from the village, knowing they would take the news to the rana.

Predictably, Rana Sanga’s Rajput honour had been unable to stomach the insult and he was now encamped about three miles away on the plain below. Although his camp was shrouded in early-morning mist, only a few minutes ago scouts despatched before dawn had reported back to Babur that they had heard and seen the unmistakable sights and sounds of preparation for battle — cooking fires doused, swords sharpened, horses saddled and orders shouted.

Babur’s own deployments had been agreed a few days previously — immediately after the arrival of his army at Khanua — in the familiar surroundings of his scarlet tent.

‘I believe we should follow basically the same battle plan as at Panipat,’ he had begun, ‘but we should use the hill to strengthen our position further. Let us place the cannon on the hilltop and dig trenches and build ramparts around the hill to protect them.’

Then one of Babur’s longest serving commanders, the usually taciturn Hassan Hizari, a Tajik from Badakhshan who had been with him for more than twenty years, had spoken. ‘That is well, Majesty, but Sanga has fewer than two hundred elephants and relies mainly on his cavalry. Our perimeter will be longer than at Panipat. Horses are much nimbler than the lumbering elephants, if less frightening. Even if the Rajputs lose some of their cavalry to cannon shot, it won’t deter them. Many will simply jump the ditches and barricades. We must be ready for at least some to penetrate our perimeter.’

‘You’re right, of course. We’ll need to station archers and musketeers as a further line of defence halfway up the hill.’

‘ We will need cavalry up there, too, to rush to any breach,’ Humayun had added. ‘Let me take charge of them.’ Babur had not had the heart to deny him.

Over the past few days Babur’s troops had put the plans into practice, digging earthworks and positioning cannon with the help of oxen. They had even made some of the wagons into a kind of movable barricade by encasing their sides and wheels in thick planks.

When Humayun had reviewed the dispositions with Babur only a few minutes earlier they had found need for only the most minor adjustments. After embracing his father, Humayun had departed to take up his position with his cavalry detachments a little further down the hill. Left alone on the hilltop Babur prayed for Humayun’s safety in the coming battle. Despite his son’s protests, he had ensured that the young man had a strong bodyguard — forty men from Hassan Hizari’s Tajiks. He could do no more but still he was anxious — the memory of Baburi’s hand trailing in the dust after Panipat remained vivid. .

By now the mist was beginning to lift and Babur could see that the Rajputs were deploying fully. There were rank after rank of horsemen. Babur’s spies had estimated that the rana’s forces outnumbered his own by at least four to one.

Suddenly a tall Rajput galloped towards Babur’s lines. He was dressed all in orange, his saddle and bridle ornamented with tassels of the same colour. His white horse’s head was protected by a steel headguard that glinted in the morning light. He wheeled his horse within just a hundred yards of Babur’s defences to shout what sounded like a herald’s challenge. Babur’s response was to send an order to his matchlock men to shoot the herald down. They obeyed. The man fell from his horse, but his foot caught in the stirrup and the animal bolted back towards the Rajput lines dragging its rider along, his orange-turbaned head quickly reduced to bloody pulp as it banged along the rocky ground.

Just as Babur had intended, his contempt for the traditional challenge goaded the Rajputs into a headlong, undisciplined charge. Their horsemen soon outdistanced the hundred or so armoured elephants Rana Sanga had deployed. Babur lowered his sword as a sign to his artillerymen, musketeers and archers to fire as soon as their