celebrate your victory over Gujarat, I wish to hold a feast for you. Your mother and aunt and the other royal women will also be my guests. Let me do this for you and I will know that you have truly forgiven my sons and that harmony has returned to Babur’s family.’
Humayun felt himself relax. So that was all she wanted — no tearful pleading about her sons returning to Agra. . just a celebration. He bowed his head, signifying his acceptance of Gulrukh’s request, and after a final exchange of graceful courtesies left her.
Abandoning thoughts of his ride, he decided instead to visit his mother. As he made for Maham’s apartments, he passed what had been Dildar’s rooms. He had been very young — only ten or eleven — when Babur had given Hindal to Maham. All he remembered was his mother calling to him to look at the baby she was holding in her arms. ‘See, you have a new brother,’ she had said. Puzzled, Humayun had stared down at the bawling infant that he knew was not his mother’s but another woman’s. .
At the time he’d dismissed it from his mind. Growing up in Kabul, learning to fight with a sword and fire off thirty arrows a minute and play polo had been what mattered. Only later had he come to realise that giving Hindal to Maham had been one of the few acts of weakness of his father’s life — albeit done out of love.
What good had it done? It had soothed Maham’s grief but it had nourished discord within the family. In the early years she had jealously guarded Hindal, keeping him away from Dildar. But as Hindal had grown older and learned who his true mother was, inevitably he had turned from Maham. Perhaps that was why, young as he was, Hindal had joined Kamran and Askari’s plot against him. Perhaps it was his revenge for that day when he had been torn from Dildar’s arms.
What of Dildar herself? What would have been in her mind all those years? At least she had had Gulbadan to console her. . But when she was born, had Dildar feared that Maham would try to take her also? Humayun shook himself. He would never know. Dildar was dead now. Maham never spoke of these things and he was reluctant even to ask Khanzada.The world of women could be a dark and difficult place. In comparison the world of men with all its battles and conflicts, where disputes could be settled with fists or the slash of a blade, seemed cleaner and easier.
Beneath an almost golden moon, the courtyard which Gulrukh had chosen for her party was lit by the soft radiance of hundreds of wicks burning in pools of scented oil in copper bowls or
Two of Gulrukh’s women led him to the tent where she was waiting, wearing a robe of dark purple and a shawl of the same colour, shot through with silver thread, that covered her head and shoulders. But her young attendants were dressed in semi-transparent muslins. As they moved in the flickering light, Humayun caught the curve of slender waists, firm breasts and voluptuously rounded hips and buttocks. Jewels flashed in their navels and their dark hair was interwoven with white jasmine flowers in the Hindustani fashion.
‘Please. .’ Gulrukh indicated a low, velvet-covered chair. As Humayun took his place, one of her women knelt before him with an enamelled golden ewer of cool, sandalwood-scented water while another brought a cotton cloth. Humayun held out his hands and the first attendant let the water flow over them. Slowly, caressingly, the second dried them.
Puzzled, Humayun looked around for his mother and Khanzada and the other royal women, but apart from Gulrukh and her servants, they seemed to be alone.
‘I thought a smaller, less formal celebration might be more to your taste,’ Gulrukh said. ‘I am your only hostess but hope you will pardon my deficiencies.’
Humayun sat up a little straighter in his chair, eyes watchful. What was Gulrukh doing? As she must know, he’d accepted her invitation only out of courtesy — nothing more — yet she seemed to be trying to turn the occasion into something intimate. For a moment he feared she might be trying to seduce him, either herself or through her attendants.
‘I have prepared a surprise for you.’
Humayun looked around, half expecting to hear the clash of cymbals and bells and see the usual line of undulating dancing girls or tumbling jugglers, acrobats and fire-eaters that were the staples of court entertainment. Instead, a willowy form emerged from the shadows to his right. As the figure came towards him, Humayun recognised the pale face of Mehmed. The Turk knelt before Humayun and held out a goblet of what looked like red wine.
‘What is it?’ Humayun ignored Mehmed and turned to Gulrukh.
‘A special blend of heady opium from south of Kabul and the red wine of Ghazni, mixed by my own hand to a recipe handed down within my family. Sometimes — when he was weary — I made it for your father. He said that it transported him. .’
As Humayun gazed at the dark, almost purple liquid, a series of images flashed through his mind — of Babur, high with joy after victory on the battlefield and calling for opium to take him to yet further heights. . He’d seen the ecstasy on his father’s face, heard his delighted murmurings. Of course, he was no stranger to opium himself. It had numbed his grief at his father’s death. Later, he’d discovered the sensual languor that a few pellets dissolved in rosewater could induce and that heightened the pleasures of love-making. But seldom had he been as completely transported as Babur had seemed to be.
‘Do you wish to send for your food taster first?’ Gulrukh asked. But before Humayun could answer, she stepped forward, took the goblet from Mehmed and raised it to her own full lips. Her plump throat quivered as she swallowed and Humayun saw her raise her hand to catch a few beads of liquid that had trickled down her chin and then delicately lick her fingers clean.
‘Majesty, drink. It is my gift to you. .’ Humayun hesitated then took the goblet, still three-quarters full, and raising it to his lips took a sip. The wine tasted of something fiery — Gulrukh must have spiced it to mask the faint bitterness of the opium. Humayun drank again, this time more deeply, and felt a soft warmth start to spread through his body — first down his throat, then to the pit of his stomach. After a few moments, his limbs were beginning to grow heavy. A delicious, irresistible lethargy was taking possession of him and Humayun gave himself up to it like a weary man who sees a soft bed laid ready for him and cannot wait to lie on it.
He swallowed what was left in the goblet. His eyes were already half closed as he felt soft hands take the cup from him, raise him out of the chair and guide him to a soft mattress, where they laid him down. Someone placed a cushion under his head and gently wiped his face with scented water. It felt good and he stretched luxuriously. Soon his body began to feel as if it was dissolving into nothingness. He could no longer feel any part of it but what did it matter? His spirit — the very essence of who he was, not the prone, earth-bound creature he had once been — seemed to be streaming up into the star-splashed heavens that were suddenly opening up before him.
Released from his body, Humayun felt himself soaring like a comet. Beneath him, he could make out the waters of the Jumna flowing dark as Gulrukh’s cup of wine beneath the battlements of the Agra fort. Beyond in every direction stretched the flat, seemingly limitless plains of Hindustan, the warm darkness pierced, now here, now there, glow-worm like by the dung fires burning in the villages of his new subjects. Stretched on their simple beds beneath the acacia and banyan trees outside their mud-baked houses, they were dreaming the dreams of people whose lives were governed by the seasons, when to sow and when to reap, and whose greatest worry was the health of their bullocks and how they would pull at the plough.
As his spirit flew onwards, Humayun could see the sun beginning to rise. A pool of orange light was seeping over the rim of the world bringing warmth and renewal. And what was that he could see beneath him now in the pale apricot glow? — the palaces, towers and grandiose royal tombs of the great city of Delhi, once capital to the Lodi sultans but humbled by the Moghuls. Still Humayun’s unleashed spirit flew on, leaving the heat and dust of Hindustan behind. Below him now were the chill waters of the Indus. Beyond lay the bleached, bone-hard hills and twisting passes leading to Kabul and on towards the hard, diamond-bright peaks of the Hindu Kush, gateway to the Moghuls’ ancestral homelands on the plains of central Asia. What a long way they had travelled. What glories they had achieved. And what marvels still awaited. . To what new heights could they ascend with the help of visions such as these? Above Humayun’s still exultantly soaring spirit the sky glowed like molten gold, embracing the entire world.
