loyalty, what do we lose by delaying long enough to send an ambassador? They’ll be back in plenty of time for us — if needed — to advance again before the monsoon arrives in two months.’
‘It’s still better to crush him now.’ BabaYasaval was adamant. ‘Making an example of him will deter other rebels.’
‘But we will lose troops and time we could spend in other campaigns to enlarge our empire. I’ve always hankered to ride south across the Deccan Plateau to the diamond mines of Golconda,’ said Suleiman Mirza.
‘I agree,’ said Yunus Pathan, one of Humayun’s best generals, quietly. ‘Sher Shah is said to be an able administrator and Bengal is a rich, fertile province. If we kill him and his chief courtiers, we will need to spend time setting up new structures and appointing new officials. If we reach an agreement with him from our position of strength we can use him and his administration to raise taxes quickly to pay for our armies and reward our troops, and move on to Golconda.’
Humayun pondered.Yunus Pathan’s words were persuasive. Besides, being magnanimous was the mark of a great ruler. Humayun rose. ‘Suleiman Mirza, go with Tariq Khan and a small escort to locate Sher Shah and offer him peace, provided he comes and makes full obeisance and compensates us richly for our time and expense and above all for the disgraceful insult he has shown us.’
But Sher Shah did not respond immediately. Weeks passed while he procrastinated, sending profuse apologies for delay and repeated requests to be permitted to send messengers to consult allies before finally agreeing to any terms. So it was that in mid-summer 1539, Humayun was sitting after dinner in Khanzada’s tent placed near his own in the very middle of his vast encampment covering more than four square miles near the settlement of Chausa in Bengal. Humayun had had the camp erected on low hillocks overlooking the muddy flood plain of the Ganges delta. Outside, the night was hot and the smoke from the camp fires rose vertically into the still air. Inside the tent, whose sides were down to protect the women from prying eyes, the air was stifling. Despite the best efforts of Khanzada’s attendants to trap them using bowls of sugar water or to crush them with their fly swats, mosquitoes buzzed ceaselessly. Humayun, sweating profusely, occasionally felt their sharp bite on his exposed flesh and slapped futilely at his small attackers.
‘What is it, Humayun? You’ve hardly spoken all through the meal,’ Khanzada asked.
‘I’m worried that Sher Shah is playing me for a fool, that I’ve allowed too much time to pass by. Suleiman Mirza and Tariq Khan assure me that on each visit he has been courteous and humble and seems sincere but I am no longer certain. Was I wrong to trust so entirely in Tariq Khan? What if he was planted by Sher Shah in an effort to gain himself time?’
Khanzada rose and paced for a moment or two, face grave in the golden glow of the wicks burning in their pools of oil in the saucer-shaped brass
‘I think you’re right to be suspicious. Victory doesn’t always go to the strongest but sometimes to the most wily. You have advanced many miles down the Ganges over these last nine weeks, ready to meet Sher Shah either in battle or in council, but each time he has moved further off, using trifling excuses that he’s exhausted the food in the region or that there’s an epidemic of fever he must avoid.’
‘True. Latest reports are that his main army is still thirty miles away along the Ganges.’
‘What will you do?’
‘Accept no more excuses, set deadlines for Sher Shah and if he doesn’t meet them I’ll attack. But I’m concerned that these jungles and marshes are ill-suited to the easy passage of my cannon and large forces of cavalry.’
‘Then have the courage to retreat to better terrain. Or else consider bypassing Sher Shah’s forces and occupying his cities. .’ A single crash of thunder interrupted Khanzada’s words. It was followed by the rapid pattering of rain on the tent roof.
‘The monsoon can’t have broken — it’s too early.’
‘Nature’s rhythms are not always bounded by man’s calendars.’
‘If it is the monsoon, we must definitely seek out better ground. But it’s late and it’ll be time enough to decide in the morning when we know if the rains are continuing. The camp is too high above the river for there to be any danger of flooding in the meantime.’
Several hours later Humayun was lying asleep on his back, his arms spread wide, his perspiring muscled body naked beneath the thin cotton sheet. He had taken a long time to fall asleep, listening to the rain which seemed to be growing heavier rather than slackening. Now he was dreaming he was back in the Agra fort, moving towards his concubines’ quarters where for some reason he knew they would be bathing beneath rosewater fountains. He felt his body harden with desire and his legs thrashed beneath the thin sheet as in his dreams he quickened his steps, eager to reach his women. Suddenly a female scream penetrated deep into his imaginings.A rising crescendo of male and female voices followed. One cried, ‘To arms! Hurry — no time to put armour on. Reinforce the perimeter.’
Struggling to full consciousness, Humayun realised the voices were real. Raiders must have got as far as the women’s quarters. Tying a robe about him and reaching for his father’s sword, he stumbled from his tent. It was still raining hard and his bare feet slipped in the wet mud. Peering through the heavy, slanting raindrops and desperately trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness, he ran towards Khanzada’s tent.
As he got nearer he made out by the steely flashes of the almost constant sheet lightning a tall, female figure — Khanzada. Her right hand was raised high above her head and in it was a curved sword. As he watched, she brought it down across the face of an assailant who was trying to subdue her. The man fell to the ground where he lay writhing in pain. By the next lightning flash, Humayun saw that his aunt’s sword had slashed open the man’s face all down one side, bloodily exposing his jaw and teeth. He also saw that — unknown to Khanzada — another attacker was behind her. He held not a sword but a large scarf which he was about to throw over her head and to pull tight around her neck. Humayun shouted a warning.
Suddenly realising the danger, Khanzada pulled her arm back and elbowed the man in the throat but he did not fall and continued to try to tighten the cloth. By now Humayun was near enough to launch himself upon her assailant and, grappling with him, to force him to the ground. For a moment they struggled in the glossy, oozing mud, each grasping for advantage. Then Humayun succeeded in pushing his right thumb into his opponent’s left eye and pressing hard he felt the eyeball burst liquidly beneath the force. The man instinctively relaxed his grip as the pain ran through him, and Humayun took Alamgir and thrust it deep into his opponent’s groin, leaving the man screaming and bleeding into the muddy puddle in which he lay dying.
Although the noises of battle still reached Humayun’s ears from around the distant perimeter of his camp, by now his bodyguards seemed to have subdued the rest of the men who had attacked the women’s quarters. There had only been about twenty or so. All had worn dark clothing and seemed to have penetrated the heart of the camp by stealth while a stronger force assaulted the periphery. Only one remained alive.
Running over to him where he was held, arms pinioned and on his knees, by two guards, Humayun, face contorted with rage, grabbed the man by the throat, hauled him to his feet and pushing his own face into his screamed, ‘Why did you do this? No honourable enemy attacks women. Their lives should be protected by all, whatever the circumstances. Our religion demands it, as do all the moral decencies. You will die anyway but if you speak it will be quick — if you do not it will be long and lingering and so exquisitely painful you will beg for the death that is so slow in coming.’
‘We did not intend to kill the women but to kidnap them, particularly your aunt. Tariq Khan told us she was with you and the story of her capture by Shaibani Khan is well known to all. Sher Shah said if we took her you might be prepared to come to terms to spare her a second ordeal.’
So Tariq Khan had indeed betrayed him. In his anger and dismay at his own stupidity, Humayun tightened his fingers around the prisoner’s throat and placing his thumbs on his Adam’s apple twisted his neck until he heard a crack and the death rattle bubble through the man’s throat. Throwing the body aside, he ran — bare feet again slipping in the mud — back to Khanzada. She was standing sword still in hand looking surprisingly composed while the rain streamed down her face and reduced her long greying hair, unbound for sleep, to a series of rats’ tails.
‘I am sorry not to have protected you better — are you injured?’
‘Not at all. I think I have proved I too am of Timur’s blood, like you and my brother Babur.When the attack came, I felt anger and outrage, not fear. I knew I must protect Gulbadan and your young concubines. I told them to collapse the tent poles and to remain hidden in the material until they were sure the danger had passed. Look over
