He would have to have all of them — and Kamran in particular — closely watched and at any sign of disloyalty he would act. With enemies at the gates he could not tolerate an enemy within.
Suddenly Humayun decided to visit Salima. Her warm, fervent embraces would banish troubled thoughts as he lost himself in physical pleasure. He smiled and quickened his pace.
‘Majesty, Sher Shah’s vanguard is on the move from Agra towards Lahore.’ Jauhar’s voice cut into Humayun’s disturbed dreams. He struggled to wakefulness to see Jauhar’s anxious face lit by the flickering light of the candle he was holding in his right hand. ‘Ahmed Khan begs to see you at once. He would not even wait for first light. One of his scouts is with him. He has been on the road these past six days and just returned.’
Humayun sat up, splashed his face with water from a brass bowl on a wooden stand by his bed and wrapped a green silk robe around him. A few minutes later, Ahmed Khan and a sweat-soaked scout swaying with fatigue were before him.
‘You are certain Sher Shah is on the move?’
‘Yes, Majesty. Hear what my scout says.’
The scout stepped closer. ‘I would stake my life on it. I waited until from what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears I was absolutely sure and then I rode for Lahore, pausing only to change horses along the road.’
‘How many men?’
‘It’s hard to estimate but by the great dust they were raising on the road, many thousands of cavalry, Majesty.’
‘And Sher Shah himself?’
‘Still in Agra according to what I heard. But soon he will ride out too, I am sure of it. Before I left, I saw a great baggage train being assembled on the riverbanks beneath the Agra fort — pack mules, oxen and camels without number and hundreds of elephants. Sher Shah’s own tents with their purple awnings were being loaded on to carts.’ The scout’s drawn, filthy face relaxed visibly now his task was accomplished.
As soon as he was alone, Humayun sat cross-legged at his low table. Any further discussions with his brothers would be fruitless. Over the past few days, Askari and Hindal had had little constructive to suggest, preferring to listen to their elder brothers spar. Kamran had continued to argue for confronting Sher Shah and Humayun to insist that without many more men such a strategy would fail, reminding Kamran he’d already fought and lost two great battles against Sher Shah. Since then his enemy had grown stronger while he had grown weaker. This was not the time to seek another head-on confrontation.
And all the while, something he had once read in his father’s memoirs had kept returning to Humayun’s mind.
After thinking for a while, Humayun began to write. ‘Sher Shah, you seek to take Hindustan from me though it is mine by virtue of my blood descent from Timur. Meet me in single combat and let us settle this dispute for ever. But if you will not fight me, let us at least agree a truce to prevent further bloodshed while we seek other ways to settle our differences.’
Taking a stick of dark red sealing wax, Humayun stuck the end into the flame of a candle and watched the wax soften, then begin to drip ruby droplets like beads of blood. Taking the stick out of the flame, he held it over the bottom of the letter, until a small wax pool had collected. Then, turning his right hand over, he pressed Timur’s gold ring hard into the wax to leave a perfect impression of a snarling tiger.
An hour later, Humayun watched two of Ahmed Khan’s men gallop out of Lahore to seek out Sher Shah and deliver his letter. Sher Shah would never agree to personal combat — only a fool would accept such a challenge — but the idea of a truce might tempt him. Stories — admittedly not much more than rumours — brought by travelling merchants suggested discord between some of Sher Shah’s commanders. If there was even a speck of truth in them, Sher Shah might welcome a pause to help him re-establish his authority. If so, it would buy Humayun a little more time. There was still no sign of the troops he had summoned from Kabul and probably wouldn’t be for at least several more weeks. Every day he could delay Sher Shah would help. .
Seven days later — an ominous sign of how close Sher Shah now was to Lahore — Humayun had his answer. It was Kasim who brought it to him in his apartments. Strangely there were two letters — one in Sher Shah’s bold, ungraceful hand and bearing his seal and the other rolled up in a piece of bamboo that — according to what the scouts had told Kasim — Sher Shah had insisted must also be delivered to Humayun.
Humayun read Sher Shah’s letter first.
Humayun took the bamboo tube and pulled from it a piece of yellow parchment. Unrolling it, he immediately recognised Kamran’s spiky writing. It was his letter to Sher Shah. ‘“My brother denied me my birthright,”’ he read aloud in a voice trembling with anger. ‘“If you, Sher Shah, will leave me the Punjab and the Moghul lands to the north including Kabul to rule as my own, I will deliver Humayun to you or — if you prefer — slay him with my own hand, I swear it.”’
Kasim picked up Kamran’s letter from the floor where Humayun had let it fall and reread it, face creasing in shock as he took in Kamran’s arrogant, murderous words. Humayun himself strode to the doors and flinging them open shouted, ‘Guards, bring my brother Kamran to me immediately. If he resists, overpower and bind him.’ He had suspected his brothers might intrigue against him but never that one of them would be so lost to what he owed to the dynasty to offer to betray him to an outsider. Humayun paced his chamber, watched by a silent and anxious Kasim, until at last one of the guards returned.
‘Majesty, we cannot find him.We went first to his apartments but he was not there. Then we searched the rest of the fort — we even sent into the women’s apartments to see whether he might be with his mother, Her Highness Gulrukh, but she was not there either. . ’
Humayun and Kasim exchanged glances. ‘Send me the officer in charge of guarding the main gate — quickly, man!’
A few minutes later a nervous-looking officer was ushered before Humayun.
‘Have you seen any of my brothers today?’
‘Yes, Majesty. This morning Prince Kamran and Prince Askari went out riding. They have not yet returned. . ’
‘And their mother Gulrukh and her women?’
‘They too left the palace in a litter. The
Humayun swore. Doubtless she was already with her sons and their troops and they were all hurrying to get beyond his reach. The temptation to ride in pursuit was almost overwhelming but that was exactly what Sher Shah would hope he would do. His enemy had played his hand well, on the one hand giving Humayun evidence of his brother’s duplicity and on the other giving Kamran reason to fly. But he would not fall into the trap so artfully set for him by neglecting Sher Shah’s threat and immediately pursuing Kamran and Askari to pit brother against brother in battle.
Revenge must wait.
Chapter 10
Humayun twisted in the saddle. It was thirty-six hours since he had abandoned Lahore to Sher Shah. Behind him streamed his remaining troops, only some fifteen thousand men — many had deserted. Beyond them straggled
