his own nervous, skittering horse by the reins, Humayun stumbled across to the bullock carts containing Hamida, Gulbadan, Khanzada and their retainers.
‘Dig places in the sand for the women to shelter in — they must help you — and for yourselves,’ Humayun shouted to the bodyguards who’d been escorting them. ‘Quickly! Make your horses lie down by you but unyoke the bullocks — they must fend for themselves.’
Even before he had finished speaking, Humayun saw that despite her many years Khanzada was out of her bullock cart and bending to tear at the ground with her hands. Gulbadan was close beside her. ‘Aunt, when the storm breaks over us, you and Gulbadan must lie down together, backs towards it, and hold on to each other, do you understand?’
Without stopping her digging, Khanzada nodded but his half-sister looked ashen and he saw she was shaking. ‘Dig!’ Khanzada shouted at her.
With figures frantically burrowing all around, Humayun hobbled his horse then lifted Hamida from the bullock cart and carried her a few yards away to where the sand looked softer and easier to dig.
‘Let me help. . ’ Despite her bulk, Hamida knelt beside him and began clawing at the ground.They worked frantically, hollowing out a place as best they could with bare hands. Hamida’s nails were soon bleeding. Glancing over his shoulder Humayun saw the storm was much closer now, the sand and dirt within it darkening the sky. A roaring filled the air and though he could see Hamida was saying something he couldn’t hear her. Frantically he redoubled his efforts and, as the wind and sand overwhelmed them, grabbed Hamida and pulled her down into the space they’d dug. Her face was against his chest as he held her tightly to him, arms wrapped around her, trying to shield her with his body.
Hamida was almost torn from his arms but he clung tightly on to her, his face feeling as if it was being skinned and his hair as if it was being ripped from his scalp. Sand clogged his nostrils and mouth and as he struggled for breath his burning lungs felt ready to burst. He was choking and as he fought for life felt his grip on Hamida slacken.
With an enormous effort he willed himself to keep hold of her. What mattered above all was that she and their child should survive. He understood now how his father must have felt when, believing Humayun was dying, he had run into the mosque of the Agra fort to offer God his life for his son’s. Let her live, he prayed, and let our child live. Take my life for theirs if that is your will. .
As he continued to pray he realised that the dust and tumult were receding. He felt his tortured lungs expand as, at last, he managed to take in air. Every gasp hurt — lips, mouth, throat, windpipe felt raw and his nostrils were still full of sand. As for his eyes, sand had got under the lids and he felt as if red-hot needles had pricked his eyeballs. He tried to force them open and through streaming tears to look down at Hamida but everything seemed blurred and he closed them again.
He could feel her lying very still in his arms. Gently releasing her, he pulled himself up into a half-sitting position. ‘My love. . ’ he tried to say but no words came. ‘Hamida,’ he managed at last and reaching forward tried to pull her up too. Finding her shoulders, he ran his hands up her neck to take her face between his palms. She felt so limp. It was like holding a dead bird in his hands. .
Stifled groans were rising from all around but Humayun had no thought for anyone but Hamida. Gently he pulled her face against his chest once more and began to stroke the hair that was once so silken and soft but was now gritty and tangled. He began rocking gently back and forward, as if he were holding a child. The motion comforted him, delaying the moment when he must face the pain of losing the person he loved above all others.
But after what seemed an age but could only have been a few moments, he felt Hamida move. Then she started to cough, spitting out a dirty orange-coloured mixture of saliva and sand. Joy that she was alive surged through Humayun. Helping her to sit up, he heard her taking in great, greedy gulps of air, just as he had done.
‘It’s all right,’ he said gruffly, ‘everything’s all right. . ’
After a moment he felt Hamida take his hand and place it on her domed belly. As he felt the child within kicking strongly, fresh tears ran down his sand-covered face but this time they were of joy not pain.
Slowly, people and animals were hauling themselves to their feet, though some lay ominously still. Standing up, Humayun saw the feebly twitching body of a horse lying nearby beneath a thick layer of sand. Staggering over, he knelt beside it and brushing the sand from its face recognised his stallion. In the last terrifying moments before the whirlwind ripped over them he’d forgotten the animal completely. It must have tried to gallop off but hobbled had crashed to the ground. Running his hands over its fetlocks, Humayun felt the fracture in the bone. Whispering softly into its ear and stroking its neck with one hand, with the other he drew his dagger and swiftly severed the jugular, warm blood spurting over him and staining the sandy ground.
Looking round he saw that Zainab had brought Hamida some water to drink. But another female figure was stumbling towards him — Gulbadan, hair wild, clothes crusted with sand and glistening tracks on her filthy face from the tears she was crying. He tried to take her in his arms to comfort her but she pulled away from him.
‘It’s Khanzada. . ’ Gulbadan led him over to where a body was lying and Humayun looked down on his aunt’s sand-streaked face. Her eyes were closed and from the angle of her head, he — who had seen so many dead bodies on the battlefield — knew she was dead. Mechanically, he put a hand against her neck but there was no pulse. She must have suffocated — her nostrils and mouth looked choked with sand and her hands were clenched as if she’d engaged in a mighty struggle with death, fighting until the last.
‘She behaved like the mother she had become to me since the death of my own. She shielded me with her body. She knew how afraid I was. . ’ Gulbadan whispered.
Humayun was silent, unable to conjure any words even to comfort Gulbadan. Khanzada — the woman who had shared Babur’s tragedies and triumphs and guided his own first steps as emperor, forcing him to fight opium and face his destiny — was gone. That she should die like this, snuffed out in a sandstorm, after all that she had seen and endured in her lifetime seemed cruel and terrible. Never would he forget her courage or her selfless love for him and unflinching devotion to their dynasty. A deep sadness crept over him, extinguishing the joy of a few moments ago. Khanzada’s final resting place should have been a flower-filled garden on the banks of the Jumna in Agra, or on the hillside above Kabul next to her brother Babur. But that couldn’t be. He bent and lifted his aunt’s body and cradling her tenderly in his arms spoke. ‘Though this is a wild and desolate place, we must bury her here. I myself will dig her grave.’
At last, ten long hot days later, the walls of Umarkot appeared on the horizon before Humayun’s exhausted column. He saw Kasim and Zahid Beg exchange glances of relief. Ten of Humayun’s men had been killed in the storm — two struck by pieces of flying timber from bullock carts that had been smashed by one of the whirlwinds. Many, like Jauhar, had been badly grazed and cut, some had broken bones and one of his best musketeers had lost the sight of an eye to a piece of sharp stone.
So many horses had been killed or scattered that most of the men were on foot, Humayun amongst them. Much of their equipment including many muskets had also been destroyed or buried. Even if it hadn’t, without carts and with only a few pack animals left — ten mules and six camels — they would have had to abandon most of it anyway. As it was, they’d loaded what they could on to the few beasts they had. Humayun’s one remaining treasure chest had survived intact but had now been emptied and the contents transferred into saddlebags. The Koh-i-Nur was still safely in its pouch around his neck.
Humayun was trudging by the side of a moth-eaten camel that spat balls of malodorous phlegm into the sand and groaned as it made its splay-footed way. Hardly a suitable conveyance for his empress, Humayun thought, glancing up at Hamida who was riding in a pannier suspended against one of the camel’s bony sides, balanced by Gulbadan in another pannier on the other side. Hamida’s eyes were closed and she seemed to be dozing. With luck they should reach Umarkot by nightfall, Humayun thought, then he could find Hamida somewhere better to rest.
But Umarkot must have been farther away than he’d reckoned. Distance could be deceptive in the desert. When the western skies turned blood-red as the disc of the sun slipped below the horizon, the low outline of the oasis still looked to be several miles off. With night falling, it might be unwise to go on. Humayun shouted the command for the column to halt and was looking around for Anil to ask his advice when suddenly he heard Hamida give a sharp cry, then another.
‘What is it?’
‘The baby. . I think it’s coming.’
