Brothers at War

Chapter 15

Shah Tahmasp

At daybreak, Humayun gathered his men around him in the snow, their breath rising in spirals in the bitterly cold air. None had been seriously injured. They had been pinioned and bound with leather thongs before they realised they were under attack. But their mood was as subdued as his own and he understood why — their warrior code had been violated. In his heart, every man wished he had had the chance to fight. The shame of being taken unawares was a greater hurt than a wound to the flesh. At least a scar was a badge of honour.Where was the glory in being caught asleep in a tent?

‘None of you is responsible for what happened last night. It was I who decided not to post guards.’

‘Should we ride in pursuit?’ asked Zahid Beg.

‘No.’

‘But why, Majesty? They’ve no more than an hour or two’s start on us. . ’

‘I gave my promise, Zahid Beg, and even if Kamran is not, I am a man of my word. Besides, he has taken my son. He threatened to kill Akbar before my very eyes and I believed him.’

‘But the lives of young Timurid princes are sacred. That has always been our way. . ’

‘But it is not my half-brother’s. Ambition possesses him and he won’t let anything stand in the way of his dreams of glory. If I give him the excuse, he will murder my son.’

Humayun grimaced. Hadn’t he just said exactly the same thing to Hamida, weeping in the arms of Gulbadan who, with the other women, he had found tied up and gagged? Though badly shaken, Gulbadan had managed to recover her composure but Hamida remained not just inconsolable but hysterical. ‘Rescue our son!’ she had screamed at him. ‘If you have a man’s blood in your veins, how can you think about doing anything else?’

But for the first time since their marriage he had ignored her. Something dark lurked in his half-brother’s soul. He had seen it as their eyes had met over Akbar’s innocent head. To achieve what he wanted Kamran would do anything. . That was why, Humayun had told Hamida as he held her tightly in his arms, they must not, dare not pursue Kamran. At least Maham Anga was with Akbar, he had said, stroking Hamida’s hair, and, for the moment, they must trust in her. It seemed that confidence was not misplaced. Between her sobs, Hamida had told him what Maham Anga had whispered in those final moments before leaving — that she was carrying a knife whose blade had been treated with poison.Anyone attempting to hurt Akbar would die for it.

Pulling himself back to the present Humayun continued his address. ‘My men, there is something else I must tell you. I also promised my half-brother to leave these lands and go to Persia. I do not think Shah Tahmasp who rules there will deny me sanctuary but the journey will be hard, across hundreds of miles of harsh and icy terrain. Before it is ended we may meet danger and deprivation beyond anything we have yet known. I do not order you to ride with me. . if you wish to return home, do so with honour. . but if you come with me, I pledge in the name of my father Babur and my ancestor Timur that once I have fulfilled my promise to go to Persia our stay there will be short. I will reclaim every inch of my usurped lands and those who ride with me — my ichkis — will share the glory of events that their descendants will speak of with pride a hundred years hence.’

Humayun paused. The expressions on his men’s faces told him that his words — and the steely determination behind them — had found their mark. Few would abandon him, not yet anyway. He must find ways to live up to their trust.

The diamond-bright tips of the mountains all around shone with a brilliant, almost magical beauty — towers of ice from a fable. Yet the sight did not move Humayun as, a month later, he rode at the head of his column as it edged slowly upwards through a narrow pass. On the advice of the Baluchi guides who had agreed to take them to the border with Persia, Humayun had ordered his men to make as little noise as possible.Yet as, shading his eyes, he looked up at the glistening snow and ice fields above, he knew — as they all did — that at any moment an avalanche might roll down and obliterate them.

Danger was all around. Only yesterday — and even though Humayun had sent men ahead to probe the trackless, icy ground with the shafts of their spears to make sure it was solid — he had nearly lost a man down a crevasse concealed by a fall of fresh snow. Though the mule he had been leading had tumbled into the icy void, by an extraordinary stroke of good fortune the man had managed to grip on to a rock ledge some ten feet below. Two of Ahmed Khan’s scouts had hauled him back up on a rope.

Nature was not the sole threat to their survival. Travellers only passed through this wild, desolate region from necessity. Brigands — ‘ghouls of the wastes’ the Baluchi guides called them, spitting on the ground — lurked in these high places. Some even said they did not baulk at eating human flesh. More than once Humayun had thought he detected movement among the snow-covered rocks above them but though he had looked hard he had seen nothing. All the same, the sense of watching eyes stayed with him and he knew that Ahmed Khan felt it too. It would be typically devious of Kamran — knowing which way Humayun was likely to go and that he had fewer than two hundred men — to have bribed bandits to attack him. Humayun’s death, if seen to be at the hands of others, would be more than convenient for Kamran. Whatever the weather, Humayun posted sentries every night.

But he knew that the greatest risk of all was their growing physical weakness, because with weakness came carelessness. Almost all their food — the grain, the dried fruit — was gone. The last three nights’ meals had consisted of the fibrous flesh of a horse boiled in a helmet over a small fire. Soon they’d be unable to cook anything — their wood and charcoal were almost exhausted.

As Humayun shivered with cold — his very bones aching with it — he recalled his father Babur’s stories of crossing the Hindu Kush, of men being dashed to pieces by sudden falls of ice, of drifts so deep that he and his men had taken it in turns to be ‘snow tramplers’, beating it down to force a way through. Babur had, by sheer determination, overcome the obstacles and so must he.

Later that afternoon, as they made camp on a saddle of land that seemed safe from avalanches, Humayun had another reason to remember Babur’s tales of survival in the cold. Ahmed Khan, muffled in thick sheepskin robes, a flat-brimmed woollen Baluchi cap pulled low and almost all his face concealed by his face cloth so that only his amber-brown eyes were visible, came stumbling over, leather boots slipping on the icy ground.

‘Majesty, it was so bitterly cold these past nights that two of my men got badly frozen feet on picket duty. The hakim is with them now. . ’

‘What does he say?’

‘That he must amputate — in one case three toes must come off, but in the other the whole foot. . ’

‘I will come.’

The hakim and the two soldiers were inside a small tent where a pitiful little fire burned in a brazier. Humayun saw that one of the men who were lying with their pantaloons slit and bare legs exposed was Darya. The young man was looking very pale as he watched the hakim pass the blade of his knife through the feeble flame to cleanse it. Another broader blade was stuck into the heart of the fire, no doubt being heated to red-hot to cauterise the wounds. Humayun squatted by Darya and examined his right leg. The foot was black, puffy and swollen to well above his ankle while an evil-smelling greenish pus oozed from beneath the few remaining toenails. ‘The hakim has told you what he must do?’ Darya nodded but Humayun could see terror in his eyes. ‘Courage. The hakim is skilled. God willing, this will save your life.’

The other soldier — a Badakhshani — looked even younger than Darya. Three of his toes were swollen and discoloured and he seemed unable to withdraw his gaze from the hakim’s blade, which would soon be cutting through his flesh and bone.

‘Ahmed Khan and I will help you, hakim,’ said Humayun. ‘Which one is first?’

The hakim gestured to the Badakhshani. While Ahmed Khan took the young man by the shoulders to hold him down, Humayun knelt by his leg which he grasped with both hands just above the knee. It took all his strength to hold the leg steady as the hakim went to work and the Badakhshani, trying hard not to cry out, arced in agony. But the hakim was quick. With