breastplates. The sunset was colouring the sky pink and purple as Uzad Beg approached, accompanied by his son and flanked by an escort of Humayun’s guards. As soon as they reached him, Uzad Beg and his son prostrated themselves full-length. He allowed them to remain face down on the cold, damp ground for just a little longer than he thought they might have anticipated. Then he spoke.
‘Rise, both of you.’
As Uzad Beg did so, Humayun saw that his vassal’s hair and beard were now white and his shoulders a little stooped, and that a pot belly strained the ties of his green silk under-tunic. Almost unconsciously Humayun pulled in his own already much flatter stomach and began.
‘I am glad to see you again after all these years. What brings you before me?’
‘I thank God he has preserved Your Majesty and that I have kept my own worthless life long enough to greet you on your journey to recover your rightful throne. I come to offer you, my overlord, my humble submission and that of my people.’ Uzad Beg paused and gestured to one of his attendants who had followed him at a distance. ‘If I may, Majesty, let this man approach.’
Humayun nodded his assent and the servant came forward to Uzad Beg with a large ivory casket on a gold cushion. Uzad Beg extracted from it a golden drinking cup set with rubies which he held out to Humayun.
‘I bring you this gift, Majesty, as a small token of my loyalty.’
‘I thank you. I am also pleased that you have come to recognise me as your overlord once more. You were not always so ready to answer my call.’
Uzad Beg flushed. ‘Majesty, circumstances alone prevented me for a while, and after that you had left Hindustan.’
‘You could have followed me into exile.’
‘I had my throne and family to protect,’ Uzad Beg stammered.
Humayun decided that enough was enough.‘Circumstances have conspired against us all over the last years. Bygones must be bygones. I am glad that you offer your submission once more and I accept it in the spirit in which it is rendered. How many men can you contribute to my forces?’
‘Eight hundred well-equipped cavalry can join you within days on your march south.’
‘I would like your son here to come as their commander,’ Humayun said, conscious that the presence of Murad Beg with his army would be an effective guarantee of his father’s good behaviour.
‘I was going to suggest it myself, Majesty.’
The early April sun had only been up for three hours when Humayun with Akbar and Bairam Khan at his side breasted the crest of the last of a series of high ridges in the Punjab and saw before him the massive sandstone fortress of Rohtas. It sat on the top of a low rocky outcrop on the plain below, overlooking the junction of roads leading south from the north and east. As he had pushed further into Hindustan, Humayun had still faced no significant opposition. Instead, Uzad Beg had been followed by many other defecting vassals of Islam Shah. So vehement had they been in their denunciation of their former overlord and in their vows of loyalty and support that Humayun had subsequently advised young Akbar never to take such protestations at face value. After all, several had previously shifted their loyalty to Sher Shah from Humayun and, as Akbar had observed to his father, these had been particularly unctuous in their present praise and professions of loyalty. Humayun’s army when it crossed the Indus had already nearly doubled in size to twenty thousand since leaving Kabul. Now it numbered nearly thirty-five thousand men with more recruits arriving every day.
‘Father, the fortress gates are closed. There are armed men on the walls and I see the smoke from cooking fires. Do we need to take the fortress or can we bypass it?’ asked Akbar.
‘It’s one of the keys to the control of northern Hindustan. We cannot leave it in the hands of an enemy who might sally forth at any time to attack our rear, so take it we must. However, the defenders are rumoured to be only few in number. They have no prospect of any relieving force and will not relish dying in a hopeless cause. I intend to see what an initial show of strength will do. Bairam Khan, have our cannon deployed in front of the fortress just out of musket range but where they can do some damage to the lower walls and the main gateway. Have our horsemen encircle the outcrop and have our musketeers and archers form up behind the cannon so that the defenders may see their number.’
Within two hours, teams of straining oxen had pulled the Moghul cannon into place and the encirclement of Rohtas had been completed by Humayun’s horsemen, their green pennants fluttering in the spring breeze. During this time, although there had been much movement on the walls, the defenders made no attempt to make a sortie to disrupt their besiegers. When he saw everything was in place Humayun commanded Bairam Khan, ‘Order the cannon to fire at the gates. Once there is enough smoke billowing around, have some of our musketeers advance under its cover to within range and attempt to pick off any who show themselves above those crenellated battlements. In the meantime have our scribes write messages offering the defenders safe passage if they leave within an hour. After we’ve shown them a little of what we’re capable of, we’ll have our best archers fire the surrender offers into the city.’
Almost immediately a loud boom echoed across the plains as the gunners pressed their lighted tapers to the firing holes of the bronze cannon. Some of the first shots were too low, crashing into the lower slopes of the outcrop and sending showers of earth and shards of rock into the air rather than damaging the walls and gates. Sweating and stripped to the waist as the day began to warm, the gunners rushed to change the cannons’ elevation by packing stones beneath the wheels or manhandling smaller weapons up mounds of earth. As they did so, a few musket shots rang from the towering battlements but the range was, as Humayun had planned, too great for them.
However, some of the arrows the defenders fired from bows pointed high into the air to increase their range did reach the cannon. As they dropped from the cloudless sky, most thudded harmlessly into the ground but several oxen were hit, blood staining their dun-coloured coats, and Humayun saw one of his gunners being helped away, two black-shafted arrows stuck into his back where he had been hit while straining to push a cannon into place. Soon, the cannon were firing again and regularly hitting the stone walls flanking the gate. A pall of white smoke hung over the cannon like the early morning mist that formed in the valleys near Kabul.
Humayun continued to watch as a band of his musketeers ran forward into the smoke, their weapons and firing tripods at the ready. They were followed by some of his archers with their double bows in their hands and full quivers on their backs. A minute or two later, a body fell, arms flailing, from the battlements to crash on to the rocks below. It was followed by another clawing at the air, this time with an arrow clearly visible protruding from its neck. No more puffs of smoke came from the muskets of the defenders on the walls and the number of arrows dwindled while the gates of Rohtas remained firmly shut.
‘The defenders clearly have little stomach for the fight, as we suspected. Have those archers with the message offering surrender terms attached to their arrows advance and fire them into the city,’ Humayun commanded. Within a few minutes he saw the arrows fly into the air, most of them overtopping the walls and landing within the fort.
Scarcely two hours later, with Akbar at his side, Humayun rode through the tall, iron-studded gates of Rohtas and into the silent, deserted courtyard of the fortress, which was strewn with abandoned weapons and items of heavy equipment. Having seen the strength of Humayun’s army, the defenders had immediately appreciated the generosity of the surrender offer. Within a few minutes the great thick wooden gates had creaked open and the garrison had begun to stream through them, some on foot and some on horseback, carrying what valuables they could and all heading south, leaving Humayun master of this gateway to Hindustan.
Humayun ordered some of the officers of his bodyguard to check that all the garrison had indeed departed and that none lurked in ambush. Receiving their swift confirmation, Humayun walked towards the open doors of the fortress’s great hall. As he did so, he glanced to his right where he saw that charcoal fires were still glowing beneath some clay tandoor ovens. Looking inside one, he found several loaves of warm, unleavened bread. He took one, bit a small portion from it and then handed it to Akbar.
‘Enjoy it. It tastes of victory.’
Chapter 25
