Ruler of the World

thrown out around his camp, the sun was still high in the clear blue sky. Despite the tasselled brocade canopy shading him, Akbar’s head ached. Sweat was sticking his tunic to his body, yet he barely noticed the discomfort as he pondered the disastrous news of the loss of his capital. Surely his rule was not destined to be over almost before it had begun.

It was barely ten months since, on a makeshift brick throne hastily erected on a masonry platform in the centre of a Moghul encampment, he had been proclaimed Emperor of Hindustan. Still raw with grief at the sudden death of his father, the Emperor Humayun, he had stood awkwardly but proudly beneath a silken awning to receive the homage of Bairam Khan and his other commanders.

His mother Hamida had only recently succeeded in convincing him just how desperate that time had been. How Bairam Khan, despite his Persian origins, had understood better than anyone that in the first hours and days after his father’s death the danger to Akbar came from within — from ambitious commanders who, now the emperor was dead leaving only a boy as heir, might claim the throne for themselves. Most were men with no time for sentiment. Many were from the old Moghul clans who with Akbar’s grandfather Babur had founded a new empire on the dry plains of Hindustan. The code of the steppes, had always been taktya, takhta, ‘throne or coffin’. Any who felt strong enough could challenge for the crown and over the years many had done so and would do so again.

Akbar’s elephant stumbled, jerking him from his recollections, but only for a moment. Staring down at the wrinkled grey neck of the beast with its sproutings of sparse coarse hair, his mind soon returned to its dark reflections. If the news was true and Delhi had indeed fallen, everything his mother and Bairam Khan had done for him might have been for nothing. To win precious time, they had concealed Humayun’s death for nearly two weeks, finding a loyal servant of similar build to impersonate the dead emperor. Each day at dawn, he had donned the imperial robes of green silk and Humayun’s jewelled turban with its plume of white egrets’ feathers and appeared as custom demanded on the riverside balcony of the imperial palace in Delhi, the Purana Qila, to show the crowds jostling each other on the banks of the Jumna that the Moghul emperor lived.

Meanwhile, Hamida and her sister-in-law Gulbadan, Akbar’s aunt, had persuaded the reluctant Akbar that he must secretly leave Delhi. He could still see his mother’s strained anxious face as, holding a flickering oil lamp in one hand, she had shaken him awake with the other, whispering, ‘Come now — bring nothing with you — just come!’ Stumbling from his bed, he had allowed her to throw a dark hooded cloak over him, like the one she was wearing. Barely awake but head reeling with questions he had followed her down narrow passageways and twisting flights of stairs through a part of the palace he had never seen to emerge into a small, grubby courtyard. He could still recall the acrid smell of urine — human or animal, he couldn’t tell.

A large palanquin was waiting, and in the shadows stood Gulbadan and about twenty soldiers he recognised as Bairam Khan’s men. ‘Get in,’ Hamida had whispered.

‘Why, where are we going?’ he had asked.

‘Your life is in danger if you stay here. Don’t question me. Just do it.’

‘I don’t want to run away. I’m no coward. I’ve already seen blood and battles. .’ he had protested.

Gulbadan had stepped forward and touching his arm had added, ‘When you were a baby and in danger I risked my life for yours. Trust me now and do as your mother says. .’

Still arguing, he had clambered in, followed by Hamida and Gulbadan who had quickly pulled the concealing curtains around them. He could still recall the coarse feel of those hangings — so different from the silks of the gilded palanquins usually used by the royal family — and the lurching motion as the soldiers had lifted the supporting poles to their shoulders and carried them out into the night. Gulbadan and Hamida had sat tense and silent and some of their fear had at last communicated itself to him even though he didn’t yet understand what was going on. Only when they were clear of the palace and the city had his mother told him of a plot to assassinate him before he could become emperor.

On the outskirts of Delhi, more soldiers loyal to Bairam Khan had met them and escorted them to a camp fifty miles from the city. A week later, Bairam Khan himself had joined them with the main body of his army and Akbar had been proclaimed emperor on his brick throne. Bairam Khan had then escorted Akbar in great ceremony back to Delhi where in the Friday mosque the khutba, the sermon, had been read in his name, confirming to all the world that he was the new emperor. Outmanoeuvred before any of them had time to plan further mischief, all the Moghul leaders had pledged their allegiance to him.

That had dealt with the enemy within but not the many beyond the Moghul frontiers, as this news about Delhi proved. The Moghuls’ position in Hindustan was indeed precarious. Vassals who had only recently sworn loyalty to his father Humayun were trying to break free while enemies beyond the empire were probing its borders. But of all these only one — Hemu — had emerged as a serious menace. He was an unlikely enemy, this reputedly ugly but silver-tongued little man — a lowborn nobody who seemed to have conjured an army out of nowhere to challenge Moghul authority. He hadn’t paid too much attention to him but now he wondered what kind of man this Hemu was and how he inspired his men. What lay behind his success?

Akbar was entering the heart of the tented city that was the main camp. Perched high in his howdah he saw ahead, at the very centre, his own tent — bright scarlet as befitted the command tent of an emperor — and beside it, almost as magnificent with its intricate awnings, Bairam Khan’s. His commander-in-chief was standing outside waiting for him, and from his posture Akbar could tell how impatient he was for him to arrive.

He had barely descended from his howdah before Bairam Khan spoke. ‘Majesty, you’ve heard the news — Hemu’s forces have taken Delhi. The war council is assembled in your tent and already debating what we must do. We must join them immediately.’ Following Bairam Khan inside, Akbar saw his other commanders and counsellors sitting cross-legged on the thick red and blue carpet around a low, gilded stool draped in green velvet — the emperor’s chair. As Akbar took his place they rose and made brief obeisance to him, but he noticed how, as they sat down again, their eyes quickly turned to the tall, lean man standing by his side.

‘Summon Tardi Beg so that he can tell the story he has already told me,’ Bairam Khan ordered. Moments later, the Moghul Governor of Delhi was ushered in. Akbar had known and liked Tardi Beg all his life. He was a warrior of swaggering confidence from the mountains north of Kabul, with a booming voice to match the muscular bulk of his body. Usually his eyes held a humorous twinkle but now the lined, sun-burnished face above the thick black beard looked sombre.

‘Well, Tardi Beg, account for yourself before His Majesty and the council.’ Bairam Khan’s tone was cold. ‘Tell us how you abandoned the imperial capital to a seller of saltpetre and his rabble.’

‘It was no rabble, but a powerful, well-armed force. Hemu’s origins may be humble but he is an accomplished general who has won many battles for whoever would hire him. Now he is no longer a mercenary, but fighting for himself. He has raised the supporters of the old Lodi dynasty displaced by your grandfather against us, Majesty, and it seems that even the proudest and most noble will do whatever he bids them. Our spies reported a great advance party swarming towards Delhi over the plains from the west and that Hemu’s main army — an even bigger force, with three hundred war elephants — was not many days behind. There was nothing we could do but withdraw from the city or face certain destruction.’

Bairam Khan’s face tautened with anger. ‘By fleeing Delhi you have sent a signal to every rebel and petty chieftain to turn against us. I left you with a garrison of twenty thousand men. .’

‘It wasn’t enough.’

‘Then you should have sent word to me and held the city until I could send reinforcements.’

Tardi Beg’s eyes flashed and the fingers of his right hand sought the hilt of the ruby-studded dagger tucked into his sash. ‘Bairam Khan, we have known each other many years and fought and bled side by side. Are you questioning my loyalty?’

‘Your conduct is something for which you will answer on a future occasion, Tardi Beg. The question now is how to regain what you have lost. We should. .’ Bairam Khan broke off as a man with a straggling brown beard entered the tent. ‘Ahmed Khan, I’m glad you have returned safely. What can you tell us?’

Akbar was always pleased to see Ahmed Khan, one of the most trusted of his father Humayun’s ichkis, his inner circle. Humayun had appointed him Governor of Agra, but when the trouble with Hemu began Bairam Khan had recalled him and asked him to resume his former role of chief scout and intelligence gatherer. The liberal speckling of dust on his clothes suggested he had only just arrived in the camp.

‘Hemu is advancing on Delhi from the northwest at the head of his main army of two hundred thousand men.