the ridged wooden gangplank of one of Akbar’s river boats the trophies of his most recent hunting expedition. The lifeless bodies of eight tigers — one measuring at least seven foot from head to tail — were each suspended from strong bamboo poles supported on the shoulders of groups of four men. Behind them others carried the carcasses of deer, their bellies already slit and their entrails removed, ready to be skinned, spitted and cooked for the evening meal. At the end of the line, the last servants had clutches of brightly feathered ducks hanging limply from their shoulders.
Akbar himself had already washed and changed his rain-soaked and mud-spattered clothes for clean dry ones. Sipping the juice of red-fleshed watermelons, he watched as the final preparations were made for departure. They had become routine to the sailors as Akbar had insisted on hunting expeditions on most afternoons since their departure from Agra, arguing that they were a good opportunity for his horsemen to exercise their mounts and his musketeers to demonstrate their skill, as well as providing sport for himself. He had only varied the routine when, at least once a week, he ordered Muhammad Beg, Ravi Singh and others of his generals to drill his infantry on any dry ground that they could find, and when, ten days ago, he had gone ashore at Allahabad, the holy city at the confluence of the Jumna and Ganges, where he had arranged with the governor to make a ceremonial procession through the streets before his Kashgar magicians organised a show of fireworks from the city walls in the evening.
He turned to Ahmed Khan, at his side. ‘How many more weeks do you think it will take us to reach Patna?’
‘Perhaps a month, but much will depend on the monsoon. We’ve been lucky so far. The only serious accident was that time when two pontoons collided and we lost three cannon to the bottom of the Jumna. However, as the Ganges begins to widen out we’ll encounter more shallows and mud banks and the chances of running aground will increase. Shah Daud may even attempt ambushes to delay us. We know that he tried to bribe some river pirates to attack us.’
‘But they wisely refused, didn’t they?’
‘Yes, Majesty. Some even brought the news to us. We’ll also have to beware of the river forts defending the approaches to Patna. Our scouts tell me they are well manned and well provisioned.’
‘During the passage downriver I have given a lot of thought to how to unsettle young Shah Daud and undermine his men’s confidence in him. Now would seem a good time to make the attempt.’
‘What do you mean, Majesty? How?’ Ahmed Khan looked genuinely surprised.
‘Why don’t I write to him enumerating the strength of our army and offering him the opportunity to send ambassadors to witness the truth of my claims? I will go on to offer to forgo my advantage in men and equipment and to settle matters in single combat with him if he will agree.’
‘But what if he says yes?’
‘I’m sure he won’t, but if he does all the better. I am the equal of any man in battle, never mind a callow youth as he is reputed to be. We will save many lives and much time and trouble that way.’
‘How do you expect him to react, then?’
‘To dismiss our offer with what he means to be a confident smile but — unless he’s a braver man than I think or a better actor — will seem a nervous one to those around him. When his troops come to hear of my proposal — as we’ll make sure they do — they should be impressed by our confidence. His refusal of single combat will make them think their leader something of a coward and thus undermine their morale.’
‘It may work, Majesty,’ said Ahmed Khan, still looking doubtful.
‘It should. My own campaigns have taught me that my grandfather Babur was right when he wrote that as many battles are won in the mind before troops even come in sight of each other as are won on the field of battle itself. In any case, to make the offer costs us nothing.’
At that moment, a crack of thunder erupted overhead from the leaden clouds that had continued to fill the sky as they spoke and the warm monsoon rain began to pour down once more, millions of fat drops splashing into the Ganges and on to Akbar’s fleet as it completed its preparations to cast off.
Akbar stood with Ahmed Khan on the muddy banks of the Ganges looking towards one of the forts protecting the approaches to Patna. Its strong fifty-foot-high walls, stone at the bottom and brick further up, towered over them and Akbar could see the long barrels of bronze cannon on the battlements. The weapons would have a clear field of fire over the river and across the paddy fields, bright green with rice shoots, which covered most of the banks of the Ganges at this time of year. His troops would need to cross them as fast as possible as they moved to assault the fortress’s walls.
Shah Daud had — as Akbar expected — made no response to his offer of single combat. Akbar’s flotilla, moving as quickly as the monsoon would allow, had reached this point on the Ganges two days ago. The previous night, after a brief war council, he had ordered part of his fleet under the command of Ravi Singh to sail under cover of darkness past the fort, and braving its guns, to land a powerful force downstream ready to attack the fort from that direction. Akbar knew how lucky he had been that the monsoon clouds had covered the moon and the rain had been incessant, so that his ships had come undetected almost abreast of the fort. However, an alert sentry had then given the alarm and the fort’s cannon had begun to fire.
A pontoon carrying five war elephants had been hit and begun to sink. Amid the cannon smoke and with the river running at full spate downstream, a large boat bearing some of Akbar’s best archers, recruited from his father’s homelands around Kabul, had collided with the semi-submerged elephant pontoon and been holed in the prow below the waterline. As the vessel began to take in water and the intricately carved peacock at its bow dipped below the surface, the musketeers and artillerymen on the walls of the fort had started to find their range.
More cannon balls had hit the sinking pontoon, killing two of the elephants. Another, wounded in the belly, had fallen into the river where it floated on its back, thrashing its shackled legs and trumpeting in pain, blood from the gaping wound in its stomach mingling with the muddy river water. At the same time, the vessel carrying Akbar’s archers had been holed again and was now itself half submerged.
Several archers had fallen dead or wounded from the stricken barge into the water. Others, stripping off their breastplates and throwing aside their weapons, had jumped into the river in an attempt to swim ashore or to other boats. Suddenly sinuous shapes had appeared in the dark waters — bright-eyed crocodiles attracted by the smell of blood. High-pitched screams had mingled with the sounds of battle as men had begun to disappear beneath the water despite the attempts by musketeers on other ships to shoot the crocodiles, whose sharp teeth had quickly reduced the wounded elephant to a hunk of bloody, mangled red meat.
At first light, Akbar’s men had found dozens of partly dismembered bodies of archers, a half-eaten limb here, a bloody torso there, which had floated into the shallows downstream. They had even had to drive off packs of scrawny pariah dogs intent on finishing the feasting the crocodiles had begun. Yet despite the losses the good news had reached Akbar that the rest of Ravi Singh’s ships had succeeded in avoiding the collision and passing downstream of the fort with relatively few casualties, and had soon begun transporting men and equipment ashore. The strategy agreed at the war council to encircle the fort and then to attack it from all sides was working.
‘Ahmed Khan, how much longer before the forces we landed upstream will have joined up with those advancing from downstream?’
‘Perhaps another hour. There’ve been no sorties from the fort to try to disrupt them.’
‘Good. Are the pontoons carrying cannon ready to float down past the fort firing as they go when I order the attack?’
‘Yes. The artillerymen are aboard. The first round of shot is already loaded and the powder is being protected as best we can from the rains by oiled awnings. The troops that are to assault the river gate into the fort are in their rowing boats.’
An hour later Akbar gave the word and the sailors aboard the ten pontoons bearing the cannon cut the anchor ropes that had been holding them in midstream. Guided by the sailors’ long oars, the large wooden vessels moved quickly downstream. As soon as he was in range of the fort, the officer on the leading pontoon — a tall, bushy-bearded man dressed entirely in red — signalled to the teams manning the two cannon under his command to open fire.
Carefully shielding the lit taper with their cupped hands against rain blowing under the awning, two of the artillerymen put the flame to the touchholes. Both cannon fired despite the damp, their recoil sending the pontoon swaying up and down in the fast-moving current and causing one gunner to fall into the water, only for a comrade to pull him out before any lurking crocodile could grab him. As the men tried desperately to reload on the bobbing
