Ruler of the World

will overlook it, but do not let it happen again or you will not find me so lenient. As for this bow and these arrows which have caused so much trouble, let me see them.’

Murad brought them over and Akbar inspected them carefully. ‘I recognise them now. These were my gift to you, Salim, weren’t they? As I told you, they were crafted by a Turkish master from the very finest materials.’

‘He’d just left them in the courtyard. . he never used them. . if it had rained they’d have been ruined.’ Murad’s tone was all self-righteousness.

Salim looked stonily ahead. How could he defend himself when Murad’s accusation was true? He had been careless with Akbar’s gift.

Akbar was looking at him, perplexed. ‘I’m sorry you don’t like them. I will keep them for my own use.’

Salim knew his father was waiting for him to say something, to offer some explanation. He wanted so badly to speak but somehow the words wouldn’t come. All he could manage was a faint shrug of his shoulders which he was sure looked like defiance rather than regret.

A week later, Akbar still couldn’t shake off the sense of disquiet that had descended on him since the fight between Salim and Murad. The words spoken by the loser at the end of a game of chess — shah mat, ‘the king is at a loss’ — kept returning to his mind. That was how he had felt as he confronted Salim and he wasn’t used to it. On the battlefield he always knew what to do. And governing his empire he felt the same certainty. His borders were secure, the rule of law prevailed and he was winning the loyalty of his subjects, high and low. So why didn’t he have the same sure touch in his private life?

‘Do not take the love of your sons for you or for each other for granted. .’ had been Shaikh Salim Chishti’s parting words to him all those years ago. In the euphoria of fathering three healthy sons he had pushed the Sufi’s warning from his mind. On the rare occasions he recalled it, he had comfortably dismissed it as prudent advice to any father but irrelevant to him. Now, though, the recollection of those words was making him increasingly uneasy. Were he and Salim, his eldest son, growing apart? If the bonds between them were indeed weakening, to what might it lead as Salim grew older, and what could he do to prevent it?

Several times he had felt tempted to confide his concerns to his mother and his aunt, but ever since their disagreement with him about the management of his haram he had felt as inhibited in discussing personal or family matters with them as Salim seemed to be in speaking to him. Instead his thoughts turned to Abul Fazl. Instinct told him that his chronicler would understand, and might even have some advice to offer. .

Finally, one evening he summoned Abul Fazl to join him where he sat alone in a secluded courtyard lit by candles.

‘I have brought my ledger and my pen and ink, Majesty. Did you wish to dictate?’

‘No. . I just want to talk. You have sons, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Majesty, two boys of ten and twelve.’ Abul Fazl looked surprised.

‘When you praise them or give them presents, how do they react?’

Abul Fazl shrugged. ‘As any boy would, Majesty. They are delighted and excited.’

‘Like my youngest sons Murad and Daniyal. .’

‘And Prince Salim, Majesty? Surely he is the same?’ Abul Fazl probed gently.

‘No, he isn’t. At least not with me. . It hurts me to say this — indeed I find it hard to admit it to myself — but it’s as if an invisible wall is growing up between us. Before I went to Bengal Salim was as open as either of my other sons and even more high-spirited. Now he seems quiet. . withdrawn. . and he avoids my company.’

‘What does his tutor say?’

‘That he excels in everything. He can read Persian and Turki fluently. He fights well with a sword, can fire a musket and rides his pony hard playing polo. I know this is true because I have observed it myself. But while my other sons can’t wait to brag to me about their doings, Salim rarely seeks me out. I even took him tiger hunting on his own two weeks ago. When we flushed a great beast from its hiding place, I let him fire the musket. He yelled with excitement as the musket ball lodged in the animal’s throat but later as we rode home he said almost nothing.’

‘He is young, Majesty, barely eleven. If you are patient all will come right.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘All fathers worry about their children.’

‘But all fathers are not emperors. Though I am young and strong and confident that God will grant me many more years, I must consider which of my sons I wish to succeed me. They are just boys, it is true, but I cannot forget that my grandfather was a king at only twelve years old. In the early years of his reign it was his own courage and resolution — fed by the knowledge that he had been brought up to rule — that helped him evade the assassin’s blade and outwit rivals scheming for his throne. Whichever of my sons is to be the next Moghul emperor must feel that same sense of destiny, of duty to the dynasty. It cannot begin too early. In my heart I wish my heir to be my first-born. But if Salim is turning against me or lacks the hunger and the will to lead, what then?’

Abul Fazl was for once silent, and the two men sat wrapped in their own thoughts as one by one the candles began to gutter. Akbar signalled to his attendants not to renew them. Tonight he preferred the darkness to the light.

His tutors would be anxious for his safety if they discovered what he had done but Salim didn’t care. Since that strange evening with his mother he had felt even more restless and unsettled than before. For as long as he could remember, he had known that Hirabai did not love his father. As he had grown up, he had begun to understand that their marriage had been only a political alliance. But never before had he realised the depth of his mother’s scorn — hatred even — for Akbar and the Moghuls. Bats swooped around Salim as he ran but he knew every inch of this path, even in the purpling dusk.

He had slipped out of the palace complex through the Agra gate, mingling with the merchants and tradesmen returning homeward as the sun had begun to slide beneath the horizon. Instead of following the crowds down to the plain where light from hundreds of dung fires was already pricking the darkness, Salim branched off down a narrow track skirting the edge of the escarpment. Another ten minutes of hard running and he thought he could see the outline of a low house. Salim stopped, his blood pounding in his ears and his breathing so loud that he was sure the old woman and the girl he could see squatting by a small fire outside the house must be able to hear him. But they went on with their work — the girl shaping dough on a flat stone and then handing the thin circles to her companion who was cooking them on a metal rack over the fire, flipping them with a piece of wood.

Salim heard the old woman exclaim in dismay as one piece fell into the fire. As he came nearer he smelled the charred bread. Somehow the very ordinariness of the scene gave him courage. He had made his decision to come here tonight without any forethought — sparked by the sight of his father walking across the sunlit haram courtyard with Murad and Daniyal laughing and talking beside him. Suddenly his sense of being an outsider had been so strong that something had seemed to explode within him, questioning the point of his existence. It was followed almost instinctively by the inspiration that the one person who might be able to answer his questions was the Sufi mystic who had predicted his birth and in whose honour Fatehpur Sikri had been built. Salim had never seen the Sufi for himself. All he knew was that he was very old and completely blind and that he had refused Akbar’s offer to house him within the palace complex, preferring to remain in his simple house beyond the walls.

Salim’s hesitant steps had brought him to the edge of the rim of light thrown out by the fire. The girl saw him first and stood up. Then the old woman followed the girl’s gaze and looked up at him. ‘What do you want?’

‘To see Shaikh Salim Chishti.’

‘My brother is very frail — too frail to be troubled by visitors who come without warning at night.’

‘I’m sorry — I didn’t think. .’ Salim stepped nearer. The gems round his neck and on his fingers flashed in the firelight, which also picked out the golden clasps on his green silk tunic. The old woman was studying him carefully from his leather boots — scuffed by running but richly embroidered — to the pearls hanging from his ear lobes. At last she rose.

‘Halima, finish cooking the bread.’ Then she gestured to Salim to follow her inside.

The lintel of the house was so low that, young as he was, Salim had to duck beneath it. In the faint light of two oil lamps he saw a figure sitting against the far wall. It looked bulky but as his eyes adjusted Salim saw that the Sufi was half cocooned in a woollen blanket. Far from being large, he looked as delicate as the Chinese