For once Abul Fazl wasn’t exaggerating, Salim had to admit. Unlike Akbar, he hadn’t visited the fort while the work had been under way but he had seen the plans drawn up by his father’s architects and knew that Akbar had remodelled the Agra fort almost completely, strengthening its external defences, beautifying its interior and massively extending it to make it more imposing and imperial. The old building constructed by the Lodi dynasty and seized from them by Babur had been of brick as much as of sandstone. Akbar had used only sandstone, employing Hindu craftsmen to carve it just as he had at Fatehpur Sikri. New courtyards and gardens were enclosed by elegant colonnades. Over one hundred sandstone columns supported the roof of the new
‘Well, Salim, what do you think?’ Akbar was almost visibly swelling with pride as he looked about him.
‘It’s magnificent,’ said Salim, doing no more than speak his thoughts. All around him the courtiers Akbar had brought with him from Lahore on this tour of inspection were also murmuring their admiration.
‘So it should be, given the cost, but our coffers are deep. I could build a hundred such forts.’ Akbar ran a hand over a carved frieze of narcissi and irises so delicate and detailed they appeared to be bending in the wind. ‘What about you, Khurram? Do you think the builders have done well?’
Khurram’s young eyes didn’t look that impressed. ‘They’ve just done what you told them to do, Grandfather.’
Akbar threw back his head and laughed. ‘You are hard to please; that’s not a bad thing in a prince. But I think I can impress even you.’ Akbar stripped off his silk tunic and the fine muslin shirt beneath it. Despite his age, he was still magnificently muscled, his torso lean and hard as that of a man half his age. ‘You two, come over here,’ he shouted to two of the youngest of his bodyguards. They exchanged a startled look then hurried forward. ‘Put down your weapons and strip off like me.’
The men hurriedly did as they were told. What was his father doing? wondered Salim. All around, people were staring at the emperor in astonishment, but Akbar was grinning. ‘Now come over here so I can look at you properly.’ As the two young men stood before him, Akbar ran his hands over their arms and shoulders, feeling their muscles. ‘Not bad, but I wish I had chosen bigger stronger men.’ Then, without warning, he punched the bigger of the two guards in the stomach. The youth gasped and doubled over, clutching himself and breathing in great, wheezy gasps. ‘You need to toughen up. Where are you from?’
‘Delhi, Majesty,’ he managed to gulp out.
‘If you were of the old Moghul clans you could have taken a blow twice as hard without flinching. Let me show you what I am made of.’ Akbar lunged forward, grabbed the youth round the waist and shoving him under his left arm lifted him from the ground. Then, satisfied, he let the guard’s feet touch the ground again. ‘You, come to my other side,’ he ordered the second youth, who a moment later was gripped tight by Akbar’s right arm. Bracing his legs apart, Akbar took a deep breath and lifted both young men off the ground at once.
Khurram let out a delighted shriek, but Akbar hadn’t finished. Lifting the men yet higher so that his arm muscles bulged and the veins stood out among the whitened battle scars, he began to run towards the battlements. ‘What are you waiting for, Khurram?’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘Come with me.’ Khurram at once trotted after his grandfather. After a moment’s hesitation Salim followed, his other sons and the rest of the courtiers close behind. Akbar had gone insane, he was thinking as he saw his father climb the flight of sandstone steps to the battlements, accidentally banging the head of one of the men he was clutching, and begin running along them.
Watching that dogged figure, Salim guessed what Akbar was intending to do — run the whole mile and a half. Sure enough, though running slowly, Akbar didn’t falter until he had completed the entire circuit and descended to the courtyard once more. His breathing was ragged and sweat was pouring off his body as he released the two soldiers, one of whom indeed had a fine bruise on his forehead, but his expression was triumphant.
‘Majesty, you still have the strength of your youth,’ said Abul Fazl, who had followed Akbar round the battlements and was not as out of breath as Salim expected. He was fitter than he looked.
‘Well, Khurram? What do you say now? Have I impressed you?’
The child nodded. ‘You are the strongest man I know, Grandfather. Are you going to teach me how to hunt like you promised?’
‘Of course. And more than that I am going to teach you how we make war. When you are just a little older you will attend the meetings of my war council and I will take you on campaign. I have created a great empire but all that will be for nothing if my descendants cannot make it greater still. Such an education cannot begin too early.’
Chapter 23
Dusk had fallen on the eighth day of the Nauruz, the New Year festival which celebrated the sun’s entry into Aries. In a few minutes the feasting would begin again in the palace courtyard, where servants were lighting candles and arranging cushions around low tables. Salim, already dressed for the evening’s entertainment, eyed the scene without enthusiasm. The Nauruz was a Persian custom that Akbar had introduced into Hindustan. Apart from the emperor’s birthday, it was the most lavish of all spectacles at a court where shows of opulence and extravagance were the rule, and his father attended to every detail himself.
Each day so far had brought camel races and elephant fights, singing and dancing, fireworks and acrobatics and the heaping of money and fresh honours on Akbar’s loyal commanders and courtiers. Each night the emperor had been the guest of a different noble, but tonight was his own feast for his special favourites which must, of course, surpass all others. Guests would drink from jade cups inlaid with rubies and emeralds. Standing in the shadow of a sandstone column, Salim watched the fortunate few beginning to arrive, eyes lingering on the gleaming cups, doubtless calculating whether they would be allowed to keep them at the end of the evening’s revelry. In the centre of the courtyard, on a dais draped with cloth of gold, stood the green velvet, pearl-embroidered canopy supported on silver poles beneath which Akbar himself would sit on a low throne.
The Nauruz was not a time of rest for the cooks. They had been busy since dawn. The rich, savoury aroma of roasting fowl and of whole sheep basted with a mixture of saffron, cloves, cumin seed and ghee as they turned on the spit was already filling the air. It wasn’t long before three trumpet blasts announced the arrival of the emperor. Salim scrutinised the magnificent gold-clad figure moving through the ranks of courtiers as they bowed low before him, like a field of bright Kashmiri flowers bending to the wind. Not even Timur himself could have presented such an image. Tonight Akbar, the absolute ruler of all he surveyed, would sit alone in his magnificence on his dais. A table below and to the right had been prepared for Salim and his half-brother Daniyal. Abul Fazl and Abdul Rahman would sit at an identical table positioned symmetrically to the left.
Seeing that his father was now seated, Salim moved through the guests to take his place beside Daniyal. Akbar acknowledged him with a brief nod then returned his attention to a dish that his food taster had just presented to him. As always, his father ate sparingly. Salim had often heard him criticise commanders for getting soft and fat. ‘With a belly like that you could never have ridden with my grandfather on his conquest of Hindustan, though the clan chiefs might have employed you as a jester,’ he had recently rebuked a corpulent Tajik officer at least fifteen years his junior as he patted him on his round stomach. Akbar had been smiling, but Salim knew him well enough to know it wasn’t a joke and sure enough the officer had soon been ordered to a remote outpost in Bengal where he would sweat off his fat among the swamps and mosquitoes.
Sometimes Salim watched Akbar as he exercised. Thrusting and parrying with a sword, bending his favourite bow of white poplar to shoot down a pigeon, or wrestling, he could still beat men half his age. Salim glanced at Daniyal, whose flushed and sweating face revealed he had not come to the feast entirely sober. His dilated pupils and foolish half-grin as he looked about him suggested he had also taken opium. Daniyal was weak, Salim thought. But as he saw his brother’s shaking hands trying and failing to hold his drinking cup steady he felt some pity. He could understand the temptation. Sometimes in his frustration he too drank to excess or found consolation in
Daniyal, though, seemed to have abandoned thoughts of anything but pleasure, while if the rumours from
