Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War (14 page)

‘But we will lose troops and time we could spend in other campaigns to enlarge our empire. I’ve always hankered to ride south across the Deccan Plateau to the diamond mines of Golconda,’ said Suleiman Mirza.

‘I agree,’ said Yunus Pathan, one of Humayun’s best generals, quietly. ‘Sher Shah is said to be an able administrator and Bengal is a rich, fertile province. If we kill him and his chief courtiers, we will need to spend time setting up new structures and appointing new officials. If we reach an agreement with him from our position of strength we can use him and his administration to raise taxes quickly to pay for our armies and reward our troops, and move on to Golconda.’

Humayun pondered.Yunus Pathan’s words were persuasive. Besides, being magnanimous was the mark of a great ruler. Humayun rose. ‘Suleiman Mirza, go with Tariq Khan and a small escort to locate Sher Shah and offer him peace, provided he comes and makes full obeisance and compensates us richly for our time and expense and above all for the disgraceful insult he has shown us.’

But Sher Shah did not respond immediately. Weeks passed while he procrastinated, sending profuse apologies for delay and repeated requests to be permitted to send messengers to consult allies before finally agreeing to any terms. So it was that in mid-summer 1539, Humayun was sitting after dinner in Khanzada’s tent placed near his own in the very middle of his vast encampment covering more than four square miles near the settlement of Chausa in Bengal. Humayun had had the camp erected on low hillocks overlooking the muddy flood plain of the Ganges delta. Outside, the night was hot and the smoke from the camp fires rose vertically into the still air. Inside the tent, whose sides were down to protect the women from prying eyes, the air was stifling. Despite the best efforts of Khanzada’s attendants to trap them using bowls of sugar water or to crush them with their fly swats, mosquitoes buzzed ceaselessly. Humayun, sweating profusely, occasionally felt their sharp bite on his exposed flesh and slapped futilely at his small attackers.

‘What is it, Humayun? You’ve hardly spoken all through the meal,’ Khanzada asked.

‘I’m worried that Sher Shah is playing me for a fool, that I’ve allowed too much time to pass by. Suleiman Mirza and Tariq Khan assure me that on each visit he has been courteous and humble and seems sincere but I am no longer certain. Was I wrong to trust so entirely in Tariq Khan? What if he was planted by Sher Shah in an effort to gain himself time?’

Khanzada rose and paced for a moment or two, face grave in the golden glow of the wicks burning in their pools of oil in the saucer-shaped brass
diyas
.

‘I think you’re right to be suspicious. Victory doesn’t always go to the strongest but sometimes to the most wily. You have advanced many miles down the Ganges over these last nine weeks, ready to meet Sher Shah either in battle or in council, but each time he has moved further off, using trifling excuses that he’s exhausted the food in the region or that there’s an epidemic of fever he must avoid.’

‘True. Latest reports are that his main army is still thirty miles away along the Ganges.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Accept no more excuses, set deadlines for Sher Shah and if he doesn’t meet them I’ll attack. But I’m concerned that these jungles and marshes are ill-suited to the easy passage of my cannon and large forces of cavalry.’

‘Then have the courage to retreat to better terrain. Or else consider bypassing Sher Shah’s forces and occupying his cities . . .’ A single crash of thunder interrupted Khanzada’s words. It was followed by the rapid pattering of rain on the tent roof.

‘The monsoon can’t have broken – it’s too early.’

‘Nature’s rhythms are not always bounded by man’s calendars.’

‘If it is the monsoon, we must definitely seek out better ground. But it’s late and it’ll be time enough to decide in the morning when we know if the rains are continuing. The camp is too high above the river for there to be any danger of flooding in the meantime.’

Several hours later Humayun was lying asleep on his back, his arms spread wide, his perspiring muscled body naked beneath the thin cotton sheet. He had taken a long time to fall asleep, listening to the rain which seemed to be growing heavier rather than slackening. Now he was dreaming he was back in the Agra fort, moving towards his concubines’ quarters where for some reason he knew they would be bathing beneath rosewater fountains. He felt his body harden with desire and his legs thrashed beneath the thin sheet as in his dreams he quickened his steps, eager to reach his women. Suddenly a female scream penetrated deep into his imaginings.A rising crescendo of male and female voices followed. One cried, ‘To arms! Hurry – no time to put armour on. Reinforce the perimeter.’

Struggling to full consciousness, Humayun realised the voices were real. Raiders must have got as far as the women’s quarters. Tying a robe about him and reaching for his father’s sword, he stumbled from his tent. It was still raining hard and his bare feet slipped in the wet mud. Peering through the heavy, slanting raindrops and desperately trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness, he ran towards Khanzada’s tent.

As he got nearer he made out by the steely flashes of the almost constant sheet lightning a tall, female figure – Khanzada. Her right hand was raised high above her head and in it was a curved sword. As he watched, she brought it down across the face of an assailant who was trying to subdue her. The man fell to the ground where he lay writhing in pain. By the next lightning flash, Humayun saw that his aunt’s sword had slashed open the man’s face all down one side, bloodily exposing his jaw and teeth. He also saw that – unknown to Khanzada – another attacker was behind her. He held not a sword but a large scarf which he was about to throw over her head and to pull tight around her neck. Humayun shouted a warning.

Suddenly realising the danger, Khanzada pulled her arm back and elbowed the man in the throat but he did not fall and continued to try to tighten the cloth. By now Humayun was near enough to launch himself upon her assailant and, grappling with him, to force him to the ground. For a moment they struggled in the glossy, oozing mud, each grasping for advantage. Then Humayun succeeded in pushing his right thumb into his opponent’s left eye and pressing hard he felt the eyeball burst liquidly beneath the force. The man instinctively relaxed his grip as the pain ran through him, and Humayun took Alamgir and thrust it deep into his opponent’s groin, leaving the man screaming and bleeding into the muddy puddle in which he lay dying.

Although the noises of battle still reached Humayun’s ears from around the distant perimeter of his camp, by now his bodyguards seemed to have subdued the rest of the men who had attacked the women’s quarters. There had only been about twenty or so. All had worn dark clothing and seemed to have penetrated the heart of the camp by stealth while a stronger force assaulted the periphery. Only one remained alive.

Running over to him where he was held, arms pinioned and on his knees, by two guards, Humayun, face contorted with rage, grabbed the man by the throat, hauled him to his feet and pushing his own face into his screamed, ‘Why did you do this? No honourable enemy attacks women. Their lives should be protected by all, whatever the circumstances. Our religion demands it, as do all the moral decencies. You will die anyway but if you speak it will be quick – if you do not it will be long and lingering and so exquisitely painful you will beg for the death that is so slow in coming.’

‘We did not intend to kill the women but to kidnap them, particularly your aunt. Tariq Khan told us she was with you and the story of her capture by Shaibani Khan is well known to all. Sher Shah said if we took her you might be prepared to come to terms to spare her a second ordeal.’

So Tariq Khan had indeed betrayed him. In his anger and dismay at his own stupidity, Humayun tightened his fingers around the prisoner’s throat and placing his thumbs on his Adam’s apple twisted his neck until he heard a crack and the death rattle bubble through the man’s throat. Throwing the body aside, he ran – bare feet again slipping in the mud – back to Khanzada. She was standing sword still in hand looking surprisingly composed while the rain streamed down her face and reduced her long greying hair, unbound for sleep, to a series of rats’ tails.

‘I am sorry not to have protected you better – are you injured?’

‘Not at all. I think I have proved I too am of Timur’s blood, like you and my brother Babur.When the attack came, I felt anger and outrage, not fear. I knew I must protect Gulbadan and your young concubines. I told them to collapse the tent poles and to remain hidden in the material until they were sure the danger had passed. Look over there. They’re just emerging.’

Sure enough Humayun could see through the pouring rain Salima crawling from beneath the vast, enveloping folds of the tent, followed by young Gulbadan and the other women. Humayun embraced Khanzada and as he did so he realised that, now the immediate danger was over and the hot blood of battle was ebbing from her, she was beginning to shake.

‘Send Ahmed Khan to me, Jauhar, and find out if we can still launch boats on the Ganges. If so, have several prepared as fast as the sailors can so that my aunt, sister and concubines can be rowed upriver to safety. Make sure an escort is readied too. Go now.’

Almost immediately Jauhar had left, Ahmed Khan ran up.

‘How is our perimeter withstanding these attacks?’ asked Humayun.

‘Well, Majesty. After their fierce initial assault in which they made severe inroads, the enemy seemed to hold back for a while as if waiting for something.’

‘To learn the success of their raid on the women’s tents . . .’ muttered Humayun. ‘They won’t keep back for long. But it might give us enough time to prop up our defences.’

‘Majesty. The passage upriver is clear. We’ve boats ready and a double crew of rowers for each,’ the breathless returning Jauhar broke in. ‘A strong detachment of cavalry is mounted and ready to ride along the north bank to accompany them.’

Humayun turned to Khanzada. ‘Aunt, you must go now. I trust in you to protect yourself and the other women. I appoint you to command the boats. Jauhar, tell the soldiers and sailors that however strange they find it to obey a woman’s commands, they must do so or face my wrath.’

‘They will have no need of Jauhar’s words,’ said Khanzada’s determined voice. ‘They will obey Babur’s sister. We will meet again when you have your victory. Bring me the head of that slippery-tongued traitor Tariq Khan, and Sher Shah bound to serve as my latrine cleaner.’ With that she turned and swiftly picked her way over the mud to Gulbadan and the other women, then led them towards the riverbank, soon disappearing into the rain and gloom.

How brave she was, Humayun thought. How strong the blood of Timur ran in her slight and no longer youthful body. He had been foolish, oh so foolish, to trust in Tariq Khan and to believe in Sher Shah’s crafty delaying answers. Why hadn’t he questioned their motives more rigorously? Had he been too content to relax into the pleasures of the
haram
? Now he must redeem his lapses of mental concentration by his physical courage and use it to inspire his men to victory.

‘Ahmed Khan, get further reports from our defences. Jauhar, bring me my armour, then saddle my horse.’

In the quarter of an hour it took Humayun to ready himself fully for battle, it had begun to grow light. Several of his commanders, led by Baba Yasaval, had joined him. ‘The situation is serious, Majesty. Sher Shah is attacking with renewed force. We cannot move the cannon into firing positions. Look over there.’ Following the direction of his officer’s pointing arm, Humayun saw a number of his artillerymen lashing a double team of oxen yoked to one of his largest bronze guns in an attempt to turn it to face the enemy threat. But however hard they were hit, however much they were cajoled, the great beasts stumbled and slipped in the mud, sinking ever deeper into the quagmire. When the men added their own weight to that of the animals, they too could make no impression, some simply falling full length in the churned brown mud.

‘Majesty, it’s the same with all the guns,’ said Baba Yasaval.

‘I believe you. Besides, the downpour is such it’ll be difficult for either the gunners or the musketeers to keep the gunpowder dry or light their fuses. We must rely on our bravery in close combat with the old weapons of cold steel. We still have many more men than our enemies. Get the officers to marshal them in the best defensive positions they can improvise. Use the wagons and tents as barricades . . .’ Humayun paused and then – still conscious of the perilous position of his aunt and the other women and that it was his complacency and naive gullibility that had exposed them to danger – commanded, ‘Send another strong detachment of cavalry – ten thousand men including half my own bodyguard – back along the riverbank to add to the protection of the royal women.’

‘But we need them here, Majesty.’