Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War

by Alex Rutherford

  Humayun lowered his sword and wiped away the spittle. ‘I am pleased you recognise you deserve death but I’ll consult with my counsellors as to your fate. If you die it will be an act of cool justice and not hot vengeance.’ As he turned to leave, Humayun thought he saw a brief half-smile cross Kamran’s lips. Was he laughing at him for what he saw as his weakness or, after all, was he simply relieved that for the moment he would live?

  When he turned back to look at Kamran again, his half-brother’s eyes were downcast once more, his face expressionless.

  Humayun scrutinised his counsellors, gathered in his sunlit audience chamber. His own mood was dark. He needed to decide the fate of Kamran.To delay would be to appear weak. His counsellors too seemed grave as he began.

  ‘It is for me to take the decision whether my half-brother Kamran should live or die but I wish to seek your views. Undoubtedly he has been responsible for the death of many men in the rebellions he has raised against me. His opposition has weakened my power, delayed my plans to reconquer Hindustan, as well as exposed my son Akbar to danger. Yet he is my half-brother, my father’s son and of the blood of Timur. If I am to spill that blood I must do so only if I am convinced that there is no other course I can take and that his death is for the sake of justice and the benefit of my realm and its people. Give me your views.’

  ‘Majesty,’ Bairam Khan stepped forward, his voice firm and clear, ‘I think I speak for all of us here. There can be no doubt.Your half-brother should die for the sake of you, your son, your dynasty and us all. Kamran is not your brother, he is your enemy. Put aside any brotherly feelings you have for him. They have no place in a ruler’s decisions. If you wish to remain king and to achieve the ambition we all share of regaining the throne of Hindustan for yourself and your son there is only one course to take. Execute him. Am I not right, my fellow commanders?’

  Without hesitation and as with one voice they answered, ‘Yes!’

  ‘Does none of you advocate any other solution?’ Humayun asked.

  ‘No, Majesty.’

  ‘Thank you. I will ponder your advice.’ Humayun walked straight from the room, his brow furrowed. The decision was not as easy as his counsellors suggested. They did not share Kamran’s blood as he did. Without thinking consciously of what he was doing, Humayun headed for the women’s apartments and when he got there went straight to Gulbadan’s room. His half-sister was sitting on a low gilt chair wearing a loose purple silk robe as her attendant pulled an ivory comb through her dark hair. As soon as she saw the expression on Humayun’s face, Gulbadan dismissed the woman. ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘You know they have captured Kamran once more and he is imprisoned in the dungeons?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I am desperately searching my conscience as to what his fate must be. I realise that by all the normal conventions he deserves death for his many misdeeds and my advisers tell me unanimously that this time he must die. Often, when I’ve anticipated the moment he’d be in my power again, anger at him for his ill-treatment of Akbar alone has made me want to kill him myself, and Hamida – as Akbar’s mother – urges this upon me. However, when I become calmer I know I must not act in anger but for what is best for our empire. I remember our father’s injunction to do nothing against my brothers and I hesitate.’

  ‘I understand your dilemma,’ Gulbadan said, taking Humayun’s hand. ‘You have always been a man of your word. Remember how you honoured your promise to Nizam the water-seller that he could sit on your throne for an hour or two, despite the mutterings of your courtiers? Because you always keep your word, you sometimes fail to realise that others like Sher Shah who deceived you before the battle of Chausa – or indeed our half-brothers – will not.You have given Kamran so many chances and he has exploited your mercy so often that even I believe that his persistent wickedness negates any promise you ever made to our father . . . ’ She paused. ‘If I am honest I think he should die. It would be best for the dynasty that our father fought so hard to establish. With Kamran gone you will be free to concentrate on the recapture of Hindustan.’

  Humayun said nothing for a long time. At last he spoke very deliberately. ‘I know that in logic you are right. I know also our father always said I loved solitude too much . . . but I must go to consider alone for a time before taking my final decision.’

  ‘Why not take our father’s memoirs with you to see if they offer you any solace or guidance? After all, he wrote them, as he put it, “to give guidance for living and ruling”.’

  A few minutes later, Humayun climbed the stone stairs to the top of the highest watchtower on the walls of the citadel in Kabul. In his hand were his father’s memoirs which, in their ivory binding, he had preserved so carefully throughout all his vicissitudes. He had left Jauhar at the entrance to the watchtower with strict orders that no one should be allowed to enter. As he reached the top of the stairs and emerged on to the flat roof, Humayun felt that the day’s heat was dying. It would be dark in an hour. Perhaps he should wait until the stars came out to see what guidance they might offer him, but then he dismissed the idea. He had learned from the many trials and disappointments he had endured during his life that he could not abdicate responsibility for his decisions to the stars any more than he could to his advisers, his wife or his blood relations.

  Babur had told him that he had discovered early that a ruler had to rule. This gave the ruler an unparalleled freedom and opportunity to fulfil his ambitions, but it also made his role an intensely lonely one. He had not only to take the decisions but to live with the consequences both in this life and when called to judgement in the life beyond.

  As the light began to fade, Humayun opened his father’s memoirs at random. His eyes first fell on a paragraph which described how, during one of his campaigns, Timur had in a rare moment of mercy followed an older tradition among the dwellers on the steppes and had a powerful member of his own family who had been caught plotting an uprising blinded rather than killed to avoid creating a blood feud. Babur had commended this as a way of disarming a rebel and noted that such punishments still continued among many of the tribes and were considered just and proper.

  Immediately, Humayun knew that this must be Kamran’s fate. His threat would be extinguished with his sight. No rebellious chief could ever again consider Kamran a rival to Humayun.Yet his half-brother would have time to consider and perhaps to repent before he was called to eternal judgement. Such a punishment would be harsh, but Humayun knew that in inflicting it he would be respecting his instinct to show some mercy and also be taking some account of his father’s injunction not to be provoked into unthinking violence against his half-brothers.

  Closing the ivory covers of Babur’s memoirs, Humayun descended the stairs. ‘Call my advisers to me straightaway,’ he told Jauhar. Within five minutes they were standing around him. ‘I have decided that my half-brother Kamran must be blinded, both as a punishment for his consistent misdeeds and to obviate any threat he might continue to pose to my rule here and to our recovery of our possessions in Hindustan. The punishment will be carried out tonight an hour after sunset. I ask you, Zahid Beg, to take charge. I wish the method to be the quickest known to the hakims and my half-brother to be given no warning so that he does not have time to fear what is to come. I do not wish to see his agony and suffering. Jauhar, you will be my witness. However, Kamran needs to know that the punishment has been inflicted on my specific orders and I alone take responsibility for it. Therefore, you will bring my half-brother to me a little before the time of evening prayer tomorrow.’

  ‘Majesty,’ reported Jauhar an hour and a half later, ‘it is done. The whole thing was over within five minutes or less of Zahid Beg’s six men entering the cell. Four of them each seized one of your half-brother’s limbs and held him to the ground. As he struggled and kicked, the fifth – a bear of a man – took hold of Kamran’s head in his great hands and held it still. The sixth took needles he had previously heated red hot in the flame
and quickly pierced each of your brother’s eyeballs in turn several times. As Kamran screamed like a wild beast in his agony, the man rubbed lemon juice and salt into his eyeballs to ensure all vision was lost. Then he bound your half-brother’s eyes with clean, soft cotton bandages and told him that he had no more to endure. Then they left him to contemplate both his punishment and that he was to live – albeit an impaired life . . . ’

  The next evening, just before prayers, Kamran was led into Humayun’s presence. His eyes were no longer bandaged and on Humayun’s orders he had been washed and clothed in garments befitting a Moghul prince of the blood. Humayun dismissed the guards and spoke softly to Kamran.

  ‘It is I, Humayun, your half-brother. I give you my word we are alone.’ As Kamran turned his sightless eyes towards him he continued, ‘I want you to know that I and I alone am responsible for your blinding. No blame should attach to those who committed the deed. I acted as I did because I had lost faith that any clemency I showed would cause you to repent and I needed to protect my throne and the future of Akbar and of our dynasty.’ Humayun stopped and waited, half expecting a stream of invective from Kamran or even an attempt, despite his blindness, to attack him.

  But after a short silence Kamran spoke in a subdued voice. ‘You have left me with my life but at the same time taken everything I cared about from me – my plans, my ambitions. I congratulate you. You can appear the great and merciful padishah while knowing you have destroyed me more completely than if you’d struck off my head . . . ’

  Humayun said nothing and after a moment Kamran continued. ‘I don’t blame you. I have often scorned your mercy and know I deserved punishment. As I lay awake last night, praying for the pain in these now useless eyes to ease and reflecting that my life as I have always known it was over, another thought came into my mind. It was strange, but I felt almost a sense of relief . . . the feeling that finally, after all these years, I could shake off the burden of earthly ambitions. I have one thing and one thing only to ask of you and I ask it sincerely.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘I do not wish to remain here, an object of contempt or of pity or even of any generosity you may wish to extend to me. Let me, like Askari, make the haj – the pilgrimage to Mecca. It may even afford me some spiritual consolation.’

  ‘Go,’ said Humayun, ‘go with my blessing.’ As he spoke he felt tears wet his cheeks. He was, he realised, crying partly from sadness at the loss of the innocent times he and his half-brother had so briefly enjoyed, partly for the years they had wasted in conflict when together they could have been recovering their father’s empire, and partly for the pain he had inflicted on Kamran the night before.

  However, above all, his tears reflected a profound and transcending relief. He was now free to concentrate on achieving his ambition once more to be Padishah of Hindustan and even to enlarge his dominions and to build the great empire of which Babur had dreamed.

  Chapter 24

  Warm Bread

  Majesty, Islam Shah is dead. The throne of Hindustan is vacant.

  While the masseur kneaded the muscles of his upper back and rubbed sweet-smelling coconut oil into them, Humayun smiled as he remembered the first time – six weeks ago – that he had heard these words from an excited Ahmed Khan. Over the subsequent days the rumours had grown stronger, brought by travellers making the journey up through the Khyber Pass from Hindustan. Some had said that Islam Shah had died unexpectedly several months ago and that his supporters had been successful for a time in concealing the fact while they tried to agree on a successor. With each passing day and with each piece of news, renewed energy had pulsed through Humayun. He could feel a great opportunity to recover his throne opening up. Free of anxiety about threats to Kabul from his half-brothers if he left the city, he would grasp it and put an end to his long years of disappointment and exile.

  Immediately, he had taken measures to prepare his army for action.At this very minute outside the walls of the citadel, his officers were drilling his musketeers to increase the speed and discipline with which they primed, loaded and fired their weapons. His recruiting agents were busy in the remotest valleys of his kingdom and beyond gathering additional recruits. The masseur now pummelling Humayun’s thighs and buttocks was also part of Humayun’s mental and physical preparation. To help plan his campaign he had begun to reread his father’s memoirs of his attack on Hindustan and to compare them with his own recollections of the invasion.

  He had tried in conversation with his commanders, particularly Ahmed Khan, to understand where he had made mistakes in his own campaigns against Sher Shah and why he had succeeded elsewhere such as in Gujarat. Sitting alone in his apartments late one evening he had summed it up to himself. ‘Prepare well, think and act fast and decisively. Make your opponent respond to you and not the other way round.’

  Over the years he had allowed himself to indulge once more in the wines of Ghazni and, since he had regained Kabul, just occasionally in the care-numbing relief of the opium pipe. Now, to sharpen his mind and toughen his body for the rigours of warfare, he was, after a great internal struggle and an enormous effort of will, abstaining entirely from both alcohol and opium. He had also taken up wrestling again and the masseur was readying him for his daily training contest. With a quick gesture to the man to cease his work, Humayun rolled over on to his back and stood up. He pulled on a pair of long cotton trousers, his only clothing for the fight, and made his way through some fine yellow muslin curtains into the next room. Here his opponent, a tall, heavily muscled Badakhshani, awaited him, similarly clothed and oiled.

  ‘Don’t hold back, Bayzid Khan.’ Humayun smiled. ‘You have taught me well. There’s a bag of coin in it for you if you can overcome me within ten minutes. Now let’s get on with it.’

  The two men circled each other, waiting to see who made the first move. It was Humayun who darted forward to seize Bayzid Khan’s arm and try to throw him. However, Bayzid Khan twisted himself from Humayun’s grip and in turn grabbed Humayun’s shoulders to pull him off balance. Humayun resisted and the two men struggled, arms on each other’s shoulders, testing their strength. Then Bayzid Khan tripped Humayun with a swift kick of his foot to the back of Humayun’s knee. Humayun fell and Bayzid Khan launched himself to pinion him against the mat on the floor and end the contest.

  But Humayun was too quick and rolled away. As Bayzid Khan landed on the mat, Humayun leaped on him and putting his knee in his back pulled both his arms out behind him. Hard as Bayzid Khan struggled he could not free himself. ‘Enough, Majesty. You have got the better of me for the second time.’

  ‘The first, I think. I strongly suspected that previously you let me win, but not on this occasion.’

  ‘Perhaps, Majesty.’

  Humayun returned to his robing room and washed himself clean of the mixture of sweat and oil coating his body in the large copper bath of warm, camphor-scented water that his servants had prepared during the contest. As he dried himself with a rough cotton towel and dusted himself with sandalwood-scented chalk powder, he looked at his naked body in a nearby burnished mirror. His muscles were more toned and prominent than a month ago. His looks belied his forty-six years, he thought, and smiled with satisfaction. The exercise seemed to be helping him focus his mind and think more clearly. Certainly too he was making love more frequently.

  With the help of his attendants, Humayun quickly dressed, ready to meet his counsellors. Minutes later, wearing a gold-belted navy tunic and a cream turban with a long peacock’s feather at its peak, he entered the council chamber.

  ‘What is the latest news from Hindustan, Ahmed Khan? Didn’t another caravan come in this morning?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty. It brought confirmation of what is for us good news. There can be no doubt that Islam Shah is dead. What is more, a rich merchant in today’s caravan says that fighting has broken out among three contenders for the throne in and around Delhi.With no proper authority dacoits have been robbing with impunity, invading
the homes of the wealthy by night, stealing, raping and killing. The merchant concealed some of his treasure and packed the rest and brought his family on the arduous journey north to your realm to be safe until he sees what happens in Hindustan. Other members of the caravan substantiated his news with many circumstantial details of the chaos. One reported that when robbers could not remove valuable rings from the arthritic fingers of a rich old woman, they simply hacked off her fingers and left her to bleed to death.’

  ‘The fighting and lawlessness will give us the opportunity we have looked for to regain the throne and to bring back justice and order to the citizens of our rightful kingdom. What do we know about these three other contenders?’

  ‘One is Adil Shah, the brother of Islam Shah’s favourite wife – the mother of his only son, a boy of five years of age. Adil Shah is said to have been so drunk with ambition that oblivious of the ties of blood he entered the haram and cut the child’s throat in front of his mother with as little concern as a butcher slaughtering a beast for the table. Then he had himself proclaimed emperor.’

  Humayun blanched. Not even Kamran had stooped so low. ‘And the other two?’

  ‘The most powerful is a cousin of Islam Shah who has had himself proclaimed emperor as Sekunder Shar. He’s already defeated Adil Shah once but failed to follow up his victory because of the activities of the third pretender, Tartar Khan, the head of the old Lodi clan we supplanted and who fought against us with the Sultan of Gujarat.’

  ‘We need to obtain as much information as we can about each of them – who their friends and enemies are, their personal strengths and vices, how many men, how much money they have.’