Raiders from the North eotm-1

by Alex Rutherford

  Kutlugh Nigar wrapped her thick dark blue shawl round herself more tightly and held her hands over the brazier in the hearth. Winter would soon be upon them again, as the winds blowing around Sayram’s mud-brick houses and penetrating the wooden shutters were warning them.

  Babur kissed her thin cheek. ‘I will think over what you have both said.’

  Esan Dawlat picked up her lute. It was battered and some of the mother-of-pearl, inlaid to resemble clusters of narcissi, had fallen out, but as she plucked the strings the soft, sweet notes carried Babur back to the days of his boyhood in Akhsi.

  Going outside, he walked across the courtyard, climbed on to the village wall and stared out into the gathering dusk. He would make his own decisions, but he knew his grandmother and mother were right. His priority must be to stay alive.

  ‘Majesty.’ He heard Baburi’s voice from below him. A trio of plump pigeons dangled by their feet from his belt — he must have been hunting. He climbed the short flight of steps on to the wall and stood in silence at Babur’s side.

  ‘Do you ever doubt your destiny, Baburi?’

  ‘Market boys don’t have destinies. They’re a luxury, for kings.’

  ‘All my life I’ve been told that I was put on this earth to achieve something. What if it isn’t true. .?’

  ‘What do you want me to tell you? That you are heir to Genghis Khan and Timur? That life should be good to you as of right?’

  Baburi’s tone was impatient; rough, even. Babur had never heard him speak like that before. ‘I have been unlucky.’

  ‘No you haven’t. You were fortunate in your birth. You had everything. You weren’t an orphan. You didn’t have to fight for scraps like me.’ Suddenly anger blazed in Baburi’s indigo eyes. ‘I’ve watched you since we rode back here from Akhsi, drowning in self-pity, hardly speaking to those around you. You’ve changed. You weren’t like this when we went riding together or when you had Yadgar in your arms. That was living and you’ve forgotten what it was like. If this is how you behave in adversity, perhaps you don’t deserve this “great destiny” — whatever it might be — that you seem to carry around like a burden on your back.’

  Before he knew it, Babur had taken a swing at Baburi and the two had tumbled from the walls on to the hard mud below. Babur was the heavier and had Baburi pinned under him but, quick as an eel, Baburi twisted to one side and, with the fingers of one hand poking into one of Babur’s eyes, caught him a hard blow with the other on the side of his head. Grunting with pain, Babur rolled off him, sprang to his feet and leaped on him again, winding him. Seizing Baburi’s head he began banging it hard against the ground, but a second later felt Baburi’s boot in his groin. In agony, he let go of Baburi and rolled aside.

  The two of them — hair dusty and tousled — looked at one another. Baburi’s nose was bleeding and Babur felt blood running down his own face from a cut above his ear, while his left eye, where Baburi had jabbed it, was already hard to keep open.

  ‘You’d make a good street-fighter,’ Baburi said. ‘You’ll never starve — destiny or no destiny.’

  As men, alerted by the sound of their fight, came running along the walls above them, led by an amazed-looking Baisanghar, the two of them started to laugh.

  The air was so cold it stung Babur’s eyes. Every two or three steps his feet, in their hide boots, slipped on the ice. Yet this steep pass, leading south out of Ferghana, was the only viable escape route from Shaibani Khan whose patrols had been hunting Babur and his men like foxes, flushing them from place to place and laying everywhere waste.

  The absence of horses or ponies made Babur feel vulnerable, even high on this icy mountain where they would meet no one. He and his people had always been horsemen but for the moment they must rely on the endurance of their own bodies. During the first few days of the journey up the lower slopes, Esan Dawlat and Kutlugh Nigar had ridden on the backs of one of the four donkeys Babur had brought with him to help carry their possessions. But as the ascent got steeper and the weather worsened, Babur had had to order the animals killed for food.

  Thereafter, it had sometimes been possible for Esan Dawlat and Kutlugh Nigar to be carried in baskets on the backs of his strongest men. But for the rest of the time, they and their two serving women, like the forty or so men who remained with Babur, had had to walk, feeling their way upwards through the frozen rocks with their wooden staves. Kutlugh Nigar had surprised her son with her agility and balance, refusing help in favour of her own weaker mother. Babur could see her now, ahead of him, so muffled in sheepskins that almost nothing of her was visible, pulling herself up the rocks quicker than some of his men. She was faring much better than Kasim, who had fallen repeatedly and was clearly exhausted.

  All that the party had to shelter them were four felt tents and some fleeces rolled together round poles that three men — one behind another with the pole resting on their shoulders — could just about carry. Babur had taken his turn, his back bending as his feet fought for purchase.

  After another day, they should be over the pass. In the valleys below there would be villages to provide them with shelter and later with horses. That night, lying beneath the fleeces, Babur took comfort from that thought, as he did from the companionable warmth of the bodies of Baburi and his men pressed tightly around him.

  Caught urinating on the ice of a frozen stream, the boy gawped in amazement two days later at the unkempt party stumbling towards him from the direction of the pass. Then he turned and fled, slipping and slithering to the village a few hundred yards further downhill.

  ‘Shall I send men ahead, Majesty?’ Baisanghar asked.

  Babur nodded. Though he was numb with cold, relief and pride began to pump through him, reviving him. He had done it. He had brought his family and his men safely through the mountains. That they were a ragged few, rather than the armies he had once commanded, didn’t matter for the present.

  A few minutes later, Baisanghar’s soldiers returned with what looked — beneath the layers of thick quilted coats and the dark woollen cloth wound round his head — like an elderly man. They must have told him who Babur was for he fell at his feet, touching his forehead to the cold snow.

  ‘There’s no need for that.’ It was a long time since Babur had received such obeisance. He took the man by the shoulders and helped him gently to his feet. ‘We are weary and have come far. And we have women with us. Will you give us shelter?’

  ‘Few cross the mountains so late in the year,’ the man said. ‘I am the headman here. You are welcome in our village.’

  That night, Babur sat cross-legged by the fire in the headman’s simple, mud-walled house. The lower floor was a single room with bolsters of wool to sleep on — Esan Dawlat, Kutlugh Nigar and the headman’s wife were sharing a small room above, reached by a flight of wooden stairs outside. Baburi was next to him, and both were examining the black marks and blisters on their feet left by frostbite.

  ‘Sometimes I thought I’d never walk again — even if we survived.’ Baburi winced as he touched a tender spot.

  ‘We were lucky. We could easily have lost our way or fallen down a ravine.’

  ‘Was it luck or that mighty “destiny” of yours?’ Baburi smiled. Babur also smiled but made no reply.

  Despite the early-morning mist, Babur saw the hare as it jumped out from behind a low bush then froze, ears erect, to snuff the air. He was downwind of it — the hare couldn’t know he was there. Carefully he put an arrow to his bow-string and pulled it back, eyes never leaving the animal that, satisfied it was safe, was enjoying a brisk scratch.

  Suddenly behind Babur came the sound of running feet and the hare took off. Cursing, he turned to see one of his men, agitated and panting. ‘Majesty, an ambassador has come from Kabul. He has been seeking you for the past two months, ever since the snows began to melt. He is waiting in the headman’s house.’

  Irritation forgotten, Babur secured his quiver, slung his bow over his shoulder and ran down the track towards
the village. The message must be from his father’s cousin, the King of Kabul. . but the two men had been estranged and there had been little contact between them that Babur could recall.

  The ambassador, wearing a peacock blue robe, was more grandly dressed than anyone Babur had seen in a long time. Feathers, held by a jewelled clasp, waved from the crest of his dark blue turban and his two attendants were clad in blue trimmed with gold. They must have changed while they were waiting for his men to find him. Babur smiled inwardly. No one would ride about the mountains in such garb. . All the same, he was conscious for the first time in many months of his own appearance — his long hair, simple yellow wool tunic and buckskin trousers.

  But the ambassador didn’t seem perturbed. Relief that his search was over was written in his features as Babur strode towards him.

  The ambassador bowed low. ‘Greetings, Majesty.’

  ‘You are welcome. They tell me you come from Kabul. What do you want of me?’

  ‘Majesty, I bring news that is sad but also glorious. The king, your father’s cousin, Ulughbeg Mirza, died during the winter leaving no heir. His last surviving son had already died of a fever two months before. My message from the Royal Council of Kabul is this. The throne can be yours if you will come. The council believes the inhabitants will welcome another ruler from Timur’s illustrious stock, particularly one proven in battle and still young. With the council’s support, which they pledge you on the Holy Book, you will have no rivals.’

  Babur could not hide his surprise. Never in his wildest and most desperate moments had he thought of the kingdom of Kabul. It was so far away — more than five hundred miles. To reach it he must cross the broad Oxus and the twisting, knife-sharp passes of the Hindu Kush. Even then it would be a gamble. By the time he arrived much might have changed. The members of the royal council who, for whatever reason, seemed so generously disposed towards him might have been toppled or bribed to support another candidate.

  Yet he couldn’t stay here, hunting rabbits and hares, as another year passed him by and also, Babur thought, with growing elation and excitement, Kabul was far from the rapacious Shaibani Khan. It was also rich and powerful. Soldiers would flock to him again. There, he could rebuild his power and plan his next move.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, to the messenger. ‘I will give you my answer in a short while.’ But he already knew. He was going to Kabul.

  Chapter 14

  A Sign of Fortune

  ‘You followed me far from your homes, braving danger and hardship out of loyalty to me and your hatred of our blood enemy, the barbarous Uzbeks. I led you over high mountains and through icy passes. Our bodies warmed each other in our tents at night as the winds tried to blow us to oblivion. We shared our meagre food equally. Never in the nine years since I became a king have I felt so proud. You may be few in number but you have the tiger’s spirit.’ Babur’s green eyes glinted as he looked round the circle of faces before him. His men were so few that he knew each by name, his clan, where he had earned his scars. He had spoken only the truth. He was proud of his ragged little army.

  ‘Soon I will be able to reward your devotion. My father’s cousin, the King of Kabul, has died. Respecting both my royal lineage and the reputation I have — with your help — built as a courageous, undaunted leader, the people of Kabul have chosen me as their new ruler, if I will come. And I will — even if I have to go alone. But I know that you will trust me once more and come with me. But, more than this, will you send word to your villages so that others may join us to share in our good fortune and fulfil the destiny that is the birthright of us all?’ Babur raised his arms as if he was already celebrating a great triumph.

  From all around a mighty cheer arose. Who would have thought that just a few dozen voices could raise such a sound? Babur glanced at Baburi, Baisanghar and Kasim beside him, roaring with the rest. A fresh energy was rising inside him. .

  A month later Babur was in his tent, the flaps thrown open to the sun and the fresh, warm breeze. Word of his changed fortunes had carried swiftly, as he had hoped. The ragged party he had led from Ferghana now numbered more than four thousand warriors from Mongol nomads whose chiefs tied the tugh, or yak-tail standard, to the tails of their horses in battle, to Timurid chiefs displaced by Shaibani Khan. He wasn’t naive enough to believe that many felt any great loyalty to him or his cause: they were with him for reward. But their readiness to undertake such a long, hazardous journey showed a pleasing confidence that he would succeed. His reputation had spoken for him.

  Babur had already put the gold the ambassador had brought from the royal council in Kabul to good use, buying weapons, strong horses, herds of fat sheep and tents of supple hides lined with felt that kept out the draughts. He and his army had crossed the smooth, broad Oxus with ease, loading horses, pack-mules, camels and baggage carts on to the flat-ended, shallow-draughted boats that the skilful rivermen had, over two days and nights, ferried to and fro, digging their long wooden poles into the sandy riverbed to propel their craft. Some of these boatmen — impressed by the size of Babur’s army — had thrown aside their poles and joined him.

  His advance south-west had begun to feel like a triumphal procession but he must not became complacent. Though Shaibani Khan and his forces were far behind, Babur knew from the accounts he had studied of Timur’s expeditions and from the stories of the old woman, Rehana, that many dangers lurked among the frozen peaks of the Hindu Kush, which lay between him and Kabul. He was glad he had left his mother and grandmother, with soldiers to protect them, behind the sturdy walls of the fortress of Kishm, given to him by one of his new allies. Once he had taken Kabul he would send for them, but until then they would be safe. He wished the same was true of Khanzada, whose anguished face he often saw in his dreams.

  ‘Majesty.’ A bodyguard entered his tent. ‘Your council is waiting.’

  It felt odd to have a council of advisers again. They were assembled beneath the spreading branches of a plane tree — Kasim in a long green quilted robe, Baisanghar and Baburi in new tunics of fine-woven wool, but also Hussain Mazid, who had come from Sayram with fifty men, and three others. Two were Mongol chieftains with round hats of black sheepskin, their broad faces shiny with battle scars. The third was a distant cousin of Babur’s, Mirza Khan, a fleshy, middle-aged man with a cast in his left eye, who had been pushed out of his own lands by the Uzbeks’ advance and had brought Babur three hundred well-equipped cavalrymen, extra horses and wagonloads of grain. Babur had no very high opinion of his brains or his valour — his status and wealth had won him his place.

  Signalling to his council to sit on the carpets laid on the ground, he went straight to the point: ‘We still have nearly two hundred miles to go to reach Kabul. Between us and the city lies the Hindu Kush. None of us has ever seen those mountains, let alone crossed them. We know them only in our imaginations but they will be formidable, even in summer. . The question is, do we cross them or do we seek another way. .?’

  ‘What alternative is there?’ asked Mirza Khan.

  ‘We could avoid the worst of the mountains by circling round, along the river valleys, as the ambassador did when he came seeking me. .’

  ‘But that would take a long time — perhaps too long,’ said Baburi. ‘Delay could be a much greater risk to us than the mountains. .’

  Baisanghar nodded. ‘I agree. We should cross the mountains. But to do so we’ll need guides, men who know the passes and can lead us over them by the best and safest route. Men we can trust. .’

  The Mongol chiefs were looking impassive as though a journey over the roof of the world was nothing to them. Babur had the feeling that if they believed the booty would be great enough, they’d follow him into the furnaces of hell — but if disappointed in their hopes of bounty would leave him there. .

  Babur looked around at his council once more. There seemed no point in deliberating any longer. He had gone over it again and again in his mind and each time his conclusion had been the same
. If he wanted Kabul he must be quick.

  ‘Very well. I have decided. We go over the Hindu Kush. As we near the mountains, we’ll look for men to guide us — but if we cannot find them we go anyway. . We will ride out in thirty-six hours. Use that time to check your men’s equipment and provisions, and the condition of your animals. Baisanghar, I rely on you to tell the other chieftains. And we take only our horses and pack-mules, no livestock, not even into the foothills.’

  The rows of ragged, jagged peaks were getting closer. Sometimes Babur imagined he could feel their frozen breath on his face. The lower slopes rose in dark green ripples but, high above, the icy tips gleamed diamond bright. Some called these mountains the Stony Girdles of the Earth, but to Babur they were more like towers of crystal. Old Rehana’s tales of Timur being hoisted down a cliff face, of his frozen, starving warriors, of terrified horses slipping and sliding on the ice and of attacks by wild Kafirs were still vivid in his mind. Bringing his own family and his few men through the southern mountains out of Ferghana safely eight months previously had been nothing compared with leading an entire army and all its equipment across these high peaks, which — so the legends said — touched the skies.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Baburi was beside him on a bay mare that kept tossing her head to rid herself of a buzzing horsefly

  ‘What Rehana told us of how Timur brought his army over the Hindu Kush to Delhi. .’

  Baburi shrugged. ‘They were vivid stories, romantic and much embroidered. To her every word was true but I wasn’t sure how much of it was real. Take that story of her grandfather saving the boy who gave him the golden elephant — I bet he looted it, and made up the rescue to compensate for having abandoned the other boy. Anyway, soon we’ll see for ourselves what it’s like up there. At least we have a man to guide us.’