The rains that had fallen almost daily since they had left Agra seemed to be easing and — just as Humayun had hoped — though Sher Shah had seized Agra, he had not pursued him further. According to Humayun’s spies, the khutba had been read in Sher Shah’s name in the mosque of the Agra fort, proclaiming him once more Padishah of Hindustan, and he was now holding court in the pillared audience chamber. Well, let the usurper enjoy his moment of glory — it would be brief.
He and his column were making good progress, Humayun reflected — usually twelve or thirteen miles a day, perhaps more, as they travelled northwest over the flat, featureless terrain. If they could continue at this pace they should reach Lahore within a month. So far they had suffered no serious attacks. As the Moghul column passed by villages, the people seemed afraid to come close, watching the passing ranks of soldiers and wagons from the safety of the sodden fields or peeping from their thatched, mud-brick houses.All that moved were hollow-ribbed dogs and scrawny, yellow-feathered chickens.
There had been only one attack on his column. One evening in a rapidly falling dusk made darker by a veil of drizzle, a band of dacoits had fallen on a baggage cart carrying spare tents and cooking equipment that had become bogged down and separated from the main column. It had been some hours before its absence had been spotted and Ahmed Khan sent scouts to search for it. They had found the drivers’ sodden bodies lying with arrows in their backs and the wagon gone. But even in the darkness, the thieves and the stolen wagon had not been hard to track. By the time the first fires of the day were flickering into life, Ahmed Khan’s men had brought the dacoits, trussed like fowl for market, into the camp. Humayun had immediately ordered their heads to be cut off and cemented into a pyramid of stones as a sign that he would permit no lawlessness among his subjects.
Neither would he tolerate it amongst his troops. Though not of his blood, these Hindustanis were his people — his subjects — and he would not have it said that he allowed his men to pillage them at will. He’d given strict orders that there was to be no looting and had already had six soldiers flogged, spread-eagled across wooden frames in front of their comrades, for stealing a sheep and a seventh executed for raping a village girl.
All the same, as he passed the village temples with their carved stone bulls garlanded with marigolds, and their statues of bizarre gods — some multi-armed, some part man, part elephant — he couldn’t help wondering whether he’d ever understand fully the land to which fate and a hunger for empire had brought the Moghuls. His own god was single, indivisible and all-powerful and it was sacrilege to attempt to create his image. The Hindu gods seemed legion and in their voluptuous bodies and sinuous limbs more suggestive of earthly delight than eternal salvation.
Sometimes as he rode, Humayun discussed his thoughts with Khanzada and Gulbadan, speaking with them through the pale pink silk that covered their swaying howdah, fastened with gold chains to the back of one of his best elephants. The practical Khanzada didn’t share his curiosity about the religious practices of his Hindu subjects — why they venerated stone yoni and lingams — representations of the female and male sexual organs — why their priests daubed their foreheads with ashes and why they wore a long cotton thread suspended over their right shoulder.
Yet Gulbadan seemed not only fascinated by these infidel practices but also knowledgeable about them. Of course, Humayun reminded himself, she’d been just a very young child when brought from Kabul to Babur’s capital of Agra. She’d grown up in Hindustan and had few if any memories of the Moghuls’ mountainous homelands beyond the Khyber Pass. Among her nurses would have been Hindustani women — ayahs they called them — who would have explained their religious rituals to her. When times were calmer, he might do well to spend time with Gulbadan, to try to understand more about his subjects.
Humayun’s column continued to pass on through a seemingly quiescent land until Lahore at last rose before them. Though the city had no surrounding walls to protect it, the ancient royal palace, built centuries ago by Hindu rulers in the heart of the city, looked solid and strong as Humayun dismounted in front of it. Still better was the news that his half-brothers had already arrived and were awaiting him within. In his darker moments he’d wondered whether they would obey his order but they had. . even Kamran.
He was surprised how eager he felt to be with them.What would they be like now? He’d not seen any of them since that bleak time after Babur’s death when they had plotted against him. Now, more than ever, he was glad he’d been merciful to them — not only because with his dying breaths Babur had asked him to show them compassion but because he needed his half-brothers and they surely needed him. Sher Shah was a threat to them all as Moghul princes. If Babur’s sons could unite, they could drive Sher Shah back into the festering marshes of Bengal whence he’d come. But more than that, it might also be an opportunity for them to start again, re-forging the bonds not only of blood but of affection that should never have been broken. Was it foolish to hope that they also might wish to heal the wounds of the past?
As soon as it was growing light next morning, Humayun summoned his half-brothers to his apartments. Kasim, Zahid Beg and a weary-looking Baisanghar were present as Kamran, Askari and Hindal entered and Humayun embraced them one by one, appraising each with a frank curiosity that matched their own as they stared back at him. When he’d last seen them over six years ago, Askari and Hindal had been youths and Kamran, just five months younger than himself, little more. Now they were all men.
Kamran’s eyes — that vivid green just like their father’s — flickered above a nose that was still hawk-like, indeed even more so. It had clearly been broken — perhaps in a fall from his horse or in a skirmish — and the hakims had failed to set it properly. That was not the only change — Kamran had broadened out. His sinewy shoulders and thick biceps bulged beneath his yellow tunic. Askari had altered less. Though his face looked longer and narrower than Humayun remembered and he now wore a clipped black beard, he was still slight. He was also at least half a head shorter than Humayun or Kamran. As for Hindal, Humayun would not have recognised him at all. Dildar’s son — Gulbadan’s brother — had grown so much. Taller than any of his brothers by at least four inches and thickly muscled, he looked far older than his eighteen years, an impression reinforced by a scar across his right eyebrow beneath his unruly brown hair and by his deep, resonating voice as he greeted Humayun.
Politenesses over, Humayun motioned his half-brothers to sit in a semicircle around him with Kasim, Baisanghar and Zahid Beg and got immediately to the point. ‘I am glad to see you. It has been a long time since we were all together. You know why I summoned you here. This is a council of war and the fate of every one of us — of our entire dynasty — rests on the results. In the past we have had our differences but we are all four the sons of Babur. Timur’s blood runs in all our veins and we must unite against the danger that presses in around us. As you know, Sher Shah at the head of three hundred thousand men has occupied Agra, our capital. . ’
‘It is regrettable that your campaigns against him did not prosper,’ Kamran said quietly. ‘It seems that for once your stars misled you.’