Revenge must wait.
Chapter 10
Humayun twisted in the saddle. It was thirty-six hours since he had abandoned Lahore to Sher Shah. Behind him streamed his remaining troops, only some fifteen thousand men — many had deserted. Beyond them straggled for miles a desperate mass of humanity half choking in the hot dust, their possessions loaded higgledy-piggledy on carts, donkeys and mules.
Only four days ago a group of travel-stained merchants — so terrified that they’d abandoned their mule trains and goods along the way — had galloped into Lahore, yelling to whoever would listen that Sher Shah was threatening to put the city to the sword. A few hours later, a messenger had arrived from Sher Shah himself. The letter he was carrying was simple and to the point. Sher Shah was indeed threatening to destroy the city and slaughter its people — but only if Humayun refused to withdraw from it.
The decision to quit Lahore just as he had been forced to yield Agra was a terrible humiliation. But Sher Shah commanded vast armies that — if the reports reaching Humayun were true, and there was no reason to doubt them — outnumbered his own forces by twenty to one, perhaps more. Despite the trenches and fortifications he had ordered to be dug, without city walls to protect it any attempt to defend Lahore against such an overwhelming force was doomed, even if the troops he had summoned from Kabul could reach him in time.
After only a few hours’ reflection, Humayun had ordered his commanders to prepare to evacuate Lahore. As the news had spread, the citizens had refused to believe that with Humayun gone, Sher Shah would keep his word to spare them. There had been panic. From one of the citadel’s stone towers, Humayun had watched people pouring from their houses, clutching cloth-wrapped bundles of their most precious belongings and gripping the hands of small, screaming children. A few carried old people on their backs. Soon the narrow streets had become clogged with handcarts and wagons drawn by stumbling animals. Under the pressure of fear ordinary citizens had lost their reason and become a crazed and callous mob, desperate only to get away and save themselves. Shops had been looted and the weak and frail elbowed and pushed aside, some falling to be trampled and crushed underfoot. It had been like witnessing the end of the world.
The panic and chaos had grown yet worse as the boom of massive explosions had begun to reverberate in the citizens’ ears, coming from the great parade ground near the palace where Humayun had ordered the destruction of his largest bronze cannon, which would be too slow and cumbersome to take with him. Teams of straining oxen had dragged the guns out on to open ground where Humayun’s gunners, their naked torsos dripping with sweat, had hastily stuffed their barrels with powder and — after fixing long cotton fuses — ignited it, sending fragments of hot, twisted metal into the air.
Snatching his thoughts back to the present, Humayun glanced to his left at the powerful figure of Hindal riding on a great cream-coloured stallion at the head of his own small entourage. Immediately on hearing of Sher Shah’s message, Hindal had sought Humayun out and sworn on their father’s name that he had known nothing of Kamran’s and Askari’s defection. Since childhood Hindal had never been good at concealing his emotions and seeing his half-brother’s shocked face and incredulity at what Kamran and Askari had done, Humayun had believed him. Later, calm reflection had told him his instincts had been correct. Otherwise, why would Hindal have remained in Lahore and risked retribution? Also, Kamran and Askari were full brothers. Hindal — like Humayun himself — was only their half-brother, so the ties of blood and honour were weaker. As if sensing Humayun watching him, Hindal turned his head and gave him a brief smile. It was good that Hindal had chosen to stay with him, thought Humayun. Perhaps amid the present danger to their dynasty at least two of Babur’s sons could form an enduring bond and draw strength from it.
In the last desperate hours before abandoning Lahore to his rapidly advancing enemy, Humayun had embraced Baisanghar and bidden him farewell, perhaps for the last time. It had been hard to part from his grandfather and even harder to convince the old man he must go north with a detachment of troops to secure Kabul for Humayun. Again and again Humayun had had to argue that Kamran and Askari might take advantage of his plight to try to seize the kingdom, that he no longer had confidence in his governor there who had been so tardy in sending reinforcements and that Baisanghar was one of the very few he could trust unreservedly to hold it for him.
This was true, but there was another reason too why Humayun wanted his grandfather to go north, although he could not have admitted it to Baisanghar. Though the warrior spirit still burned within him and his mind was clear, he was old — eight years older even than Kasim — and losing his physical stamina. He’d be safer as well as more useful in Kabul rather than draining his small remaining stock of strength accompanying Humayun on the long, perhaps dangerous, journey he had decided on: six hundred miles southwest down the Ravi and Indus rivers to Sind. The Sultan of Sind, Mirza Husain, was of Humayun’s blood — his mother was Babur’s cousin — so he was honour bound to receive Humayun. But would honour mean any more to Mirza Husain than it had to his half-brothers with whom his ties of blood were so much closer?
Eventually, Baisanghar had given way, persuaded by the logic of Humayun’s arguments. However, Khanzada and Gulbadan had been harder to deal with and this time it was Humayun who had conceded defeat. His aunt and half-sister had refused to accompany Baisanghar. ‘I have earned the right to decide my own fate,’ Khanzada had insisted quietly. ‘All the years I suffered in Shaibani Khan’s haram, I told myself that if I survived never again would I lose control of my life, my destiny, even if death was the only alternative. And the destiny I choose is to go with you, nephew.’ Gulbadan had remained silent throughout this speech but Humayun had noticed how tightly she was gripping Khanzada’s hand and how determined was her expression. When Khanzada had finished speaking Gulbadan too had made clear her wishes to accompany Hindal and Humayun.
In his heart Humayun was glad they were with him. They were riding close by on sturdy brown ponies, followed by their attendants and the wives and daughters of some of his and Hindal’s commanders, including Zahid Beg’s wife, also mounted on ponies. Speed was vital and this was no time for more decorous modes of transport, concealed from the common gaze behind the curtains of litters or howdahs. Nevertheless, the small group of women was closely guarded by the most trusted of Humayun’s bodyguards and well hidden from prying eyes beneath voluminous garments, their hair bound up and concealed by tight-fitting caps. Above the cotton face cloths that protected them from the wind and the choking dust only their eyes were visible.
There should have been a further pair of eyes — grey ones — to gladden his soul, Humayun thought. Before finally quitting the Lahore palace he had paid a brief visit to the newly dug grave in the garden where Salima had been buried only two days before. She too would have wanted to go with him — he was sure of it — but a sudden fever contracted just as news came of Sher Shah’s ultimatum and with chaos rising all around had claimed her life within twenty-four hours of its onset. In the last minutes of her sweating delirium, her staring, unfocused eyes had not recognised him or seen the tears in his eyes as he held her small hand in his own larger one and watched as her last breaths fled from her body. He would miss her so much. Since he had abandoned Gulrukh’s opium-laced wine and even more since his defeats at the hands of Sher Shah, Salima had become ever more important to him, providing an all-consuming physical relief from his mental doubts and daily cares and responsibilities.