‘If it looks as if you are going hunting, they can have no reason to prevent you. As far as I know, Maldeo has given no orders for you to be kept within the fortress — he would not wish to do anything to make you suspect.’
‘But you, Sultana?’ Hamida touched the woman’s arm. ‘You must come with us. . it would be dangerous for you to remain. Maldeo will guess what you have done. . ’
To Humayun’s surprise, Sultana shook her head.
‘But this is your chance to rejoin your own people. . ’
‘After what has happened to me here at the hands of Maldeo, I can never go back. . That part of my life is over. But when I see his ambition, his greed thwarted, that will be my reward. . ’ A sad but also triumphant smile briefly lit her face. ‘And I doubt he will suspect me. . he does not think I have the brains or the courage to do what I have done. . ’
‘I will never forget you, my blood-sister. And when I am empress in Agra, I will send for you. . and if you wish to come you will be treated with the greatest honour.’ Hamida kissed Sultana’s cheek. ‘May God protect you.’
The sky was only just paling to the east when Humayun, dressed in hunting clothes like those around him, rode slowly through the concentric walls towards the gatehouse that was the only exit from the fortress. A fine black hawk given him by Maldeo was on his wrist, bright eyes concealed beneath a jewelled and tufted cap of yellow leather. Behind him, surrounded by Kasim and his other courtiers and commanders, were the litters carrying Hamida, Khanzada, Gulbadan and the rest of the women. After leaving Hamida last night he had gone straight to his aunt and his sister to tell them of the peril and of what they must do. True Moghul princesses, they had at once grasped the situation and obeyed him calmly and unquestioningly.
Humayun’s blood was pumping as hard as if he was riding into battle as he led his party nearer to the gatehouse. In the soft morning light he could see that the metal grille was still lowered. His eyes flicked left and right, seeking any sign of an ambush. Though he had believed every word Sultana had said, he had been deceived before in this place. Also, Sultana herself might have been betrayed, perhaps by an enemy within the haram curious about her meetings with the Moghul empress. But all seemed as it should be. No arrow tip, no musket protruding from a slit in the gatehouse. Just the usual guards.With seeming casualness, Humayun gestured to Jauhar who called out in ringing tones, ‘Raise the gate. His Imperial Majesty wishes to go hawking.’ The captain of the guard, a tall man in orange tunic and turban, hesitated. Humayun felt sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades and glanced down at Alamgir, hanging at his side. Across his back was a full arrow case. But there was no need for force. After barely a second or two, the Rajput captain shouted, ‘Raise the grille.’
The men above the gate began turning the windlass to draw up the thick black chains from which the grille was suspended. Agonisingly slowly — or so it seemed to Humayun — creaking and shuddering the heavy iron grille rose. With every foot, so too did Humayun’s hopes, though he kept his expression distant and slightly bored.
Even when the grille was fully up, Humayun did not hurry but spent a moment or two adjusting the hawk’s leather hood. Then, with a wave of his hand, he and his little entourage trotted forward. Slowly, so as still not to rouse suspicion, they rode down the steep ramp curving along the side of the outcrop that only a few weeks ago they had ridden up with such high hopes, out of the ceremonial arched gatehouse at its foot and then through the quiet streets of the town where the people still slept. Soon they were heading eastward, the seeping golden light of the rising sun before them, and into the sandy wastes that though so hostile were their best protection.
Chapter 13
Humayun signalled the small scouting party with whom he had ridden ahead of his main column to halt. He swallowed a single mouthful of the precious water in the leather bottle at his side then patted his horse’s neck, which was flecked with creamy patches of sweat. Around him, the blistering, shimmering desert stretched away, silent, endless and all-engulfing.
‘Over there, look!’ shouted one of the scouts — no more than a youth — hands cupped around his eyes against the glare. ‘To the left!’
Humayun scanned the horizon and caught his breath as he made out the indistinct shape of first one and then two palm trees emerging from the heat haze and then, a little further along, what might just be the glint of sunlight on water. ‘I see palm trees and what could be a river. How about you, Ahmed Khan?’
‘Yes. Perhaps that patch of trees shelters the settlement of Balotra we’ve heard about. That water could be the Luni river flowing down to the Rann of Kutch.’
‘How much do we know about Balotra?’
‘Very little. By the look of it, it’s still fifteen miles or so off. I’ll send some of these scouts ahead, Majesty, if you wish, while we wait for the main party and make camp here for the night.’
‘Do so, and have the scouts make sure there are none of Maldeo’s men waiting in ambush in the settlement.’
Luck had so far been on Humayun’s side. Despite many anxious glances over his shoulder, during these past weeks there had been no sign of pursuers from Marwar. After rendezvousing with his main force, Humayun had turned north for a while in a calculated bid to deceive Maldeo. Over four days’ hard march, with everyone’s nerves on edge, pickets posted all around the column, scouts ranging even further afield and deliberately abandoning detritus — old equipment and even wagons — to convince any of Maldeo’s scouts who came that way that he really was heading north, Humayun had circled eastward. Then he had turned south, parties of men following on foot in the early stages to disguise their tracks by sweeping the sand with bundles of brushwood.
Only once had Humayun thought he could see riders on the horizon, but they’d proved nothing more threatening than a herd of goats that must have wandered from their village looking for the small, bitter berries that grew on the few scrubby bushes. He had tried to picture Maldeo’s consternation on returning from his secret meeting with Sher Shah’s emissaries to find his ‘guests’ gone, but his thoughts had quickly turned to how best to find a refuge for his family and his men. They could not meander endlessly through the desert. The suffocating heat and shortage of fresh food and clean water could kill just as easily as Rajput arrows and musket balls.
And all the time he had been worrying about Hamida. At night he heard her tossing and turning, unable to sleep, perhaps tormented by images of their capture by Maldeo and the murder of herself and her unborn child. But she never complained and brushed off his enquiries with the simple comment that it was indigestion — something she was told all pregnant women suffered from. Last night she had said to him, ‘We will tell our son what it was like — how we protected him in even the worst of places — and he will take strength from the story of how we, and he, survived, won’t he?’ Humayun had pulled her close and hugged her in admiration of her bravery and stoicism.
‘Majesty.’ Ahmed Khan approached Humayun as, next day, outside his tent he took his morning meal — a small cup of water, a piece of unleavened bread and some dried apricots so hardened by the sun that they threatened to crack his teeth. ‘My scouts have just returned. It is Balotra, about twenty miles ahead.’