‘I will accept nothing less than total surrender.’
‘That is what I told them you would say. Majesty, don’t you remember me. .?’
Humayun stared at his old face, wrinkled as an apricot left to dry in the sun. Something was familiar.
‘I am Yusuf, eldest nephew of Wali Gul who was once your father’s treasurer. I remember you and your brother Kamran as boys. . It is sad that it should have come to this between you. . it is also hard that ordinary people should suffer because of the ambitions of princes. I have always known that you — the son most beloved by Babur — were the rightful King of Kabul. But men are fickle and these days seem to care more for expedience than honour. When they believed Kamran would defeat you, they gave their allegiance to him.’
‘That is why the citizens must submit to me unconditionally. Go back and tell them that if every man — the soldiers of the garrison as well as the ordinary people — lays down his arms I will spare their lives. I want all the weapons from cannon and muskets to swords and bows brought out and piled before the gates. The people themselves cannot leave — not until the disease has run its course. I’ll not put my own men at risk. But I will send in hakims and supplies of fresh food and water. . What will be their answer?’
Yusuf’s dark brown eyes looked close to tears. ‘They will bless you for your mercy, Majesty.’
Slowly Yusuf rose and leaning heavily on his staff made his way back to the bullock cart and climbed in. Soon the cart was on its way back towards the city, whose gates swung open to receive it. Would they open as easily in response to his terms, Humayun wondered, as he paced back and forth in front of his tent, feeling too tense to answer Jauhar’s summons to the midday meal. An hour passed, and then another. Then a noise arose within the walls of the city, faint at first but quickly growing in intensity. . the sound of thousands of voices cheering. It could only mean that the citizens had decided to surrender.
Minutes later, the gates were pulled wide open and a number of bullock carts emerged. When they had gone only halfway into the no-man’s-land between the town walls and his encircling forces, they stopped and the drivers and the men sitting beside them began to throw the contents — weapons of all sorts and bows, muskets glinting in the sunlight — unceremoniously down to form rough heaps on the earth.
Humayun smiled. He had judged the surrender terms correctly. The city was his but his task was not even half complete. Kamran’s troops still occupied the citadel. Humayun knew that if his half-brother was still with them he would be watching the city’s surrender. How would he react now?
The answer was not long in coming. From the battlements Kamran’s men fired volleys of arrows towards Humayun’s cannon positions. They were accompanied by the discharge of small cannon Kamran had positioned on the citadel walls. Then Humayun heard the drums above the citadel gates boom and trumpets blare and saw the gates inch slowly open. Was Kamran about to surrender? No. Suddenly Humayun saw soldiers wielding long whips drive a dozen or so skinny oxen with bundles of burning straw tied on to their backs through the gates and down the ramp towards Humayun’s positions. Terrified, the animals charged onwards like living torches.‘Shoot them down before they burn the artillerymen’s tents or set alight their powder stores,’ yelled Humayun.
Soon eleven of the oxen lay on the ramp, arrows protruding from their corpses. Only one in its pain-maddened charge had reached Humayun’s position and it had been despatched before it could do any serious damage. However, three of Humayun’s archers had been badly wounded, shot down from the battlements of the citadel as they left cover to fire on the oxen.
This response convinced Humayun as could nothing else that Kamran had not fled as he had feared but was still within the citadel. It was so typical of him. When they were young, Kamran had always taken any defeat in play or in sport hard, as a child sticking his tongue out at Humayun and balling his fists and, when they were youths, crying ‘foul’ and promising all would be different at their next encounter. In those days, Humayun had laughingly ignored Kamran and his gestures and thus increased his half-brother’s rage. Now, though, he would test Kamran’s resolve and, even more important, that of his confederates. After some minutes’ thought, Humayun sat down to compose a letter to Kamran, then sent for Jauhar.
‘I wish you to ride to the citadel with this ultimatum for my brother. I will read it to you so you know what words you carry. They are few and they are blunt. “Our sister Gulbadan tried to appeal to your sense of family honour, of duty. You wouldn’t listen. Instead to your everlasting shame you threatened the life of a child — your own nephew. The town of Kabul has fallen to me and your position is without hope so I offer you this choice, out of concern not for you but for those who follow you. Surrender the citadel and I swear that I will spare your men. Your own fate, however, will be for me to decide and I can give you no promises. If you will not surrender, I will turn my full might against you. However long it takes, my men will pound your walls to dust and once inside kill every man in the citadel without quarter. You have until sunset to give me your answer. If it is no, I will have archers fire arrows containing this message within your walls under cover of night so that your followers can see how cheap you hold their lives.”’
In fact, Jauhar had barely been back from the citadel an hour and the sun was still a spear’s length above the horizon when, from where he was standing on the perimeter of the camp talking to Ahmed Khan, Humayun saw a rider slowly descend the steep ramp from the citadel and then set out across the plain towards them.As the man drew nearer, Humayun saw a flag of truce fluttering from the tip of his spear. The minutes seemed to pass impossibly slowly as Humayun waited but at last the rider was just a few yards away — a young man in chain mail, with a falcon’s plume in his helmet and a sombre expression. Reining in his horse, he dismounted and raised his arms from his sides to show he wasn’t armed.
‘Approach,’ Humayun said.
When he was some ten paces from Humayun, the young man fell to the ground in the full obeisance of the korunush. Then, getting to his feet, he spoke. ‘Majesty. The message I bring is short. The citadel of Kabul is yours.’
A fierce joy surged through Humayun. At the same time came a thought. Before he did anything else he would ride to the gardens his father had laid out on the hills overlooking Kabul where Babur’s grave lay open to the sun, rain, wind and snow. There, kneeling by the simple marble slab, he would give thanks. Just as Babur had done, he would use Kabul as the stepping stone for his reconquest of Hindustan.
Trumpets sounded as beneath a brilliant blue sky Humayun rode at the head of a picked column of men representing all the clans who had joined in his conquest of Kabul, up past where his cannon had been stationed, past where he had looked up to see to his anguish Akbar exposed as a human shield on the battlements, through the high gate from which the fire-carrying oxen had charged and on into the sunlit courtyard of the citadel itself. As he dismounted from his black horse, an immense pride in what he had achieved since he left Persia washed over him. Most important, of course, he had recovered Akbar, but he had also reasserted his authority over Kamran and Askari and re-occupied the kingdom of Kabul.
Bairam Khan, Nadim Khwaja and others of his generals behind were exultant, waving at the crowds and rejoicing in their victory. But mingling with Humayun’s euphoria were more sombre thoughts. Kneeling at his father’s grave last night he had vowed never again to become a king without a kingdom. Before he could even think of retaking Hindustan, just as Babur had done he must make his rule over Kabul and all its lands unassailable. He must force every chief in the surrounding territories who ruled as his vassal to submit totally to his overlordship. Many of those chiefs had supported Kamran and several had friendships and alliances with him going back to the time when as a youth Kamran had remained in Kabul while Humayun had accompanied Babur on his conquest of Hindustan. They would require careful handling. A simple show of force might obtain their allegiance for a while but what would happen when he advanced on Hindustan? They might well rebel.