‘Look out, Majesty, behind you!’ Humayun turned only just in time as another of Kamran’s men rode into the attack with his curved scimitar held high. This time Humayun’s response was instant and instinctive — a sword cut over the head of his assailant’s horse and into his groin. He fell at once.
As he coughed and spat the salty, metallic-tasting blood from his mouth, Humayun saw that he and his men had killed eight of their twenty assailants and that the rest had lost their appetite for the fight and were fleeing. Within moments Humayun was once more riding hard up the stony track towards the barricades, only, almost immediately, to see Bairam Khan leading a detachment of around five hundred of his own horsemen towards him, his scarlet banner flying.
Reining in his snorting, foam-flecked horse, Bairam Khan said, face creased in a triumphant smile, ‘Kamran’s men are fleeing in every direction.’ Looking around him in the now gathering dusk, Humayun saw that victory was his — but was it really a victory? To his intense disappointment he had failed to capture his half-brother — something he must do before he could safely turn to his great enterprise, the recapture of Hindustan.
‘Make sure we pursue and capture as many of Kamran’s men as we can before night falls entirely. I’ll offer a bag of gold coins to anyone who takes my traitorous half-brother alive or dead.’
Chapter 23
Humayun lay back against a red and gold brocade cushion and away from the low gilded table piled with silver plates from which he and Hamida had just eaten their midday meal. Humayun had chosen chicken baked slowly with spices and yoghurt in the tandoor — the clay oven that was essential to any Moghul kitchen and was always taken with them on campaign. He smiled at Hamida who after taking a bite from a sticky orange sweetmeat was daintily rinsing her fingers in a small, engraved copper bowl of rosewater. She smiled back. As he watched a shaft of sunlight fall through the casement on to the small, bubbling marble fountain behind her, Humayun felt content.
He smiled again at Hamida and from the quiver in her lips and the twinkle in her eyes he realized that she knew he was contemplating love-making after the meal and she would welcome it. He was about to stretch his arm out to her when her attendant Zainab entered. Even before she spoke, Humayun saw from the anxiety on her face that his afternoon of warm, languorous love would have to be postponed.
‘Majesty. Ahmed Khan begs your urgent presence — they have captured your half-brother Kamran.’ As Zainab spoke the words, Humayun saw Hamida’s expression suddenly change from that of a warm lover to a triumphant, avenging mother. She had never forgiven — never mind forgotten — Kamran’s treatment of her only son and had often rebuked Humayun for the number of times he had spared Kamran’s life. She had frequently quoted to him some lines from her favourite Persian poet: Bad earth does not produce hyacinths, so don’t waste seeds of hope in it. Doing good to the evil is as bad as doing evil to the good.
Before Humayun could say anything, Hamida burst out, ‘Praise God for his capture. This time I hope there’ll be no talk of mercy. He’s had far more chances than he deserves and each time spurned the opportunity you gave him to reform. His resentment of you runs so deep within him he will never relent. Don’t think twice. Have him executed within the hour, if not for my sake, for that of our son whose life he held so cheap.’
Humayun said nothing as he rose to leave the room, pausing only to grab his father’s sword Alamgir. Nevertheless, he felt some of the same deep anger so clear in Hamida’s words welling up within him. It mingled with an almost ecstatic relief that at last he would be free of Kamran’s threat to his rear while he pressed on with his plans for probing raids beyond the Indus to test the strength of Islam Shah’s grip on Hindustan.
Ahmed Khan was waiting in the sunlit courtyard as Humayun emerged through the silver-lined doors of the women’s quarters.
‘Where did you capture him, Ahmed Khan, and how?’
‘Two days ago we seized a petty tribal chief who had supported Kamran in his last rebellion. We brought him to the citadel and confined him in the dungeons. Early this morning he asked for me and in a bid to reduce his punishment he hinted that he knew where Kamran might be. I told him I could make no deals without reference to you, Majesty, but he should tell me immediately what he knew. He could be sure that if Kamran were found you would not be ungrateful. He said he believed that Kamran was hiding in a poor quarter of Kabul itself — the area around the tanneries. He admitted when I pressed him that his information was old — at least a week — and that his informant, a petty thief who had been among Kamran’s camp followers, was not necessarily reliable. Nevertheless, I thought it worthwhile to send a strong detachment of our men immediately down to the tanneries area to cordon it off and make a house to house search.
‘I’m glad I did, Majesty. When the soldiers came to the house of a tanner whose family is from the south, the tanner seemed panic-stricken and tried to prevent them entering, claiming that his wife’s mother was lying gravely ill with the spotted fever. My men pushed him aside and searched the house, throwing aside piles of skins and even probing with their spears the deep copper vats of dye and urine used for tanning. They found nothing, but still convinced that the tanner was hiding something — or someone — they entered the curtained-off portion of the top floor where the tanner claimed his sick mother-in-law was lying. Here they found a body hunched beneath some dirty blankets. Pulling the blankets off they saw a large figure with big feet and hands — too big for a woman, they thought — curled up like a baby. The so-called “mother-in-law” was wearing rough women’s garments and had a thick black veil of the type worn by Arab women over her face. She was pleading piteously in a high-pitched voice to be left to die in peace. Nevertheless, the officer leading the party reached out to lift up her veil. As he did so, the figure pulled a dagger from the voluminous folds of her grubby brown robe and stabbed him in the forearm. Two of the officer’s men quickly restrained her, and without her veil it was clear she was no woman but your stubble-chinned half-brother.
‘At first he struggled and screamed that you were a worthless ruler and he the rightful king; that our men were lickspittles of a wastrel and should come to their senses and let him go. However, after a little he grew silent, seemingly resigned to whatever fate had in store for him.’
‘Where is my half-brother now?’
‘In the dungeons below the citadel, Majesty.’
In his mind’s eye, Humayun saw the three-year-old Akbar on the battlements of Kabul and again felt a sudden surge of anger against his half-brother. How easily Akbar could have been killed. How many others had died in Kamran’s rebellions? He drew his sword Alamgir from its jewelled scabbard.
‘Ahmed Khan, take me to Kamran.’
Swiftly, Ahmed Khan led the way across the courtyard, through a low door with guards on either side, and down a series of steep steps into the damp lower reaches of the citadel. Humayun struggled to adjust his eyes to the darkness of the interior corridors in which only an occasional oil lamp burned in an alcove. As his vision improved he thought he saw a large rat run close along the wall. At least he could stop his rat of a brother living to infect others with the disease of rebellion, he thought, and tightened his grip on his sword hilt. By now they were approaching the door of Kamran’s cell, which was guarded by four of Ahmed Khan’s men.