Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War Read online

  Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War

  ALEX RUTHERFORD

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  Copyright © 2010 Alex Rutherford

  The right of Alex Rutherford to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by Alex Rutherford in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2011.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication – other than the obvious historical figures – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 8326 9

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations.

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette Livre UK Company 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Main Characters

  Part I - Brotherly Love

  Chapter 1 - Riding the Tiger

  Chapter 2 - An Impudent Enemy

  Chapter 3 - The Spoils of War

  Chapter 4 - In the Balance

  Chapter 5 - The Tyranny of the Stars

  Part II - In the Eye of the Tiger

  Chapter 6 - The Water-Carrier

  Chapter 7 - A Promise Kept

  Chapter 8 - Blood and Dust

  Chapter 9 - Brothers

  Chapter 10 - Flight

  Chapter 11 - Hamida

  Chapter 12 - Into the Desert

  Chapter 13 - Demon of the Sands

  Chapter 14 - Akbar

  Part III - Farewell the Koh-i-Nur

  Chapter 15 - Shah Tahmasp

  Chapter 16 - Kandahar

  Chapter 17 - Flesh and Blood

  Chapter 18 - A Visitor in the Night

  Chapter 19 - Riders in the Snow

  Chapter 20 - Kabul

  Part IV - Return of the Moghuls

  Chapter 21 - A Brother’s Grief

  Chapter 22 - Kamran Padishah

  Chapter 23 - Doing Good to the Evil

  Chapter 24 - Warm Bread

  Chapter 25 - Shock and Awe

  Chapter 26 - Victory

  Chapter 27 - The Stars Smile Down

  Chapter 28 - Staircase to Heaven

  Historical Note

  Additional Notes

  Alex Rutherford lives in London. Brothers at War is the second novel in the Empire of the Moghul quintet.

  Main Characters

  Humayun’s family

  Babur, Humayun’s father and the first Moghul emperor

  Maham, Humayun’s mother and Babur’s favourite wife

  Khanzada, Humayun’s aunt, the sister of Babur

  Baisanghar, Humayun’s maternal grandfather

  Kamran, Humayun’s eldest half-brother

  Askari, Humayun’s middle half-brother and full brother of Kamran

  Hindal, Humayun’s youngest half-brother

  Gulbadan, Humayun’s half-sister and full sister of Hindal

  Hamida, Humayun’s wife

  Akbar, Humayun’s son

  Humayun’s inner circle

  Kasim, Humayun’s vizier

  Jauhar, Humayun’s attendant and later his comptroller of the household

  Baba Yasaval, Humayun’s master-of-horse

  Ahmed Khan, Humayun’s chief scout and later governor of Agra

  Sharaf, Humayun’s astrologer

  Zahid Beg, a senior commander

  Salima, Humayun’s favourite concubine

  Suleiman Mirza, Humayun’s cousin and general of his cavalry

  Maham Anga, Akbar’s wet-nurse

  Adham Khan, Akbar’s milk-brother

  Nadim Khwaja, one of Humayun’s commanders and Maham

  Anga’s husband

  Others

  Gulrukh, Babur’s wife and mother of Kamran and Askari

  Dildar, Babur’s wife and mother of Hindal and Gulbadan

  Nizam, a water-carrier

  Zainab, Hamida’s waiting woman

  Sultana, Moghul concubine of Raja Maldeo

  Wazim Pathan, a retired soldier rewarded by Humayun for his courage

  Shaikh Ali Akbar, Hindal’s vizier and father of Hamida

  Darya, son of Nasir, commander of Humayun’s garrison in Kabul

  Mustapha Ergun, Turkish cavalry officer

  Hindustan

  Sultan Bahadur Shah, ruler of Gujarat

  Tartar Khan, member of the previous ruling dynasty, the Lodi, defeated by Humayun’s father Babur, and a claimant to the throne of Hindustan

  Sher Shah, an ambitious ruler of humble origins in Bengal

  Islam Shah, Sher Shah’s son

  Mirza Husain, Sultan of Sind

  Raja Maldeo, ruler of Marwar

  Tariq Khan, ruler of Ferozepur and vassal of Sher Shah

  Adil Shah, Islam Shah’s brother-in-law and a claimant to the throne of Hindustan

  Sekunder Shah, cousin of Islam Shah and claimant to the throne of Hindustan

  Persians

  Shah Tahmasp

  Rustum Beg, elderly general and cousin of Shah Tahmasp

  Bairam Khan, nobleman, military commander and later Humayun’s khan-i-khanan, commander-in-chief

  Humayun’s ancestors

  Genghis Khan

  Timur, known in the west as Tamburlaine from a corruption of Timur-i-Lang (Timur the Lame)

  Ulugh Beg, Timur’s grandson and a famous astronomer

  ‘If you wish to be king, put brotherly sentiment aside ...

  This is no brother! This is Your Majesty’s foe!’

  From the Humayunnama by Gulbadan, half-sister of Humayun

  Part I

  Brotherly Love

  Chapter 1

  Riding the Tiger

  The wind was chill. If Humayun closed his eyes he could almost imagine himself back among the pastures and mountains of the Kabul of his boyhood, rather than here on the battlements of Agra. But the short winter was ending. In a few weeks the plains of Hindustan would burn with heat and dust.

  Drawing his fur-lined scarlet cloak more tightly around him, Humayun walked slowly along the walls. He had ordered his bodyguards to leave him because he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Raising his head, he gazed up into clear skies that were splashed with stars. Their intense, jewel-like brightness never failed to fascinate him. It often seemed that everything was written there if only you knew where to look and how to interpret the messages . . .

  A firm, light footstep from somewhere behind him disturbed him. Humayun turned, wondering which courtier or guard had been rash enough to disobey their emperor’s expressed wish for solitude. His angry gaze fell on a slight, tall figure in purple robes, a thin gauze veil pulled over the lower face, with above it the raisin eyes of his aunt, Khanzada. Humayun’s expression relaxed into a smile.

  ‘We are waiting for you in the women’s quarters.You said you would eat with us tonight. Your mother complains you spend too much time alone, and I agree with her.’

  Khanzada dropped her veil. The tawny light from a torch burning in a sconce fell on a fine-boned face no longer as beautiful as in her youth but one that Humayun had loved and trusted for as many of his tw
enty-three years as he could remember. As she stepped a little closer he caught the soft fragrance of the sandalwood that burned constantly in jewelled golden saucers in the women’s apartments.

  ‘I have much to reflect on. I still find it difficult to accept that my father is dead.’

  ‘I understand, Humayun. I loved him too. Babur was your father, but don’t forget he was also my little brother. He and I went through much together and I never thought to lose him so soon . . . but it was God’s will.’

  Humayun looked away, unwilling for even Khanzada to see the tears gleaming in his eyes at the thought that he would never see his father, the first Moghul emperor, again. It seemed incredible that that strong, seasoned warrior, who had led his nomadic horsemen down through the mountain passes from Kabul and across the Indus to found an empire, was dead. Even less real was the thought that only three months ago, with his father’s eagle-hilted sword Alamgir at his waist and the ring of his ancestor Timur on his finger, he himself had been proclaimed Moghul emperor.

  ‘It’s so strange . . .like a fantasy from which I keep expecting to wake.’

  ‘It’s the real world and you must accept it. Everything Babur wanted, everything he fought for, had one purpose only – to win an empire and found a dynasty. You know that as well as I – weren’t you fighting at your father’s side when he crushed Sultan Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat to claim Hindustan for the Moghuls?’

  Humayun said nothing. Instead he looked up once more at the sky. As he did so, a shooting star sped across the heavens and vanished, leaving not even a trace of its fiery tail. Glancing at Khanzada, he saw that she had seen it too.

  ‘Perhaps the shooting star was an omen. Perhaps it means my reign will fizzle out ingloriously . . . that no one will remember me . . .’

  ‘Such self-doubt and hesitancy would anger your father if he were here now. Instead he would have you embrace your destiny. He could have chosen one of your three half-brothers as his heir, but he selected you. Not just because you are the eldest – that has never been the way of our people – but because he thought you were the most worthy, the most able. Our hold on Hindustan is precarious – we have been here only five years and dangers press in from every side. Babur picked you because he trusted not just in your courage, which you had already demonstrated on the battlefield, but also in your inner strength and your self-belief, your sense of our family’s right to rule, which our dynasty must have to survive and prosper here in this new land.’ Khanzada paused.

  When Humayun did not reply, she raised her face to the light of the torch and ran her finger down a thin white scar extending from her right eyebrow almost to her chin. ‘Do not forget how I got this, how when I was young and your father had to abandon Samarkand to the Uzbeks I was seized by their chieftain Shaibani Khan and forced to submit to him. He hated all who, like us, have the blood of Timur. It gave him pleasure to humiliate and degrade a princess of our house. I give thanks that I never despaired all the time I was a captive in his haram . . . never forgot who I was or that it was my duty to survive. Remember that when another woman attacked me and stole some of my beauty, I wore this scar as a badge of honour – to show that I was still alive and that one day I would be free. After ten long years that day came. I rejoined my brother and rejoiced to see him drink to my return from a vessel made from the skull of Shaibani Khan. You must have the same self-belief, the same strength of character, Humayun, as I had.’

  ‘Such courage as yours is hard to emulate, but I will not fail my father or our house.’

  ‘What is it, then? You are young, ambitious . . . you were eager for the throne long before your father fell ill. Babur knew; he spoke to me of it.’

  ‘His death was so sudden when it came. I left so much unsaid. I didn’t feel ready to be emperor . . . at least not so soon, nor in such a way.’

  Humayun let his head drop. It was true. His father’s final moments still haunted him. Summoning the last of his strength, Babur had ordered his attendants to dress him in his royal robes, seat him on his throne and call his nobles to him. Before the entire court, in a weak voice but firm in his resolve, Babur had ordered Humayun to take Timur’s heavy gold ring, engraved with the head of a snarling tiger, from his finger, saying, ‘Wear it with pride, and never forget the duties it imposes on you . . .’ But Babur had been just forty-seven, still in his prime and far too young to hand on his fledgling empire.

  ‘No man, not even an emperor, can know when he will be called to Paradise and in what manner. None of us can predict or control fully the course of our lives. Learning to live with the great uncertainty of mortality as well as the other vicissitudes of fortune is part of growing to adulthood.’

  ‘Yes. But I often think there is more we can do to understand the underlying patterns behind our lives. Events that appear random may not be. For example, Aunt, you said just now that my father’s death was God’s will, but you’re wrong. It was my father’s will. He deliberately sacrificed himself for me.’

  Khanzada stared. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I’ve never revealed to anyone my father’s last words to me. Just before he died, he whispered that when I was sick with fever a few months earlier, my astrologer, Sharaf, had told him that he’d read in the stars that if he wished me to live he must offer up what was most precious to him. So falling on his face he offered God his life for mine.’

  ‘Then it was indeed God’s will – God accepted the sacrifice.’

  ‘No! Sharaf told me that all he intended was that my father should offer up the Koh-i-Nur diamond – not his life. But my father misinterpreted his words . . . It seems overwhelming that my father loved me so much, saw me as so important to the future of our dynasty, that he offered his own life. How can I live up to such faith in me? I feel that I don’t deserve the throne I once so hungered for. I fear that a reign that began in such a way will be tainted . . .’

  ‘Such thoughts are absurd.You search too hard for patterns of cause and consequence. Many a reign begins in loss and uncertainty. It is up to you to make sure by your own actions that yours doesn’t end so. Any sacrifice Babur made was done through love for you and trust in you. Remember also he did not die immediately – you recovered and he lived eight more months. His death at that time might well have been pure coincidence.’ Khanzada paused. ‘Did he say anything else to you in his last moments?’

  ‘He told me not to grieve . . . he was happy to go. He also made me promise to do nothing against my half-brothers, however much they might deserve it.’

  Khanzada’s face tautened. For a moment Humayun thought she was about to say something about his brothers, but instead, with a toss of her small, elegant head, she seemed to think better of it.

  ‘Come. That’s about enough of these musings. The cloth is spread in the haram. You must not keep your mother and the other ladies waiting. But Humayun . . . one last thought. Don’t forget that your name means “fortunate”. Fortune will be yours if you will be strong in mind as well as in body and seize it. Banish these foolish self-doubts of yours. Introspection may become a poet or a mystic but it has no place in the life of an emperor. Grasp with both hands what fate – and your father – have bequeathed you.’

  With a last look up at the sky that showed him that the moon was now obscured by cloud, Humayun slowly followed his aunt towards the stone staircase that led down to the women’s apartments.

  Prostrating himself before Humayun in the emperor’s private chambers some weeks later, Baba Yasaval, his usually blunt, ebullient master-of-horse, looked strangely nervous. As the man rose again and looked up at him, Humayun noticed that his skin seemed stretched unnaturally tight over his wide cheekbones and a pulse throbbed at his temple.

  ‘Majesty, if I might speak to you alone?’ Baba Yasaval glanced at the guards positioned on either side of Humayun’s low silver chair. It was an unusual request. Security dictated that the emperor was seldom on his own – even when he was in the haram guards were always near at hand, ready t
o turn an assassin’s blade. But Baba Yasaval, who had fought loyally for Humayun’s father, could be trusted.

  Humayun dismissed his guards from the chamber and beckoned Baba Yasaval closer. The man approached but hesitated before speaking, scratching his stubbly scalp which, to remind him of the old ways of his clan, since arriving in Hindustan he had taken to shaving, except for a single lock of coarse, greying hair that swung like a tassel.

  ‘Baba Yasaval, speak. What is it you wish to tell me?’

  ‘Bad news . . . terrible news, Majesty . . .’ A sigh that was almost a groan escaped Baba Yasaval’s lips. ‘There is a plot against you.’

  ‘A plot?’ Humayun’s hand instinctively reached for the jewelled dagger tucked into his yellow sash, and before he knew it he had risen to his feet. ‘Who would dare . . . ?’

  Baba Yasaval bowed his head. ‘Your half-brothers, Majesty.’

  ‘My brothers . . . ?’ Only two months ago he and they had stood side by side in the courtyard of the Agra fort as the gilded cart drawn by twelve black oxen and bearing their father’s silver coffin departed on the long journey to Kabul, where Babur had asked to be buried. His half-brothers’ faces had been as marked by grief as his own and in those moments he had felt a rush of affection for them and a confidence that they would help him complete the task their father had left unfinished: making the Moghuls’ hold on Hindustan unassailable.