Raiders from the North eotm-1 Read online

  The ill-matched trio were sitting cross-legged on the red, richly patterned carpet beneath the empty throne. Without its occupant it looked a small, faded, insignificant thing, the gilt a little tarnished and the red velvet, gold-tasselled cushions shabby with use and age.

  ‘Well,’ said Qambar-Ali, looking round the assembled faces, ‘who would have thought it?’ He waited, wanting to gauge their views before he said more.

  ‘It was the will of God.’ Baqi Beg broke the silence.

  ‘A pity you did not foretell what would happen. For once the stars kept their secrets veiled from you,’ Baba Qashqa said.

  The astrologer flushed angrily at the comptroller’s spiteful words. ‘God does not always wish a man to know his own destiny — especially a ruler who must be as a god to his people and act for them as well as himself.’

  ‘I meant no offence, but if the king had foreseen his own death, he would not have left a twelve-year-old boy as his heir,’ Baba Qashqa said slowly, and shook his head.

  Qambar-Ali’s pulse quickened. ‘Indeed. The kingdom needs a strong, seasoned ruler to survive. Shaibani Khan and his Uzbek mongrels will be baying at our gates when he learns the news. He has sworn to build a tower from the bleeding, eyeless heads of all the princes of the House of Timur. A puny youth won’t keep him out of Ferghana for long.’

  The others nodded, all wearing melancholic expressions as if their only concern was the well-being of Ferghana.

  ‘And it is not only the Uzbeks we must fear. Our late king made many enemies among his own family — his incursions westwards over the border into the lands of his brother, the King of Samarkand, will not have been forgotten.’

  ‘Of course, the King of Samarkand is a great warrior,’ Qambar-Ali said slowly. ‘So is the Khan of Moghulistan.’ His mind dwelled for a moment on the purple velvet bag plump with gold coins that the khan had pressed into his receptive hand during his last visit to Ferghana. He remembered his words: ‘If Ferghana should need me, only send me word and I will come.’ The khan would surely reward him generously for the gift of a throne.

  ‘There is also the ruler of Kabul — he, too, is of the House of Timur, a cousin of our late king.’ Baba Qashqa looked directly into the vizier’s eyes. ‘He would protect Ferghana. .’

  Qambar-Ali, bowing his head in courteous agreement, resolved instantly that this very night he would send a messenger northeast through the mountains to the Khan of Moghulistan or the chance would be lost. ‘We must be cautious and not hurry in case we stumble,’ he said, with an air of deep thought. ‘We need to take time to reflect and to consider the best interests of Prince Babur. The throne must be his when he comes of age. We should seek a regent from among our neighbouring rulers to keep Ferghana safe from its foes until then.’ Not that Babur ever would mount the throne, he reflected inwardly. A little accident would not be long in happening. It would be so simple. .

  The four men sat up as Wazir Khan entered the chamber. He looked tired and the pink scar across his tanned face — the memento of a sword swipe a decade earlier that had also robbed him of the sight in his right eye — stood out livid and raw as if it had been received only weeks ago. ‘Gentlemen, my apologies.’ He touched his hand to his breast and bowed to Qambar-Ali in acknowledgement of the vizier’s position as the chief among them. ‘I have posted a double guard around the fort but all is quiet. The king’s body is being prepared and everything is in readiness for the funeral tomorrow.’

  ‘We are in your debt, Wazir Khan. I thank you.’

  ‘You were speaking of appointing a regent for Ferghana?’ Wazir Khan sat down beside Qambar-Ali and fixed on him his one eye with an unblinking intensity that the vizier resented.

  ‘We were. Prince Babur is too young to bear the responsibility of government. And we face a threat from those dogs of Uzbeks.’ At the mention of the Uzbeks, the vizier simulated spitting.

  ‘It is true that the prince is young, but he is the king’s only surviving son and has been reared since his earliest days to reign. It is his destiny, and what his father would have wished. Babur is brave, determined and learns fast. I should know. At the king’s request, especially when it became clear that Babur would be his only heir, I spent much time instructing him in swordplay and archery, how to wield a spear and hurl a battleaxe. Babur is also astute beyond his years. Surely we five can guide him through the early days,’ Wazir Khan said quietly.

  ‘My dear Wazir Khan, if only it were that simple.’ The vizier smiled. ‘If these were peaceful times your plan would be suitable, but the Uzbeks’ ambitions know no limits. As soon as they hear that the King of Ferghana has died leaving his kingdom to a mere boy they will be upon us, ripping out our entrails and raping our women.’

  ‘What do you propose, Vizier?’

  ‘We should ask one of our dead king’s relations to hold the throne in trust until Prince Babur comes of age. The question is, which one. .’

  ‘I see. Well, I am just a simple soldier and still have much to do tonight. Your heads are wiser than mine. May God guide you to the right decision for our kingdom.’ Wazir Khan rose, bowed, and walked slowly from the audience chamber. As soon as he was outside he quickened his pace, making for the royal harem across the courtyard on the far side of the fortress.

  Babur was sitting beside his mother, Kutlugh Nigar, letting her find comfort by running her fingers through his long dark hair. As, haltingly, he had broken the news of the tragedy, she had gone so pale he was afraid she might faint, and her eyes had stared at him blankly, like a blind woman’s. As the reality penetrated, she had begun to rock back and forth and a thin, terrible wail of grief had risen from deep inside her, gathering in intensity. Though the king had had concubines, she had been his only wife and the bond between them strong.

  He watched his grandmother, Esan Dawlat, pluck at the strings of a lute. The sad notes echoed and soared around the chamber like a bird seeking sanctuary. Her white hair, thick as it had been when she was still a girl, or so she liked to boast, hung in a plait over her shoulder. Her raisin eyes were red-rimmed but she had mastered herself. After all, she had told Babur, determinedly staunching her tears, she was a khanim, a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, the man they called the Oceanic Ruler who, two hundred years before Timur, had plundered half the known world.

  As Babur watched his grandmother’s face he recalled her constant arguments with his father over who had been the greater warrior — Genghis Khan or Timur. Esan Dawlat had never ceased recounting how Babur had been a large-headed baby, the labour long and agonising. Throughout it she had comforted her daughter with predictions that, like Genghis, Babur would be born clutching a blood clot — symbol of his warrior destiny — in his tiny fist. But she had been wrong. Nevertheless she would inevitably continue, ‘May he still be a great ruler!’

  As if she sensed his scrutiny, Esan Dawlat looked across at Babur and he saw in her eyes something he had not seen there before: uncertainty. She put the lute down. ‘Khanzada, send for some iced sherbet,’ she snapped, at her sixteen-year-old granddaughter.

  Babur watched as his sister, tall and graceful, leaped to her feet to summon an attendant. As she reached the entrance of the room, where the light of the oil lamps was dimmest, she almost collided with Fatima, head attendant of the harem. Her broad, plain face was streaked with tears. ‘Mistress,’ she began, before Khanzada had a chance to say anything about cooled sherbet, ‘mistress, Wazir Khan begs an audience with your august mother and grandmother.’

  ‘Can’t it wait until morning? They are grieving and need to rest.’

  ‘He says it is urgent.’ Fatima put out her hand in supplication, as if pleading his cause.

  Khanzada looked at her mother and grandmother, who exchanged a glance. Then Kutlugh Nigar said, ‘We will see him. Babur, leave us, please.’

  ‘But why? I should stay.’

  ‘Do as I say.’ His mother sat up.

  ‘No,’ said Esan Dawlat, ‘he is the new King of Ferghana. Anythin
g Wazir Khan has to say affects him more than any of us. Let him stay.’

  Kutlugh Nigar glanced at her son’s earnest young face, the determined set of his jaw, and nodded. The three women pulled their veils across the lower part of their faces and composed themselves, the old woman standing in the middle, her daughter and granddaughter at either side. Babur rose and stepped away from them. At his grandmother’s words, something within him had changed. He was apprehensive but also excited.

  Wazir Khan stooped beneath the low lintel and prostrated himself before them. ‘Forgive this intrusion at so late an hour, Majesties.’

  ‘What is it?’ Above her veil, Esan Dawlat’s shrewd eyes scanned his face.

  ‘It concerns His Majesty.’ Wazir Khan glanced for a second at Babur in the shadows. ‘It is not safe for him here. Even as we speak, men are plotting for their own gain to take the throne from him.’

  ‘You must speak more clearly. Who is plotting?’ demanded Esan Dawlat. Her colour had risen and rough red patches stood out on her high cheekbones.

  ‘ We trust you,’ Kutlugh Nigar said, more gently. ‘You were the king’s most loyal commander. More than that, your own mother suckled my husband as a baby, making you milk-brothers, bound by ties as deep as blood. In the days ahead I look to you to honour that bond. . to protect my son as his own father would have done. . Please, speak frankly. What have you heard?’

  ‘Men of a dark temperament, impatient and seditious, scheme against you. The vizier and the other members of the royal council plan to offer the throne to another — they think I caught only the end of their conversation but, concealed outside, I heard it all. They claim it is for the good of the country, that your son is too young to reign and that chaos will descend on Ferghana if they do not appoint a regent from outside until he comes of age. But they have all been bought long since by our neighbouring rulers. Each will promote his own paymaster. There will be civil strife, and all of their making. Because of their greed, rivals will battle for the throne, sowing the seeds of blood feud after blood feud. And whoever emerges the victor, your son will not live long. He will always be a threat — until he is dead.’

  ‘That is impossible. The lives of Timurid princes are inviolable under our code of honour. .’ Kutlugh Nigar’s voice faltered.

  ‘What must we do?’ Esan Dawlat gripped Wazir Khan’s arm. Despite her skinny frame there was a martial force about her. She had Genghis Khan’s spirit as well as his blood.

  ‘Yes, what must we do?’ Babur stepped out of the shadows. His face, in the flickering light of the oil lamps burning in a niche in the wall, was set and determined.

  ‘We must be quick. We must be decisive,’ Wazir Khan said shortly. ‘Tomorrow, after His Majesty your father’s funeral, we must immediately declare you king, here in the royal mosque within the fortress. Once the mullah has read the sermon naming you in the sight of God as the king, anyone who challenges you will be a traitor. And we must have our supporters around us as witnesses. My guards are loyal. So, too, will be many of the nobles of Ferghana — especially if you promise to reward their loyalty.’

  ‘Fetch me paper, ink and quill,’ Esan Dawlat requested of her granddaughter. ‘We will not spend this night in mourning, lest our indolence brings even greater woes upon us. I know those we can rely on and those who are untrustworthy and deceitful. People think my old eyes and ears notice nothing but I see what goes on. I won’t trust a scribe to write letters such as these, I will do it myself. Wazir Khan, you will make sure that each reaches its destination safely. If anyone dares enquire what they are, tell them they are invitations to the funeral feast. That is partly true, but they will also be invitations to the ceremony in the mosque that will serve as Babur’s coronation. I am summoning every trustworthy chieftain who lives within half a day’s hard ride here to Akhsi. I will ask them to make their way secretly and silently to the mosque as soon as the funeral feast has begun. Babur, sit by me and hold an oil lamp close.’

  As the hours of night drew on and the fortress fell silent around them, Babur looked on as the old lady wrote and wrote, pausing only to sharpen her quill and to call for more ink. It was extraordinary, he thought, how much she knew of the blood rivalries and bitter enmities but also the complex marriage links and deep personal loyalties between the clans that went back almost to the days of Genghis Khan. For the first time he felt grateful to her for all the hours she had forced him to spend learning who among the tribal chiefs were friends, who were foes and — most important of all — why. Watching the thin set line of her mouth, he was glad that she was his ally, not his enemy.

  As every note was written — the Turki script sprawling over the paper — it was folded, sealed with red wax and handed to Wazir Khan to be entrusted to one of his men. Outside, the courtyard echoed to the sound of departing hoofbeats. Only when the call to prayer rose through the early-morning mist did Esan Dawlat finally lay down her pen.

  Chapter 2

  First Blood

  Babur watched from his horse as the green-grey jade sarcophagus containing his father’s body was borne into the tomb by eight of Wazir Khan’s guards. Thick sheepskins on their shoulders cushioned them against the hardness of the stone but the coffin was a mighty weight. Sweat poured down their wind-tanned faces and one man stumbled, almost losing his hold. There was a gasp from the assembled onlookers — it would be a dreadful portent if the sarcophagus should fall to the earth. Babur’s stomach tightened and he glanced at the vizier a few feet away, but Qambar-Ali’s tortoise face was impassive.

  ‘Careful, man, you carry our king.’ At the bite in Wazir Khan’s voice, the guard steadied himself, rebracing his shoulder to the burden, and the pall-bearers shuffled slowly into the passageway sloping down to the burial chamber in the heart of the tomb.

  Babur’s father had long ago planned his mausoleum. Babur had been just a baby, mewling in the arms of his big-breasted wet-nurse, when the king had summoned stonemasons and craftsmen from across Ferghana and beyond. Under his personal direction they had laboured on the banks of the Jaxartes river a mile and a half or so west of the fortress of Akhsi to create a smaller version of the great Timur’s resting place in Samarkand. Now the tiles on the egg-shaped dome, bright aquamarine counterpointed with rich cobalt blue, sparkled in the June sunlight. His father would have been proud, Babur thought, and at the idea a half-smile crossed his tense face.

  As the sarcophagus disappeared from his view, a great wailing rose from the crowds — from courtiers and chieftains in silken robes to simple herdsmen who stank of the animals they tended. Men of whatever condition in life rent their robes and sprinkled their turbaned heads with earth in a ritual that predated even Genghis Khan. What were they really thinking? How many were genuinely grieving like himself? Babur wondered. The chieftains had come in response to Esan Dawlat’s summons but, when the time came, could he rely on them?

  ‘Beware of those who seem to have no ambition — it is unnatural,’ his father had always counselled him. Babur could not help glancing at Wazir Khan but felt instantly ashamed. With his father dead, after his mother and grandmother the tall, straight-backed soldier he had known all his life was the person he trusted most in the world. But what about that grey-bearded, pockmarked chieftain over there who had ridden so hard through the night from his mountain fastness that his robes were stained with his own and his horse’s sweat? Or that buck-toothed one, with his head shaved in the old Mongol fashion, who had once been banished by his father for his scheming, deceit and greed and only recently forgiven? Esan Dawlat had been forced to take risks with her invitations: she had hoped to summon allies but, even at his age, Babur knew some might easily turn out to be jackals.

  But all of this must wait. First his father must be laid to rest. As Wazir Khan, head bowed, held his jewelled bridle, Babur dismounted. Brushing away a tear he took a deep breath, ready to lead his father’s favourite mullah and the most important mourners down into the crypt to pay their final respects. For a fraction of
a second he longed for the soft touch of his mother’s hand. But Kutlugh Nigar was waiting within the harem with his sister and grandmother, as was proper. Such occasions were not for women. They had made their silent adieus from behind screens carved high in the walls as the cortege wound down out of the fortress and on towards the banks of the swift-flowing Jaxartes.

  As Babur approached the mausoleum’s dark mouth, he saw that Qambar-Ali was already ahead of him, his brown robes swirling around him in his eagerness to be first. ‘Vizier!’ Babur’s young voice was stern. It sounded good.

  A faint twitch of irritation flickered over Qambar-Ali’s face as he paused and turned aside. ‘Majesty.’

  ‘I will lead the mourners for my father. It is fitting.’ Babur stepped past, making sure he trod hard on one of the vizier’s felt-booted feet. That felt good too.

  ‘Of course, Majesty.’

  Babur gestured courteously to the mullah to join him. Qambar-Ali followed them down the low, dark passageway. The other royal council members came next, as their high office decreed they should. Yusuf, as treasurer, was carrying a bowl of gleaming gold coins to be laid at the foot of the sarcophagus. Baba Qashqa was bearing the huge red leatherbound journal in which, as comptroller of the royal household, he had recorded the minutiae of royal expenditure. This, too, would be left in the tomb to show that the king had gone to the next world with his affairs in order. Baqi Beg was cradling a crystal globe, the symbol of office of the court astrologer. Later, when the funeral was over, he was thinking, he would gaze into its shining depths and proclaim in a voice laced with sorrowful regret that the stars would not accept a mere boy as king.

  Courtiers flattened themselves against the damp walls of the crypt while others jammed into the passageway. The heavy air reeked of men’s sweat. Babur’s arms were almost pinned to his sides by the crush. As the mullah began to intone, softly at first but voice then rising and soaring around the chamber, fear prickled along Babur’s spine. He was in a confined place. What if an enemy should choose now to strike? In his mind’s eye bright red blood spurted from his slit throat and spilled on to the jade casket with its delicate tracery of tulips and narcissi. He heard himself trying to scream but managing only a blood-choked, bubbling gasp.