Alex Rutherford: Ruler of the World

Main Characters

Akbar’s family

Humayun, Akbar’s father and the second Moghul emperor

Hamida, Akbar’s mother

Gulbadan, Akbar’s aunt and Humayun’s half-sister

Kamran, Akbar’s uncle and Humayun’s eldest half-brother

Askari, Akbar’s uncle and Humayun’s middle half-brother

Hindal, Akbar’s uncle and Humayun’s youngest half-brother

Hirabai, Akbar’s wife, princess of Amber and mother of Salim

Salim, Akbar’s eldest son

Murad, Akbar’s middle son

Daniyal, Akbar’s youngest son

Man Bai, Salim’s wife, mother of Khusrau and daughter of Bhagwan Das, Raja of Amber

Jodh Bai, Salim’s wife and mother of Khurram

Sahib Jamal, Salim’s wife and mother of Parvez

Khusrau, Salim’s eldest son

Parvez, Salim’s middle son

Khurram, Salim’s youngest son

Akbar’s inner circle

Bairam Khan, Akbar’s guardian and first khan-i-khanan , commander-in-chief

Ahmed Khan, Akbar’s chief scout and later his khan-i-khanan

Maham Anga, Akbar’s wet-nurse (milk-mother)

Adham Khan, Akbar’s milk-brother

Jauhar, Humayun’s steward and later Akbar’s comptroller of the household

Abul Fazl, Akbar’s chief chronicler and confidant

Tardi Beg, Governor of Delhi

Muhammad Beg, a commander from Badakhshan

Ali Gul, a Tajik officer

Abdul Rahman, Akbar’s khan-i-khanan after Ahmed Khan

Aziz Koka, one of Akbar’s youngest commanders

Others at the Moghul court

Atga Khan, Akbar’s chief quartermaster

Mayala, a favourite concubine of Akbar

Anarkali, ‘Pomegranate Blossom’, Akbar’s Venetian concubine

Shaikh Ahmad, an orthodox Sunni and leader of the ulama , Akbar’s senior Islamic spiritual advisers

Shaikh Mubarak, Islamic cleric and Abul Fazl’s father

Father Francisco Henriquez, Jesuit priest, Persian by birth

Father Antonio Monserrate, a Spanish Jesuit priest

John Newberry, English merchant

Suleiman Beg, Salim’s milk-brother and friend

Zahed Butt, captain of Salim’s bodyguard

Zubaida, Salim’s former nursemaid and attendant to Hamida

Delhi

Hemu, Hindu general who seizes Delhi from the Moghuls

Fatehpur Sikri

Shaikh Salim Chishti, a Sufi mystic

Tuhin Das, Akbar’s architect

Gujarat

Ibrahim Hussain, a rival member of the Gujarati royal family

Mirza Muqim, a rival member of the Gujarati royal family

Itimad Khan, a rival member of the Gujarati royal family

Kabul

Saif Khan, Governor of Kabul

Ghiyas Beg, a Persian emigre appointed Treasurer of Kabul

Mehrunissa, Ghiyas Beg’s daughter

Bengal

Sher Shah, ruler from Bengal who ejected the Moghuls from Hindustan in Humayun’s reign

Islam Shah, Sher Shah’s son

Shah Daud, vassal ruler of Bengal in Akbar’s reign

Rajasthan

Rana Udai Singh, ruler of Mewar and son of Babur’s enemy Rana Sanga

Raja Ravi Singh, a Rajasthani ruler and vassal of Akbar’s

Raja Bhagwan Das, ruler of Amber, brother of Hirabai and father of Man Bai

Man Singh, son of Raja Bhagwan Das and nephew of Hirabai

The Moghuls’ 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

Northwestern India, 1556

A low rumbling growl rose from the dense acacia bushes thirty yards away. Even without it Akbar would have known the tiger was there. Its musky scent hung in the air. The beaters had done their work well. While moonlight still silvered the hills in which Akbar’s army was encamped, a hundred miles northeast of Delhi, they had started towards the small forest where a large male tiger had been sighted. The village headman who had brought word of it to the camp, saying he had heard that the young Moghul emperor was fond of hunting, claimed it was a maneater that in the last few days had killed an old man labouring in the fields and two small children as they went to fetch water.

The headman had left the camp well rewarded by Akbar, who could hardly contain his excitement. Bairam Khan, his guardian and khan-i-khanan — commander-in-chief — had tried to dissuade him from the hunt, arguing that with the Moghuls’ enemies on the move this was no time to be thinking of sport. But a tiger hunt was too good to miss, Akbar had insisted, and Bairam Khan, a faint smile lightening his lean scarred face, had finally agreed.

The beaters had employed the age-old hunting practices of the Moghul clans brought from their homelands on the steppes of Central Asia. Moving quietly and methodically through the darkness, eight hundred men had formed a qamargah , a huge circle about a mile across, around the forest. Then, striking brass gongs and beating small, cylindrical drums suspended on thongs round their necks, they had begun closing in, forming a tighter and tighter human barrier and driving all kinds of game — black buck, nilgai, and squealing wild pigs — into the centre. Eventually, as the light grew stronger, some of them had spotted tiger tracks and sent word to Akbar, following the beaters on elephant-back.

The beast on which Akbar was sitting high in a jewelled canopied howdah also sensed that the tiger was close. It was swinging its great head from side to side and its trunk was coiling in alarm. Behind him Akbar could hear the elephants carrying his bodyguards and attendants also restlessly shifting their great feet. ‘ Mahout , quieten the beast. Hold it steady,’ he whispered to the skinny, red-turbaned man balanced on the elephant’s neck. The mahout at once tapped the animal behind its left ear with his iron ankas , the rod he used to control it. At the familiar signal, the well-drilled beast slowly relaxed to stand motionless again. Taking their cue from it, the other elephants also ceased their fidgeting and a profound silence fell.

Excellent, thought Akbar. This was the moment when he felt most alive. The blood seemed to sing in his veins and he could feel his heart thump, not with fear but with exhilaration. Though not yet fourteen, he had already killed several tigers, but the battle of wits and of wills, the danger and unpredictability, always excited him. He knew that if the tiger suddenly broke cover, it would take him only an instant to pluck an arrow from the quiver on his back and fit it to his taut-stringed, double-curved bow — the weapon most hunters would use against such quarry. But Akbar was curious to see what a musket could do, especially against such a monster as this was reputed to be. He prided himself on his skill with a musket, and despite his mother’s remonstrances had spent far more hours practising his marksmanship than at his studies. What did it really matter if he couldn’t read when he could outshoot any soldier in his army?

The tiger had stopped growling and Akbar sensed its amber eyes watching him. Slowly he rested the slender engraved-steel barrel of his matchlock musket on the side of the howdah. He had already loaded the metal ball, trickled gunpowder from his silver-mounted powder horn into the pan and checked the short, thin length of fuse. His qorchi , his squire, half crouching close beside him, was already holding the burning taper Akbar would need to ignite the fuse.