Alex Rutherford - Raiders from the North

Exhilarated as usual by the images his father had conjured, Babur smiled up at him to show he shared the same joyous pride. But even as he watched, his father’s face changed. The fervent light in his dark eyes faded and his expression grew despondent, even brooding. Babur’s smile faltered. His father’s story usually finished with this paean to Timur, but today the king continued, his tone bleak, the vibrancy gone.

‘But I — descendant of the great Timur though I am — what have I? Just Ferghana, a kingdom not two hundred miles long or one hundred wide. Look at it — a place of sheep and goats grazing in valleys ringed on three sides by mountains.’ He flung out an arm towards the soaring, cloud-circled peaks of Mount Beshtor. ‘Meanwhile three hundred miles to the west my brother rules golden Samarkand, while south across the Hindu Kush my cousin holds wealthy Kabul. I am their poor relation to be snubbed and despised. Yet my blood — your blood — is as good as theirs.’

‘Father-’

‘Even so, all we princes of the house of Timur,’ the king interrupted, voice trembling with passion, ‘what are any of us, compared with him? We squabble like petty chieftains as we struggle each to hold on to our own little scrap of his empire. I am as guilty as any of the others.’ He sounded really angry now. ‘If Timur came back today he would spit in our faces for the fools we are. We are so proud to call ourselves Mirza, “Offspring of the Amir”, so eager to call him ancestor, but would he be so ready to acknowledge us? Wouldn’t we have to fall on our knees and beg his forgiveness for dissipating our inheritance and forgetting our greatness?’

The king’s strong hands gripped Babur’s shoulders so hard it hurt. ‘You are old enough now to understand. That is why I am telling you this. We owe Timur a debt. He was a great man, my son. His blood is your blood. Never forget it. Be like him, if you can. Live up to your destiny and let it be greater than mine.’

‘I will try, Father. . I promise.’

For a moment, the king’s eyes searched Babur’s face. Then, seemingly satisfied, he grunted and turned away. Babur sat very still. His father’s unexpected passion had shaken him. As he digested what he had said, he saw that the sun was almost down. Like so many other evenings, he watched the jagged landscape soften in the dying light. The cries of boys herding their sheep and goats back to their villages came out of the gathering gloom. So did a gentle, insistent cooing. His father’s favourite flock of white doves were fluttering home to their cote.

Babur heard a gentle sigh escape his father’s lips, as if he acknowledged that life still held pleasures as well as disappointments. He watched the king take a swig of cooling water from the leather bottle dangling at his side and, his face relaxing once more into its usual good humour, turn and hurry along the battlements towards the conical dovecote high on top of the wall and partly overhanging the dry ravine below. His gold-embroidered red velvet slippers slapped against the baked-mud floor and his arms were already outstretched, ready to take his favourite doves in his hands and caress their plump throats with the tenderness of a lover. Babur couldn’t see the attraction. Stupid little birds. The best place for them was plucked and poached in a sauce of pomegranates and crushed walnuts.

Babur’s mind returned to Timur and his marauding soldiers. What would it be like to feel that the whole world was yours? To take a city and have its king writhe in the dust at your feet? His father was right. How different it would be from ruling just this little kingdom of Ferghana. The petty politics of his father’s court bored him. The chief vizier, Qambar-Ali, stank like an old mule in his sweaty robes. With his long yellowing teeth he even looked like one. And he was always up to something, whispering in his father’s ear, bloodshot eyes swivelling to see who was watching. Timur would have sliced off the ugly fool’s head without a moment’s reflection. Perhaps, Babur reflected, he would do it himself when he eventually became king.

Soon it would be time to pray and then to go to the women’s quarters to eat. He jumped down from the step. At that moment he heard a tremendous crack, the battlements shuddered beneath his feet and a few seconds later there came a dull crash. He put out a hand to steady himself and realised he could see nothing. What was happening? Was it one of the earth tremors that sometimes shook the castle? No, the noise was somehow different. As he gasped in shock his mouth drew in choking dust and his eyes streamed involuntary tears as they attempted to clear themselves. Instinctively Babur put up his hands to cover his face and head. As he did so, he heard swift-running feet, then felt strong arms grip him and haul him backwards. ‘Majesty, you are safe.’

He recognised the deep voice. It belonged to Wazir Khan, the commander of his father’s bodyguard. ‘What do you mean. .?’ It was hard to talk; his mouth was dry and gritty, and his tongue felt suddenly too large for it. His words sounded thick, incomprehensible, and he tried again. ‘What’s happened. .?’ he managed. ‘It wasn’t an earthquake, was it?’

Even as he asked the question Babur forced his watering eyes to open and saw the answer for himself. A large chunk of the battlements where the dovecote had been had gone, as if a giant hand had reached out to break the rim off a pie crust. Dried and fissured by the intense summer heat it had suddenly given way. The doves were fluttering in the air like snowflakes.

Babur wrenched himself from the tall soldier’s protective arms and rushed forward. His stomach seemed to fall from his chest as he realised he could not see his father. What had happened to him?

‘Majesty, please come back.’

A cold sweat broke on his brow as Babur worked his way along what remained of the ruined battlements and peered down into the ravine. Through the slowly settling dust he could just make out the remains of the wall and the dovecote, pulverised on the rocks. Of his father there seemed no sign. Then Babur saw his maroon turban suspended at a jaunty angle from the branch of a bush sprouting from a fissure in the rock. He must have fallen with the dovecote. He must be buried, injured, perhaps even dead, Babur thought, with a shudder.

As he looked down, soldiers with flaming torches were running from the gate at the base of the fortress and scrambling down the rocks into the ravine.

‘Hurry, you fools, hurry!’ yelled Wazir Khan, who had come up beside Babur and again taken a protective hold of him. They watched in silence as, by the light of their flaring orange torches in the gathering dusk, the soldiers clawed through the rubble. One found a dead dove and tossed the limp little body impatiently aside. A kite swooped low and flew off with it.

‘Father. .’ Babur could not stop the shivering that had seized his body. Down in the ravine as the men cleared the chunks of mud and stone he glimpsed what looked like a fragment of cloth. His father’s robe. A little while ago it had been pale blue. Now it was stained purple with blood. A few moments more, and the soldiers pulled out his father’s body. To Babur it seemed as lifeless and broken as the dove’s. The soldiers looked up at their commander high above them for a sign telling them what to do.

Wazir Khan gestured to them to carry the body into the fortress. Then he pulled Babur further back from the edge and gently turned him from the sight of the destruction below. His face was grim but also thoughtful as, for a moment, he looked down at Babur. Then he knelt and touched his forehead to the ground. ‘All hail to Babur Mirza, the new King of Ferghana. May your father’s soul fly like a bird to the gates of Paradise.’