Alex Rutherford - Raiders from the North

‘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. Anything 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.