CHAPTER IX
"Bring! bring the musky scented wine!
A draught of wine the memory cheers,
And wakens thoughts of other years."
So the months, even the years sped on bringing calm. Sometimes Babar felt a trifle regretful over the old storms. The glints of sunshine between had seemed, mayhap, the brighter for them. He was now only nearing his twenty-ninth year, and yet he felt almost as if life had ended for him. He looked round on his growing family, on his gardens, his aqueducts, his highly-disciplined small army; all were well in their way, but for all that his restless eyes followed the doings of Shâh-Ismael of Persia, who, young as he was, a mere boy in fact, had dared to send the arch-enemy, the Usbek-raider, Shaibâni Khân, a spinning-wheel and a spindle, and bid him if he would not fight, go sit in a corner and busy himself with the little present like the woman he was!
It had been splendid, that interchange of discourtesies. First of all, the Shâh's demand for a treaty followed by Shaibâni's contemptuous advice to make no claim for kingship through his mother, who had withdrawn herself from the circle of distinction by her marriage; since he, Shaibâni, made one through his father, a Sultan and son of a Sultan. This was accompanied by a beggar's bowl and staff with the script: "In case you wish, as is fitting, to follow the profession of your father, I remind you of it and the verse--
"'Clasp the bride of sovereignty close to you if you will, But don't
you dare to kiss her until the swords are still.'"
Shâh-Ismael, however, had been no whit behind. Back had come the spindle and distaff with the rhyming insult--
"Who boasts of his dead fathers only owns
Himself a dog that loveth ancient bones."
After that, naturally, there was but one end--extermination of one or the other. Which would it be?
Shâh-Ismael, with his thousands of disciplined and heretical kizzilbâshes, or Shaibâni Khân with his hordes of wild Mongols?
"God's truth," said Babar to old Kâsim who had been ailing this while back, "I scarce know which to choose. I hate the Red-caps almost as much as the Moghuls."
Old Kâsim's eyes were growing a little dim for the things of this world; perhaps he saw those of the next more clearly in consequence. "There be good men on both sides, Most-Clement. A flat face and split eyes count no more than a red-cap when we have lost clothes and bodies at the Day-of-Judgment."
The shrewd commonsense of the remark clung to Babar's receptive brain long after the speaker had gone to his account.
"Yea, I am restless," admitted Babar to calm Mahâm. "I cannot help it, my moon! I am not made as thou art. There was a book at Samarkand when I was a lad that treated of the Great Waters. And it said they rose and fell as the moon waxed and waned. So 'tis thou who art responsible, sweetheart; though God knows, thou art ever full moon to me." And he sat down instantly to write a rubai on that fancy. He had not half finished it, however, when news came that drove everything else out of his head.
Shâh-Ismael had defeated Shaibâni in full force at Meru; the Usbek-raider was dead, smothered in a band of escaping Mongols.
"I must go," muttered the young King hoarsely; "I must go. Samarkand is mine by right."
So, with hardly more than an hour's preparation he was off, though it was the dead of winter, across the snows to join forces with his cousin of Badakhshân.
The fighting fever was on him once more. He could not, he did not even try, to resist it. And Mahâm let him go; she was too wise to attempt to chain her wild hawk.
"When spring comes we will meet in Samarkand," she said quietly.
He took Haidar, the boy, with him though, because the lad wept and refused to be left behind. And right proud was the lad, when at the very first fight, it was the opportune arrival of a party of his father's old retainers who had come out to join their young master, that turned the tide of victory towards Babar.
"Let the name of Haidar Mirza be inscribed on the first trophy," said the Emperor smiling; and the boy's blood went in a surge of sheer delight to his face.
But, despite the fact that he was able to reach the river, and settle himself in some measure of security at Kundez, Babar felt himself not sufficiently strong to attempt Samarkand without help. And there was none to whom he could apply save Shâh-Ismael, who had already sent him a letter containing guarded offers of friendship. It rather went against Babar's orthodox grain to ask a favour from a persecuting Shiah heretic; but old Kâsim's words came back to him.
Yes! there was good on all sides, and--pace the priests!--a man might be an honest fellow in spite of his saying "Ameen" in schismatic fashion. For Babar, like many of his like, had no taste for dogmatic differences and preferred to differentiate by visible and audible signs.
So Mirza-Khân, his cousin, was despatched to Irâk in order to make the best terms possible, and Babar, meanwhile, sent for his family from Kâbul. The spring had passed to summer ere they arrived at Kundez, and Babar, now reinforced by some of the surrounding tribes, crossed the Amu and marched on to await events at the strong fortress of Hissâr. It was close on eighteen years since he had been encamped with his old uncle, Sultan Hussain, upon the opposite bank. Close on eighteen years since, one darkling dawn, he, a lad of thirteen, dear old Kâsim-Beg and half-a-hundred or so of rough, honest Andijân troopers had ridden through Khosrau Shâh's picket, and he, Babar, had lost the Crystal Bowl which Gharîb had given him.
And now? He looked across to the frightened girl, the mother of his children, in a way the mother of himself, and thought what a marvellous thing Life was. Even as he saw it, limited by Birth and Death, isolated by those five personal, bodily senses which none could say he shared exactly with his fellow, how strange it was to watch the compensating balance at work on all things, keeping all things as it were to true, perfect level. He looked back over his life and saw that balance everywhere, save in one thing. The tragedy of Dearest-One remained as ever poignant, unappeased.
"Thou art sad, husband! what is't?" asked Mahâm, fondly. She was ever quick to see his moods.
"Nothing, wife," he answered gaily. "Save that today or to-morrow at least comes the answer from Shâh-Ismael. What will the red-cap heretic reply?--God knows!"
So with a laugh he left her for the cares of State.
But he had scarcely gone before he was back again, white, trembling, a gold-dust-sprinkled letter in his hand.
"It hath come," he said brokenly. "It hath come--and oh! Mahâm--Dearest-One! Dearest-One!"
He fell at her feet, buried his face in her lap and sobbed like a child. She must be dead, thought Mahâm, and to her lips came the usual blankly-tame commonplaces of consolation.
"Nay, 'tis not that!" he said, recovering his calm. "She is alive and well--and Shâh-Ismael, who hath found her, is sending her back to me with all honour--" he sprang to his feet suddenly and raised his right arm high.
"Oh, God! may my arm wither if ever it strike a blow against this just man, may my tongue dry up if ever it utter word of blame; I, Babar, am his servant for ever! There is nothing I will not do for him."
"Does he not desire aught of thee in return?" asked Mahâm when Babar had fairly outwearied himself in joy, in confessions of past regret, in promises of future content.
"Aye! Yea! he asks much, but not more than he has a right to ask--not more than I will give cheerfully. And he is sending men also, Mahâm. I shall have an army of sixty thousand! With that Samarkand is assured, and, of a truth, no man can deem it a disgrace to own justice as his sovereign lord! I hold it an honour."
And he upheld this view of Shâh-Ismael's proposal that if the aid of the Persian kizzilbâshes were given to conquer Samarkand, Babar should acknowledge the Persian Satrapy as over-lord, against all the criticism of his nobles; not that there was much, for it was indubitable that without such help Samarkand would remain unwon. And Babar had many arguments in favour of this nominal vassalage. To be part of a great Empire, was always an advantage; besides the Kings of Samarkand had always in the past acknowledged a suzerain lordship. It had given stability to the dynasty; and it was of late years only, since this dependence had been removed, that Samarkand had been bandied from one ruler to another.
When a man is set on a thing, arguments for it grow in the very hedgerows; and Babar with the tempting bait of his sister's safe return before his eyes, was too full of real gratitude to hesitate an instant.
But it was not for a month or more that he was to enter Samarkand victorious.
It was a perfect autumn day when, after dismissing the Persian contingent, Babar made his triumphant entry. All along the route, high and low, nobles and poor men, grandees and artisans, princes and peasants, alike testified their joy at the advent of one who had already twice before come to them as King, and who had endeared himself to them by his kindness and generosity.
The streets were all draped with cloth and gold brocades; pictures, drawings, wreaths, were hung up on every side. Such pomp and splendour no one has ever seen or heard of before or since. He was received at the Gate by the great men of the city, who assured him that the inhabitants had for years been longing that the shadow of his protection might be cast upon them.
Babar, who was dressed, rather to their regret, in the uniform of a kissilbâsh General (which smacked of heresy, almost of unbelief) responded heartily, and all eyes followed his splendid figure as he rode through the streets saluting the crowd right and left. He was in the highest spirits, for he knew that in the very Palace where she had been left ten long years before, his dearest sister was awaiting him.
Dearest-One! It seemed almost too good to be true.--God save the man who had brought this happiness into his life!
Impatient, headstrong in all his emotions, he would gladly have cut short his reception and gone straight to her; but the people would not be denied a sight of their hero. If the angels were crying aloud "Enter in peace!" and the populace was shouting "God save the Emperor!" the least he could do was to listen to them patiently.
So it was nigh dusk before he found himself, trembling with sheer joy, in the Garden-Palace and saw before him a tall, slender figure in white--
"Dearest-One! Dearest-One!" he cried and was kissing her feet, her hands, her thin, worn face.
"Brotherling! Brotherling!"
That was all they said. And then they held back to see each other. She saw strength, and health, and manhood such as she had scarce dreamed of, even for him; a man of past thirty in the very prime of all things. And he saw a woman of nigh forty with streaks of silver in her dark hair, upright, tall, but with a weariness even in her joy.
"I am sorry, Dearest-One," he said humbly as he had said to her many a time when as a child he had grieved her.
"And I am glad," she replied softly.
That night the city seemed on fire. Flares blazed from every house, the flickering lines of countless lights seemed to interlock one street with another. Vast crowds surged through them, and far and wide rose Babar's praise.
But at the door of a mosque an old white-bearded mullah sat and spat calmly. "He wore the accursed red-cap of the schismatic--Wherefore?"
And the folk who heard him looked at each other and echoed:
"Wherefore?"
That was the question. Asked by one to-day, it was asked by half-a-dozen the next, by a hundred the week after, when Babar, faithful as ever to his promises, had the Kutba, the Royal Proclamation, read in the name of Shâh-Ismael as over-lord. A thousand asked it when the first gold coin was struck bearing the hated Shiah legends. The Emperor, the man they had welcomed, was a heretic. He and his army wore the red-cap.
Samarkand, head centre of orthodoxy, became alarmed, began to whisper.
"I am no heretic, but a keeper of promises," said Babar grimly, and went on his way. He had become a trifle arrogant, and inclined to resent any interference. The Samarkand folk were rude, ignorant, bigoted; he would not even try to pacify them.
So the winter passed and spring set in--(the plentiful drops of her rain having clothed the earth in green raiment)--and with the warmer weather the Usbeks once more appeared like locusts on the edge of the Turkhestân desert and the fight for Samarkand began all over again.
And this time Babar with not a wish ungratified, Babar in the plenitude of his pride and strength, was forced to flight; for religious bigotry is the hardest of all foes to fight.
A horde of kizzilbâshes, it is true, was sent by his over-lord to help him; but they only made matters worse. First by their confirmation of heresy; next by their brutality in murdering high and low, the sucklings and the decrepit.
Sick at heart, Babar found himself once more a wanderer; once more a prey to the treachery of Moghul troops, from which he escaped one night with bare life and in his night clothes.
His one consolation was that Mahâm, Dearest-One and his children, were safe with relatives in Khost.
No! he had another consolation; for the man who had set aside wine as an enhancement of pleasure, now took to it as a lessener of care. The Cup-of-Life for him was filled again and again with the Wine-of-Death, and he laughed as he quaffed at its bubbles on the rim. Vaguely, too, came to him a sort of disgust at dogmatic creeds. He would sit and sing Sufic odes with fervour, and praise.
Perhaps with a man of his temperament, it was only to be expected.
"The wine, the lamp which night and day
Lights us along our weary way.
Sâki! thou knowest I worship wine,
Let that delicious cup be mine,
Wine! pure and limpid as my tears."