CHAPTER VII
Blessed is he who has not to learn
How the favour of fortune may change and turn,
Whose head is not raised in his high estate
Nor his heart in misfortune made desolate.
Nizâmi.
"There is no use in talking," quoth Isân-daulet decisively. "Send the trays to Ayesha Begum, my daughter, and prepare the wedding comestibles. It has been high time, these two years back, that Zahir-uddin Mahomed got himself married, but of a truth there was not the wherewithal. One cannot marry out of a basket. But now all is smooth, so send for the bride. God grant she be not so unwilling as the groom."
And in truth Babar, seated on the floor, of course, between his grandmother and his mother, looked far from happy. His hands lean, supple, strong, hung over his grasshopper knees, and his head--small for the rest of his body--had not its usual frank bearing.
"I am not unwilling," protested the young man; "Lo! it has to be done, that I know. 'Tis the duty of Kings to marry and have sons; but, see you, I have no experience at all; indeed I have never been so circumstanced as either to hear or witness any words expressive of the amorous passion, and I have never seen my betrothed since I was five."
"God forbid!" ejaculated the Khânum piously.
"But how then can I love her?" protested Babar; "'tis not like Dearest-One and Cousin Baisanghâr--"
A shriek of outrage drowned what he would have said. Not that either of the two good ladies really felt shocked, but that in dealing with Babar they held it wiser to adhere to the strictly conventional; otherwise, heaven only knew if he would not go off at a tangent as Dearest-One had done. Poor Dearest-One on whom the blow of uttermost fate had fallen at last. For a terrible tale had come to Andijân but a month before, snuffing out the lamps of festival like a dust-storm at a wedding. For who could rejoice when they thought of a poor young prince who was nobody's enemy but his own, like Baisanghâr, strangled with a bowstring by the orders of the miserable and infidel-like wretch, worthless, contemptible, without birth or talents, reputation or wisdom, Khosrau Shâh? Babar had been beside himself with rage, and had expended every known epithet on the murderer, who though he prayed regularly, was black-hearted and vicious, of mean understanding, slender talents, faithless and a traitor. A man who for the sake of the short and fleeting pomp of this vain world had done to death the sweetest prince, the son of his old benefactor, in whose service he had been and by whom he had been patronised and protected. Thus rendering himself accursed of God, abhorred of men, and worthy of shame and execration till the judgment day. Perpetrating his crimes too for the sake of trivial enjoyment, and, despite his power and place, not having the spirit to face a barn-door chicken!
The young man had poured all this and much more into his sister's ears, hoping to comfort her, but she had only turned her face to the wall, and wept.
Strange, indeed, were women-folk; she had been so composed when she herself renounced him, but now that Death had stepped in she was all tears.
The thought of her weeping brought him a quick excuse. "Anyhow," he remarked, with evident relief, "there can be no weddings yet awhile; my sister is not in condition for festivals."
Isân-daulet sniffed. "Sisters are not indispensables to a marriage. So be good boy, Babar, and listen to reason. Do I not ever advise thee to thy benefit?"
"Not ever," retorted the young King sulkily; "thou did'st advise me to set my promise aside and let thy cursed Moghuls and others plunder those I had sworn to protect."
"Not plunder, boy!" replied the old lady shrilly, "but to resume their own property."
"I care not," said Babar sternly, and rising to go; "I say I was wrong to yield. 'Twas senseless, to begin with, to exasperate so many men with arms in their hands. And then--Lo! grandam--I was precipitate, and in affairs of state many things that appear reasonable at first sight require to be well weighed and considered in a hundred different lights ere orders are given. I shall have trouble over that yet."
He stalked away in dignified fashion, and his mother sighed. "He grows a man, indeed. 'Tis time he married; but I wonder will she be good daughter to me?"
"She will be good granddaughter to me, that I'll warrant me," retorted Isân-daulet viciously. She would stand no nonsense from young chits.
So the marriage went on, and Babar performed his part of it with grave politeness and propriety. He wore his wedding garments with a difference, and when he sat beside his bride for the first time, holding her hand and repeating the words after the officiating Kâzi he felt quite a thrill. In fact he would like to have squeezed the little hand he held, only it was so covered with rings and gew-gaws that he was afraid of hurting it. Altogether the fateful she looked rather small; but distinctly fetching--though of course he could not see her face, in her veil of jasmine blossoms. They smelt, however, rather sickly.
That was in fact all that he vouchsafed to Dearest-One who, late in the evening, slipped in, dressed in white from head to foot, to wish her darling brother happiness.
"I would she smelt of violets instead," he said thoughtfully; "dost think, Dearest-One, it could have been the jasmine perfume and not the sweets that made me sick when I was five?"
And Dearest-One laughed; a laugh with a sob in it, and said to her mother ere she returned to her House-of-Rest:
"He is not fond of her, see you?"
"God forbid!" snapped Isân-daulet tartly. "Lo! he will love her when she is the mother of his son."
And Dearest-One was silent; that might be; though she doubted it. But for the present she was right. Babar was not in love; what is more he was shy.
The Khânum, his mother, who found her town-bred, mincing and thoroughly amiable daughter-in-law quite an amusing distraction, began by rallying him on his bashfulness; but as the first period of his married life went on, bringing a decrease of such affection as he had had, and a corresponding increase of shyness, raillery turned to tears, then to anger, until the gentle lady, outraged by her son's behaviour, would scold him with great fury and send him off like a criminal to visit his wife.
Babar had, however, some excuse for his lack of interest. Marriage had come to him in the very moment when he needed all his vitality to keep his newly-recovered throne. What he had said to his grandmother concerning his overprecipitate permission for modified plunder had been true. The inconsiderate order, issued without sufficient foresight had caused commotions and mutinies.
The Moghuls, still dissatisfied, had marched off in a huff; good riddance of bad rubbish, as Babar said, though he chafed inwardly at not having been able to control them amicably. Still the Moghul Horde had ever been the authors of every kind of mischief and devastation. Five separate times had they mutinied against him; and not only against him--that might have pointed to incompatibility of temper on his part--but against every one in authority, especially their own Khâns.
It was in the breed. True was the verse:
"If the Moghul race had an angel's birth
It still would be made of the basest earth;
Were the Moghul name writ in thrice-fired gold
'Twould be worth no more than steel, wrought cold.
From a Moghul's harvest sow never a seed,
For the germ of a Moghul is false indeed."
Thank God! he was no Moghul; he was Turkhomân born and bred!
Before winter came on, indeed, the position of affairs had become critical. Half the nobles had sided with young Jahângir who still claimed the throne, and fighting was general all over the valley of Ferghâna. To shut himself up in the town of Andijân for the winter months would only be to leave the enemy free to ravage the country outside. He therefore chose a spot on the skirts of the hills and cantooned his army there. A pleasant spot with good cover for game! An excellent sporting ground, in fact, containing plenty of mountain goats, antlered stags, and wild hogs. In the smaller jungle, too, were excellent jungle fowl and hares.
Then, when such sport palled, there were always the foxes, which possessed more fleetness than those of any other place. Babar rode a-hunting every two or three days while he remained in those winter quarters, and regaled himself on the jungle fowl, which were very fat. Keeping an eye all the time, however, on the enemy's movements, and guarding Andijân, where the Khânum and old Isân-daulet appeared to have forgotten wars and war's alarms in something more cognate to their woman's hearts; something that was almost too delightful to be true.
Babar, when he first heard of the delightful prospect, was all that could be desired. Affectionate, overjoyed, proud. What else could he be when his mother hung round his neck hysterically, and even Dearest-One's pale cheeks flushed at the future.
"He shall be my son as well as yours, brotherling," she said. "Lo! I will be his best-beloved aunt. So that settles it, and all silly women's talk about my marrying somebody--does it not, O King!"
And Babar, as he sat holding his sister's hand as in the old days, saw a vista of happiness before him. It would be delightful. Imagine having a son of his very own! Ayesha Begum could not complain of his coldness on that visit, and he returned to his camp jubilant.
But the knowledge of what was to come, made him restless. Of what use was an heir, unless he was heir to something tangible? Ferghâna, divided against itself, was no permanent position for either claimant.
But what of Samarkand? There, his cousin Ali (who had no claim) had just beaten Weis, his younger brother who had a claim, doubtless, through his mother: but after his, Babar's, since she was the younger daughter.
He sat on the snowy slopes waiting for bara-singha, or bear, and ciphered it out; he came back to camp and talked it over with Kâsim and the nobles.
"Praise be to God!" said the old swashbuckler, "we may see some fine fighting once again."
They were to see more than they had bargained for; since, when with the advancing spring Babar and his army arrived before Samarkand it was to find that they were pitted, not against the weakling Ali and his half-hearted troops, but against the great Usbek raider, Shaibâni Khân, who, God knows why or wherefore, had attacked Bokhâra, taken it, marched on to Samarkand, taken it by the treachery of a woman, and was now there in undisputed possession. Babar felt that to attack the position overtly with his small force was madness. But what of a surprise? The Usbek horde were strangers. Babar himself had been beloved, during his short reign of a hundred days. If once he could find himself within the walls, the people of Samarkand might declare in his favour. At any rate they would not fight for the Usbek. That was certain.
It was worth a trial. But those who were to attempt the forlorn hope must be picked men, and there must be no attacking force before the city. That would put the garrison on the alert.
In the meantime he would go to the mountains; one thought clearer in high places.
Summer was nigh on, ere preliminaries were settled, and Babar with his picked band, ready for swift attempt, stood on the heights of Yâr-Ailak once more. Above him, unseen in the darkness of the moonless night was the flower-carpeted alp where Dearest-One's face watched the stars wheel. The Heft-Aurang, the seven thrones, showed in ordered array on the purple velvet of the night. Was one of them kept vacant for him, he wondered, or had Baisanghâr's poor ghost found it? Babar's mind was ever full of such whimsical thoughts; they came to him, unasked, making his outlook on life many-facetted, many-hued, like the iridescent edge which had set a halo round all things in the Crystal Bowl.
The future seemed thus glorified to him as he sat looking out over the unseen city in the valley beyond.
His nobles, his comrades, were sitting round him, revelling over the camp fire; holding a sort of sacramental feast before the dangerous surprise.
"Come!" cried Babar, turning, a light on his face brighter than the firelight; "let us have a bet on when we shall take Samarkand. To-night, to-morrow or never!"
"To-night!" cried Nevian-Gokultâsh and the others followed suit.
Half-an-hour afterwards they were in their saddles, low-bowed upon their peaks, light scaling ladders slung alongside, riding for all they were worth. Now or never! The time was ripe. Shaibâni Khân himself, lulled in security, away on a marauding expedition, the garrison unalarmed, confident.
It was midnight when they halted in the Pleasure-ground before the walls of Samarkand. Here Babar detached eighty of his best men. They were, if possible, to scale the wall noiselessly by the Lovers' Cave--most deserted portion of the fortifications,--make their way silently to the Turquoise Gate, overpower the guard and open the doors.
Babar himself, with the remainder of his men was to ride up to the Gate and be ready to force their way in.
How still the night was! The stars how bright! The Seven Thrones wheeling in their ordered array to the dawn. What had Fate ordered in his life? Babar, waiting, his hand gripped on his sword-hilt in the dark way of the Gate, listened eagerly for a sound. The horses' hoofs, deadened by enswathing felt, had made no sound, the very chink of steel on steel had not been heard. All was silent as the grave.
What did Fate hold in store? Hark, a sentry's sleepy call: "What of the hour of the night?"
What, indeed?
Then in one second, tumult, uproar, a clashing of sword on sword.
"The Gate! Open the Gate!" shouted Babar.
A swift bombardment of dull blows--stones, anything on iron bolts and bars. A shiver, a sudden yielding, and the wide doors swung open.
An instant after Babar was through the gateway, King of Samarkand. He knew it, even as he galloped on through the sleeping streets to the citadel. A drowsy shopkeeper or two, roused by the clatter, looked out from the shops apprehensively, then offered up prayers of thanksgiving. So, by ones and twos, the city woke to relief and gratitude. By dawn the hunted Usbeks had disappeared; dead or fled. And the chief people of the town, bringing such offerings of food ready dressed as they had at hand were flocking to the Great Arched Hall of the Palace, to do homage to their new King, and congratulate him on his success.'
Babar received them with his usual frank, simple dignity. For nearly a hundred and forty years, he said, Samarkand had been the capital of his family. A foreign robber, none knew whence, had seized the kingdom unrighteously. But Almighty God had now restored it, and given him back his plundered and pillaged country which he would proceed to put in order.
He did it to his heart's content! He was now nineteen, the birth of his son was nigh at hand, and all must be ready for the expected heir.
So the next month or two passed in preparations and congratulations. Babar, who felt the strength of the pen as well as that of the sword, wrote endless letters to the neighbouring princes and chiefs, assuring them of his favour, and requesting like return from them. These he despatched duly accredited with rose-scent and gold-dust and brocaded bags; but not so many came back as went out.
Moghulistân was slow to recognise the value of peaceful persuasion, and looked askance at the young general who could surprise so wily a foe as Shaibâni Khân and yet think it worth while to write missives like a scrivener.
But one letter came which brought the young King unmixed delight; for it was from the incomparable Ali-Shîr at Khorasân; an incomparable letter without one word astray; a pure pleasure from start to finish. The young King answered it boldly: even daring so far as to write a Turkhi couplet of his own composing on the outside thereof; a Turkhi couplet that was not half-bad; for he was growing to be a man in mind as well as body.
So all things went merry as a marriage bell. His grandmother, his mother, and the mother of his expected heir, arrived by slow marches from Andijân and were lodged in the Birthplace and Deathplace of Kings, the Green-Palace. And Dearest-One came too in the white robes of a sainted canoness, eager to take up her position of aunt-in-ordinary; a position of honour with the Chagatâi family. Babar himself had half-a-dozen or so such Benificent-Ladies ready for all festivities, all condolences.
So, one hot night, he found himself looking distractedly at the moon in a balcony of the women's apartments.
Hurrying feet and whisperings had gone on, it seemed to him, for hours.
But these feet did not hurry; they lagged.
"A daughter! a miserable daughter!" said his mother's voice, full of tears. "Lo! I wonder Ayesha could think of such a thing ... It is unpardonable."
"Let us say no more," put in Isân-daulet. "When a woman disgraces herself, the less said the better. We will get thee a more dutiful wife, sonling."
Even Dearest-One's face was downcast utterly.
"A daughter!" echoed Babar and paused. Then he said eagerly: "May I not see it, motherling?--'Tis my first child, anyhow."
And they showed it him, a naked new-born baby wrapped in a cotton quilt.
"It looks old; as if it had been born a long time," he said reflectively; then his fine, strong, young hand touched the tiny crumpled fingers tentatively. "Lo! they are like little worms," he said and laughed aloud suddenly, a gay young laugh. "She is not bad, my daughter. I will call her 'Glory of Women.'"
And almost every day he would find time to go in to the women's apartments and look at her.
But, after a month or forty days, the little Glory of Womanhood went to share the Mercy of God.
She was his first child, and at the time he was just nineteen.