King Errant Part 13

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? Ferghana, 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 Kasim and the n.o.bles.

"Praise be to G.o.d!" 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, Shaibani Khan, who, G.o.d knows why or wherefore, had attacked Bokhara, 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 Yar-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 Baisanghar'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 n.o.bles, 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-Gokultash 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. Shaibani Khan 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 c.h.i.n.k 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 clas.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+ver, 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 grat.i.tude. 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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, a.s.suring 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.

Moghulistan was slow to recognise the value of peaceful persuasion, and looked askance at the young general who could surprise so wily a foe as Shaibani Khan 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-s.h.i.+r at Khorasan; 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 Andijan 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 Chagatai 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 Isan-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 G.o.d.

She was his first child, and at the time he was just nineteen.

CHAPTER VIII

A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste Of Being, from the Well amid the Waste, And lo!--the phantom Caravan has reached The Nothing it set out from.

_Omar Khayyam_.

Fate had called a halt in Babar's life. A court had once more gathered round him, and, as King of Samarkand, a city of colleges and culture, this was of different stamp from that of Andijan. It occupied itself with other things than the edge of a sword-blade or the merits of a polo-ball.

"Lo!" said Mulla Binai the poet, his voice lubricated with artificial adulation to extreme oiliness, "I have at last found fitting memorial for the magnificent victory of the King in these poor words: