"Draw near, O Man! and lift thy dreamy eyes.
See! this the ball; this the arena too
Where, mounted on the steed of Love, the prize
Is to be won by him who--God in view--
Strikes skilfully.
The Goal is distant; narrow too the Field;
Yet strike with freedom. God will send the Ball
Thy hand as sped in faith, where it should fall.
Backwards and forward strike and if thou yield
Yield cheerfully."
Grandmother Isan-daulet proved true prophet. Ere forty days had passed
from that patched up peace, another hasty messenger bearing a blue
'kerchief of death had arrived at Akshi whither the court had gone to
celebrate the late king's obsequies. Ahmed, the King of Samarkand had
been seized with a burning fever and after six days had departed from
this transitory world.
Babar was sorry. His uncle, he said, had been better than most. A
plain, honest Turk not favoured by genius, who had never omitted the
five daily prayers except when honestly drunk. And that was but
seldom, seeing that when he did take to drinking wine, he drank
without intermission for a month or six weeks at a stretch and
thereinafter would be sober for a considerable time. So there had
always been periods for piety.
The womenkind wept, of course, for blood feuds enhanced blood
relationships when Death the peace bringer stepped in between the
combatants. Besides, mourning was already afoot; so they could kill
two birds with one stone. Even Fatima Begum, the late King's first
wife, who, losing her premier position through childlessness had
retreated in a huff to a separate establishment, joined in the chorus
of wailing. And she brought her belated son Jahangir--nigh three years
younger than Babar--to take his rightful place in the palace; much to
old Isan-daulet's indignation.
"Set her up, indeed," she said with a toss of her head, "her and her
belated brat. Mark my words, had the child been lawful, 'twould have
come betimes. But when 'tis hoighty-toighty and a separate house, only
God knows to what an honest man may be made father."
Still the function was a function, and the ladies enjoyed all the
ceremonies; for they were simple folk, content with little, and that
little rough and rude, for all they were Queens and Princesses.
Babar, however, wearied of all save the giving of victuals to the
poor. He loved to see joy at a portion of _pillau_ and butter cakes.
Indeed he surreptitiously ordered more sugar for the children's thick
milk. It made him feel hungry, he said, to see them eat it. And there
was no better enjoyment in the world than real hunger; provided always
that food was in prospect. For he was tender-hearted over frail
humanity. He could not see, for instance, why the Black-eyed Princess,
his father's last and low-born wife who was, of course, quite beyond
the circle of distinction, should not be allowed, if it pleased her,
to discover a roundabout relationship to the family of Timur. It did
not alter facts. But Isan-daulet sniffed.
"'Twill not alter her manners or her speech anyhow; though 'tis true
in a way. We be all descended from Adam, as I tell her morn, noon, and
night."
So Babar had to listen to the Black-eyed one's wails; which he did in
kindly kingly fashion, for he liked the good-natured, stupid, pretty
creature. He had, however, other things to think of. His Uncle Ahmed's
death had vaguely disturbed him; for Uncle Ahmed left no male heirs;
and the question of succession was a burning one, since, by all the
laws of Moghulistan, Babar had a double claim to the throne through
his maternal grandfather Yunus Khan.
"Of a surety," he said to Dearest-One who was ever _confidante_ of his
ambitions and innermost thoughts, "there is no doubt that, now, Uncle
Mahmud, as brother, succeeds of right. But at his death? Cousin Masaud
and Cousin Baisanghar are not so close to Yunus Khan as I. Then Masaud
is a nincompoop, and Baisanghar--" he paused.
"Well! what of Cousin Baisanghar?" asked the girl hotly.
Babar whittled away with his knife at the arrow he was making--for he
was ever useful with his hands--ere he replied slowly:
"Baisanghar will never make a king. Wherefore I know not; but there it
is. He is not fit for it."
Dearest-One was aflame in a second. "Not fit for it?" she echoed.
"That is not true. He is as fit for it really as--as thou art,
brother. Only he will belittle himself! He will talk of himself as a
shadow--an unsubstantial shadow! It is not true, it is not right, it
is not fair, and so I told him the other night."
Babar put down his knife and stared.
"Thou didst tell him so--but when?"
Dearest-One hung her head, though a faint smile showed on her face.
She had given herself away; but she was not in the least afraid of her
brother. Many youngsters of his age might, from their own experiences
in love affairs, have been seriously disturbed at the idea of their
sister speaking to a young man on a dark stair; but Babar was an
innocent child. To him it would be but a slight breach of decorum. Yet
something made her breath short as she replied coolly:
"I met him on the stairs. It was dark, so he could not see me,
brother; and I spoke to him as--as a mother to her son." The head went
down a little more over the last words; true as they were in one
sense, she knew better in her heart-of-hearts.
"And he--what said he?" asked Babar alertly, taking his sister
completely by surprise. With the memory of that cry "Beloved!
beloved!" in her mind--it had lingered there day and night--she
faltered.
"Dearest-One!" said the boy, grave, open-eyed, after a pause, "did he
kiss thee?"
The girl looked up indignantly, a dark flush under her wheat-coloured
skin. "Kiss me?" she echoed--"he did not even really touch me--"
And then, suddenly, she hid her face in her hands and burst into
tears. True--he had not touched her--he had shrunk from her eager
body. Why? oh, why?--
Babar was full of concern. He laid down his knife and arrow, and went
over to his sister. "Then there is nothing to weep about, see you," he
said stoutly, "save lack of manners, and for that thou art sorry. Is
it not so, dearest?"
The girl's sobs changed to a half-hysterical giggle. "So sorry--" she
assented, "and thou wilt not tell Grandmother--"
"The prophet forbid!" cried her brother aghast; "I should never hear
the last of it."
And Dearest-One's tears changed to real laughter.
"Brother," she cried, "thou art the dearest darling of all! I would do
aught in the whole world for thee."
"Nay," replied Babar gravely, "that will I never ask of thee. My
womenkind shall have no task to do that my hands cannot compass
alone."
He felt virtuous as he spoke; rather uplifted, too, by that same
virtue. He did not know what Fate held in store for him. He did not
dream that he would have to ask of her the greatest sacrifice a woman
can make, and that she would make it willingly.
Meanwhile it was gorgeous summer tide, and Hussan played forward in
the King's game of polo, down in the river meadows. He was the best of
forwards; the best of men consequently to the boy-King.
"Thou art a young fool, child!" said old Isan-daulet who never minced
her words, "as thou wilt surely find out ere long unless God made thee
stupid blind. Luckily mine eyes are open; so go thy way and knock
balls about after the manner of men."
Thus it was early autumn ere Babar's eyes opened; but then what he saw
made his young blood surge through him from head to foot. The
meanness, the deceit of it! To conspire with the ambassador from
wicked Uncle Mahmud at Samarkand who had come ostensibly to present an
offering of silver almonds and golden pistachio nuts, to depose him,
Babar, and put "the brat" Jahangir on the throne. And all the while to
be playing forward in the King's game! It was too much! It was not
fair! It was emphatically _not_ the game!
"Throw away bad butter while it's melted," said Isan-daulet firmly;
"Send Kasim-Beg and other trustworthy friends to strangle him with a
bow string! Then wilt thou be quit of such devils' spawn."
But Babar was a sportsman. Even if it came to killing the forward in
the King's game, he was not going to do it underhand. So he looked
round the assembly of loyalists who had met to convince him in his
grandmother's apartments in the stone fort, and said briefly: "To
horse, gentlemen! I go to dismiss my Prime-minister from his
appointment."
But that gentleman had already dismissed himself. When they arrived at
the citadel, they found he had gone hunting; and from that expedition
he never returned. Someone must have blabbed; for he had posted off to
Samarkand, rather to the boy-King's relief. It would have been a
terrible thing to imprison or blind the best forward in the kingdom.
And even when news came that the offender had paused by the way to
make an attack on Akshi, and in the consequent _melee_, having been
wounded in the hinder parts by an arrow from his own men, had been
unable to escape and so had fallen a victim to the loyalists the
boy-King was glad that Providence had taken judgment from his hands.
Hussan had but himself to thank. As the poet said:
"Who does an evil deed
But sows the seed
Of his own meed."
This was finely philosophic; but it did not quite comfort the
philosopher. The first actual experience of ingratitude and disloyalty
made its mark upon him and sobered him. He began to abstain from
forbidden and dubious meats and but seldom omitted his midnight
prayers.
Mercifully, however, the season for polo was past, and Nevian
Gokultash was almost as good at leap-frog as the deceased statesman.
Nevian Gokultash, who, as foster brother, was above the possibility of
suspicion.
"Truly," said Babar one evening, throwing his arm round his playmate's
neck affectionately, "rightly are thy kind named _Gokultash_--'heart
of stone.' Thy love is founded on rock, whereas my brother by blood--"
he broke off impatiently--"but there! 'tis not his fault--he is so
young--two whole years younger than I."
Despite the good-natured excuse which in all his chequered life, ever
came easily to Babar's kindly nature, he felt the first chill of the
cold world at his heart. He found to his great irritation and
annoyance, that his _milieu_ was not nearly so reasonable as he was
himself. It was the irritation and the annoyance which besets
capability and vitality. Other folk had not nearly such good memories,
were not half so nimble-minded, or straight-forward, as he expected.
When, for instance, he sent an envoy to a rebellious chief, in order
to remonstrate with him, before proceeding to arms, the wrong-headed
man, instead of returning a suitable answer, ordered the ambassador to
be put to death.
Such, however, not being in the pleasures of God, the envoy managed to
escape, and after having endured a thousand distresses and hardships,
arrived naked and on foot, to pour the tale of his wrongs into Babar's
indignant ears. Urged by wrath at such ill-manners, the boy-King
proposed instant reprisals, and set off; but a heavy fall of snow on
the encircling hills and a slight sprinkling on the clover meadows
warned him that winter was approaching, and his nobles added their
opinion, that it was no time in which to commence a campaign.
So he returned to Andijan and to a boy's life of study and sport. The
saintly Kazi was his tutor, and kept the boy to his Al-jabr (algebra)
and Arabic, and abstruse dialectic dissertations on the nature of the
Kosmos. There were not many books to be read in Andijan, but Babar
knew them all. He had the _Epic of Kings_ almost by heart, and used to
regret there were not more details about the great Jamsheed with his
wonderful divining cup; Jamsheed who reigned with might, whom the
birds, and beasts, and fairies, and demons obeyed; Jamsheed of whom it
was written "and the world was happier for his sake and he too was
glad." That was something like a King!
And Babar learnt also, in a rude, unrefined way, all the
accomplishments of a Turkhi nobleman. He could strum on the lute, bawl
a song fairly, and play with singlestick to admiration. The latter was
Kasim's care; Kasim who was the best swordsman in the kingdom and who
used to quarrel with the Kazi as to whether the young student's
strongest point was fencing, or the fine _nastalik_ hand-writing in
which Babar excelled.
As for sport, the snow falling early brought the deer down to the
valleys; and the undulating country about Andijan was always full of
wild fowl, while pheasants by the score were to be shot in the skirts
of the mountains.
The boy was growing fast and in his lambskin coat worn with the fleece
inside, the soft tanned shammy leather without all encrusted by
gold-silk embroidery to a supple strength that kept out both cold and
sabre cuts, he looked quite a young man; and his high peaked cap of
black astrachan to match the edgings of his coat and bound with
crimson velvet suited his bright animated face.
Dearest-One admired him hugely.
"I would the court painter were not a fool," she said regretfully as
he came in one day from the chase and held up for her inspection a
cock _minawul_ pheasant all resplendent in its winter plumage. "But he
cannot see. When he paints thee he makes thee all as one with Timur
Shah and Ghengis Khan--on whom be peace--but I want _thee_."
In truth it needed a better artist than Andijan held to do justice to
the fire which always leapt to the boy's face when beauty such as the
iridescent bird's struck a spark from his imagination and made the
whole world blaze into sudden splendour.
"Baisanghar might do it likely," replied Babar thoughtlessly; "he hath
a quaint turn with his brush that is not as others; and he said he
would love to paint thy portrait--" he broke off suddenly, aware that
this was a subject which had better not have been introduced. But,
indeed, there seemed a fate that he should always talk of Baisanghar
to his sister. Could it be her fault? He looked at her with boyish
reproach, but the girl's face was lit up with smiles and dimples.
"Aye! he said that. Did he say more after I had gone? Tell me,
brotherling."
But he walked off in dignified fashion with the cock pheasant. His
sister thought too much of Baisanghar. And it was time she married.
He talked to his mother quite seriously about it, and she met his
anxiety by the calm remark:
"Why should she not marry Baisanghar?"
Why not, indeed, now he came to think of it. Somehow it had not
occurred to him before. But when he suggested it to his sister she met
him with a storm of tears. She was never going to marry. She was going
to be a sainted canoness and pray for her brother. Why could he not
leave her alone; and Cousin Baisanghar also, who apparently was of the
same mind, since, though he was nigh nineteen, he had never taken a
wife. And, if it came to weddings, was it not high time that he,
Babar, King of Ferghana, bethought himself of bringing _his_ betrothed
home? That would procure festivities enow, if _that_ was what he was
wanting.
From which deft shaft in the enemy's camp, Babar fled precipitately.
The very idea irked him; he had no time for such nonsense. In fact he
wearied even of the three loving women who insisted upon consulting
him by day and by night.
But ere the winter was over yet another messenger of death arrived,
and this one made the boy-King feel like a caged young eagle longing
for his first flight.
Wicked Uncle Mahmud after disgusting Samarkand for six months with his
unbridled licentiousness and tyranny, until great and small, rich and
poor, lifted up their heads to heaven in supplications for redress,
and burst out into curses and imprecations on the Mirza's head, had,
by the judgment that attends on such crime, tyranny, and wickedness,
died miserably after an illness of six days.
The women wept, of course, though old Isan-daulet's tears were
considerably tempered by smiles at her own prophetic powers. Had she
not said that both the men who dared to attack the apple of her eye,
young Babar, would suffer? And so they had. And now ...
The old lips pursed themselves and were silent. But the old thoughts
were busy. Her grandson was, mayhap, over young to try his luck this
year, yet for all that he was the rightful heir to the throne of
Samarkand. In this way: Father Yunus Khan, Suzerain of all
Moghulistan, had been suzerain also of Samarkand. None questioned
that. Had not the triple marriage of Yunus Khan's three daughters with
the King of Samarkand's three sons been arranged especially in order
to put an end to the Khan of Moghulistan's undoubted claim, by joining
the two families? Well, one of those marriages had produced no son.
Mahmud who had married the younger daughter, had but one son by her, a
perfect child. But Babar, son of the eldest sister, was adolescent;
therefore, by every right, every claim, he was the heir.
But she was a wise old woman. There was no use being in a hurry.
Samarkand might as well seethe in its own sedition for awhile. By all
accounts the Turkhans were up in arms; and the Turkhans were ticklish
folk to deal with. Then Khosrau Shah, the late King's prime-minister
was an able man and might be trusted to fight for what he wanted. The
time for intervention would be when the combatants had weakened each
other.
And the shrewd old woman once more proved herself right. For Khosrau
Shah, having plumped for the nincompoop Masaud--doubtless because
he knew that with a nonentity on the throne, his power would be
absolute--the Turkhans declared for Baisanghar, sent for him express,
and having driven out Khosrau, who had attempted to conceal his
master's death until his plans were completed, placed the former on
the throne.
And here another factor came in to the wary old woman's mind. What if
her granddaughter were to marry Baisanghar? Babar could lay claim to
other kingdoms when he was fit to fight for them, and thus there would
be a down-sitting for both her daughter's children. So, most of the
affairs of importance at Andijan being conducted by her advice,
Kasim's swashbuckler instincts were held in check for the time.
Something however must be done to occupy the lad meanwhile; and the
news that his uncle by marriage and cousin by descent, Hussain, King
of Khorasan, meditated an expedition against Hissar, the neighbouring
province, prompted the suggestion that the boy-King should take
advantage of proximity to pay his respects and make acquaintance with
the premier prince of the age.
Babar's imagination was aflame in an instant. Tales of the splendid
court at Herat were broadcast in Asia. Folk said they had even spread
to Europe--that dim unknown horizon to which the boy's thoughts often
reverted. And Sultan Hussain was as his father and his elder brother.
It was always wise to make the personal acquaintance of such; it
dispelled misunderstanding on their part, and gained for yourself a
nearer and better idea of their strength and weakness.
So one day at the beginning of winter, with stout Kasim wrapped to the
eyes in furs and a hundred-and-a-half or so of hardy troopers equipped
for a mountain march, Babar started for the low passes by the White
Hills to the valley of the Oxus river.
"Have a care of thy soul, my son," said the saintly Kwaja, "and
remember what the poet sings:
"The soul is the only thing to prize;
Heed not the body: it is not wise.
The wiles of the Devil are millionfold,
And every spell is a fetter to hold.
Thou hast five robbers to keep at bay,
Hearing and sight, touch, taste and smell,
So chain them up and govern them well.
Some things are real and some but seem;
The mundane things of the world are a dream."
But Isan-daulet sniffed. "So be it that he keep the institutes of
Ghengis Khan as his forebears did, he will do. They be enough for a
brave man, and death or the bastinado sufficient punishment."
The Kwaja looked grave. "Yet be they not the law of Islam, sister; and
we, of the faith, are not heathens."
"Heathen or no!" retorted the old lady, "my grandson will do well if
he touch Ghengis Khan's height." And she sniffed again.
Perhaps her words put it into the boy's head, but in this, his first
flight beyond his hill-clipped kingdom his thoughts were with his
great ancestors. He rather swaggered it in consequence round the camp
fires at night, and was overbold in the chase; so that more than once
on the higher hills Nevian-Gokultash had to pick him out of a
snow-drift. But his dignity was always equal to the occasion, and when
at last Sultan Hussain Mirza's camp showed in ordered array on the low
ground beyond the passes, he took it as if he were quite accustomed to
see the large pavilions, the rows on rows of orderly tents, the
_laagers_ of chained carts.
He held his head very high too, as he rode down the central alley, his
pennant carried before him by two jostling troopers. The smart
soldiers, lavish of buckles and broideries, who lounged about, smiled
at the uncouth troop; but each and all had a need of praise for the
boyish leader who sat his horse like a centaur and whose bright eyes
seemed everywhere.
"He is a gay enough young cockerel," admitted a scented noble with a
smile. "Let us see if his uncle will make him fight."
But even if Babar had been more pugnacious than he was, sheer
astonishment at his first interview would have kept him quiescent.
Even Kasim-Beg, stickler as he was for etiquette, gave up the hopeless
attempt at ceremonial.
"Thou art welcome, nephew," said the old man whose long white beard
contrasted with his gay-coloured, juvenile garments, that better
matched the vivacity of the straight narrow eyes. The black astrachan
cap perched on the reverend head, however, suited neither. "Sit
ye down, boy, and watch my butting rams! Yonder is the Earth
Trembler--peace be on my ancestor's grave ... and this is the
Barbarian Ghengis--no offence meant to thine, young Chagatai! Three
_tumans_ of gold, Muzaffar, he smashes the other's horn first butt!"
The man he addressed, who had been, Heaven knows why, prime favourite
for years, and showed his position by the most arrogant of airs,
turned to his neighbour. "Not I; a certainty is no bet for me, though
by our compact, Excellence, I would get my fair share of two-thirds
back, if you won! But Berunduk Birlas here, having lost his best hawk
after bustard to-day, is in a mood for tears, and would like to lose
gold also."
Berunduk Birlas, the ablest man at the court, shook his head sadly.
"Of a truth, friend, my loss is great enough to content me. Had my
sons died or broken their necks I could not grieve more than for my
true falcon-jinny Brighteyes! No man could desire a more captivating
beauty."
Sultan Hussain went off into a peal of laughter. "Li! where is
Ali-Shir? Where is our poet? Brighteyes the captivating beauty who
catches hairs, eh? There is a subject for word-play. Out with a
_ghazel_ on the spot, friend Ali."
A thin, elegant-looking man with a pale, refined face, got up and made
a perfect salute. From head to foot he was exquisite, the Beau Brummel
of his age.
"Look," nudged one young courtier to another enviously, "he hath a new
knot to his kerchief. How, in God's name, think you, is it tied?"
The incomparable person paused for one second only; then in the most
polished of voices he poured out a lengthy ode, deftly ringing the
changes on the word "_baz_" (falcon) which in Persian has at least a
dozen different meanings.
A ripple of laughter followed his somewhat forced allusions, and he
sat down again amid a chorus of applause.
Babar stood dum-foundered, yet in every fibre of his body sympathetic.
Here was something new indeed! A new world very different from the
rough and tumble clash of arms and swords and polo sticks at Andijan;
but a world where, mayhap, he might hold his own.
"Well done! Well done!" he cried with the rest, and his uncle the
Sultan nodded approval at the lad.
"Sit ye down, sit ye down!" he said; "and, cupbearer! a beaker of
Shiraz wine for the King of Ferghana!"
For the life of him the boy could not refrain from one swift look at
Kasim's face, Kasim who was all shocked propriety at such a violation
of the rules both of Islam and Ghengis Khan; but after that one scared
glance dignity came back.
"Your Highness!" he said, with pomp, waving his hand towards one of
the butting rams, "like my ancestor the Barbarian I drink water only."
A smile went round the assembly and young Babar felt a glow of pride
that he had not fallen so far short in wit. Thereinafter he sat and
listened with wide eyes. His uncle was certainly a lively, pleasant
man; but his temper was a bit hasty and so were his words. Still,
despite that and overfreedom with the wine cup, he evidently had a
profound reverence for the faith, since at the proper hour he put on a
small turban tied in three folds, broad and showy, and, having placed
a plume on it, went in this style to prayers!
That night when Kasim was snoring in the tent and the
hundred-and-a-half or thereabouts of his followers were slumbering
peacefully, full up of kid _pullao_, Babar lay awake. He was composing
an ode for the first time in his life. It was a sorry composition of
no value except that it filled him with desire to do better.