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.
_Nizami_.
"There is no use in talking," quoth Isan-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 Khanum piously.
"But how then can I love her?" protested Babar; "'tis not like
Dearest-One and Cousin Baisanghar--"
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 Andijan 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 Baisanghar, strangled
with a bowstring by the orders of the miserable and infidel-like
wretch, worthless, contemptible, without birth or talents, reputation
or wisdom, Khosrau Shah? 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."
Isan-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
Isan-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 Kazi 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 Isan-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 Khanum, 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
Khans.
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 Turkhoman born and bred!
Before winter came on, indeed, the position of affairs had become
critical. Half the nobles had sided with young Jahangir who still
claimed the throne, and fighting was general all over the valley of
Ferghana. To shut himself up in the town of Andijan 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 Andijan, where the Khanum and old Isan-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? 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 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, Shaibani
Khan, who, God 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 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-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 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.
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-Shir 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 God.
She was his first child, and at the time he was just nineteen.