King Errant Part 34

"Have a care, youngster," he would say when, study time over, young Haidar came as usual to play with Baby Humayon. "He is smaller than thou art. Never be rough with weaklings. 'Tis not their fault. G.o.d made them so. And he is thy cousin, likewise."

"But Humayon holds his own already," said Maham, proudly. "There is no boy of his age in the court can come nigh him."

Babar laughed and put his arm round her. "Yea! Yea! little mother! He is true ph[oe]nix, and we are the happiest folk in Kabul, which means much." Then his face fell, he walked to the arched window-way and looked out over the garden.

"What is't, my lord," said Maham, at his elbow in an instant.

He looked at her affectionately.

"Nothing, my moon! 'Tis only this. The dear mother lies yonder in the Mercy-of-G.o.d. I would not bring her back, if I could. And little Ma'asuma--" he paused--"I would not bring her back either, wife, if I could. She was too tender for this world--aye! even for me. So she sleeps peacefully--G.o.d rest her!--but Dearest-One--" his voice broke--he turned away and Maham had nothing to say.

That thought was the fly in the pot of ointment, it was the one bitter drop in the Crystal-Bowl-of-Life.

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 Shah-Ismael of Persia, who, young as he was, a mere boy in fact, had dared to send the arch-enemy, the Usbek-raider, Shaibani Khan, 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 Shah's demand for a treaty followed by Shaibani's contemptuous advice to make no claim for kingship through his mother, who had withdrawn herself from the circle of distinction by her marriage; since he, Shaibani, made one through his father, a Sultan and son of a Sultan.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.'"

Shah-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?

Shah-Ismael, with his thousands of disciplined and heretical _kizzilbashes_, or Shaibani Khan with his hordes of wild Mongols?

"G.o.d's truth," said Babar to old Kasim 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 Kasim'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 Maham. "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 G.o.d 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.

Shah-Ismael had defeated Shaibani in full force at Meru; the Usbek-raider was dead, smothered in a band of escaping Mongols.

"I must go," muttered the young King hoa.r.s.ely; "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 Badakhshan.

The fighting fever was on him once more. He could not, he did not even try, to resist it. And Maham 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 Shah-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 Kasim'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-Khan, his cousin, was despatched to Irak in order to make the best terms possible, and Babar, meanwhile, sent for his family from Kabul. The spring had pa.s.sed 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 Hissar.

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 Kasim-Beg and half-a-hundred or so of rough, honest Andijan troopers had ridden through Khosrau Shah's picket, and he, Babar, had lost the Crystal Bowl which Gharib 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 Maham, 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 Shah-Ismael. What will the red-cap heretic reply?--G.o.d 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!

Maham--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 Maham, 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 Shah-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, G.o.d! 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 Maham 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, Maham. I shall have an army of sixty thousand! With that Samarkand is a.s.sured, 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 Shah-Ismael's proposal that if the aid of the Persian _kizzilbashes_ were given to conquer Samarkand, Babar should acknowledge the Persian Satrapy as over-lord, against all the criticism of his n.o.bles; 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 va.s.salage. 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 grat.i.tude to hesitate an instant.

But it was not for a month or more that he was to enter Samarkand victorious.