Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War Read Online Free PDF Page A

as to our real objectives. Suleiman Mirza, I look to you and Baba Yasaval to make the preparations. The council is now dismissed.’
    With that Humayun rose and with his two bodyguards once more in front of him slowly made his way back across the courtyard to his quarters. Once there he asked Jauhar, his cup-bearer and most trusted attendant – a tall, fine-featured youth whose father had been one of the commanders of Babur’s bodyguard – to summon his astrologers to join him in an hour or so to calculate the most auspicious time to begin his campaign. His battle plan had been decided quickly. The reassurance that he had the support of the astrologers’ star charts and tabulations in the timing of his invasion would be valuable to his own confidence as he began his first campaign as emperor as well as to the morale of his army.
    In the meantime he would visit his aunt Khanzada to seek her wise advice on his choice of officers for his expedition and, even more important, to discuss with her his views on another question. Was it safe while he was away on campaign to leave his half-brothers in their various provinces – Kamran to the northwest in the Punjab, Askari in Jaunpur to the east and Hindal to the west in Alwar? Might they use the opportunity to rise against him? Should he give them commands in his army and take them with him so he could keep an eye on them?
    The reports reaching him from their provinces gave no outward reason for concern, particularly in the case of Hindal and Askari who regularly wrote back in punctilious detail on their administration and remitted their taxes in full, sometimes even ahead of time. Kamran too sent in the due proportion of his province’s revenues, even if his reports were infrequent and brief. Occasionally an official, dissatisfied with his progress at Humayun’s court, had gone to Kamran’s province to try his luck there. Sometimes there had been rumours that Kamran had been assembling a larger army than he strictly needed for his province, but these had usually proved groundless or justified by the need to put down some petty rebel or other.
    Yet Humayun couldn’t quite rid himself of the feeling that Kamran would not abandon his ambitions so easily and might only be biding his time, ready to exploit for his own benefit any misfortune of Humayun’s. So be it. He would ensure he suffered none to allow Kamran such an opportunity. In any case, perhaps he had misjudged Kamran and, together with Hindal and Askari, he had learned his lesson and was grateful as he should be for Humayun’s mercy. He hoped it was so. Just in case it was not, he needn’t move against Bahadur Shah until his grandfather Baisanghar was back in Agra. He and Humayun’s vizier Kasim had after their return from Kabul set off on a tour of inspection of the imperial treasury in Delhi from which they would return in a few days. Then Humayun would appoint Baisanghar regent in his absence. He could safely trust his grandfather – and Khanzada and Kasim too – to keep an eye on his troublesome half-brothers.
    They would also watch over his mother. Since Babur’s death Maham seemed to have lost the little interest she’d ever had in the affairs of the world. Though proud her son was emperor, she never questioned him about his plans or offered him advice as Khanzada did. When he was with her, all she did was speak longingly of the past. But perhaps, in time, she would see that it was the future that must occupy him now.

    Humayun looked down from a sandstone escarpment on to a long column of Bahadur Shah’s men who, oblivious of his presence, were throwing up clouds of dust as they snaked along the riverbank four hundred feet below. At this time of year – early March, two months after he had left Agra – the river was mostly dry with only a few pools of water remaining in the deepest parts of its bed. Along the banks an occasional palm tree provided a touch of green. Humayun could see squadrons of