‘The way to achieve that is through conquest. Today I conferred on you some of the wealth of our empire, but it was only a tiny fraction of the gold and glory I will give you in the years to come as, with your help, I push back the boundaries of the Moghul empire. My dominions will stretch from east to west, from sea to sea. Southwards, it will extend beyond the great plateau of the Deccan to the diamond mines of Golconda, the brilliant gems from which will blaze from my throne and adorn your wives and concubines. These are not idle boasts. Here, before you all, I pledge to vanquish new lands — not just those of petty chiefs along our borders who think they can defy us, but the rulers of rich and mighty kingdoms. If they will bend their proud necks to Moghul domination they will find mercy, honour and a share in our greatness. But if they resist, my armies will crush the bones of their soldiers to dust and smash their palaces and fortresses to ruins.
‘So I say, prepare for war! The first who will feel our power is Rana Udai Singh of Mewar, son of Rana Sanga whom my grandfather Babur defeated forty years ago and who is just as treacherous. The ranas of Mewar claim to be the greatest of all the Rajputs. While many other Rajput princes long ago declared themselves to be my loyal vassals, Udai Singh has equivocated, seeking special privileges and finding reasons not to come to court. Now he is openly showing his hostility. His warriors recently attacked a caravan of Moghul merchants making for the coast of Gujarat. In reply to my demand for compensation Udai Singh has returned an insulting message: “You are the offspring of horse-thieves from the barbarian north while our descent is from the god Rama and through him the sun, moon and fire. You have no authority over me.”
‘He will learn that I have. In three months’ time, when we have completed our preparations, I will ride at the head of my armies to punish him and you here tonight will play your glorious part!’ As a great cheer enveloped him, Akbar raised his emerald-inlaid jade drinking cup. ‘To victory!’
Akbar narrowed his eyes against the sun as, standing with Ahmed Khan on a balcony of the Agra fort eight weeks later, he watched a troop of cavalry galloping in single file along the dry mud bank of the Jumna river. A row of twenty spears had been stuck into the ground at five-yard intervals. As each rider approached, without lessening his breakneck pace he expertly swerved his horse between them. Reaching the last of the spears and still retaining perfect balance and control, each man rose in his stirrups to hurl his steel-tipped lance at a straw target set up some ten yards ahead. Every man hit his target spot on.
Akbar grunted. ‘Impressive. How soon can the army be ready to ride out, d’you think?’
‘Within another month, as we planned — perhaps sooner, although some of our gunners need further training in loading the new large cannon with stronger barrels our Turkish armourers have produced in our foundries. We’re also still waiting for those supplies of extra muskets we ordered from the skilled gunsmiths of Lahore. To increase their range they can be loaded with at least twice as much gunpowder as our existing ones — even to the muzzle, I’m told — without risk of bursting. When we have them we will have the best equipped as well as the largest army within thousands of miles, stonger even than the Persian shah’s.’
While a soldier yanked the line of spears from the mud, the riders re-formed. Now their task was to gallop up to a row of clay pots lying on their sides and without losing pace to scoop one up on their spear-tip. This time the performance wasn’t so perfect. One rider misjudged the distance, embedding his spear in the mud and somersaulting from the saddle to land painfully on the hard-baked ground.
Akbar smiled. He too had bruises. He was training every day now, firing shot after shot from his musket and practising with sword, flail and battleaxe until they felt like living extensions of his own body. He was also joining in wrestling bouts with his officers. At first they had treated him with too much respect, reluctant to fling their emperor into the dust, but his skill and speed and the challenges he had roared at them had quickly conquered such inhibitions.
He glanced up at the rapidly crimsoning sky. In another half-hour it would be growing dark. ‘Ahmed Khan, I would like to play polo with those men down on the riverbank.’
‘But the light is fading.’
‘Wait and see.’
Half an hour later, dressed in simple tunic and trousers and mounted on a small, muscular chestnut horse with white fetlocks, Akbar trotted out of the fort, across the parade ground and down to the riverbank. Behind him followed attendants, some carrying palas — wooden balls made from dark timber — and polo sticks while four staggered under the weight of a brazier of glowing charcoals supported on two wooden poles. As he reached the bank, Akbar kicked his horse into a canter and rode up to the horsemen. Seeing their emperor, they prepared to dismount and make their salutations.
‘No. Stay in the saddle. I want you to take part in an experiment,’ Akbar said.
As inky purple shadows stole over the river, he ordered his attendants to distribute the polo sticks, mark out goals with torches on either side and finally place one of the wooden balls in the brazier. Almost at once the ball began to smoulder, but even after four or five minutes it hadn’t burst into flames. Akbar smiled. So the story about Timur was true. On several evenings since announcing his intention to go to war, he had asked his qorchi to read him accounts of Timur’s exploits in case there was anything he could learn from his great ancestor. One description had diverted him from thoughts of strategy to those of sport. It told how, by chance, Timur had discovered that the hard timber of the wormwood tree smouldered for many hours. He had ordered his men to play polo through the night with glowing balls of wormwood to harden and prepare them for battle. Ever since, Akbar had been eager to try it for himself.
‘Throw the ball on the ground,’ he ordered. As one of his attendants lifted the ball from the brazier with a pair of long, curved tongs, Akbar kicked his horse forward and took a swing at the glowing sphere. ‘Let’s play,’ he yelled. Soon the dark riverbank echoed to the beat of hooves and the shouts of laughing men, and the game lasted until the moon had risen high, turning the Jumna’s muddy waters to liquid silver.
Later that night, as a hakim massaged his stiffening muscles with warm oil, Akbar again thought about Timur and why he had never once been defeated. He had favoured the shock attack, the hit-and-run raid. That was how he had smashed his way across Asia, allowing no physical or human obstacle, however mighty, to blunt his impetus. Crossing the frozen Hindu Kush he had had himself lowered down a sheer cliff of ice and brushed off attacks by cannibal tribes as easily as if they’d been fleas to be shaken from his fur-lined robes.
Timur’s tactics might not be appropriate for dealing with a modern enemy like Rana Udai Singh, equipped with cannon and entrenched behind the high walls of his desert fortress, Akbar thought. But Timur’s self-belief, his absolute determination to win and never to cede the initiative or be deflected from his goals, were as relevant now as two hundred years ago. The desire to emulate his warrior ancestor sent a restless energy burning through Akbar’s veins so that he could hardly lie still beneath the hakim’s strong fingers. But it would not be long before the war drums boomed out from the gatehouse of the Agra fort and the Moghul armies advanced southwest into the pale orange deserts of Rajasthan towards Mewar and its arrogant rana. His mother had conjured those deserts for him so vividly that Akbar could almost taste the dry, gritty air and hear the harsh shrieks of the peacocks that inhabited these desolate reaches. It was not surprising Hamida should remember them so well. She had given birth to Akbar in a small desert town in Rajasthan while she and his father had been fugitives from a Rajput king who had pledged to rip Akbar living from her womb and send the unborn child as a gift to Sher Shah, the invader who had robbed Humayun of his throne.