Despite the many casualties they were suffering, Akbar saw to his relief and delight that his men were slowly gaining the advantage in the hand-to-hand fighting and were surrounding small groups of Rajputs. Very few were still emerging from Chittorgarh’s gateway. Nearly all who did so were shot down long before they reached the foot of the ramp as they clambered over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Any who succeeded in reaching the bottom met almost immediate death by the swords of Akbar’s horsemen who, having come through the sabats, were now riding down all Rajput stragglers. Akbar watched as his men systematically eliminated each of the small pockets of resistance. He now knew beyond all doubt that the longed-for victory, his first without the guiding hand of Bairam Khan, was his. It would be the first of many. Yet elated as he was, he could not but be impressed by the Rajputs’ raw courage, and was particularly touched by the conduct of three youths, the eldest of whom looked no more than fourteen, who embraced before rushing, swords raised above their heads, towards a group of Moghul archers, only to be shot down by a shower of hissing arrows long before they reached them. Such warriors would make better allies than foes.
Soon the battlefield was still. Akbar called Ravi Singh to him. ‘Have these brave warriors cremated according to their religion. Since the senior officers refused my offer of surrender after Jai Mal’s death, have any who survived executed. Death should be no hardship to them since by remaining alive they violate their own warrior code. Then raze the fortress, both to stop it being used against us again and as a warning to any other Rajput ruler who resists rather than accepts the offers of alliance I intend to make them.’
Chapter 8
‘Majesty, Rai Surjan wishes to surrender. He offers to become your vassal and in return asks nothing but the lives of those within the walls of Ranthambhor.’ The elderly Rajput’s eyes were on the ground but the carriage of his tall, wiry body was proud. The words he had just spoken had not come easily to him.
Akbar suppressed a smile of triumph. Sometimes he thought of the officers executed after the fall of Chittorgarh but he had no regrets. Neither did he regret ordering the destruction of Chittorgarh itself — the orange and red flames and then the curling grey smoke had been visible across the Rajasthani deserts for days. His display of ruthlessness had had the intended effect. His siege of Ranthambhor — a fortified Rajput town known throughout Hindustan for the strength of its solid brick walls and high towers — had lasted less than a week. If Rai Surjan was ready to submit to him it meant that all the leading Rajput princes had now accepted his authority. Except, of course, Rana Udai Singh of Mewar, still skulking but defiant in the Aravalli hills after the loss of Chittorgarh and the territory around it. And it was still less than a year since the fall of Chittorgarh. With the Rajasthani princes — the most powerful rulers of northern India — and their saffron-robed warriors by his side, what couldn’t he achieve?
‘Tell your master I accept his offer and will spare the lives of all within Ranthambhor. Tonight he may remain with honour within its walls and tomorrow, when the sun is a spear’s height above the horizon, I will receive him and his senior commanders here in my camp and we will celebrate our new alliance.’
That night Akbar summoned a scribe to his tent. Sometimes such momentous images, such potent emotions filled his mind that he truly regretted he still could not write himself. When he returned to Agra he would appoint a court chronicler — perhaps several — to record the achievements of his reign and those of his father and grandfather, but for the moment the scribe would do. He waited while the young man unstoppered the green jade ink bottle dangling from a chain round his neck and sharpened his quill, and then began to dictate.
‘In this year of my reign, the flames of battle rose high in Rajasthan but seeing the might and resolution of my armies the courage of the enemy became like water and trickled away as raindrops into the sand. My victory here is complete and a fitting foundation for future glories. .’
Long after the scribe had left and the camp had fallen silent around him, Akbar found it hard to sleep. His euphoric words had come from the heart. He had a glorious destiny — he was sure of it — and he wanted the world to know of his exploits through the court chronicles he would have compiled. But no man could live for ever. A single arrow or musket ball in battle, or an assassin’s blade between his ribs, might suddenly cut off his life, and then what would happen to the Moghul dynasty? With no obvious heir the empire could soon fall apart as the Moghuls disintegrated again into a collection of petty warlords more concerned with feuding with one another than banding together to keep what they had won in Hindustan. If so, he would have failed just as surely as if, through carelessness and complacency, he allowed his armies to be defeated.
That mustn’t happen. He was in his twenties now and it was his duty to secure the future of the empire and the dynasty, and to do that he should marry and produce sons. It would certainly please his mother and his aunt. They had been hinting about it for a while, even suggesting possible brides. But preoccupied with planning the conquest of Rajasthan Akbar hadn’t paid much attention and, in truth, he still felt no great desire to marry. He enjoyed sex but his haram provided him with infinite pleasures and possibilities for that. He felt no immediate craving for the kind of close and intimate relationship Hamida had shared with Humayun. He had not fully recovered his ability to trust himself mentally to others since his betrayal by Adham Khan and Maham Anga. But sitting here restless and alone with his thoughts in the semi-darkness, he had to accept that the time for marriage had come — if not for himself, then for his empire and above all for the future of the dynasty. What mattered most, of course, was having strong, healthy sons, but marriage could also help him build alliances. He remembered some words from Babur’s diary that his qorchi had read to him: ‘I chose my wives to bind my chiefs to me.’
Outside, a sudden high-pitched squeaking announced that some small creature had been carried off by an owl or another predator. Pleased to have come to a decision, Akbar stood up and stretched. He would think as carefully about the choice of his first bride as about any military campaign. The women Hamida and Gulbadan had suggested to him belonged to the old Moghul aristocracy — one was a distant cousin of his and another was the daughter of the governor of Kabul — but were such women really the best choice for the ruler of Hindustan? Were their relations the chiefs he most wanted to bind to him?
As Akbar dug his left heel hard into its coarse-haired flank, the camel shot forward, grunting even more querulously than while it had been waiting in the hot sun for the race down the wide mud bank along the Jumna to begin. The crowds held back by the spear shafts of his soldiers roared encouragement, and glancing up briefly to his right Akbar caught the brightly coloured rows of his royal guests — the red- and orange-turbaned Rajput kings who had sworn allegiance to him — assembled in the place of honour on the walls of the Agra fort. But this was no time to think of anything except winning. Right leg crooked on the base of the animal’s bony neck and braced against the left, and with the rope reins looped through a brass ring in the camel’s nostrils in one hand and a length of bamboo in the other, Akbar urged his mount on. The rolling, lopsided gait, so different from the smoother rhythms of a horse, was exhilarating.