‘You are right that our lives are subject to divine providence, but we should all wish them to follow a natural progression where sons outlive fathers and only then succeed in due order to their positions and responsibilities. None of us, I’m sure, would want it to be otherwise.’
Khusrau said nothing for a moment, then simply replied, ‘I would not wish that any more than you. I agree we’re all in God’s hands.’
As they continued their practice, as if by mutual consent drawing back from any confrontation, father and son turned their conversation towards everyday matters of court life. However, as he packed away his bow in its rosewood case at the end of the session while Khusrau walked back across the courtyard to join his grandfather in the elephant stables, Salim knew that ambition had been sparked in the heart of his mettlesome eldest son whether by Akbar or not. He must remain on his guard both to extend his network of allies and conciliate his enemies. Above all, he must do everything he could to impress his father, even if that meant concealing his true opinions. It would not be easy, but the reward of the throne would be worth it.
Tears coursed down the cheeks of both Akbar and Salim as the coffin was borne on a simple flower-decked wooden bier through a side gate of the Agra fort towards the boat that would carry it up the Jumna to Delhi for burial next to Humayun. Grief at Hamida’s death was uniting the two men in a way that would have pleased Hamida herself. She had slipped gently into death in her seventy-eighth year after only a few days’ illness with what had at first seemed a simple cough but quickly turned into something much worse.
As Akbar and Salim had sat on either side of the low bed on which she was lying, she had bid them goodbye. As fluid wheezed in her chest she had whispered to them to love each other as she loved them both, if not for her sake then for that of their dynasty. Stretching their arms across her frail body at her request to clasp each other’s hands, they had agreed to do so. Only minutes later, as the light of the crescent moon entered through the casement and a soft breeze rippled the gauze curtains, she had died. Her last words were, ‘I am coming through the stars to join you in Paradise, Humayun.’
What must be going through his father’s mind, Salim wondered as he fought to control his own emotions. Akbar must be growing conscious of his own mortality after the death of Gulbadan a few months previously and then Hamida’s. He was the oldest member of his family now as well as — as he had long been — its head. He had lost a mother who had loved him and protected him both in the very early days after his birth at Umarkot and when, after his father’s untimely death, rebellion had threatened. Hamida’s love for Akbar had been unconditional, as Salim knew it had been for himself. That was why he too would miss her more than he could say, feeling as he could not help but feel that both his mother’s love and that of Akbar were conditional on his adherence to their wishes, to their view of the world.
Salim glanced towards Daniyal, hunched and prematurely aged on his father’s other side. His surviving half-brother had only arrived back at the court an hour before from the isolated palace near Fatehpur Sikri he occupied at Akbar’s command and was visibly shaking. Salim suspected it was from either the effects of alcohol or the lack of it rather than from grief. Then Salim looked at his own three sons, Khusrau, Parvez and Khurram, standing next to him. Perhaps understandably none seemed as affected as himself and Akbar, not having known Hamida so well or for so long. Did they find him as difficult to read as he did his own father? Salim wondered, not for the first time. If they had gone to Hamida and asked her, would she have told them to respect him and learn from him, as she had told him to do from Akbar many years before?
She would have been too honest to do so unreservedly. She had recognised his faults: not only his drinking, his opium taking and his lusts but also his short temper, his impatience and his unforgiving hatred and hunger for vengeance against those such as Abul Fazl who he thought mistreated him. However, despite these failings she had still believed in him and his ability to redeem his faults if he came to rule. He hoped she would have said as much to his sons too. If she ever had, Khusrau at least had shown no signs of taking the message on board. He continued to distance himself from his father, correct, formal and emotionless when they met but seeming to avoid contact whenever he could and, Salim suspected, continuing to hope to supplant him. That was perhaps how Akbar felt about himself, Salim realised. Then he looked across at his father’s lined and tear-stained face and instinctively, almost involuntarily, placed his hand on his elbow in a gesture of understanding and support in his present grief. As the drums beat a slow and mournful tattoo and Hamida’s body was carried carefully up the boat’s gangplank, Akbar allowed his son’s hand to remain on his arm while he took his leave of his mother on earth.
‘Suleiman Beg, you’re bleeding. What’s happened?’ Salim exclaimed as his milk-brother pushed his way through the hangings covering the doorway into Salim’s apartment, crimson blood staining his green tunic and running down his left hand and fingers to drip on to the white marble floor.
‘Just a small argument about the succession and a flesh wound.’
‘Come here, let me see. Should I summon the hakim?’
‘Perhaps. Scratch though this wound is, I may require his needle and thread.’ Suleiman Beg held out his hand and Salim ripped back the fabric of his tunic sleeve to reveal the wound — a three-inch-long slash to the upper arm just above the elbow. As Salim dabbed the blood away with his own neckcloth he saw that it had exposed some creamy yellow fat and some muscle but had not penetrated to the bone.
‘You’re right. It’s a clean wound and not too deep, but you will need the hakim. It’s bleeding a lot so hold your arm above your head to lessen the flow while I bind it.’ As he wound his neckcloth around Suleiman Beg’s muscled biceps, he shouted for one of his attendants to fetch the hakim and then asked Suleiman Beg once more, this time with a concern in his voice that went beyond his care for his closest friend, ‘What happened? How do you mean, an argument about the succession?’
‘I was walking through the courtyard past a band of Khusrau’s youthful followers when one said to another in a voice deliberately raised for me to hear, “There goes old Suleiman Beg. I pity him. He has backed the wrong candidate to succeed the emperor. Unlike us, when Khusrau comes to power — and not his rebel of a father — he’ll be left with nothing. Perhaps one of us should make him our khutmagar, our butler. He must know enough about wine. He’ll have poured plenty for Salim.” I knew the taunt was meant to provoke me but I couldn’t help myself. I turned and walked up to the group, grabbed the speaker by the throat, flung him back against one of the pillars and invited him to repeat what he’d said. He spluttered that the time for my generation was past. When the emperor died we’d be passed over. It would be for the young to succeed.
‘Then I told him, tightening my grip around his throat, to ask me to become his khutmagar, if he would. He said nothing. I squeezed harder still. His face was turning purple and his eyes were popping. If I’d persisted a minute longer he’d have been dead. Suddenly I felt a sharp stinging pain in my arm. One of his companions, bolder than the rest, had slashed me with his dagger to make me release my grip. For a moment my eyes met my assailant’s, both of us appalled at what had happened and even more at what might have happened. . Then Khusrau’s little adherents ran off, hauling with them their loud-mouthed companion, who was still gasping for breath. His throat will hurt for days and he should at least think twice before provoking his betters again.’