Part 34 (1/2)

”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 suns.h.i.+ne 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for a treaty followed by Shaibani's contemptuous advice to make no claim for kings.h.i.+p through his mother, who had withdrawn herself from the circle of distinction by her marriage; since he, Shaibani, made one through his father, a Sultan and son of a Sultan.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.