Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne Read Free Page B

course. Abdul Rahman too must have spotted the move and despatched them. They were closing fast on the escapees. Jahangir urged his tired horse on down the far slope of the ridge with Suleiman Beg and his bodyguards at his side. But even beforehe reached the bottom, Khusrau’s men had wheeled away from their pursuers and were galloping northeast, throwing up clouds of dust behind them. Then Jahangir saw four or five of Khusrau’s rearguard turn and waving their swords charge back towards Abdul Rahman’s force in a self-sacrificing attempt to buy more time for their comrades to escape.
    Before he had gone more than a few yards one of these brave men fell, arms outflung, from his black horse, hit by an arrow from one of the mounted archers Abdul Rahman had astutely included among the pursuers and Jahangir could just make out standing in their stirrups to loose off their weapons. The mount of another of Khusrau’s men crumpled to the ground moments later, pitching its rider over its head. The others continued their charge and crashed into Abdul Rahman’s leading horsemen who opened their ranks to receive and surround them, scarcely slackening their pace to do so. Less than a minute later Jahangir’s men were riding hard again, heads bent low over their horses’ necks, the bodies of several rebels and horses left sprawling in their wake. Khusrau’s followers had taken at least a couple of their enemies with them into the shadows of death, but their courage would not save Khusrau. Abdul Rahman’s men were now almost upon the fleeing group and two more of the rearguard, one carrying one of Khusrau’s purple banners, pitched from their horses, presumably the victims of the mounted archers. The foot of the banner-carrier caught in his stirrup and he was dragged through the red dust for a hundred yards, his purple standard fluttering behind him. Then the stirrup leather snapped and man and banner lay twisted and still.
    As Jahangir urged on his chestnut, which, thin flanksheaving, was blowing ever more deeply in pursuit of the action, he saw Khusrau’s men swerve aside once more but then come to a sudden stop near an isolated clump of scrubby trees. At first he thought they had decided to stand and fight but then through the dust billowing around them he caught the glint of discarded weapons lying on the ground. Having sacrificed so many others, like Aziz Koka’s young brothers and the brave men who had attacked Abdul Rahman’s vanguard, they were surrendering in an attempt to save their worthless lives. They would come to regret their decision not to die like men on the battlefield, Jahangir thought grimly as he dug his heels into the chestnut to squeeze from it its last ounce of strength.

    ‘Bring them before me.’
    With the sweat of the fight still warm on him and anger still hot in his heart, Jahangir watched from the shade of the clump of trees as his soldiers dragged Khusrau, his commander-in-chief Aziz Koka and his master of horse, Hassan Jamal, forward and pushed them to their knees in front of him. Though the other two did not dare raise their eyes to the emperor, Khusrau was looking imploringly at his father. Beyond them, hands already bound behind their backs with strips of cloth ripped from their garments or saddle blankets, were the thirty or so of Khusrau’s men who had surrendered with him. Jahangir’s soldiers were shoving them roughly to the ground. Among them Jahangir suddenly recognised a tall, muscular man, his beard dyed red with henna. He remembered glimpsing him during the battle, a smile on his face, thrusting tauntingly with his lance at a young soldier who, knocked from his horse,was lying helpless and terrified in front of him, before finally impaling the youth through the abdomen.
    Such a furious rage seized Jahangir that for a moment he could hardly think. When he could it was about how he could punish such callous rebels sufficiently harshly. Then it came to him. For generations the