Raiders from the North: Empire of the Moghul by Alex Rutherford Page A

toiler, not a warrior, and he had had the courage to come to the camp to seek justice.
    ‘Majesty . . . there is something you should know . . . something I saw with my own eyes just three nights ago when the moon was full.’
    ‘What? . . . speak.’
    ‘I saw men – spies, perhaps – leave the city. I waited, hidden behind the trees, while my sheep grazed, and many hours later I watched them return. There is a passage leading into Samarkand – beside the Needlemaker’s Gate. I can show it to you, Majesty.’
    Babur’s heart leaped. ‘If you’re telling the truth, you’ll have more than that paltry bag of silver – you’ll have your weight in gold.’

    ‘Majesty, this is insanity.’
    ‘Perhaps.’ Babur felt a visceral excitement uncurling within him. In a few hours he would be inside Samarkand.
    ‘At least let me come with you.’
    ‘No, Wazir Khan. Who’ll pay attention to a ragged youth? But there are men in Samarkand who know you. I’m safer alone.’
    For once Wazir Khan seemed nonplussed. The scar across his blind eye looked more puckered than usual. ‘But you are the king,’ he said stubbornly. ‘What will happen to Ferghana if you do not return?’
    ‘I will return. Now let me go.’
    Babur mounted the stocky, sure-footed dark pony he had chosen and, without a backward glance, rode off into the night.
    Moonlight silvered the rough track following the westward course of the stream that Babur, Wazir Khan and the farmer had ridden along the previous night. Every inch of the way seemed burned into his brain. He was riding through the Khan Yurti meadow where – as his father had so often told him – Timur had once pitched his pleasure pavilions in summer to lie beneath the silken canopies and listen to the waters, as cool and pure as those coursing through the gardens of Paradise. Now the sound of rippling water seemed to carry the great Timur’s voice: ‘Go forward. Dare everything.’
    After an hour the stream branched and Babur followed the left-hand fork, which he knew flowed south within half a mile of the great Turquoise Gate. He must be careful. Keen eyes watching from the battlements might spy even a lone rider if he ventured too close. He would keep to the far side of the stream where he could merge into the shadows of the willow trees along its banks and move insubstantial as a ghost.
    Wazir Khan was right, of course. This was insanity. If Babur wished to know the city’s weak spots and the mood of its inhabitants after all these months of siege he should have sent spies into the tunnel, not gone himself – alone. But from the moment the farmer had uttered his few, hesitant words, Babur had felt the hand of destiny thrust him forward.
    The sky was cloudless and clear above the drooping willowbranches. Across the stream, he could make out the shadowy outline of the city. A few minutes more and the Turquoise Gate would rear like a dragon out of the darkness. One day soon, Babur promised himself, I’ll ride through that gate at the head of my men, not sneak into my city like a thief in the night.
    A small creature – a mouse, perhaps, or a river rat – ran beneath his pony’s hoofs causing it to skitter sideways, neighing in alarm. Babur slipped down and ran his hand soothingly along the pony’s soft, shaggy neck. It would be better to go forward on foot from here. Babur pulled off the bridle and the thick folded blanket on which he had been sitting, then turned the pony loose to find its own way back to the camp, as he had agreed with Wazir Khan. This time tomorrow night Wazir Khan would be waiting for him here among the willows with a fresh mount.
    Another eight hundred yards of stealing southwards through the soft darkness and he could see the red pinpricks of torches burning on either side of the Needlemaker’s Gate. Tall and narrow, it was one of the more modest of Samarkand’s six gates. In ordinary times it was the entrance for farmers and tradespeople. Timur would