As he passed through the fortress’s interior passageways, lit by flickering oil lamps, he caught the sound of wailing coming from the royal harem. So, the official mourning had begun, led no doubt by Babur’s mother and grandmother, formidable women, the pair of them. He would need to be wary of them. Neither would be so lost to grief that they would not be seeking to protect and promote Babur’s interests.

The vizier approached the royal audience chamber to which he had summoned the other officers of state. As the two guards opened its green, leather-covered, brass-studded doors to allow him to enter, he saw that three were already there: Yusuf, the stout keeper of the treasury, the golden key of office dangling on its long chain round his jowly neck; Baqi Beg, the diminutive court astrologer, whose thin, restless fingers were twisting the beads of a rosary; and the wiry, beetle-browed Baba Qashqa, comptroller of the household. Only Wazir Khan was absent.

The ill-matched trio were sitting cross-legged on the red, richly patterned carpet beneath the empty throne. Without its occupant it looked a small, faded, insignificant thing, the gilt a little tarnished and the red velvet, gold-tasselled cushions shabby with use and age.

‘Well,’ said Qambar-Ali, looking round the assembled faces, ‘who would have thought it?’ He waited, wanting to gauge their views before he said more.

‘It was the will of God.’ Baqi Beg broke the silence.

‘A pity you did not foretell what would happen. For once the stars kept their secrets veiled from you,’ Baba Qashqa said.

The astrologer flushed angrily at the comptroller’s spiteful words. ‘God does not always wish a man to know his own destiny — especially a ruler who must be as a god to his people and act for them as well as himself.’