Babur’s father had long ago planned his mausoleum. Babur had been just a baby, mewling in the arms of his big-breasted wet-nurse, when the king had summoned stonemasons and craftsmen from across Ferghana and beyond. Under his personal direction they had laboured on the banks of the Jaxartes river a mile and a half or so west of the fortress of Akhsi to create a smaller version of the great Timur’s resting place in Samarkand. Now the tiles on the egg-shaped dome, bright aquamarine counterpointed with rich cobalt blue, sparkled in the June sunlight. His father would have been proud, Babur thought, and at the idea a half-smile crossed his tense face.

As the sarcophagus disappeared from his view, a great wailing rose from the crowds — from courtiers and chieftains in silken robes to simple herdsmen who stank of the animals they tended. Men of whatever condition in life rent their robes and sprinkled their turbaned heads with earth in a ritual that predated even Genghis Khan. What were they really thinking? How many were genuinely grieving like himself? Babur wondered. The chieftains had come in response to Esan Dawlat’s summons but, when the time came, could he rely on them?

‘Beware of those who seem to have no ambition — it is unnatural,’ his father had always counselled him. Babur could not help glancing at Wazir Khan but felt instantly ashamed. With his father dead, after his mother and grandmother the tall, straight-backed soldier he had known all his life was the person he trusted most in the world. But what about that grey-bearded, pockmarked chieftain over there who had ridden so hard through the night from his mountain fastness that his robes were stained with his own and his horse’s sweat? Or that buck-toothed one, with his head shaved in the old Mongol fashion, who had once been banished by his father for his scheming, deceit and greed and only recently forgiven? Esan Dawlat had been forced to take risks with her invitations: she had hoped to summon allies but, even at his age, Babur knew some might easily turn out to be jackals.