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creased Akbar’s dirt-streaked face. He had succeeded in his first test. His future – the empire’s future – was bright. His next campaigns would be of conquest as he expanded his empire. Akbar could see Bairam Khan riding towards him but as he drew nearer he saw that the
khan-i-khanan
’s expression was less triumphant than he might have expected.
    ‘Why, Akbar, did you join the fight when I said we should stay where we could direct the action?’ Bairam Khan began unceremoniously.
    Akbar’s face fell and he felt resentment surge within him. He was the emperor, even if Bairam Khan was his regent and his commander-in-chief. How dare the man speak to him like that, spoiling his moment of victory in this, his first battle as emperor? His grandfather Babur had led armies at his age. Yet how could he forget how much he owed to Bairam Khan? He bit back his anger and replied simply, ‘Would you rather have an emperor who in battle felt the chill of cowardice rather than the exhilaration of hot blood and the impulse to action?’
    A smile did now lighten Bairam Khan’s stern features. ‘No, Majesty, I dare say not.’
    ‘This officer told me before he died that Hemu lies wounded over there, concealed behind the bodies of some of his war elephants. Let us investigate.’
    Flanked by bodyguards with drawn swords, Bairam Khan and Akbar walked over to the corpses of the elephants. A foul stench was already coming from the body of one whose intestines had been mangled by a cannon ball. As Bairam Khan and Akbar passed another it suddenly moved its head and lashed its trunk in pain. Akbar’s hand instinctively went to his sword but then he saw that the animal was in its death agonies from a great gash in its neck around which blue-green flies were clustering.
    ‘Put the poor beast out of its misery,’ he commanded one of his bodyguards, ‘and do the same for any others that cling to life.’ As he gave these orders Akbar saw that in the remains of an elephant’s gilded howdah a few yards away a young man was bending overthe body of a small figure in engraved steel armour which from its magnificence could only belong to Hemu. The youth was using a bloodstained cloth to dab at the left side of the face of the wounded man, who was shouting at him, ‘Leave me to die. I would rather do so now on the battlefield than in some Moghul dungeon in a few days’ time.’
    ‘Seize that youth,’ ordered Bairam Khan.
    Immediately two tall bodyguards strode forward and, grabbing his arms, pulled him backwards from the body. With the attendant out of the way, Akbar could see the wounded man more clearly. The broken-off shaft of an arrow jutted from where his left eye had been, and blood was seeping down his face. His agony must have been extreme, but he looked almost relieved when Akbar asked, ‘Are you Hemu?’
    ‘Of course. Who else?’
    ‘What have you to say to your rightful emperor?’
    ‘That I have no rightful emperor and that I defy you, Moghul invader.’ Hemu aimed a gob of bloody spittle towards Akbar but it fell short.
    ‘Execute him at once, Majesty,’ said Bairam Khan.
    Akbar raised his sword but something made him hesitate to strike at the small, bleeding figure before him. ‘Wait a moment. My father Humayun always taught me that mercy often befitted a monarch better than harsh violence . . .’
    Hearing this, Hemu half-struggled to his feet and made towards Akbar, but two of Akbar’s guards seized him at once. With a strength that belied both his puny frame and his severe wound, Hemu bucked and strained and struggled so much that he broke free for an instant. Staggering towards Akbar, he shouted, ‘You blight and ravish our lands. You boast of your family’s descent from the tyrant Timur, yet you cannot even be sure who your own father was. I hear tell your father prostituted your mother to his generals to ensure their loyalty and that she – camel-faced whore that she is – enjoy—’
    Hemu got no further.