Alex Rutherford - Ruler of the World

Main Characters

Akbars family

Humayun, Akbars father and the second Moghul emperor

Hamida, Akbars mother

Gulbadan, Akbars aunt and Humayuns half-sister

Kamran, Akbars uncle and Humayuns eldest half-brother

Askari, Akbars uncle and Humayuns middle half-brother

Hindal, Akbars uncle and Humayuns youngest half-brother

Hirabai, Akbars wife, princess of Amber and mother of Salim

Salim, Akbars eldest son

Murad, Akbars middle son

Daniyal, Akbars youngest son

Man Bai, Salims wife, mother of Khusrau and daughter of Bhagwan Das, Raja of Amber

Jodh Bai, Salims wife and mother of Khurram

Sahib Jamal, Salims wife and mother of Parvez

Khusrau, Salims eldest son

Parvez, Salims middle son

Khurram, Salims youngest son

Akbars inner circle

Bairam Khan, Akbars guardian and first khan-i-khanan, commander-in-chief

Ahmed Khan, Akbars chief scout and later his khan-i-khanan

Maham Anga, Akbars wet-nurse (milk-mother)

Adham Khan, Akbars milk-brother

Jauhar, Humayuns steward and later Akbars comptroller of the household

Abul Fazl, Akbars chief chronicler and confidant

Tardi Beg, Governor of Delhi

Muhammad Beg, a commander from Badakhshan

Ali Gul, a Tajik officer

Abdul Rahman, Akbars khan-i-khanan after Ahmed Khan

Aziz Koka, one of Akbars youngest commanders

Others at the Moghul court

Atga Khan, Akbars chief quartermaster

Mayala, a favourite concubine of Akbar

Anarkali, Pomegranate Blossom, Akbars Venetian concubine

Shaikh Ahmad, an orthodox Sunni and leader of the ulama, Akbars senior Islamic spiritual advisers

Shaikh Mubarak, Islamic cleric and Abul Fazls father

Father Francisco Henriquez, Jesuit priest, Persian by birth

Father Antonio Monserrate, a Spanish Jesuit priest

John Newberry, English merchant

Suleiman Beg, Salims milk-brother and friend

Zahed Butt, captain of Salims bodyguard

Zubaida, Salims former nursemaid and attendant to Hamida

Delhi

Hemu, Hindu general who seizes Delhi from the Moghuls

Fatehpur Sikri

Shaikh Salim Chishti, a Sufi mystic

Tuhin Das, Akbars architect

Gujarat

Ibrahim Hussain, a rival member of the Gujarati royal family

Mirza Muqim, a rival member of the Gujarati royal family

Itimad Khan, a rival member of the Gujarati royal family

Kabul

Saif Khan, Governor of Kabul

Ghiyas Beg, a Persian emigre appointed Treasurer of Kabul

Mehrunissa, Ghiyas Begs daughter

Bengal

Sher Shah, ruler from Bengal who ejected the Moghuls from Hindustan in Humayuns reign

Islam Shah, Sher Shahs son

Shah Daud, vassal ruler of Bengal in Akbars reign

Rajasthan

Rana Udai Singh, ruler of Mewar and son of Baburs enemy Rana Sanga

Raja Ravi Singh, a Rajasthani ruler and vassal of Akbars

Raja Bhagwan Das, ruler of Amber, brother of Hirabai and father of Man Bai

Man Singh, son of Raja Bhagwan Das and nephew of Hirabai

The Moghuls ancestors

Genghis Khan

Timur, known in the west as Tamburlaine from a corruption of Timur-i-Lang (Timur the Lame)

Ulugh Beg, Timurs grandson and a famous astronomer

From Behind the Veil Sudden Danger

Northwestern India, 1556

A low rumbling growl rose from the dense acacia bushes thirty yards away. Even without it Akbar would have known the tiger was there. Its musky scent hung in the air. The beaters had done their work well. While moonlight still silvered the hills in which Akbars army was encamped, a hundred miles northeast of Delhi, they had started towards the small forest where a large male tiger had been sighted. The village headman who had brought word of it to the camp, saying he had heard that the young Moghul emperor was fond of hunting, claimed it was a maneater that in the last few days had killed an old man labouring in the fields and two small children as they went to fetch water.

The headman had left the camp well rewarded by Akbar, who could hardly contain his excitement. Bairam Khan, his guardian and khan-i-khanan commander-in-chief had tried to dissuade him from the hunt, arguing that with the Moghuls enemies on the move this was no time to be thinking of sport. But a tiger hunt was too good to miss, Akbar had insisted, and Bairam Khan, a faint smile lightening his lean scarred face, had finally agreed.

The beaters had employed the age-old hunting practices of the Moghul clans brought from their homelands on the steppes of Central Asia. Moving quietly and methodically through the darkness, eight hundred men had formed a qamargah, a huge circle about a mile across, around the forest. Then, striking brass gongs and beating small, cylindrical drums suspended on thongs round their necks, they had begun closing in, forming a tighter and tighter human barrier and driving all kinds of game black buck, nilgai, and squealing wild pigs into the centre. Eventually, as the light grew stronger, some of them had spotted tiger tracks and sent word to Akbar, following the beaters on elephant-back.

The beast on which Akbar was sitting high in a jewelled canopied howdah also sensed that the tiger was close. It was swinging its great head from side to side and its trunk was coiling in alarm. Behind him Akbar could hear the elephants carrying his bodyguards and attendants also restlessly shifting their great feet. Mahout, quieten the beast. Hold it steady, he whispered to the skinny, red-turbaned man balanced on the elephants neck. The mahout at once tapped the animal behind its left ear with his iron ankas, the rod he used to control it. At the familiar signal, the well-drilled beast slowly relaxed to stand motionless again. Taking their cue from it, the other elephants also ceased their fidgeting and a profound silence fell.

Excellent, thought Akbar. This was the moment when he felt most alive. The blood seemed to sing in his veins and he could feel his heart thump, not with fear but with exhilaration. Though not yet fourteen, he had already killed several tigers, but the battle of wits and of wills, the danger and unpredictability, always excited him. He knew that if the tiger suddenly broke cover, it would take him only an instant to pluck an arrow from the quiver on his back and fit it to his taut-stringed, double-curved bow the weapon most hunters would use against such quarry. But Akbar was curious to see what a musket could do, especially against such a monster as this was reputed to be. He prided himself on his skill with a musket, and despite his mothers remonstrances had spent far more hours practising his marksmanship than at his studies. What did it really matter if he couldnt read when he could outshoot any soldier in his army?

The tiger had stopped growling and Akbar sensed its amber eyes watching him. Slowly he rested the slender engraved-steel barrel of his matchlock musket on the side of the howdah. He had already loaded the metal ball, trickled gunpowder from his silver-mounted powder horn into the pan and checked the short, thin length of fuse. His qorchi, his squire, half crouching close beside him, was already holding the burning taper Akbar would need to ignite the fuse.

Next page