On April 21, 1521, exactly five years before the day he was killed along with his master in the battle of Panipat, Qutub Khan was leading a hunting expedition. With King Ibrahim Lodi away in Kaalpi to put down a rebellion, the youthful and handsome courtier had found an excuse to remove himself from the court’s sonorous rituals, involvement in a potentially ruinous scandal with a minister’s favourite concubine, and the gnarled company of bitter old schemers eager to vent their grievances.

The hunting party had spread out after deciding on their meeting spot at the close of the day. As Qutub Khan and his two aides shot through a thicket mounted on their Arabian mares, his sharp eyes espied a white object moving behind the trees which was too large to have been a bird. The next moment Qutub Khan’s horse leapt over a tree stump and both he and the sighted object emerged into full view in the clearing.

At the sight of the large white deer with silvery horns, Qutub Khan drew reins. The deer froze. For a brief moment all Qutub Khan heard was the heavy panting of his mount, the quick breathing of the white deer, and the soft chirping of a bird. The next moment his aides came charging through the thicket to join him, and the deer jumped over a bush and dashed into a thicket.

The fleeing white beast whose first sight had caused him unknown dread now powerfully excited him, filling him with a desire to possess the creature.

As Qutub Khan gave chase he did not hear the drumming of his horse’s hooves, nor even the voices of his companions behind him. He rode at full gallop and a heaviness began to numb his senses. After a while he felt that the terrain had become unfamiliar to him. Still he did not stop to take stock.

Later he could not remember how long he had ridden when the boundaries of a large camp began to emerge in the distance. He noticed the unfamiliar shapes of an army’s standards, and saw the deer dart into the largest tent.

Qutub Khan drew rein outside and dismounted and stood, regarding in amazement the lavishly decorated tent and its majestic high walls whose insides reflected each other like a mirror’s faces. It seemed to continue forever, with entrances opening into other entrances. He noticed the beautiful carpet spread inside the tent whose edges were sewn with pearls and jewels. A golden throne covered with brocade stood on the carpet.

Qutub Khan could not remove himself from this enthralling sight nor find the courage to enter. He searched with his eyes but did not see any signs of the white deer or human presence in that richly caparisoned tent.

As he stood there marveling, he heard the sound of a rubab and noticed a wave of movement in one of the reflecting walls of the tent. He realised the walls of the tent did not reflect each other but in fact extended endlessly into other openings from which a human form was coming towards him. He wondered how a tent could be so marvelously large but did not have much time for reflection, as the person who had emerged from the far reaches of the tent was now standing before him.

Her resplendent face was made the more radiant by eyes that shone brightly. She moved with a delicate stride and yet there was a strength and firmness in that movement that a seasoned soldier like Qutub Khan immediately noticed. Hers was the body of a professional sword fighter.

The words spoken in her melodious voice haunted Qutub Khan until the day he fell dead: “Why marvel, Qutub Khan? Pray enter, and augment the honour of my house. You may yet unravel the terrible secret about me and this domain.”

Qutub Khan’s heart experienced both fear and desire but he did not flinch and stepped within. And as he did it seemed to him that suddenly a whole measure of time had passed. He felt old.

She led him by his hand and they travelled the confines of the tent for what seemed like endless hours. When they had started it was daylight outside. The scenes within the tent kept changing, new vistas opened up within its walls and under its roof which also contained the entire sky and all its stars.

By the time he reached the far end, the skies of the tent had turned dark, and the tent was lit up with thousands of torches. Qutub Khan suddenly realised that, except for that brief moment when she had held his hand, he had travelled alone. He again saw before him the same carpet and the golden throne he had earlier seen, except that now the beauty was giving audience on it, surrounded by her female companions.

At the sight of Qutub Khan she smiled and rose, and extending to him a glass of wine, called out, “Approach, Qutub Khan and have no fear.”

The two of them passed the night together making revelry and indulging in the pleasures of the flesh while her companions sang and danced. In the ecstasies of pleasure Qutub Khan forgot himself and the ever-hanging dread which had beset him since entering the tent slowly lifted.

It was towards dawn that the girl took out and gave a gold-hilted dagger to Qutub Khan. As he looked askance at her, she asked him to plunge it into her heart with all his might. Terrified of her request and her violent insistence, he rose from her side. She pleaded to him again and again and broke into uncontrollable sobs. Her female companions also beseeched Qutub Khan to grant her this request.

Unnerved and terrified by this sudden turn of events, Qutub Khan hastily got dressed. The entreaties of the courtesans rose ever higher. The beauty fell at his feet to beg him to do as she had asked, but violently pulling himself away from her prostrated form, Qutub Khan rushed out of the tent.

As soon as he stepped outside, a heart-rending sigh pierced the morning sky and when Qutub Khan turned back there was neither tent nor any camp.

A terrible remorse suddenly filled him.

Qutub Khan was found a day later by his companions. His mind remained deranged for a fortnight. Later he could only recall bits of the story and those who heard it attributed it to magic and some terrible tilism.

Some others, however, were of the opinion that the heavenly workers of fate and destiny had brought another human’s destiny to Qutub Khan for resolution by his hand, trusting in his loving heart, in which he took a position convenient for him, possibly failing the supplicant’s cause.

Musharraf Ali Farooqi is an author, novelist and translator. He can be reached at www.mafarooqi.com