‘He never experienced such grief at the death of any Amir,’ wrote Badauni, ‘as he did at that of Birbal.’ Akbar seemed tormented by the idea of the broken, bloody body of his old friend lying unclaimed on the cold, stony hillsides on which he had died, carrying out his duty to his Padshah unto death. ‘Alas,’ he said, ‘that they could not bring his body out of the defile, that it might have been committed to the flames.’
