Tughlaq and the Stolen Sweets (Series: The History Mysteries) , livre ebook

Read more in the History-Mystery series
Akbar and the Tricky Traitor
Ashoka and the Muddled Messages
Raja Raja and the Swapped Sacks
Razia and the Pesky Presents
Shah Jahan and the Ruby Robber
Read more by Natasha Sharma from Duckbill
Bonkers!
HISTORY MYSTERY
NATASHA SHARMA
Illustrated by Adrija Ghosh

TUGHLAQ
AND THE STOLEN SWEETS
CONTENTS
A Loud Lunch
A Troubled Trio
An Important Investigation
An Exciting Entry
A Pillared Palace
A Clever Courier
A Cartload of Clues
The Marvellous Magicians
A Chit-Chat
An Edgy End
Fact or Fiction
Follow Penguin
Copyright
A Loud Lunch
Ibn Battuta had two thoughts in his head. He was terribly hungry and he was terribly uncomfortable. He sat before Sultan Tughlaq, one bum raised off the ground, hoping that the announcements would finish soon and they could begin eating.
The Chief Palace Officer bellowed the Sultan’s praises, which were proclaimed before every meal:
‘All bow before the greatest of the great, ruler of the Dihli Sultanate, the most brilliant Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq. A king without comparison—perfect writer, perfect poet, perfect calligrapher, perfect planner. The just, generous and brilliant Sultan with marvellous plans, brilliant schemes and plentiful plots!’
The junior officers raised gold and silver maces like giant exclamations marks ending this announcement.
Unlike other ceremonial raisings, Ibn Battuta’s raised bum was off the ground for a very practical reason. It wasn’t to let farts pass while he stuffed himself silly. It wasn’t a new style of sitting. It wasn’t the way people sat in his hometown Morocco that he had left a few years ago as he travelled around the world.
Ibn Battuta had a boil. On his bum. A boil on a bum is painful to sit on. Since he couldn’t stand while the Sultan wanted everyone to sit, Ibn Battuta sat with his boil-afflicted bum off the ground.
The Palace Secretary stepped forward, a scroll in hand.

‘BISMILLAH!’ shouted the officers. They bowed and left the room.
‘BISMILLAH!’ said the Sultan.
‘BISMILLAH!’ said all the councillors seated on the sparkling white sheets in two rows, facing each other.
‘BISMILLAH!’ said the lunch guests when the servers poured the sherbet and served the seekh kebabs and rotis.
Tughlaq’s Chief Minister, Wazir Khwaja Jahan, frowned at the kebab. The kebab wasn’t the reason for the Wazir’s frown. It was the mention of the Sultan’s perfect plans before every meal by the Chief Palace Officer that set him off. They were anything but perfect and didn’t need encouragement. Plans carried out before anyone could decide if they were a good idea or not. Before anyone could tell the Sultan, ‘That’s a bad plan.’ (Though you risked having your head chopped off if you told him that.)
‘Bismillah!’ said everyone more quietly when the sambusaks arrived.
On the opposite side, Zia-ud-din Barani, a councillor in Tughlaq’s court and note-taker through the day, flexed his fingers.
‘Getting ready to dig into the food?’ asked the man sitting beside him.
‘I’ve got a cramp, what with all the writing!’ said Barani.
‘Bismillah!’ said the guests when the murgh musallam and jackfruit curry appeared.
‘Bismillah!’ ‘Bismillah!’ ‘Bismillah!’ . . . as they served course after course till they got to the halwa.
Sultan Tughlaq waved it aside. He loved everything sweet, but he was saving his appetite for his favourite of all—the sugared melons from far-away Khurasim that would have arrived last night. He had once rewarded a visitor fifty gold tankas for gifting him twenty-two sugared melons.
‘The melons!’ said Tughlaq. ‘Get me the melons!’
‘Bismillah!’ said the guests in anticipation.
At the other end of the hall, plates and covers clattered and a murmur grew with a ‘Huh?’ here, an ‘Oh!’ there, a shuffle here and a scuttle there.
The head server said a prayer as he walked slowly up to the Sultan, his head bowed, his hands devoid of melons.

‘Sultan . . . there are no melons.’
‘No melons? What do you mean? Where are they?’ asked Tughlaq.
‘We are still looking, Sultan. The melons . . . seem to be missing.’
Tughlaq jumped up. His face and neck turned crimson.
‘What? Who ate my melons?’ he shouted, grabbing the head server by his collar and lifting him a few inches off the ground.
‘I . . . I . . . Only when we got to dessert did I see that they were missing.’
‘I command no food for this fellow for a week!’ said Tughlaq, shaking with anger.
‘Sultan . . . he is just the server,’ mumbled Wazir Khwaja Jahan.
‘Write it down, Barani!’ shouted Tughlaq. ‘This fellow should have checked! Feed him boiled bitter gourds mixed with mud for a week. No one messes with my melons.’
Barani whipped out a quill and began to scribble even as the Sultan shouted louder, going red in the face.
‘When I find the thief, I’ll stew him in sugar syrup. Someone must get to the bottom of this immediately.’
The mention of ‘bottom’ brought back Battuta’s attention to his boil, making it sting even more. He raised his bum higher and tried to move to a kneeling position while the Sultan was preoccupied.
The movement caught Tughlaq’s eye.
‘You! Ibn Battuta! Come with me!’
His reluctant volunteer muttered, ‘Blast that boil!’ as he followed the Sultan into the private audience room.
A Troubled Trio
Ibn Battuta stood before the Sultan along with his two assistants. Baha-ud-din and Kamal-ud-din had been assigned to help him when he had been made a judge.

Wazir Khwaja Jahan still had a frown on his face as he stood to one side of the Sultan. How could the Sultan put his faith in this fellow who wasn’t even from this land? To the other side stood Barani, who was taking notes.

‘I like men who jump up to take responsibility,’ said Tughlaq.
Ibn Battuta bowed, cursing the boil for having got him into this fix.
‘You and your deputies shall find the person who has stolen my melons,’ said Tughlaq. ‘If you find the thief, I shall shower you with gifts. If you don’t, I suggest you run away somewhere I can never find you . . . though wherever you run . . .’ said Tughlaq, leaning forward, ‘I will find you.’
Ibn Battuta gulped.
‘Give your group a name and give yourselves some code names,’ said Tughlaq. ‘This is serious work.’
‘IB,’ said Ibn Battuta, raising his hand. He pointed to Baha-ud-din and said, ‘BD,’ and then pointing to Kamal-ud-din, ‘KD.’
‘The Bumbling Baboons,’ muttered Khwaja Jahan under his breath.