Two Queens And A Prince
This happened long long ago. There was a certain king who married for the second time when his first queen failed to give birth to any child. The king as well as his subjects were delighted when they learned that the younger queen was expecting a child. Their delight increased when the maids of the elder queen announced that she too was expecting a child. A strange rumor spread around this time. It was said that in a forest bordering the kingdom an elephant had given birth to a camel! Some people said that such queer happenings indicated the coming of bad times. Others observed that nothing was impossible in this world; even more, queer things have happened in the past. A few months later both the queens were interned in their rooms for delivery. The elder queen was found to have given birth to a bonny prince. But, on coming to sense, the younger queen saw that ll she had given birth to was a kitten! "If a camel could be born of an elephant no wonder that a human mother should give birth to a cat!" was the comment that people generally made. The younger queen was stunned. However, the king and the court rejoiced at the birth of an heir. Nobody paid much attention to the anguish of the younger queen. Time passed.
One day an astrologer visited the court. The king requested him to prepare the prince's horoscope. He was sent to the elder queen's apartment where he studied the stars which presided over the prince's birth. After a while, the astrologer sighed and said, "I am sorry to tell you, O queen, that the boy is destined to be brought up not by his mother, but by another woman. And that woman shall die soon." The elder queen was shocked. "How to avert such a possibility?" she asked in her anxiety. "It would have been easy for me to deceive you and claim some reward by promising some false remedy. But I should not do so. What I have predicted is unavoidable," replied the astrologer. "What is the way out then?" asked the elder queen again. "When the circumstances shall be so arranged that the child's care would pass on to the hands of one who is not the mother, she must be prepared to die," said the astrologer. The elder queen went into the younger queen's apartment as soon as the astrologer departed. With tears in her eyes, she said, "Listen, my sister, this child belongs to both of us. Let him be brought up by you."
"Thanks, my sister. But I have heard what the astrologer said. I do not wish to die so soon," replied the younger queen. "You will not die, my sister," said the elder queen, tears flowing down her cheeks. "You are the prince's true mother. According to the astrologer's prediction, it is not the mother, but the other woman who would bring up the child shall die!" The elder queen then confessed of the deception she had played on the younger queen. Through her maids, she had spread the false news that she too was expecting a child. As soon as the younger queen gave birth to the prince, her maids carried the child to the elder queen's lap and place a kitten beside the younger queen. "I had guessed so. My suspicion grew stronger when I understood that the rumor that an elephant had given birth to a camel had been spread by your maids. That, I thought, had been done to prepare the minds of the people to take as natural what was most unnatural, that is, my giving birth to a kitten!" said the younger queen. The elder queen kept quiet and continued to weep. But the younger queen embraced her and said, "You must pardon me for the deception I have practiced on you. The astrologer was a courtier of my father. It was I who brought him here and briefed him what he should say to bring out the truth," She then added, "But, be sure, the prince is as much you son as he is mine. In fact, people need not know whether he was born of you or I."
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