The Price of a Horse

In Vijayanagara there lived an old merchant who owned a fine white horse. When he was dying, he called his son to his bedside.

“My son, I leave you everything I own, except for one thing. When I am gone, sell my white horse and give all the money to the widow Kamala and her children, who live at the end of our street. Her husband worked for me for thirty years. Promise me.”

“I promise, Father,” said the son.

But after the old man died, the son began to think about how much money a fine horse like that would fetch, and he didn’t like the idea of giving it all away. So he thought of a trick.

He took the white horse to the market, along with the family’s old grey cat. Then he called out to the buyers: “For sale! One fine white horse, for one copper coin. And one cat, for a thousand gold coins. But you must buy them together.”

A rich trader, who knew a bargain when he saw one, bought them both. The son took his thousand and one coins home, and then knocked on the widow’s door.

“My father asked me to give you the price of his horse,” he said, and he dropped a single copper coin into her hand.

Kamala knew she had been cheated, but she did not know what to do. A neighbour told her to go to Tenali Raman.

Tenali listened to her story and sent for the son. “Is it true,” he asked, “that you sold your father’s horse for one copper coin?”

“Quite true,” said the son confidently. “The buyer will tell you so.”

“And the cat for a thousand gold coins?”

“That’s right.”

Tenali sent for the trader who had bought them. “Tell me honestly,” he said. “Did you pay a thousand gold coins because you wanted that cat?”

The trader laughed. “That old thing? Of course not. I paid a thousand and one coins for the horse. The cat came with it. I’d have taken the horse without the cat, if he’d let me.”

“So the horse was really sold for about a thousand gold coins,” said Tenali, “and the cat for about one copper coin. The price was simply written on the wrong animal.” He turned to the son. “Your father’s wish was that the price of his horse should go to the widow. The price of the horse was a thousand gold coins. You may keep the copper coin for the cat.”

The son went red, then white, and then he paid. Kamala and her children were cared for comfortably for years. And people say that the old grey cat, who ended up living with the trader, never understood why it had once been the most expensive cat in Vijayanagara.