The Knowledge Stone Read online

  ALSO BY JACK McGINNIGLE:

  (Non-fiction)

  Divine Weather (2001)

  Climate Change Apocalypse (2010)

  A Trilogy of Mystery

  Jack McGinnigle

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  Joachim

  Old Malik

  Maretta

  Giana

  Joachim

  CONTINUATIO I

  PART TWO

  Kati

  Stable Boy

  Brother

  Maidservant

  Kati

  CONTINUATIO II

  PART THREE

  Julian

  Jana

  Julian

  Sunia

  Julian

  EPILOGUE

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  Deep in the Earth, the Stone was. Not buried, for it was part of the fabric and makeup of the Earth, part of the unity that is the World we know. Yet it was also a separate entity among the many separate entities that make up Earth. Part of the whole that itself comprises many parts of a whole that is part of a universe of wholes … and outwards to inexplicable infinity.

  The Stone was not alive, for we all know that stones have no life. Yet it would be wrong to define the Stone as “dead”, for that word implies a previous existence of life. Instead, it may be designated as inert, unchanging in its basic being.

  However, physical changes must be chronicled, as the Stone was subjected to movement, to radical and gigantic heaves, thrusts and judders; to sliding, grinding, rearing and plunging, at times augmented by heating to incandescence or cooling to absolute frigidity. All this happening within the mass of changing plasma that is the World and its environs, cycling within uneven patterns of space and time, its composition lurching from dense solid to viscous liquid, to vapour and beyond.

  So in this mystery of time and space, the Stone was unmade, fractured and rent apart with variable violence, moulded and shaped, ground down and reformed in a myriad of ways. But during all these eons, there was yet a constancy in the kernel of its entity.

  In the being of the Stone, there was no concept of time. No beginning, past, present, future or end. Such things do exist, at least as a gossamer timeline in the fertile minds of higher life forms, albeit imperfectly expressed and understood. Yet the Stone was associated with what we understand as a history, a past mysteriously blended with significance. For the Stone had not always been an assemblage of gritty, pseudo-inert particles; it had been something quite different, an integral part of a large formation in which there had been a sensation of life, movement and meaning.

  There was no life in the Stone, certainly not in any individual sense. It had never had the tinge of sentience, either. But in the nucleus of its being, it was mystically aware.

  PART ONE

  Joachim

  ‘I’m really glad I live in modern times.’ The boy always woke well before first light. It was his special time, his only opportunity for luxurious musing. There was no question of thinking at the end of the day when he clambered into his narrow bunk in the hayloft of the barn. By then he was so tired he could barely keep awake; a whole day of almost continuous manual labour had totally exhausted his thin, wiry young body. But this time in the morning before first light was different, especially precious and magical to him.

  As he drifted upwards through layers of sleep, on the journey towards full wakefulness, his initial thoughts continued, ‘I’m really glad the bullock cart has round wheels and not square ones like the carts of olden times.’

  This thought had come from Old Malik the day before and it had obviously been sufficiently striking to be the first subject of his early morning muse.

  Approaching full wakefulness, the boy now recalled exactly what Old Malik (his master, the farmer) had said. The words were embedded within an unpleasant and frightening incident but Joachim was well used to such events on the farm. He had been told to move the bullock cart across the farmyard to the field and the solid wooden wheels of the heavy cart had sunk into a depression of viscous mud left by an overnight rainstorm. The cart was stuck fast and the boy was trying his best to extricate it, wrestling with the powerful bullock harnessed to the cart, shouting loudly, pulling at its head ropes and beating the back of the unfortunate animal with a stick.

  Old Malik had heard the commotion and appeared out of the barn. As his gaze rested upon the scene in the farmyard, his face twisted into a familiar pattern of anger.

  ‘Be quiet and stop thrashing that bullock,’ he roared.

  Old Malik did not actually care about the beating the bullock was receiving, since he himself often beat his animals savagely. The reason for his reaction was even more cruel; every day, he revelled in making the boy’s life a misery: ‘Listen very closely to me, you stupid little fool,’ he snarled menacingly, ‘you’re really lucky this is the Year of our Lord six hundred and fifty-seven (Old Malik knew such things); in olden times, bullock carts didn’t have round wheels like this one, they had square wheels that just dragged along the ground, like a sled.’

  Joachim, still straining at the head of the reluctant bullock, was silent for a moment. As Old Malik turned away in contempt, the boy ventured: ‘But surely …’

  The man froze. Then he wheeled around, paced forward and thrust a furious face close to Joachim, eyes narrowed and blazing, purple veins etched on his forehead. ‘What? Are you arguing with me again? I’m telling you the way it was in olden times. I’m giving you the benefit of my knowledge about the past. I’m telling you the wheels of the bullock carts were square; they just dragged along the ground. Life then was much more difficult than it is now. The trouble with you is that you are a stupid, ungrateful, utterly useless wretch. No wonder I need to beat you so much.’ He looked around for a beating stick.

  The boy recognised a familiar danger and bowed his head immediately, stumbling backwards and mumbling apologies in an attempt to appease the farmer. Fortunately, the bullock had been frightened by the violence in Old Malik’s voice and had pulled the cart free from the mud with a series of convulsive terror-fuelled heaves. Thus, a grateful Joachim was able to beat a hasty retreat from the scene – as hasty as a slowly lumbering bullock cart could achieve! This particular moment of danger had passed but the boy lived his life with the constant fear of such happenings.

  Still stretched out in his narrow bunk and becoming aware of the first tinge of deepest blue through gaps in the barn wall, he now reflected about the comment he had inadvertently started to make to Old Malik. Of course, he blamed himself for what had happened. He knew it had all been his fault. In a moment of forgetfulness, he had just thought aloud and he should not have done that.

  But surely his thought was true? Even if the wheels had started off square, the constant dragging would rub away the square corners and eventually the wheels would begin to turn, very clumsily and unevenly at first; then, the more they turned the rounder they would become, eventually becoming round wheels like those of modern times!

  Elated, the boy clapped his hands with joy: ‘I’m sure that’s right – but I’ll need to keep quiet about this.’ He knew better than to try to mention it to Old Malik, or indeed to anyone else on the farm; they would tell the farmer what he had said and Old Malik would come looking for him with a stick in his hand.

  ‘I’ve just got to keep it a secret,’ he decided.

  The boy’s thoughts now drifted to his past life. His memories of living with his own family in the next village had diminished although he remembered he had been the eld
est child in what seemed to be an ever-growing family; there were already five younger siblings and another was expected soon. They were always extremely poor; their living conditions were extremely cramped and they never had enough to eat.

  In this land, it was commonplace for poverty-stricken parents to seek to solve the dilemma of a growing family by arranging for their elder children to be apprenticed to a local farmer or businessman. In fact, this was not an apprenticeship at all but a financial transaction where the employer bought the child for an agreed sum paid to the father. Thus the father gained a welcome sum of money for the family and the cost of maintaining the apprentice was transferred to his or her employer, who then became responsible for feeding, clothing and housing the child. In truth, this was child slavery and, at the employer’s behest, that slavery could be extended throughout the whole of adulthood.

  When Joachim was around eight years old, his father had sold him to Old Malik as an apprentice farm worker and, since then, the boy had never been able to visit his home and make contact with his family. Remembering this sadly, he thought wistfully of his mother, a quiet kindly woman, always tired and prematurely aged by hard work and child-bearing: ‘Mother was nice; how I wish I could see her now. I could always speak to her about anything. She would have liked to hear about the bullock carts of olden times.’

  His eyes filled with tears. He knew a visit to his village was impossible, because Old Malik never allowed him to have a free day or even a few hours to himself. The only time he ever left the farm was in the company of Old Malik when heavy or bulky items had to be fetched from or taken to the village. Then, he was the labourer who loaded or unloaded the cart while Old Malik drank beer at the alehouse with his friends. Woe betide Joachim if the work was not done when Old Malik returned, often drunk and even more ready to be violent towards him.

  The thoughts about his family took the boy’s mind back to the day he was brought to the farm. This was something he used to think about often – in fact he used to have nightmares about it. Nowadays, he thought about it only occasionally, although when he did, the memory was still pin sharp. He remembered travelling to the farm in a very bumpy cart. Following the financial transaction with his father, Old Malik had lifted him into the back of the cart and growled, ‘Sit there, don’t move and be quiet.’

  So the little slim boy arrived at the farm, cowed and frightened, clutching a very small, pathetic bundle of possessions. From the start, Old Malik treated him roughly. When the frightened boy started to weep, the old man was callous: ‘Stop that,’ he snapped, ‘I don’t allow snivelling. You’re mine now and you better do exactly what you’re told.’

  The boy was taken to the farmhouse and Old Malik called for his wife to come out. ‘This is a farm boy I’ve bought,’ he grated, making no mention of his name, ‘he’ll live in the barn.’

  The fat, slovenly woman (Joachim later discovered her name was Maretta) looked at him with dull, disinterested eyes. ‘More work for me,’ she muttered, ‘who needs another mouth to feed?’ Then she turned away and re-entered the farmhouse, slamming the door behind her.

  Old Malik seized the boy by the shoulder, causing him to cry out with fear and pain: ‘Listen to me,’ he said, ‘you are not allowed in the farmhouse. You live in the barn over there, in the hayloft, and you better look after all the farm tools in the barn and see that nothing gets stolen. Now come with me.’

  The boy was dragged around to the fetid privy at the back of the farmhouse and thrust inside. The privy was just a stinking pit in the ground covered by a slimy plank of wood pierced with a hole. Users of the privy were screened from sight by screens of flimsy coarse rush matting that also provided a sparse roof.

  ‘When you need to, you do it in here – nowhere else, you hear?’ the man growled.

  ‘Yes, Master,’ the boy whispered tearfully.

  ‘And another thing, you’ll be cleaning it out every few weeks and you had better do it properly.’

  Old Malik then propelled the boy back to the farmhouse. ‘Right,’ he said harshly ‘I want to see you here at first light tomorrow. And you better be clean, tidy and ready to work. If you aren’t, you’ll be sorry.’ The man turned on his heel and stamped into the farmhouse, slamming the door loudly behind him.

  Joachim remembered how he trudged pathetically across the yard to the barn. It was getting dark and, when he got there, it was difficult to see inside the barn. When his eyes had adjusted to the dim light, he could just make out a rough ladder leading to the hayloft above. He climbed up gingerly, taking his little bundle with him. Most of the hayloft was stacked with bales of hay but he could just make out a narrow bunk made of rough planks of wood set along one wall. There was a single worn blanket in it.

  He remembered how exhausted he felt as he stripped off his shirt and breeches and put on his spare shirt – the only other garment he had in his bundle. Putting a generous layer of hay into the bunk, he climbed in and covered himself with the thin blanket. Then, he cried himself to sleep, fearful of what the next day would bring.

  The boy’s mind now snapped back to the present. Work always started very early on the farm and he knew that Old Malik would be shouting angrily for him very soon if he did not appear, scrubbed clean and ready for a full day’s work when the light became strong enough for the farm activities to start. The boy reflected with regret how easy it was to make Old Malik angry – in fact he seemed to be angry all the time. When the anger was directed at the boy, which it frequently was, the situation often developed into physical beatings; Old Malik would seize the nearest stick (he had a number of beating sticks placed at strategic points around the farm) and lay it across the shoulders, back and legs of the unfortunate boy.

  Such an event had happened the day before.

  ‘Well, it was my own fault,’ the boy thought ruefully ‘I did drop that bag of grain and it split open.’ In fact the bag had been far too large and heavy for Joachim’s slight frame but, despite this (or perhaps deliberately), Old Malik had ordered him to pick it up and stack it in the barn.

  The subsequent beating had been very painful and the boy hoped that the wheals on his back had not been bleeding in the night. If they had, he knew from experience that his shirt would be sticking to his wounds and that the bleeding was likely to restart when he pulled the shirt off. His back would then be very painful all during the day and make it difficult for him to do his work as quickly as normal. He shivered at the prospect. Old Malik might notice and become angry again, putting him in danger of more beating.

  ‘Oh well, I’ll soon find out if I’ve been bleeding,’ he thought ruefully, still snuggling deeply into the straw.

  Remarkably, despite the harshness and periodic brutality that marked his daily life, the boy was not downcast or frightened. Lying in his bunk, for now warm and comfortable, he looked around the cramped, dimly-lit hayloft that had become his home since he came to the farm. ‘Life really isn’t too bad,’ he thought, ‘I’m not beaten every day and the food that Maretta gives me is usually quite good, although it’s never enough.’ Then he paused and added to his thought, ‘but I’ve learned how to survive.’

  He smiled secretly as he thought of the extra food he sometimes managed to take when no-one was looking. Neither Maretta or Old Malik ever suspected he would do such a thing! So small pieces of bread or cheese, sometimes even an apple or pear, were quickly taken and hidden in his clothes, later to be eaten on an “official” visit to the privy.

  The boy knew that the dark, dirty and fly-infested environment of the privy was highly unsuitable for eating food but it was the only place where he could be alone and was unlikely to be disturbed suddenly. He smiled again, this time quite cheerfully. ‘Yes, life is really quite good. Maybe Old Malik will not be angry with me today. I’ll try my best to do exactly what he tells me. I’ll try to be really good.’

  Joachim now judged it
was time for him to get up. He sat up gingerly and stepped out of the bunk, easing his shirt from his back and pulling it off over his head. In the dim light, he examined the garment.

  ‘Only one little streak of blood,’ he thought, ‘I’m really lucky.’ Naked, the boy climbed lithely down the rickety ladder to the earthen floor of the barn. Stepping outside, he paused and looked around with great care before slipping around the side of the barn, out of sight of the farmhouse. Here he urinated quickly on the ground – something Old Malik had expressly forbidden him to do. As he did so, he recalled how unpleasant it was to go to the privy.

  There were several reasons for this. On the daily occasions he found it necessary to use the privy, he often found it occupied by Old Malik, Maretta or even Giana. Giana was a scrawny, graceless girl several years younger than Joachim, who had been acquired by Old Malik some months before. She now worked for Maretta in the kitchen or farmyard. Joachim was forbidden by Old Malik to have any contact with Giana or even approach her anywhere on the farm.

  Of course Old Malik and Maretta took precedence at the privy and must never be disturbed when they were occupying it. However the boy could not understand why Giana also took precedence over him. After all, he was older than her and had been at the farm much longer. ‘It’s not fair,’ he thought. At the same time he felt sorry for Giana because it was obvious that she was treated unkindly by Maretta. ‘Even so, it’s not fair that she is allowed to use the privy before me,’ he thought again, still standing naked by the side of the barn.

  Then an impish grin lit up his face. He looked down at the wet patch on the ground before him and whispered: ‘But I’ve certainly solved that problem for this morning!’

  At the doorway of the barn, a large barrel of scummy rainwater provided the boy with the only means he had of washing himself. Shivering a little, he scooped away the algae and threw cupped hands of icy water over his head until the whole length of his body was glistening; he winced as the water stung the red and purple wheals on his back. Scrubbing himself clean with a rough cloth, he then rolled in the straw to dry his wet and reddened body. Finally, he plunged the blood-stained shirt into the water, scrubbed the blood stain and rinsed the garment out before hanging it up on a high beam: ‘I hope that will be dry by this evening,’ he thought, ‘otherwise I’ll have to sleep in my skin.’ He hoped this would not happen because the straw in his bunk would be prickly and hurt the healing scars on his back. Climbing the ladder to the hayloft, he dressed quickly in shirt and breeches and then combed his hair flat with a roughly-hewn wooden comb that he had carved from a flat branch. The light strengthened. He was ready.