The Knowledge Stone Page 8

  ‘Yes, Master,’ she whispered.

  ‘Come with me.’ He led the way to his bullock cart nearby. ‘Get in,’ he instructed, leaving her to scramble up with difficulty on to the high cart.

  During the journey, Malik did not speak a word to the child. Eventually they arrived at the farm and Giana was greatly startled when Malik bellowed “Boy” at the top of his voice. A farm boy ran from a barn nearby and, without instruction, came to attend to the bullock cart, holding the beast’s head as the farmer climbed down.

  Malik ignored the boy and turned to her: ‘Get down and come with me,’ he growled.

  In the fading light, he pushed her towards the farmhouse door, and, opening it violently, thrust her ahead of him into the smoky and dimly-lit interior.

  Giana had been frightened by the introduction to her new mistress, who did not seem at all friendly towards her. She did not like being stripped naked and scrubbed; it had made some places on her body quite sore. On the other hand, it was lovely to be clean. It seemed to her that it was a long time since she had been clean. At the handyman’s house, she had never been allowed to wash herself or her clothes. She could only clean herself, occasionally and rather perfunctorily, on brief visits to the river.

  As she sat naked beside the fire, waiting for her dress to dry, she thought: ‘It would be nice if I am allowed to keep myself clean.’ At the same time, she was worried about many other things. Where would she sleep? Would the farmer and his wife feed her? If they didn’t, she would die – and she didn’t want to die! She couldn’t help her eyes filling with tears.

  Then, a new and awful thought! Where was the privy? She had forgotten all about that! Her knees squeezed together involuntarily. She hoped she did not need to ask her new mistress where it was; disturbing her might make her angry and who knows what might happen then?

  ‘Wake up!’ Her employer had spoken and, deep in her introspection and worry, she had not heard her. She felt a pang of panic.

  ‘What are you called?’ This loudly and sharply.

  ‘Giana.’

  Her mistress thought it was an unusual name. Her next question: ‘What work can you do?’

  ‘Anything.’ Giana desperately hoped her reply would please her mistress.

  Her mistress laughed but Giana did not know whether she was pleased or not. Maretta heaved herself to her feet and checked the dryness of Giana’s ragged dress.

  ‘You can put this on now,’ she said, passing it to the girl, ‘you might not look so scrawny with some clothes on.’ Then the woman went over to the food store and returned with a bowl and a pot of milk. Without a word, she handed these to the girl and returned to her seat.

  ‘Thank you, Mistress.’ Giana knew the value of politeness.

  Maretta did not look up.

  ‘This is good food,’ Giana thought as she ate the bread, butter and cheese in the bowl and drank the milk from the pot. Clothed and with food now in her stomach, Giana began to feel less worried and frightened. ‘Maybe they will be nice to me here,’ she thought. ‘I must try my best to do good work for my mistress.’

  Maretta’s voice penetrated her thoughts: ‘Girl,’ she said, without looking up, ‘you will sleep with me in the next room. And you had better be a quiet sleeper!’

  ‘Yes, Mistress, thank you, I’m a very quiet sleeper.’ Giana did not know whether she was a quiet sleeper on not. At the handyman’s she had been forced to sleep on the hard earth floor under a table.

  There was silence for some time, then Maretta spoke again: ‘Girl!’

  ‘Yes, Mistress.’

  ‘The privy is round the back of the farmhouse. Make sure you use it!’

  ‘Thank you, Mistress.’ Giana felt wonderful. Now she knew everything. At that moment, her life was complete!

  That night however, it was inevitable that Giana would sleep rather fitfully, afraid to disturb her irascible mistress who had made it clear that any disturbance would result in punishment.

  ‘Just lie quiet and don’t disturb me. If you do, I promise you’ll regret it.’ Maretta had growled this to the girl as they prepared for sleep in the side room of the farmhouse.

  At the same time, the prospect of sleeping on a soft mattress was a luxury for Giana. This would be the very first time she would enjoy the warmth and cosiness of a real bed. In her whole life she had known nothing other than the hard, cold floor at the handyman’s tumbledown shack, where she had always been in danger of a stray kick from any member of that extremely unpleasant family.

  Preparing to go to bed in that strange room, Giana was in something of a quandary about what she should wear in bed – the quandary being that she did not have a special item of clothing for that purpose. Before combing her hair, her mistress had changed into a long linen shift. Giana had no other garment to wear other than her old worn-out dress, washed by Maretta earlier that evening. She could choose to sleep in this as she always had done in the past but now she was afraid this would make it very crumpled and this might easily make her mistress displeased and angry. In the end, she waited until the flame was extinguished and then slipped naked into the bed, a brief shadow of a pale nymph.

  Very early in the morning, while Maretta still slept heavily, sprawled across most of the bed, Giana rose to make herself ready for the day. The side room had its own door to the farmyard so there was no risk of disturbing Old Malik who could be heard snoring noisily in the main room next door. Giana was very grateful that she did not have to exit through that room since disturbing Old Malik was not only unthinkable but a very frightening prospect. Giana shivered at the thought. She was frightened of Old Malik and hoped she would be able to keep out of his way as much as possible.

  In the half-light of dawn, the morning was cool and dry. After a cautious but necessary visit to the privy, she found a tub of water behind the farmhouse where she was able to wash herself quickly. She was considerably alarmed when Old Malik suddenly appeared around the side of the farmhouse but he ignored her totally and stalked by. Running back to the front of the farmhouse, Giana now found that her mistress had risen.

  ‘Where are you, girl?’ A call of irritation.

  ‘Here I am.’ Giana was quick to reply and stood with downcast eyes in front of her mistress.

  Maretta looked at the little thin girl with ill-tempered disapproval. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Washing myself, Mistress,’ the girl replied humbly, ‘I thought you would want me to be clean.’

  The woman said nothing but turned and walked into the farmhouse. When Giana did not move, she called over her shoulder: ‘Why are you still standing there? Are you stupid? Come with me at once!’

  They entered the farmhouse and Maretta propelled the girl to a corner of the room where food and utensils were kept in a cupboard. Fixing her with an unfriendly eye, she said to the girl: ‘Listen very carefully. You had better remember what I am about to say. This is where I keep the food and drink; also the bowls, platters and knives are here. First thing in the morning after the Master rises, you will prepare our first meal. The Master and I will sit at the table over there. I will tell you what food and drink you will serve. You will wait upon us and make sure we have everything we want. When we are finished you may have your food – I will tell you what you may eat and you will sit on that stool over there.’ She pointed to a rough, rickety stool against the wall. ‘You will eat and drink quickly so that you may begin your work as soon as possible. I hope you understand all I have told you because I don’t like stupid people.’

  ‘Yes, Mistress,’ the girl whispered meekly.

  ‘So do it.’ The command was sharp. ‘We will eat bread, butter and cheese; and we will drink some mead.’ She indicated a thick stone flagon on the floor.

  Giana ran to do her bidding, placing a large platter of bread, butter and cheese in the middle of the
table and two smaller platters in front of the chairs, each with a knife. The smaller platters were flanked by two pots and the large flagon of mead placed on the table. Giana stood back to admire her handiwork and waited for her Mistress’s approval.

  ‘Crack!’ Disorientation followed by sharp pain. Maretta had come up behind her and slapped her hard on a bare leg. Giana screamed, partly with pain but mostly with shock.

  ‘Stupid girl,’ Maretta said, ‘take that large flagon off the table. Such a vessel is always put on the floor – here.’ She pointed.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mistress.’ A distressed Giana gasped, wanting to rub her bruised leg to alleviate the pain, ‘I’ll never do it again.’ She removed the flagon from the table and set it down at the place indicated by Maretta.

  As part of the routine, Giana was also instructed to prepare a small morning meal for the farm boy, all items to be placed in a wooden bowl. When it was ready, Maretta took the bowl, checked it and placed it outside the door. Giana wondered why her mistress seemed to be so angry about this – after all, the farm boy was not doing her any harm, was he?

  At the same time, another meal was made up and placed in a cloth bundle; Giana understood this was the midday meal for the farm boy which he would eat later during a short break from his work. The bundle was left just inside the farmhouse door.

  The girl was relieved that no other incident occurred during the morning meal. Old Malik stumped into the farmhouse shortly after and he and Maretta sat at the table to eat their morning meal. Giana stood respectfully nearby and carried out any supplementary orders issued by her Mistress. The farmer ignored both the girl and his wife. When the food had been eaten, he rose and left the farmhouse without a word, lifting up the prepared food bundle by the door.

  Through the open door, Giana heard him shouting angry instructions to the farm boy who was sitting quietly outside. She was shocked to see him throw the food bundle carelessly in the boy’s direction and was relieved when, by dint of quick movement, the boy was able to catch it before the food spilled out on to the ground.

  Maretta now indicated that Giana should clear the utensils away and take them outside to be cleaned. After this had been done, she indicated the food that Giana should eat as her morning meal and included a pot of fresh milk. Obediently, Giana sat on the stool by the wall and consumed her first morning meal quickly. After her rather shocking and painful experience this morning, Giana concluded ruefully that she would need to be very careful at Old Malik’s farm.

  After the morning meal was finished, further detailed instructions were given to Giana. These referred to her many other duties – helping her mistress with cooking, baking, dairy and butchery work; looking after the farmyard animals, collecting the eggs, milking; attending to the kitchen garden and storing the vegetable crops; and finally, general cleaning within and without the farmhouse.

  Giana could see that she would be kept very busy. On the other hand, she recognised that her food and sleeping conditions were better that she had experienced in her earlier life. And if she was very careful and hard-working, maybe she would not be punished very much. She was well used to painful punishment but Maretta’s hard slap earlier this morning had been an unexpected shock.

  ‘I’ll just have to try my best to be good,’ she thought.

  There was one other instruction, greatly emphasised by her mistress. This referred to the farm boy. Giana had caught several glimpses of him since she had come to the farm the day before and she had thought that he looked like a nice boy, completely unlike the loutish children of the handyman who had always been so unkind and cruel to her. She thought the farm boy was probably a few years older than herself and had looked forward to speaking to him, servant to servant, (equal to equal?). However, it seemed that this was not to be. Maretta was forceful and unequivocal on this subject.

  Giana was to have nothing to do with this farm boy, whose name was Joachim – Maretta spat the name out with contempt and Giana wondered why. The farm boy worked only with the Master and he was a lazy good-for-nothing; he often had to be beaten by the Master, he was so idle and stupid. She, Giana, was not to speak to the farm boy, ever, even if they met face to face. If she disobeyed, she would tell the Master to beat her, just like he beat the farm boy. With a big thick stick, all over her body. Did she understand? There was only one answer to that question!

  ‘Yes, Mistress, I will never speak to him or have anything to do with him.’ Giana spoke fearfully and with extreme subservience.

  In fact, Maretta’s hatred of the unfortunate Joachim was first of all an attempt to alleviate her own deep misery by transferring it to another. This is a common and invariably unsuccessful strategy that has been attempted by human beings down the ages.

  However the second reason was more experiential, rooted in that particular series of long-past events that involved herself and her elder brother, where her innocent naked body had been used for his sexual gratification. Within her confused mind, the boy Joachim had been placed into the role of her elder brother and now the girl Giana became the innocent victim that had been herself. The outcome of all this was the almost hysterical forbiddance placed upon Giana.

  Giana was a simple girl who was happy enough to obey commands. Clearly, she had no experience of normal life, where relationships are often loving and respectful; her experiences were confined to obedience and punishment if her “superiors” were not satisfied with her work or any aspect of her attitude. Therefore she just concentrated on whatever task or activity she had been directed to do at that moment, without giving thought to anything else. Her only concern was to give satisfaction so that punishment would not come her way.

  So the months and years passed and Giana worked hard every day, often finding it difficult to complete all the work in the allocated time. Satisfactory work was received by Maretta with no comment while mistakes or uncompleted work were met at least with anger and often by hard slaps to her face or various parts of her body; occasionally, if the offence was judged to be grave, more serious beatings were administered by a hard hand or a thin switch. Nevertheless, many days passed relatively peacefully for Giana and proper feeding soon built up her health and strength, making her physically strong and healthy as she grew.

  Giana was now dressed in simple clothes of robust quality. Within several weeks of her arrival at the farm wearing her only ragged and worn-out dress, her mistress had returned from a trip to the village and called the girl to her: ‘These are for you.’ Two plain dresses of stout grey material were placed on the table along with two lighter undergarments. There was also an extra chemise for bedtime, and the “wardrobe” was completed with a pair of sturdy leather sandals. Giana was dumbfounded. She had never had any new clothes in her life!

  ‘Mistress, thank you. You are so good to me.’ She burst into tears of joy.

  Maretta frowned: ‘Put them on, girl,’ she said testily and Giana complied.

  The fit of all the garments was reasonably good and Giana was absolutely delighted. She felt so elegant. Didn’t the new cloth feel so good and smell so nice? What a lucky girl she was! In her simple joy, she pirouetted around the room.

  Maretta smiled thinly and briefly.

  ‘Listen, girl,’ she said, ‘when your dress gets dirty, change it for the other one while you wash the dirty one, you understand? I can’t have my servant running around in dirty ragged clothes. And always wear your sleeping garment in bed.’

  ‘Yes, Mistress,’ Giana delighted, ‘I will never forget. Thank you so very much.’ That day, Giana’s work was done even more thoroughly than usual and completed in good time.

  Despite the strict instructions (dire warnings!) she had received about contact with the farm boy Joachim, it was inevitable that they would have sight of each other quite often, for the farm was quite small. For instance, the boy sat not far from the front of the farmhouse to eat
most of his food; on these daily occasions he was no more than two cart-lengths from her, separated only by the barrier of the farmhouse wall.

  There were also occasions when their work inadvertently brought them together, on the paths around the fields or meadows of the farm or around the farmyard itself. From the start, he had always looked at her with a friendly expression and greeted her pleasantly in a quiet voice. These occasions had terrified Giana, especially at first, and she ignored him completely and scuttled off as fast as she could. The prospect of being beaten by Old Malik with a long stick completely terrified her. On one dreadful occasion, she had come upon the farm boy being beaten by Old Malik and been totally horrified by the blood-streaked wheals being laid upon his body.

  However, as the seasons and years went by and Giana became older, she became a little more relaxed about inadvertently meeting Joachim, although, for her own sake, she still maintained a strict policy of “no contact”. He still spoke to her quietly when they met and smiled at her, but she was too frightened to reciprocate and always walked on as if he was not there.

  In fact, there was one occasion when they met on a narrow path and she deliberately pushed him into a deep puddle of mud to give her enough room to pass – that was how she tried to rationalise it to herself afterwards. Also, she had been very rude and called him a ‘horrible boy’ – in a whisper, of course. The recollection of this event worried Giana considerably and she hoped fervently that the Master or the Mistress would never find out about it. The prospect of the Master’s big beating stick always made her shudder!

  Joachim

  The boy subsided slowly until he was seated upon the earth, his eyes fixed on the retreating figure of Old Malik.