The Knowledge Stone

by Jack McGinnigle

  ‘What are you doing in my room?’ Kati’s voice was shrill. ‘I told that servant that I did not want to see you. She must be punished for this …’

  His voice cut across her hysterical tones: ‘I am here in your room because I am your husband. You belong to me now. I can come and go as I please in my own house.’

  Suddenly remembering that the only garment she was wearing was the thin sleeping chemise, Kati drew the bed covers up to her chin and lay with only head and whitened knuckles visible: ‘Go away! You are not allowed here while I am in bed. Go away or I will call the servants.’

  The man laughed: ‘I have told the servants to stay away from this part of the Manor House until I instruct them further. As your husband, I have business with you; we have things to talk about and there are things that I intend to do with you.’

  Kati was horrified! Was he talking about sexual coupling? He must be! She had long decided that she would not permit this and had intended to inform him as soon as possible. ‘No, you must not. I will not allow it. Keep away from me.’ Kati burst into hysterical tears.

  The man waited until she had quieted down. Then he spoke in calm, level tones: ‘Listen to me very carefully. I understand that you have already been rude and unkind to the servants. You will not do this again. The servants are to be treated with respect. I remind you again that you are my wife and I will enter your room any time I like; or I may order you to come to my rooms, if this pleases me. As my wife, you will do exactly what I want you to do; you will do it today, tomorrow and for the rest of your life. If you don’t obey me and please me in every respect, you will have reason to be very sorry indeed.’

  ‘What would you do?’ Kati’s voice was spirited. ‘I will contact the law authorities here and report your misdemeanours and then …’

  ‘Be quiet!’ Her husband’s voice was like the crack of a heavy whiplash. Measured tones followed. ‘This is what I would do. I would take you back across the mountains to the town you came from. There, I would hand you over to the town authorities to be examined for the serious crimes that I know you have committed there. I understand that the court and prison authorities there have interesting ways of dealing with the bodies and minds of fourteen-year-old girls who try to avoid the justice they deserve. Ways, my Dear Wife, that even you may never have imagined.’

  For the first time in her life, Kati was totally frozen in horror, lying rigid, her eyes staring sightlessly into his in complete disbelief, her mind short-circuited in utter capitulation and defeat. Minutes passed; there was no hurry. Then the man said quietly: ‘Now we will begin the first part of what I have come to do.’ From his pocket he withdrew a compact multi-tailed whip of fine medium-weight leather and strode purposely towards the bed.

  Kati’s eyes were fixed upon this fearful implement as it occupied larger and larger proportions in her field of vision. Then, as her husband reached the bed and seized the bed covers with a powerful fist, her eyes refocused past the whip to the glowing Stone visible on the dresser; in that instant, a dreadful understanding began to dawn in her mind: ‘My God,’ she whispered, almost to herself, ‘you’ve changed. Suddenly. You, all of you, have become exactly like …’

  Her final utterance was drowned out by the unique sound of leather thongs striking uncovered flesh at high velocity.

  CONTINUATIO II

  It is obvious that a stone has no memory, even if it has a distinct history that could translate into a memory when it was formed over millions of years. In such processes, large objects are sometimes preserved intact as recognisable fossils of what they were, now presenting as replicas in stone. These cause great amazement when found by the intelligent minds of humanity. However, in most cases, the large prehistoric constructions are split and broken apart, crushed, extruded and reformed in ways that have already been described in an earlier section. The origin of the constructions remain an unchanging reality but their precise existence is not preserved anywhere but in memory; so if there is no memory, then all is lost … or is it?

  The Stone is an example of notable exception. It had been completely reformed and, as an inert entity, it had no memory. However, it had a mysterious awareness. At the core of this awareness was the conviction that its birth had been within a growing living construction, one which became larger and larger until its influence was overbearing. Growth, life, means energy is involved.

  In many ways, it seems that energy is there to be captured and utilised. It is clear that humanity have been ingenious over the centuries, indeed, the millennia, in doing just that. Generally, energy is power to control – but not all energy is like that. Some energy is like that associated with the Stone; predestined, powerful, never to be controlled by mankind.

  So the Stone stirred, not with physical movement but with the mysterious movement of that energy within. In the Stone’s awareness, it “knew” its part, its role, was to belong; to become possessed by a member of the human race. With the possession of the Stone, an essential, unbreakable link would be formed and the power focussed precisely to become a mysterious beam of influence. An influence that will always, in a very real sense, change everything.

  And the Lord God commanded the man:

  “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die”

  Genesis Chapter 2 Verses 16-17.

  The Holy Bible, New International Version (The Bible Society, 1973)

  PART THREE

  Julian

  It was a busy day at the sandwich bar. The boy behind the counter was alone and flustered. ‘Was it a ten or a twenty you gave me?’

  ‘A twenty,’ Julian replied immediately.

  The boy hesitated and looked despairingly into the drawer of his till. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely!’ Julian always believed in being positive about these things. Pocketing the change from the transaction and clutching the brown paper bag containing sandwich and bottle of water, he walked out the door, smiling broadly, and waited on the kerb for the traffic to stop at the red light thirty metres up the road. When the traffic light did its work, Julian and many others streamed across the wide road and entered the public park through its large wrought-iron gates. This was a part of the day that Julian always enjoyed – his lunch break. ‘That office can be a bit stuffy and so it’s a real treat to get out at lunch time and come to the park.’ This was a thought that came to him almost every day – every day, that is, that the weather was suitable for eating lunch outside.

  As always, the park was busy but Julian usually managed to find a place on one of the many park benches. Today was no exception; look, there was a place on a comfortable wooden bench, next to a pretty girl! Julian smiled at the pleasure to come. ‘I’ll be my usual friendly and charming self and she will be enchanted.’ This pleasing thought came to him with smug satisfaction. He considered he had a special way with the opposite sex. However his smile faded as he noticed a grim middle-aged “businesswoman-type” approaching from the other direction. It was all too obvious that she was steering a direct course towards the bench in that particularly determined way that middle-aged businesswomen have!

  Julian quickened his pace to a shambling trot and arrived just in time to plant his bottom on the vacant seat as the middle-aged lady was on “final approach” for a landing on that same seat; Julian was reminded of the majestic landing manoeuvre of a jumbo-jet. This thought amused him and he gave a little private smile, greatly admiring the inventiveness of this imagination.

  Even when faced with such a frustrating situation, it is true that many people in the world would not seek to engage with it but would pass by without overt comment. However, middle-aged businesswomen are unlikely to be so retiring!

  ‘Young Man, you have just taken my seat,’ she roared in a loud and frightening voice. Eve
n the birds hushed as everyone in the immediate vicinity fell silent and looked around; with the vivid curiosity of humankind, all were fascinated to see how this confrontation would now develop.

  Julian knew that he was a very kind-hearted and generous person. After all, did he not help old ladies across the street when it was required? Was he not always kind, pleasant and honest in everything he did? He squinted up at this formidable lady and addressed her in a smooth and pleasant voice: ‘Madam, I am very sorry you seem to be upset but I’m afraid you have misunderstood the situation. I was sitting beside my friend here (he indicated the pretty girl next to him) and I left my seat to retrieve somebody’s hat that had blown away in the wind. I have just returned at this moment to resume my seat.’

  Julian was taken aback when the businesswoman looked quizzically at the girl and spoke to her: ‘I thought I knew all your friends. Who is this?’

  ‘I’ve never seen him in my life before, Aunt Matilda,’ the girl replied.

  This reply imposed a dramatic hiatus upon the scene as the information was received and processed by all who were listening intently.

  Release was provided when a new voice moved the action forward: ‘You are welcome to have this seat.’ A boyish young man who had been sitting at the other end of the bench now stood up and was smiling at the businesswoman. ‘I’m quite happy to sit on the grass.’ So saying, he moved several metres away and sank down on the grass, returning his attention to the slim eReader tablet in his hand.

  ‘Thank you for your kindness and generosity,’ the woman called to the young man before sitting down heavily on the bench beside her niece. As she did so, she unleashed a ferocious glare upon Julian. This, however, was totally wasted because Julian had been quick to turn his back on the girl, at the same time expertly wiping the details of the recent situation from his mind. Julian was very skilled and experienced in such matters.

  ‘Time for my free lunch,’ he was thinking equably. ‘I hope tomorrow will be another fine day so that I can enjoy another free lunch in the park. I’ll go back to the sandwich shop and spend the other five euro I was given by mistake. That boy will have a little problem today when it’s time to cash-up; he really should be more careful.’ Julian smiled proudly, well pleased with his victory.

  Now sitting completely at ease in the warm sunshine and fortifying himself with his tasty (free) sandwich, Julian reviewed his life with considerable satisfaction. He held an important position in his workplace, a large legal firm that dealt primarily in commercial matters. As Head of Document Control – the department was known as “DC” throughout the Firm – he knew that everyone depended upon him to provide them with the correct paperwork for the particular task they were about to carry out. Absolute accuracy was essential and a high standard was called for and expected.

  ‘Well, there are mistakes very occasionally,’ he conceded, ‘but that is of course inevitable in such a complex organisation.’ If pressed on matters of error, this is how he always responded, smiling charmingly. Apart from that occasional admission on behalf of his department, Julian always claimed that DC was extremely efficient. This, he said, was due to the quality of his personal management and organisational skills: ‘I am very skilled at recruiting good quality staff and training them to the highest levels,’ he would insist to the Partners and senior lawyers of the firm, ‘that is why you find our operations so reliable.’

  Now in his early thirties, Julian had been employed by this large legal firm for around eight years. When he talked of his employment with the firm, he presented quite a rosy picture of his recruitment, followed by a rapid progress through the ranks: ‘I agreed to come here after I had completed my Law degree,’ he often said loftily, ‘and they were very pleased to be able to recruit a person of my quality.’

  However, the reality was actually quite different.

  Julian’s father was a skilled and successful solicitor and it had been planned that his only son would follow in his footsteps. The family were rich and lived in a large and expensive house where they wanted for nothing. As a child, Julian was thoroughly spoiled and his every desire was provided by his doting parents. From his youngest schooldays, Julian had been sent to the best schools and it was expected that he would study at his father’s “old” university, a prestigious establishment that had a significant reputation for its Law courses. Having gained an excellent degree, like his father had, Julian would then become a top-class solicitor.

  However this plan and strategy did not work out as expected. Over the years of his boyhood, the various schools saddled with a lazy, reluctant and far-from-bright Julian worked tirelessly on him (as such schools do) and eventually managed to secure him a place at the prestigious university of his father’s choice – the establishment that he himself had attended. Here, Julian was to study Law.

  In fact his acceptance at the university was touch-and-go, with his father and others having to plead the boy’s case to the Selection Panel. Fortuitously, some of those on the Panel were old friends of Julian’s father. So the indolent and conceited Julian was enrolled at the university, unaware that he had almost been rejected; his father did not wish to upset him by informing him of this. Predictably, the subsequent Honours Degree Law course had not gone well and Julian had been very lucky to acquire a degree at the end of it; the award was at the very lowest level – a mere Pass Degree.

  This was the reason that Julian was not a practicing lawyer but worked at an administrative level. All attempts to join a law firm as a trainee solicitor had failed totally when his prospective employers read his C.V. While Julian had acquired a superficial sophistication, a combination of his poor C.V. and his uninspired technical performance at interview was enough to preclude him from any of the solicitor posts he applied for. While his father was deeply disappointed, Julian himself was largely unconcerned: ‘I believe life is here to be enjoyed,’ he often told himself, ‘I’m sure I really don’t need to work my fingers to the bone just to earn a living. If they don’t want me as a solicitor (and I’m sure that’s just because they have a prejudice against me), something else will come along. After all, I am an intelligent and personable fellow; whoever gets me as an employee will be very lucky.’ Modesty was not one of Julian’s virtues!

  After some time, now with the help of his father’s contacts, Julian was employed in a junior administration post in the large legal firm where he still worked. In time, his veneer of sophistication and unjustified confidence in himself gained him several promotions within this firm; some managers can be fooled by superficial qualities such as Julian’s. Then, by scheming, dishonesty and some luck, he finally managed to land the job of Head of Document Control (HDC), a medium-rank position in the organisation. Here, he gained a small, dingy office of his own and had a group of mainly junior staff working for him. He also gained a small, rather cramped parking space in the underground garage of the building. Whereas Julian had previously arrived by bus, he now took great pleasure in shoehorning his rather elderly 3-Series BMW into this space. As he did so, he usually thought: ‘A suitable high quality car for an excellent senior manager.’

  In actuality, Julian was a poor manager. In addition, he was personally disorganised and suffered from a poor memory. Most seriously, he was lazy and unreliable; he took no pride in his own work and had absolutely no regard for detail or timeliness. Consequently, he often made mistakes, some of which were very serious and cost his Firm a lot of money in loss of trust, as well as lost or cancelled contracts. However, his cunning led him to conceal his errors carefully, usually by passing the blame to his subordinates in DC.

  Because of all these problems, DC suffered from a frequent turnover of junior staff; many were dismissed in disgrace from their posts for committing serious errors, although often they were blameless, while others were sufficiently perceptive to recognise the degree of scapegoating that was swirling around the department and arran
ged to leave before the axe could fall upon them.

  In such cases of inefficiency and poor management at the top, there has to be someone competent in a position of authority, someone who can adequately hold the departmental functions together. This “someone” was the Deputy Head of DC, Margarite, who was considerably more organised than Julian, in addition to being significantly more intelligent. Even so, Margarite did not escape the effects of Julian’s inefficiencies. Periodically, she was rather irritated to be blamed for DC errors that she knew she had not made. However, in her loyalty to Julian, she always accepted the blame without demur, remembering that everyone is bound to make mistakes occasionally: “Nobody’s perfect!” This was a favourite saying of Margarite’s. Secretly, however, she was convinced she was fairly close to infallible!

  At this time, Margarite had worked with Julian for three years – ever since he had been promoted to be HDC. She had also been a candidate for the post, having already been Deputy HDC for two years but, as so often happens to those who occupy second-in-command posts, she fell victim to the popular attraction of “fresh blood” and was passed over. When Julian arrived to take up post, relations between HDC and his deputy were a little strained at first but his charm and good looks soon solved any suggestion of animosity. Thereafter, they had developed a close relationship; so close that they had shared his flat (and his bed) for the last two years.

  It was here in the cosiness of this small flat that Margarite had developed a love for the slim and handsome Julian. For his part, he was unsurprised by her love and accepted it with neutral equanimity. He admitted to himself that it was very pleasant to have someone with whom to share life, to eat and drink together, to exchange thoughts and opinions.