The Knowledge Stone (21 page)

‘I must say I cannot recall you at present. What work did you take up?’

‘Sir, I went into legal work.’

‘Ah, so you are a man of the Law?’ The Head Stableman was impressed.

‘No, Sir, forgive me for giving you the wrong impression. I am the Senior Jailer at the Town Jail. I have been doing this work for many years.’

The Head Stableman now recognised the man before him. ‘Ah yes, I have seen you around the Town, you are sometimes seen with the Court Jailer – everyone knows him, don’t they? However I am happy to say I have had no reason to make professional contact with you over the years.’ The Head Stableman smiled briefly, then he said: ‘So what can possibly bring the Senior Jailer to speak to me?’

‘Sir,’ the man said, lowering his voice, ‘this is a matter of great delicacy which involves a former employee of yours; I refer to your former stable boy who is now in the Town Jail awaiting the date of his trial at the Town Court.’ Lowering his voice even further, the man looked around nervously and continued: ‘It is possible we could speak in privacy somewhere? What I have to say is of great importance but, as you will hear, it places me in some danger.’

The Head Stableman looked directly at this man and thought: ‘Danger? I do not understand.’

Outwardly, he said: ‘I will hear what you have to say; let us go to my rooms. Come with me, please.’

As the two men proceeded to the rooms, the Head Stableman was thinking: ‘It is true that I am disquieted by the case of the stable boy. He was always a good and faithful worker and what he is said to have done was totally out of character. I remember he denied it vehemently at the time and this was backed up by the other stable hand who was the only other witness there. But the Master was adamant, Miss Kati reported what he did and the Master took the correct action at the time – if it is true, that is.’

This was not the first time the Head Stableman had thought about this. Also, there was the question of the injury to Miss Kati’s horse. Somehow that seemed to fit in with this matter also. Nevertheless, the Head Stableman’s loyalty was to his Master and, after the arrest and removal of the stable boy from his employ, the man had pushed the matter to the back of his mind; he had not forgotten, however.

‘Sit down, please, and tell me what this is all about.’

‘Sir, I work together with a colleague who is my assistant. We work well together. I do all the administration work and he usually attends to practical matters, like (the man hesitated) discipline, for instance. We are employees of the Town and are servants of the Court Jailer who, as you know, decides whether each case will be sent to the Town Court. When a criminal is arrested, he is brought to us for imprisonment before trial. We, that is, my colleague and I, assist the Court Jailer to prepare his case.’

The Head Stableman interrupted: ‘You help? How do jailers help to prepare the case? I do not understand.’

The jailer paused and looked down at the floor. ‘Well, the Court Jailer prepares the indictment for the Court and he, ah, requests that we obtain the prisoner’s confession which will be submitted with the case.’

The Head Stableman thought for a moment: ‘I understand that. But what happens if the prisoner refuses to sign the confession. What happens if the prisoner claims to be innocent?’

The jailer laughed: ‘Sir, every criminal claims to be innocent!’

‘So what happens? What do you do in these cases?’

‘Well, Sir, we are instructed to examine the prisoners rigorously, you know, put pressure on them until they admit their guilt. They always do – and the case can then go to the Court.’

The Head Stableman was silent, introspective. Then: ‘So tell me about my stable boy.’

‘Sir, you know what happened here at the Manor House. The Court Jailer then brought him to the prison. He told us that the Master of the Manor House had asked him to prepare the case for the Court and the Court Jailer stated that he was about to do so. Meanwhile, we were to, ah, – obtain – a confession from the boy … which we did.’ The last words spoken in a whisper.

‘Did the boy claim to be innocent?’

‘Yes, Sir, many times.’

‘So why did he sign the confession?’

There was a long pause before the man answered: ‘It was very difficult. We had to apply a great deal of pressure.’ The silence stretched to minutes; then the jailer said, almost inaudibly: ‘This is why I am here, Sir. My colleague and I, we both know that the boy is innocent.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Sir, we have done this work for many years and we are very experienced. We know that virtually all of the prisoners we persuade to confess are in fact guilty. A very few aren’t. Your stable boy is one. He is innocent. We know this with certainty.’

‘So why do you tell me this?’ The Head Stableman now spoke sharply.

‘Sir, the indictment is complete, the confession has been submitted and we have emphasised to the boy that he must not insist on his innocence. If he does so he will merely be sent back to us for more … discipline. There is no doubt that he will be convicted; it is the Master’s wish, it is the Court Jailer’s wish and, presumably, it is also the wish of the young lady who made this charge.’

‘So I ask again, why do you tell me these things?’

‘Sir, if you were at the Court and spoke up for him, for his character, it could make a difference to his sentence, because you are a very respected man in this community. This is the only way in which we can help him. If he comes back to prison, my colleague and I will not be able to protect him from the evil and violent prisoners we hold, because we will need to treat him just like all the others. He will be held in a common male cell and many bad things are likely to happen to such a young man in there. So bad that some do not survive what happens to them.’

The Head Stableman looked at the floor and thought for a while. Then he lifted his head: ‘I understand now why you came and why this is dangerous for you and your colleague. I will think about this deeply and I will keep it secret. You will let me know when the case will go to the Court and at that time I shall decide what to do. Meanwhile, should anyone ask, we will say that you were merely enquiring about future stable employment for one of your family, on the grounds of our earlier boyhood relationship.’

‘Sir, I am most grateful to you. I will leave you now and wish you well.’

The jailer bowed low and left with a feeling of great relief. As he sat that evening with the Second Jailer, he reported all that had happened at the stable yard: ‘I carried out what we decided. I went to see the Head Stableman and he was very fair to me, although he did ask some difficult questions. That’s the trouble with our job, we need to keep quite a lot of it secret, don’t we? Anyway, he listened to all that I had to say and said he would think about it. We have done all we can. The matter is in God’s hands.’

Piously, they both looked up to the ceiling.

‘Be a man!’ This is what the redoubtable lady would often roar. Such strident cries only succeeded in frightening the rather timid little boy! ‘You’ll never get anywhere if you sit about crying all the time. You need to be toughened up.’

When he was a baby and a toddler, Kati filled the little boy’s life with pain and fear. As he became older, the physical attacks did not cease but Kati now added more subtle tortures, for instance singling out his most favourite possessions and destroying them. Toys were broken and his favourite books would somehow be ripped to pieces. Kati then refined this process by insisting that her brother had carried out this destruction himself:

‘I actually saw him doing it.’ She would report this artfully to her mother. Sometimes, if the occasion presented itself, she would report her brother’s bad behaviour to her father, who doted upon her. These strategies sometimes worked so well that her brother was severely reprimanded and occasionally beaten by his mother or even by his father if the event was regarded as a particularly bad misdemeanour.

Another very cruel strategy that Kati applied many times was to prevent the little boy from emptying his bladder when he needed to do so. She would block the way to the toilet bucket in the room and keep the little boy in extreme discomfort until he wet his clothes. Then Kati would run and tell his nanny, who would burst into the room, tear the wet clothes from the boy and wash him roughly before slapping him hard on his bare flesh.

‘You are a bad boy, you must not wet your clothes like this,’ she would say grimly, ‘and I hope this hurts.’ The little boy’s howls proved that it did!

Meanwhile, Kati stood back with her eyes shining with pleasure.

Years passed and Kati’s attacks continued, becoming more devious and cruel. When the boy was seven years old, Kati had engineered a particularly traumatic event for him. This concerned the destruction of a valuable model of a Chinese junk. For a long time afterwards, every time the boy thought about this, the memory would send him into pangs of fear and inadequacy.

His father had largely ignored the boy as he grew up but, occasionally, the man appeared with small gifts for his son. These were usually small presentation items that he did not wish to keep; items that were meaningless to him. After a particularly successful trading deal with a merchant from a Far Eastern country, Kati’s father had been presented with a model of a Chinese junk, beautifully carved from ivory. It was a wonderfully delicate piece of classical art but Kati’s father was not interested in artistic beauty. On a whim, he decided to give the model to his young son.

The boy had been delighted with the gift – even more delighted that his father should have taken any notice of him! The man had appeared in his room and said: ‘Here is a special gift for you. It is a Chinese junk, a type of trading ship from a land far away. It is a beautiful and delicate model so I want you to take very good care of it. It must not be played with roughly, otherwise it will break. Do you understand?’

The boy promised faithfully to look after the model. He placed it very carefully on his large dressing chest and thanked his father profusely.

At breakfast next day, Kati’s father told her about the Chinese junk and how he had given it to her brother.

Of course, she was furious: ‘Why did he not give this gift to me? Am I not his favourite?’ However, as Kati thought about the Chinese junk, a clear plan came into her mind and she felt very much better. Within the hour, the door of the boy’s room burst open. The little boy looked up nervously as his sister appeared, smiling falsely.

‘Well, Father has told me all about this wonderful gift he has given you. Aren’t you a lucky boy! And he’s told me that you are to look after it carefully and make sure it doesn’t get broken.’

‘Go away, Kati.’ The boy’s voice was quavering with fear.

‘Why are you telling me to go away,’ the girl’s voice trumpeted, ‘I’ve come to see this wonderful gift, this wonderful model of a Chinese junk. You will be able to tell me all about it.’

‘Don’t touch it!’ The little boy’s voice was urgent and pleading, ‘it’s very easily broken.’

‘I know,’ the girl said brightly, moving towards the model on the dressing chest.

‘You are not allowed to touch it!’ The boy’s voice wailed.

‘Don’t worry, if you don’t want me to touch it, I won’t touch it. You touch it. You pick it up tell me about all its parts.’

The boy looked at her with great fear. Then, falsely reassured, he approached the model and picked it up very carefully, turning round slowly to face his sister.

‘You see,’ he started, ‘it’s all carved in ivory which comes from elephant’s tusks. You can see the deck here, where the sailors walk and if you look carefully, you can see where they steered it … aaah!’

The fragile Chinese junk hit the hard floor violently as the boy’s words ended in a piercing shriek. As he spoke, Kati had suddenly swept her arm in a downward arc and deliberately knocked the boat out of her brother’s hands, dashing it violently to the floor. Then, she stepped forward quickly and brought her heel down upon the fragile hull, splitting it apart.

‘You clumsy fool,’ she screamed, ‘look what you’ve done to Father’s present. You are a very bad boy and I’m going to tell him what you have done.’

Leaving the boy howling in inconsolable grief, Kati left the room in triumph: ‘It was far too good a gift for him,’ she thought, ‘Father should really have given it to me.’

Moments later her voice echoed down the corridor: ‘Father, Father!’ Kati was weeping openly as she sought out her father who was working at his desk, ‘I’m really upset and sad.’

‘What is wrong, my dear Kati,’ her father replied, putting a reassuring arm around her, ‘tell me what is wrong and I will make it right.’

‘It’s my brother,’ she wailed, ‘I asked him to show me the lovely Chinese junk you told me about and he threw it down on the floor and broke it. He stamped his foot upon it.’

Kati’s father was incensed. Not because the Chinese junk had been broken but because this had upset his beloved daughter so much. Grim-faced, the man said: ‘I will go now and speak to your brother about this.’

Kati stood in the shadows as her father visited her brother’s room. After a short time he left, soon to return with a horsewhip under his arm, entering and closing the door firmly behind him. As soon as the door was closed, the girl ran to the door and glued her eye to the large keyhole which fortunately accorded a view of much of the room. To her joy and delight, she saw her brother stripped of his clothes and tied to the post of the heavy bed. Then he was severely horsewhipped by her furious father. His screams were very loud and made her laugh with delight.

‘Serves him right,’ she thought. ‘He should not have been so careless with such a precious gift from my father.’ Memory of the little boy’s whipped body made Kati smile throughout that day.

One fine day the following summer, Kati’s father addressed his son at the first meal: ‘How old are you now, Son?’

‘I am eight years old, Father.’