The Knowledge Stone (22 page)

‘Are you a good swimmer? Do you swim in the river like I used to do when I was your age? I was the best young swimmer in the Town, you know.’

‘Yes, Father, I can swim but I’m not very good yet.’

‘Not good? You need to be good, my Son. You need to practice like I did and then you will become the best swimmer. Today is a fine day. Kati will take you swimming, won’t you, dear Daughter?’

‘Yes, Father, of course I will if it is your wish.’ The boy looked stricken at this thought.

Kati then continued: ‘Father, I have taken him swimming before. He is rather reluctant to go into the water. He says he does not like to get his linen under-breeches wet.’

‘Breeches!’ her father roared, ‘you don’t wear breeches for swimming. You swim naked. That’s what all boys do. That’s what I did and that’s what you will do, too.’

‘But, Father …’ The boy’s words were interrupted.

‘We will talk about this no more,’ his father said, ‘you will go with Kati and she will tell me how you have improved.’ Dismissively, the man turned back to his food. ‘Breeches indeed!’ The man was derisive, ‘the children of today are so soft.’

So Kati and her brother found themselves on an open part of the riverbank, downstream from the Manor House.

‘Stand there and wait.’ Kati looked around carefully. No far away, she observed a large group of schoolgirls from the Town School approaching. She waited until they were quite near and then, despite his urgent protests, stripped her brother naked, smiling as the passing girls giggled and pretended to hide their faces. ‘Do exactly what I say. Stand still. Remember what Father said about improving.’ Kati then took off her stockings and hitched up her gown above her knees so that she could stand in the river. ‘Come on in,’ she ordered and the cowering boy stepped cautiously into the water.

As soon as he was within reach, Kati seized him by the back of the neck and pushed him down into the water, completely submerging his head and holding it under for at least half a minute. When she noted that the boy’s struggles had begun to weaken she lifted his head from the water and let him go. Eyes rolling wildly, gasping for air and with dirty river water vomiting from his mouth, the boy stumbled back to dry land where he bent double, holding his stomach.

It was then Kati saw the opportunity to achieve something she had dreamed of doing for many years. With a powerful thrust, she sent the little boy’s naked body hurtling into the centre of a lush and extensive patch of stinging nettles, where, to her great delight, he rolled and wallowed uncontrollably for some time, trying desperately to regain his feet. As he did so, the tens of thousands of tiny hollow trichomes on the leaves and stems of the plants sought out every square millimetre of his body, each one penetrating his skin with ease and injecting its toxic load of highly irritating histamine into the epidermis below.

His face mirroring his shock, the boy finally managed to stand up and stumble clear of the nettle patch. As he did so, the first effects of his whole body contact with the nettles began to develop. In an instant, his pale white body became blotched all over with huge red swellings and the explosive rush of sharp agonising pain almost rendered him unconscious. Screaming loudly, the boy threw his incandescent and pain-racked body into the river and started to swim faster than he had ever done before towards the middle of the stream.

‘Don’t go too far out,’ his sister called casually after him but the boy had no ears for her. Within a short time, he was in the centre of the river where the current was much stronger. As the pain and shock of the nettle stings continued to increase, the boy’s swimming weakened and, before long, he was carried away in the powerful current, by now struggling ineffectually in the water. Kati stood still and watched the black dot that was his head being swept away downriver.

‘That’s a pity,’ she said to herself, ‘now I will have to collect his clothes and begin to walk downstream. What a bother! My shoes will become stained with mud.’ As the girl began to walk, she started to rehearse what she would say when she returned home without her brother.

‘There was nothing I could do. He wouldn’t listen to me and insisted he should become as good a swimmer as Father. I ran along the riverbank as fast as I could, calling to people to help but no-one would go into the river and rescue him. And then, his head disappeared. It was all because he wanted to please you, Father.’ All this accompanied by inconsolable tears, of course. Kati rehearsed these words several times and felt quite satisfied with them. She was sure her father would be sympathetic towards her. Anyway, her younger brother had always been a bit of a nuisance, hadn’t he?

So Kati continued to walk unhurriedly along the riverbank, carefully picking her way around the patches of mud. After some time, she saw a group of older boys near a narrow bridge across the river. ‘I’ll ask them if they have seen anything floating by,’ she thought and quickened her pace slightly.

As she came closer, she saw that one of the boys was cradling a small body in his arms. As she approached them she called, ‘Is he dead?’ She expected them to answer, “Yes.”

‘No,’ the boy answered, ‘but he nearly was. I spotted a body floating in the river and swam out to retrieve it. It was this little lad. He had stopped breathing but I managed to start him up again. Now I’m trying to get him warm so that he will survive. He seems to have lost all his clothes.’ He looked at the clothes in her arms. ‘Are these his clothes? Is this your boy?’

‘He’s my brother.’

‘What happened to him? Why is his body all red and swollen?’

‘Oh,’ Kati said casually, ‘that’s nothing. He fell in some nettles. He’ll soon recover.’

The boy looked at her sharply. ‘Let’s get his clothes on. He needs to be warm.’

The clothes were slipped gently over swollen and burning flesh.

Kati now said, ‘Just leave him there on the grass. When he recovers, we will walk home.’

‘Listen, Miss,’ the boy answered, ‘this boy will not walk anywhere today. His body is badly injured because of what has happened to him.’ He paused and looked at her thoughtfully: ‘Maybe you should have taken better care of him?’

Kati flushed. ‘I always look after him well. He just decided to go off …’

The boy looked at her and said nothing. After some minutes, he rose to his feet: ‘Let us take him home. I will carry him; he is very light.’

They were a large group as they made their way back along the riverbank. As they eventually approached the Manor House and were walking beside the stable yard wall, Kati’s attitude became increasingly haughty: ‘I live here in the Manor House. I am the Master’s daughter and the boy you are carrying is his son. You may leave us now. Put the boy down here. The river entrance gate is just here.’

The boy was respectful but adamant. ‘No Miss, this boy needs to go straight to bed to recover from this terrible thing that happened to him.’ As they entered the gate beside the stable yard, the Master appeared from the yard, having been out riding.

‘What is this?’ he enquired. ‘What has happened here?’

Kati was quick to answer her father’s question, tearfully giving a slightly amended version of events that was based on what she had memorised earlier. This, of course, placed her in a heroic rescuing role: ‘These boys helped me bring him back,’ she concluded.

‘Kati,’ the man said, ‘you are always so good and brave.’ He smiled at her warmly.

‘Master,’ the boy carrying Kati’s brother spoke firmly, ‘I am sorry but what your daughter has just told you is not correct. She was nowhere to be found when this young boy was drowning in the river. She was far away upstream and did not make any sound. It was fortunate I saw the boy’s body in the water and swam out to retrieve it. Your son was drowned at this time and had stopped breathing but I have some knowledge of these matters and I was able to clear the water from his body and restart his breath. It was long after this when your daughter arrived. Also, Master, you will see that your son’s body is covered everywhere with nettle stings; enough, I think, to kill him. Your daughter says he fell into some nettles but I have never seen a body so completely covered in the rash. The pain must have been extremely severe. It is like someone has thrown him into a bed of nettles without any clothes.’

‘Yes, Master, what our friend says here is correct.’ The other boys in the group spoke up to confirm their friend’s version of events.

Kati’s father was clearly puzzled and he turned to his daughter for explanation. Her face flushed deeply and she turned on her heel and stalked off towards the Manor House without another word. Her father looked after her with surprise: ‘Why should she lie? She has never lied to me before.’ The man would think about this later. Meanwhile a stable hand had alerted the little boy’s nanny and she came running from the house with blankets.

‘Oh, what has happened to the poor boy?’ The nanny was shocked to see the boy unconscious.

‘He has almost drowned and has fallen in nettles. Take him to his bedchamber and look after him well. I will come to see him later,’ the boy’s father instructed.

‘I thank you, Young Man, for what you have done for our family today. Here is a reward for you.’ The man proffered a bag of coins.

‘Master, I am pleased to be of service. Thank you but I do not take money for saving a life. This is my duty to God.’ Kati’s father was deeply moved.

‘You are a fine young man and I will not forget what you have done for us. Good day to you and may God bless you.’ The group of boys departed and Kati’s father looked after them thoughtfully before striding off towards the Manor House.

In fact the nanny was so horrified when she saw the condition of the little boy that she sent for his mother; after examining him, his mother sent for the town apothecary to come and treat the boy. Understandably, the boy was weak and barely conscious after his multiple ordeal, having suffered partial drowning at Kati’s hands, torture by nettle stings all over his body and actual drowning in the strong current of the river. There is no doubt that the outcome would have been his death had it not been for the quick and expert action of the older boy downstream. So Kati’s brother remained in bed throughout the following week, with the town apothecary ministering to his skin, which was still swollen and extremely sensitive as a result of the nettle attack.

Meanwhile Kati thought that the household was making too much of a fuss over her brother:

‘After all, lots of children are drowned in the river every year,’ she muttered crossly, ‘so what’s all the fuss about? It really is unfair and I don’t see why I am not allowed to see my little brother.’ This last comment referred to a meeting with her father the previous day.

On that day, Kati’s father had called her to his desk.

‘Kati, your brother is very ill and has to stay in bed until he recovers from his drowning and from the effect of so many nettle stings.’

‘Do not worry, Father, I will go to him every day and read to him,’ Kati replied solicitously.

Kati’s father looked thoughtful.

‘Kati, that is very kind of you but you are not to go to his bedchamber for the time being.’

‘But Father …’

‘Kati, listen to me, please. I forbid it.’

‘But why, Father?’ A shadow of annoyance crossed the man’s face.

‘Kati, your brother tells me he is frightened of you, frightened of things you have done to him. He would not tell me about these things but I am reminded of certain incidents in the past when I judged it necessary to whip him severely on evidence given by you.’ The man paused and continued to look at her with a stern gaze. ‘However there is another reason as well. When I put your younger brother in your charge, I expected you to look after him. It seems to me that you did not do so.’

Kati smiled her most winning smile at her father (her smile always worked) and adopted her most gentle tone: ‘Father, you must believe me, I did look after him; I was very careful with him but he insisted on disobeying me …’

‘Kati, that does not sound like your brother. You know he is not a bold or a disobedient boy. He knew he was in your charge and that he had to do what you ordered him to do. He knew that I had given you that authority. Furthermore, you told me about how you tried to rescue him when he was swept away, running along the riverbank, but …’

‘Yes Father, that’s exactly what I did and no-one would help me …’

‘No, Kati, the young men who saved your brother all said the same thing. After your brother had been rescued by them, you were not there. You eventually appeared some time later, walking quite slowly. They all said this, Kati.’

Kati burst into noisy tears. The man continued: ‘No, Kati. Dry your tears. I think you have lied to me about this. I do not know why. It perturbs me and makes me sad. I will think about this further. But meanwhile, you will not go to your brother’s bedchamber. I forbid it, do you hear?’

‘Yes, Father.’ A whisper.

‘You may go, now, Kati.’ Her father’s dismissal was unequivocal.

‘We’ll see about this,’ Kati hissed furiously, as she stamped through the house, ‘he may be ill now but he won’t be ill for ever. And when he’s better, I will find something to make him really sorry. All the other fun I have had with him will be nothing compared to this.’ However, Kati’s mood lightened when she thought of the fulfilment of her ambition to push her brother into the nettles: ‘That was very clever of me to see the opportunity and take it. I know what one little nettle sting is like (that’s really painful) but how wonderful that I was able to cover my brother’s whole body with nettle stings. He had stings everywhere – absolutely everywhere!’ Kati smiled broadly as she thought of all the very sensitive places on her brother’s body that were now covered with nettle stings. ‘Just you wait, my dear brother,’ she whispered, ‘you have a lot more suffering to come. Just you wait!’

Kati’s brother slowly recovered from his ordeal although his skin retained a certain uncomfortable sensitivity which affected him for years. He was now approaching his tenth birthday and was in the middle of one of these jumps in development that children go through. He had cast off much of his “little boy” image and suddenly become taller and stronger. In part, this was due to the employment of a physical trainer for the boy who came regularly to the Manor House and schooled the boy in a range of games and physical exercises. The boy developed well and became strong and more coordinated.