The Knowledge Stone Read Free Page A

much.’
    In the past, the boy had tried many times to show friendship to Giana. He was forbidden to talk to her but inevitably they met at times because the area of the farm was not very large. Meeting face to face, he had smiled at her a number of times but his smile was never returned. She looked either blank or cross.
    ‘In fact,’ Joachim remembered, ‘there was that day when we met on the narrow path to the field and she pushed me right into the mud, whispering: “Get out of my way, you horrible boy!”’. Momentarily, he felt rather sad that everybody hated him.
    Meanwhile the boy ate quickly from the scarred wooden bowl perched on his knees. This morning there were two slices of coarse brown bread and a small piece of hard cheese, all made by Maretta from their own farm produce.
    ‘This tastes pretty good,’ the boy thought as he ate, ‘I just wish there was more.’ He was always hungry and sometimes experienced quite sharp pains in his stomach. She had also given him a large earthenware cup of goat’s milk and he drank that down quickly.
    It was always a problem for him to find enough to drink. Sometimes, he was driven to drink water from the small muddy stream that crossed the farm at the bottom of the field. Before drinking the water from the stream, he always examined it carefully, meticulously removing any dirt, insects or rotting vegetation; even then he knew from past experience that the water might still make him sick.
    ‘The trouble is, you can’t see the evil spirits,’ he always reminded himself, ‘I wish I was like Old Malik and never had to drink this water.’ While working, Old Malik drank from bottles of beer that Maretta had brewed for him. He never offered any to the boy and Joachim knew better than to ask for some.
    The door of the farmhouse opened with a crash and Old Malik appeared. Without looking at the boy, he spoke harshly: ‘Get moving. You’re ploughing today. Get started at the top of the field and make sure your furrows are deep and straight. I’ll be examining them and they had better be right.’ As he spoke he tossed a cloth bundle towards the boy – this was Joachim’s daytime meal, to be eaten during a very short break in work when Old Malik gave permission.
    The boy deftly caught the bundle before it spilled its contents on the muddy ground; this was an important skill he had learned after many occasions of scavenging his precious food from the stinking dirt. He tied the ends of the cloth around his belt, already moving towards the pen where the bullocks were kept. Old Malik kept two bullocks for heavy work on the farm; the boy was directed to use the smaller animal with a lighter plough to deal with the rather poor, stony soil at the top of the field while Old Malik used the larger beast with a heavier plough which was more suitable for the lower field where the ground was softer, more fertile and much easier to plough.
    Fortunately, both bullocks were quite docile creatures and the boy usually had little trouble with them. In addition to the animal he was to use, it was also his job to fasten the harness around Old Malik’s bullock, so that it was ready to be hitched to the plough.
    ‘Better do his bullock first,’ he thought, ‘otherwise I might get into trouble.’ He made soft clucking noises to reassure the bullocks as he approached with the sets of harness ropes and had no problems putting them on, achieving this just before the arrival of Old Malik.
    The farmer glared at him and growled, ‘You still here? Get moving and make it quick.’
    The boy immediately left the pen with his bullock as quickly as he could, avoiding the kick that Old Malik aimed at him as he passed. As he led the bullock along the packed earth of the path that led up to the top of the field, he delighted in the crisp, sunny morning and hummed a little song he had learned from his mother when he was a little boy. ‘At least the bullock likes my singing,’ he thought with a little