Disclaimer:The Hessian is the property of Tim Burton. I only borrow, and won't be making any money.
© Anna-Karin 2000-2001
In the small village of Gogorobovsk, outside S:t Petersburg in Russia, during the reign of Catherine the Great, lived a carpenter of Swedish origin.
His name was Karl Karlovitj Rusov, and his father, Karl Lans, had been a soldier in the Swedish army under Charles XII.
Karl Lans had been taken as a prisoner of war and had been sent to S:t Petersburg to work at the construction sites of the newly founded town. He had changed his faith, from Swedish Protestant to Russian Orthodox, and had married a Russian woman, Olga Nikolajevna, with whom he had one son, the aforementioned carpenter.
Karl Lans took the name Karl Andrejevitj Rusov, and was soon considered completely Russian, apart from his accent which could very easily be explained away as a dialect from the far northern parts of the Russian empire.
He was considered by his peers as a quiet man, of great piety, who was in church every sunday, and a moderate consumer of vodka.
His son, Karl Karlovitj, was a different matter.
Karl Karlovitj Rusov had five children, three sons and two daughters, and he could not feed them all.
This was because he had a great love for vodka, and a less great enthusiasm for doing a decent work and earning enough money to support both his drinking and his children. And after the death of the elder Rusov, Karl Karlovitj had ceased to go to church. And after the death of his much beloved wife, Natalja Karpova, his drinking had increased.
One day he decided to sell one of his sons, and maybe one of his daughters at a later occasion, to the owner of a brothel in the outskirts of S:t Petersburg, which served the one that had tastes that could not be served in the town.
The son the younger Rusov chose was the prettiest one: Oleg Karlovitj Rusov.
Oleg was at the time about ten years old, with rosy cheeks, brilliant blue eyes and a hair the color of autumn leaves. The boy also had a quick wit and a tender heart.
He took well care of his younger brother and sisters, making sure they had something to eat and something to feed the fire with every day.
The neighbors suspected him to be the one to steal eggs and hens from them, and that it was him who walked around in the kitchen garden at night, stealing vegetables and fruits. No-one could prove anything though, since there also were a fox in the area who had to feed its cubs, and anything Oleg could be blamed for, the fox also could be guilty of.
One summer morning Rusov woke up his son.
"Get dressed", he whispered. "We have a long way to walk to-day"
"Where are we going?", Oleg asked.
His father didn't answer.
"Can I at least tell the kids that I'm going away?"
"No."
They walked the whole morning, and by mid-day they had reached the outskirts of S:t Petersburg.
They stopped at a crossroad,the right one leading to the city, and the left one leading to one of the less pleasant suburbs. Rusov walked to the left with Oleg in tow. Half a mile later they stopped at a well.
"Wash yourself", Rusov said to Oleg.
Oleg washed himself and combed his hair with his fingers.
"Why have you taken me here? Am I to work in one of those houses?"
"Yes."
"Am I to work in a kitchen, or in the stables, or in the garden?"
"You ask to much. Shut up!"
They walked on, to a large house, that lay in an alley where it on the other side was a church. Rusov knocked on the door to the large house.
A man opened, and told them to go to the smaller door of the house, next to the large one, where they would be received by the proprietor of the house.
They did so, and entered a hallway, where the man, who was a janitor, told Oleg to wait.
Oleg had been standing in the hallway for a while, when his father came out into the hallway and walked past him.
"Are we leaving now, Father?"
"I'm leaving. You are staying."
"Did I get a job here?"
"Yes."
"Where will I work?"
"You will serve the clients of this place."
"What does that mean?"
"You'll find out."
"Will I have days off so I can visit the kids?"
"No."
"Then who will make sure they are all right?"
"I will."
"No, you won't."
"What?!"
"You'll drink, and forget to get the kids food, and firewood. They'll starve."
Rusov slapped his son in the face, and leaving Oleg on the floor, he walked out through the door.
Author's note:
In this story I am trying to write in the style of the Icelandic writers who wrote such masterpieces as 'Njal's Saga' during the 14th and 15th centuries, telling about things that had happened two hundred years before.
This is a rather grim tale, and I have endeavored to keep my language as unemotional and neutral as possible.
A month after his arrival, Oleg's virginity was sold to a man who was not gentle. He cried himself to sleep that night, and not for the first or the last time.
A year after that, Oleg found that he had not thought about his sisters and brothers, for a whole day.
And a year after *that*, the owner decided that Oleg was no longer in the taste of the clientele of the house.
The boy had grown into a skinny twelwe-year-old with reddish hair. The brilliance of his eyes had been dimmed, but not his wit. His heart had hardened though and was less inclined to feel compassion for anyone.
He also knew about things boys his age should not know anything about.
Thus he was thrown out from the house where he had lived and worked for two years, and found himself being free, released from his serfdom.
The first thing he did was to walk south, away from S:t Petersburg. He followed the coast until he arrived to his native village. There he stopped and asked at the local inn about the family Rusov.
Since the innkeeper did not recognize him Oleg decided not tell him that he himself was a Rusov.
"Well," the innkeeper said, "that's a sad tale. First Natalja Rusova dies, and then Rusov sells his middle son for enough money to drink himself to death, and then the children leaves."
"Does Sir know where the kids are?"
"No, I don't."
Oleg thanked him for the information and by way of the graveyard, where he checked on his parents graves, he walked further south along the coast.
He didn't stop his long walk until he came to a small town in the former Swedish province of Ingria by the shore of the Gulf of Finland in the late september. There he went to an inn and asked if they knew of anywhere where someone might want to hire people for the winter, as servants, or as stable-boys.
The innkeeper told him that there was a farmer who needed a few extra hands for the harvest, and told him the way there.
Oleg went to this farm and indeed got work there until november. He worked and got a decent pay for his job.
Then he went back to the inn and asked again if there was any need for a stable-boy anywhere.
The innkeeper, Ivan Karpov, told him that he himself could use someone who could work hard for food and logdings, and some coins every week.
"As long as I get paid for my work," Oleg answered, " I'll work."
"Then you are hired!"
Oleg worked there the whole winter, and when the rooks came back in the spring he was asked to stay.
"I've never seen anyone so young who has such a good hand with horses," said Karpov and shook his head.
"It's a gift, I guess."
Oleg stayed there for seven winters and six summers. When he did not work at the inn, he was out with the fishermen in the Gulf of Finland or helping out with this and that around the village.
Every Christmas he lit a candle in the village church. and said a prayer for his lost brothers and sisters. He only visited the church once a year.
He grew tall and strong, and was considered by the time he turned seventeen to be a handsome young man. But he was only a stable-hand and thus not a very eligible choice for husband. And he did not show very much interest in girls himself.
One day in the beginning of his seventh winter at the inn, in november, a stranger came to the inn. He was dressed in a uniform that did not fit into any army Oleg ever had seen, not that he had seen very many, of course.
"I'm Captain Suomi," said the stranger with a strong Finnish accent. "I'd like to let my troupe stay here for the winter."
"How many are you?"
"Nine."
"Where are the others?"
"They are on their way."
During the day captain Suomi's men arrived, one and one, or two and two. Oleg heard their names: Le Neigeux, Arlechino, Pärleyxa, Schwartz, Patch, Jete-Le-Jaune and Rossi.
"But you are only eight!"
"That's because Isegrim haven't come yet," replied the one known as Pärleyxa, a tall blonde man, with a thick Swedish accent.
"Who's Isegrim?"
"The mad one of us."
"Why's that?"
"That's because he's going to sleep out in the stables, until it gets too cold, and because he's not behaving like a sane man very often."
Oleg stuck around the soldiers and heard many a tale about Isegrim. Many of them were about his temper, and about his ruthlessness in fights.
And in the evening, when the first stars had lit up, Isegrim arrived to the inn.
Oleg was cleaning up in the stables, taking in straw to the horses, and other tasks he used to do at the end of the day.
The soldiers' horses was well fed and well kept. So Oleg liked the soldiers because they were taking well care of their horses.
The door to the stables opened and Oleg saw a black horse enter, with a man dressed all in black, with a wide-brimmed black hat, holding the reins looseley.
"Well, Daredevil," said the man to the horse, "here's where we are going to stay for the winter."
Oleg went forward to greet them.
"Hello there," he said.
"Who are you?" said the man.
"Oleg the stable-hand, and who are you?"
"Isegrim."
Oleg looked at the stranger who called himself Isegrim.
Isegrim did not look quite like the other soldiers. He was tall and graceful, with uncombed black hair that was standing on egde. He was one of the palest men Oleg ever had seen, and his teeth was filed into sharp fangs. Isegrim was a fitting name for such a man.
"I've heard that you prefer to sleep out in the stables," said Oleg
"Yes."
Isegrim put his horse into one of the stables. He was careful with taking of the saddle and the bit, hanging them on one of the walls that parted one stall from the other. Then he asked for brushes, and Oleg fetched them.
"You take well care of your horse."
"Yes. Daredevil is the finest horse I've ever known. He deserves everyhting good."
"Daredevil? That's a strange name."
"It's English. It means some one who is daring, and likes to take a lot of risks."
"If you are German, then why does the horse have an English name?"
"Because I won him from a Brit who thought that he could beat me in a swordfight. He put his horse against my sword. Said that it was a collector's item." Isegrim sneered a bit at that, but Oleg didn't see it as he was standing with his back to him.
When Isegrim had groomed Daredevil, he climbed up to the hayloft. He dug a hole in the hay, and put out his cloak. Then he pulled the cloak around him, and brushed some hay over it to preserve the warmth.
Oleg went up on the hayloft a while later, carrying a couple of horse- blankets.
"I thought you might want some blankets."
Isegrim looked at him.
"Here's two, to keep you warm", Oleg continued.
Isegrim didn't say a word. Then he reached out for the blankets. Oleg put them into his hands. Then he wished him a good night.
The other soldiers asked Oleg wether Isegrim had arrived or not. Oleg told them that he had.
The next day Isegrim asked if Oleg would like to learn how to fight with a sword in return for the horse-blankets.
"Yes," answered Oleg, and Isegrim asked one of the younger soldiers, Jete-Le-Jaune, to lend out his sword.
Afterwards, when Oleg returned the sword, Jete-Le-Jaune said to him:
"I think he likes you."
"Do you have anything against it."
"No."
"It's good for everybody to have somebody to like" said Pärleyxa, who sat nearby, brushing his boots, "and Isegrim is a good man and a fine warrior despite his madness."
"How can someone be a good man and a mad man at the same time?"
"His kind of madness would have been called excentricity if he had lots of money and protection in high places."
Oleg laughed.
The next morning Oleg went to the stables with some bread and hot tea. He climbed up to the hayloft and watched as Isegrim slept. When the mercenary woke up he was offered the bread and tea.
"It's a bit cold but drinkable."
"Thank you."
Oleg talked, while Isegrim ate his breakfast.
"Do you do this for everyone?" Isegrim asked when he had finsihed eating.
"No, only for those who prefers horses to people."
"Horses *are* people. Humans...I am not too fond of humans in general, but I care for some of them. The troupe."
"Me?"
Isegrim didn't answer that question. Instaed he rose and asked if Oleg wanted to continue his lessons in fighting.
That night Oleg crept down in the hay to sleep next to Isegrim under the thick coarse blankets. And the next night Oleg did the same thing again. And all nights after that.
They talked sometimes and sometimes they did not. Isegrim told of places he'd been, and Oleg talked about his life.
When the winter got too cold, sometime around s:t Lucy's day, Isegrim moved into the reserved room in the inn, and Oleg went with him.
The other mercenaries noticed this and did not say anything at all about it.
The winter passed, and when spring came, Oleg was asked to join the troupe.
Captain Suomi said that they needed someone who was good with horses, and that Oleg would fit into the group perfectly.
"But Isegrim is good with horses too?" said Oleg.
"Yes, but he is not very good with people, so we need someone who can deal with both horses and people."
They gave Oleg a new name. He was now called Rot-Schwantz, because of his red hair. All the other members in the troupe had names like that too. No-one of them was called by his real name.
Patch explained this to Oleg.
"We keep our true names to us like diamonds, we hide them under our false names, like the people of Venice hide their faces under masks during the carnival."
"So Patch is not your name then?"
"It is my name, just not my true name."
One week later, in the beginning of March, the troupe left the inn and rode away. Oleg was with them. He did not have a horse of his own so he sat behind Isegrim on Daredevil.
He looked back on the place where he had spent some good years, and then he looked forward and did not look back again.