"This is what he told me one night when the sea was calm, and the stars shone from a moon-less sky. We were sitting in a corner of the upper deck, catching some fresh air. He asked me if I'd like to hear about him, about his past, and I said yes.
This is what he told me, and I'm not sure if he was entireley truthful, but I'll tell it to you anyway:
He was born in the town of Königsberg in Eastern Prussia in the year 1737 as the youngest child in a family of ten. The Schwartz family was an old one, tracing its origins back to the knights which had once founded the town. This was something he was rather proud of, and even though he was not a knight but a mercenary, he liked to have some set morals, just like his ancestors."
"What kind of morals?" asked Katerina, who was convinced that the Hessian didn't have any morals at all.
"He never killed unless he got paid for it, or had to defend himself, and he never killed except when in a battle or when defending himself. And he never would hurt a child, or an unarmed person. Those rules he followed, even when he felt like breaking them", Kauz answered and continued to tell the Hessian's tale.
But Katerina intercepted: "Can you give any examples of when he followed his rules".
"From what you told me", Kauz answered, "your stepmother was a prime example. He spared her life when they met in the forest. She was just a child back then."
"Oh, yes, I forgot. Please continue."
"He told me about the campaigns he had participated in, the wars he had fought in and the battles he had survived. He told me about his sword that he had won in a fight, fair and square, when he was only fifteen. His opponent had been older and more experienced, but Schwartz had his axes, which he had been taught by his uncle how to handle, and had won. That was his first killing.
He had entered the household of his uncle when his parents had died from the smallpox. He was only six at the time, and his uncle had this idea about making the perfect warrior out of the boy. You see; his uncle, Albrecht Schwartz was the infamous leader of an army of mercenaries, which had a reputation far and wide. Well, this wasn't enough for him, he wanted a figure-head, someone who would be the best killer of them all. Schwartz happened to be chosen as that experiment.
From the age of seven, the boy, Schwartz, was trained in the arts of war, alongside with the usual education, reading, 'riting and 'ritmetics.
When he was fifteen he proved to his uncle that the experiment had worked out fine, by killing his opponent. A year later he had killed the uncle as well, mostly because Albrecht Schwartz had insulted him. He never could take insults very easily.
Then he went out in the world to see if anyone would pay him, and people did pay him. It never hurts to have a killing-machine on your side.
If the Americain rebels had contacted him and told him that they'd pay better than his current employers, then he'd taken the offer. He was rather democratic that way, never letting religion or kings interfere with his bussiness. But, on the other hand, if they didn't pay, then he would not kill or fight.
He said that he liked getting paid for what he liked to do, and he loved being on the battlefield. He loved everything about a battle, the drum signals that would direct us on the field, the horn signals, the sounds he'd been brought up to obey. I, on the other hand just wanted the mess to end as quickly as possible. I told him this, and he said that it was good that not everyone was as appreciative of peace as I was because he'd be out of work then. And killing was the only trade he had been taught. It was then I suggested that I could teach him about printing.
At first he laughed but I was ao adamant that he actually did shut up and listen.
I told him about presses and about types. About paper sheets and of composition. Sometimes he asked about one thing or other, rather intelligent questions actually. At the time I thought that he was relly interested, but now I believe that he was simply indulging me, and maybe himself, by dreaming of things he knew never was meant to be.
We talked until sun-rise, and then another day of so many onboard that ship began.
When the 'Victory' finally reached America after a long time of travel, the first thing we all noticed was the enormity of everything; great forests, huge mountains and waterfalls. The waterfalls near my home had nothing on those grand masses of water. Those new waterfalls were monstrous to my eyes."
Anders Kauz sighed, thought for a while and then continued his story.
"The fighting began almost as soon as we got south of the Canadian border. I hated it. They, my superiors, had placed me among the gunmen for some reason. I guess it was because I should be able to translate for whomever that needed it. 'What is he saying? He said this.' I did fight, shooting, marching, just like all the others.
Schwartz was in his right element, like a fish in the water, there on the cursed battlefields. He was in the thickest of the fights. Sometimes he would ride as far as to the the gunmen on the other side. We others thought that either he was trying to get himself killed, or he had bullet-proof skin.
I know you have all those battles named and dated in the history books, but to me it was
just one field of dirt, mud and corpses after the other. Have you ever been near a
battlefield after one day's fights?"
"No", said Ichabod.
"It smells. And there's the ravens and other birds everywhere having a feast, and wolves,
and foxes taking a bite of what used to be men. Men with wives and kids and parents back
home. But Schwartz said that's nature. They'd all be idiots if they didn't eat what our
commanders had laid out for them. He didn't mind the stink. He was used to it.
Then there were the long days when nothing happened at all. And the marches to one place after the other. Strange places in a strange land, and I was homesick for my own home.
Schwartz and I used to talk and discuss a lot. Sometimes we would read brochures and pamphlets spread by the Americans. Propaganda of course, but it was interesting to read. I translated for Schwartz, and then we would compare their wiew of events with what we had seen. But mostly I talked about printing and he listened. The only thing we never discussed was the war. I found it useless, and to him it was a way of life, and we could not convince each other of the opposite.
Winter came. It was cold, and there were lots of snow. I can tell you that the first
thing on everyone's mind, even Schwartz', was how to get some fire and some warm food.
Sometimes we would buy from the farmers around, and sometimes we would hunt. The food we
got from the army was sometimes plentiful and sometimes terribly scarce. It depended on
how the war was progressing, and if the rebels had robbed the food wagons or not. But
somehow Schwartz and I survived that winter. I'm still amazed at that."
"And Father still hates to go out in winter" said Frederick.
"If the snow is on the outside, then I'll be on the inside. But I'll go out on nice days,
with sunshine and no wind. Well, on with my story: The years passed. The war never seemed
to end. Victories here and losses there.
Katerina thought she recognized that name, but couldn't remember where she had heard it.
"It had snowed that day, and we were all huddling around our campfires. I was making a stew of a rabbit Schwartz had caught in a trap. We didn't notice her at first, but when she got closer to us, she begun to ask if we could share our food with her, for something in exchange. Schwartz asked me what she was saying, and I translated. Then we told her that she did not have to pay for the meal. We would share it with her anyway, because she was so pretty.
She blushed at that, and while the stew was cooking, she just stood there, looking at the toes of her shoes. She had blond hair, tucked in under a white cap under a thick headcloth. We did see a few strands of it, shining like dirty gold. She had dark blue eyes, a triangular face and a very tiny nose, that was red as a strawberry from the cold.
When we ate, she had the tidiest manners I've ever seen. Schwartz couldn't take his eyes
of her.
We wondered of course how she had managed to get so close to the camp without
being stopped by the guards. Charlotte said that they had let her pass since she did not
look like she would be any threat at all to the troops. 'You could be a spy' said
Schwartz to her. She asked me what he had said, and I translated. ' No, I'm not. Just
someone with lots of bad luck and no money.'
Then she told us that she was from a small village called Sleepy Hollow. Her father was some sort of priest, and she had been chased away from her home after she had given birth to an illegitimate child. The child had been dead at birth, but she had been banned from her home anyway. Charlotte had become a vagabond, who slept in barns and begged or worked for food and money. She chose to join us, because if she was with Schwartz then everyone else would leave her in peace. To me she seemed like a clever girl."
Katerina recalled what her stepmother had said once; 'Be careful so you won't end up like Charlotte Redfern.' She had asked what that was supposed to mean. The answer had not been very enlightening, but now she understood. Poor Charlotte! Ending up with the Hessian!
"For some reason", Anders Kauz continued, "she was allowed to stay with us. One month
after she had come to us, Schwartz told me that he, for the first time in his life,
wanted to come back alive from a battle. Before, he hadn't cared an iota about it.
Charlotte, I found out, wanted Schwartz to come back alive and in one piece. It seemed like
love to me. I didn't mind at all. I'm not the marrying kind of man, but apparently
Schwartz was."
"Because of me", said Frederick.
The bookprinter was silent for a moment, as if pondering how to tell the next part of the story. Then he cleared his throat and continued.
"She told Schwartz that she was with child. She was afraid that Schwartz would throw her out. But he did not do that. Instead he asked her to marry him. Charlotte could not have been happier."Katerina smiled but had rather wanted to sneer. How could anyone be happy at the thought of becoming the Hessians wife? Well, at least the child would be legitimate and not a bastard. So maybe Charlotte had had a good reason for her happiness.
"The wedding was a simple affair. But the weather was beautiful that october day. A bit raw and cold, but beautiful still. There was only the priest, a drummer boy, and me at the wedding. There was no party afterwards. Just a plain meal, but we had some honey that we sweetened the hot wine with. Tasted pretty good.
Schwartz said that he was sorry he did not have the cash to get his wife something better than this. She did not think it was bad at all, and she said that. He then said to her that when the war was over, he would take her, and me to his home, in Königsberg. There he would give us a big wedding feast. And the ceremony, he said, would be done all over again, with rings of gold this time, instead of those cheap rings of copper made by the blacksmith. Then he had to explain to us that even if he was the youngest of his sisters and brothers, he still had inherited a huge chunk of land from his uncle. The incomes from that property was taken care of by his bank, but it had no representatives on this side of the Atlantic.
A few days after the wedding he gave me an envelope. It was sealed with wax. In the wax was the imprint of his ring, the one with his coat-of-arms engraved in an emerald. He told me to take care of it. And I did.
Two months later he was dead."
The bookprinter rose from his chair. He continued to tell the story, while pacing back and forth on the floor.
"One day the army was sent to the Hudson Highlands. Charlotte told us that she was from this area, and helped us with finding good paths, and the right ways through the wilderness. Often she pointed out the good roads on the maps. The generals thought she was a gem. You on the other hand may think of her as a traitor."
Katerina and the other visitors nodded.
"You would probably have done the same if you had been in her shoes."
"Never", said Katerina.
"How can you be so certain of that?" said Kauz.
Katerina didn't answer.
"I had been sent to spy on the American army, on the other side of a big forest, the one you call the Western Woods. As you have seen I am a small man. Skinny. Short. Perfectly harmless. So the American soldiers did not notice me when I walked into the camp and began to help out in the kitchen.
I had been there for four days when a group of soldiers came into the kitchen.They asked for bowls of stew to be served in the field hospital. I went there with the stew, and heard them talk about the man they had, as they put it, eliminated. I was shocked when I heard that the man they called the Hessian, who was my friend Friedrich Schwartz, had been murdered. At first I thought that I had heard wrong, but the description they gave of the man they had murdered was of my friend. Cold blue eyes, filed-down teeth and wild hair. It was no mistake. Sadly, I had not heard wrong.
They bragged about it, saying that they had taken souvenirs from his body. They said that they had his rings. 'He wasn't worth any prayers', they said, 'but this ring must be worth a fortune.' I asked to see the rings. Then I asked if I could go out in the sunshine, to take a closer look at them. Then I left.
The hardest thing was to tell Charlotte. She did not take it well at all. First she was stunned, and then she cried and screamed. Then Frederick was born one week later. He was so much like his father. It was a strange period, when sorrow and joy were side by side in our lives.
The will was opened, and it turned out that I had inherited a lake and a third of a oak forest. Charlotte had gotten a manor house, the land that went with it and some fishing rights in a couple of rivers. Frederick, or the child as he was called in the will, was given everything else; three houses in Königsberg, two thirds of the same oak forest, and the rest of the property.
Schwartz had written in his will that I and Charlotte could do whatever we wanted with our inheritance. Sell it or keep it. The choice was ours. Frederick was to keep his property until he was twenty-one, and then decide if he wanted to keep it or sell it. If he kept it, he could sell it later."
"How old are you, Frederick?" asked Ichabod.
"I'm twenty-one. I sold everything to my cousin in Königsberg. I prefer to be a book-
printer, like Father."
"Mr. Kauz, what did you do with your inheritance?" Ichabod asked Kauz.
"I and Charlotte sold our inheritance. We both preferred cash to land."
"What happened then?" asked Katerina.
"The war ended when Frederick was four years old, in 1783. Charlotte had then been dead for a year. She died from a flu. The doctors could do nothing. I adopted Frederick and gave him my name, Kauz. Then we went to New York. I found a job at a printing shop, this one. When Mr. Atwater died, I bought a share in this printery. When Mrs. Atwater died, I bought the rest from her heirs."
"I started working here when I was fifteen", said Frederick.
"Frederick will be my partner when he is twenty-five. Then we will change the name to 'Kauz
& Son,'" said Kauz with a proud smile, and sat down in his chair again.
"Well", said Ichabod, "seems like your story ends well."
"That's not the end of the story."
"What do you mean?" said Ichabod.
"I mean that I want to give my friend a real funeral, with priest and prayers. You do know
where he is buried?"
"Yes, but..."
"What?"
"It's far away from here."
"It does not matter!"
"Father", said Frederick, "It's a slow period. I can look after the printery while you are
away, at Sleepy Hollow."
"No, you come with me. If the story the Cranes told is true, then I want you to meet your
father."
"Mr. Kauz!" said Katerina. "You can't let your son meet such a monster."
"I told you once, and I tell you again; Friedrich Schwartz was *not* a monster!"
The little clearing in front of the Tree of the Dead hadn't changed much.
Neither had the Tree. It still rose from the ground like a twisted soul, silently screaming
to the skies. The three men got down from the cart. The cart was loaded with spades and a
coffin. There also was some straw and a bundle containing a shroud.
"So Schwartz is buried near this . . . tree", said Anders Kauz.
"Yes", said Ichabod.
Frederick said nothing. He was busy carrying the spades.
Katerina and Masbeth had decided to stay in the van Tassel manor. They had seen the Tree twice and it was two too many in Katerina's opinion. Masbeth had agreed with her. So Ichabod felt a bit alone here in the Western Woods. He feared that Mr. Kauz might not be of much help if things went out of hand. What if the Hessian did not recognize Mr. Kauz.
"The grave is right over there", said Ichabod and walked across the clearing and behind
the Tree.
Anders and Frederick Kauz followed.
"Here it is", said Ichabod and pointed to the sword which served as a marker for the Hessian's
grave.
"That is his sword!" said Kauz. Gingerly he reached out to touch it.
Frederick followed his adoptive father's example. With one finger he stroke the serpent's
head adorning the hilt.
"Just like the one on your mark, Father", said Frederick.
Then everything got silent. The Tree's branches began to move, making a rustling noise.
"Father! Look!" said Frederick and pointed to the Tree.
The three of them stared at the Tree.
"That means the Hessian is coming up", said Ichabod.
A moment later they saw how the bark of the Tree opened up to let something through. Ichabod had seen this before and was prepared for the sight of a horse's hoof coming through the blood-red membranes. But the others stared as the hoof was followed by the rest of the horse, and its rider.
Then Kauz shouted: "It is Schwartz!"
The Hessian struggled to get his horse, Daredevil, to calm down. Then he rode to where the
intruders were standing, next to his grave.
Ichabod felt as if the world had started to spin and a very loud noise in his ears told him
that he was to faint. But he did not want to miss out on this reunion between two old
friends, so he managed to stay conscious.
Kauz spoke to the Hessian in German.
"Hello. It's me. Anders Kauz. Remember me?"
The Hessian answered in a raspy voice that sounded like it hadn't been used for a
couple of decades.
"Hello. I remember you. You've grown old though. How long since we last met?"
"Over twenty years."
"Where's Charlotte?"
"Dead. She died in 1782. Three years after you."
"Oh..."
The Hessian blinked away something in his eyes. To Ichabod it seemed like tears. Kauz
put a comforting hand on the dead soldier's shoulder.
"You have a son", said Kauz.
Ichabod was trying to figure out what they were saying as Kauz waved forth Frederick.
"You speak German?" asked the Hessian.
"Yes." said Frederick.
"You look like me. It's like looking in a mirror."
Then there was a long silence as the Hessian tried to think of something to say to the son
he had never seen when he was alive.
"You're a bookprinter, yes?" the Hessian asked.
"Yes. I'm going to be Father's business partner in four years."
"That's good. That's very good. The printer's mark; what does it look like?"
Frederick told him.
"Just like Kauzlein here told me," said the Hessian.
"Kauzlein?"
"Little owl."
"That's what he always called me", Kauz explained to Frederick.
Frederick nodded.
"I wanted to get you a decent funeral", said Kauz.
The Hessian nodded in agreement.
"Can I dig up your bones and bury you in a graveyard?"
"Where's Charlotte buried?"
"In a small village just outside New York."
"Then I want to lie there. Wherever that is."
"I thought so. I've already contacted the priest, and there is a gravestone with your and
Charlotte's names on it."
"Then dig me up!"
The three living men dug up the grave. Then they carried the coffin from the cart and
placed it next to the grave.
Anders Kauz put a thick layer of straw on the bottom if the coffin.
Ichabod asked him why.
"So the bones will not be rattling around when we bring it to the graveyard."
The shroud was spread out over the straw in the coffin. Then it was time to put the bones into the coffin.
Frederick picked up one bone after the other and handed to Kauz who put them on the
shroud in the coffin. The small bones in the hands and the feet was the last to get
picked up since they were so small. Frederick scooped them up, afraid to loose one single
piece of bone.
Ichabod was standing beside the Hessian looking at the two men working in the grave.
He noted that for each bone put in the coffin, the Hessian, and Daredevil, went more and
more transparent until they were thin as mist. Ichabod wondered what it must feel like.
When the skeleton was assembled, Ichabod took a look at it. Neither he nor the Hessian
had anything to say. Every single bone was there, and in their right places. The only
thing missing was the skull.
The hessian went back inside the Tree and retrieved it.
In that moment the skeleton was completed, the Tree of the Dead began to crumble and fall
apart. The tree living men and the ghost watched as one branch fell to the ground,
followed by other parts of the Tree. Soon there was nothing but a tree-stump left, with
a lot of splinters on the ground around it. The whole process had been accompanied by a
lot of creaking and moaning noises.
The Hessian, who had gotten more and more transparent with each bone taken from the grave, dissapeared completly when the Tree fell apart.
"Let's get out of here", said Frederick.
The journey down the Hudson river from Sleepy Hollow to Mary's Grove, where Charlotte was buried, took one and a half day. Ichabod had decided to follow Anders and Frederick Kauz to Mary's Grove, to ensure that the Hessian was buried properly. Again Katerina and Masbeth had decided to not take part in the arranging of a decent funeral for the Hessian.
Frederick Kauz had been rather shocked by his natural father's appearance. He kept asking
his adoptive father if he really looked like the Hessian. Kauz told him to calm down.
"Of course you look like him. You are his son," Kauz said.
"But like that? The teeth, the hair!"
"Do not worry about your teeth and your hair. Unless you decide to file down your teeth
and never combing your hair, you will not have to worry about that."
"But he was a killer. A savage! I don't want to turn out like him."
"He was raised to be that. You will most probably be a book-printer, since that was
how I raised you. You are not your father."
Frederick looked a little bit calmer when he heard this.
Ichabod had to admit to himself that he agreed with what Kauz had said. Ichabod himself was certainly *not* anything like his father.
The graveyard of Mary's Grove was peaceful place. The graves were in tidy rows in the grass and chestnut trees surrounded the graveyard. The gravestones leaned this way, that way or was standing straight. Some graves didn't have a stone, but a plain white cross, made of wood.
The verger and his assistants helped in getting the coffin down from the carriage.
"The grave's open, Mr. Kauz. It's ready and waiting for this fellow." said the verger.
"Good. And the priest?"
The verger turned to one of his assistants and told him to fetch the parson. The boy ran
off.
Meanwhile the coffin with the hessian's bones was carried by the verger, his assistant,
Ichabod and Frederick.
"Not gonna be much of ceremony," the verger said, "but at least it'll be properly done."
Then he told the carriers to put down the coffin on the ground where he had laid out a
couple of ropes.
"We'll use these ropes to get him down. So put him down across the ropes."
They did so. Then they waited for the priest.
Ichabod thought that there should have been rain on this day. That there should have been flashes of lightning and loud thunders accompanying the Hessian's funeral. Or at least some hail, or a strong wind. Instead the sun shone, and there was not a single dark cloud in the sky. It was an anti-climax thought Ichabod, and felt a bit disappointed.
The priest was a kind man, who didn't object to the ceremony being a bit short. He
understood the necessity of getting the Hessian into holy ground, and limited himself
to a short speech, a hymn, the Lord's prayer, another hymn and the credo. Then he
motioned to the verger and his boys to lower the coffin down
into the grave. When this was done, the moment everyone had waited for came.
The priest took a small spade, and while he poured three shovels of dirt on the lid of the
coffin, he uttered the words:
"Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. I demand you, Friederich Schwartz, to rest in peace, and
to not rise until the Judgment Day."
There was a moment of silence. Then the verger's boys began to shovel the dirt back into the grave, filling up the hole in the ground. Ichabod thought back on the events of the previous months. It felt like something was ending. A story, maybe. But the story of who?
What was that motto that Anders Kauz had used on his mark?
'Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.'
That was Latin, Ichabod thought. It meant; 'everything changes, but nothing is lost.'
Ichabod thought back on the dream he had had.
The dead horseman. The mourning owl. And Frederick who was what remained of the Hessian,
but not like him at all, except in looks and maybe in temperament. A fitting illustration
of the motto.
Later, when Ichabod had come home, he told Katerina about the funeral. They were sitting in Katerina's drawing room. She was knitting a baby sock, while Ichabod told her of what the funeral had been like. Masbeth was also listening, while sewing on a button in his coat. His father had taught him how to mend his clothes, and Katerina didn't want him to neglect that learning.
"And somehow I think", said Ichabod, "that maybe the moral of all this, if this had been a gothic tale, is
that what goes around comes around. The people of Sleepy Hollow threw out Charlotte Redfern
and the widow Archer and her children. Years later they paid for it. Anders Kauz befriended
an outcast, and got willed enough money to get a printery of his own."
"True", Katerina agreed, "But it is unpleasant to have one's own father killed as a
consequence of someone else's actions. It wasn't his fault the widow was evicted."
"No, but he, and you benefited from it."
"Well", said Masbeth, "but one can't go back in time to put things right, can one?"
"No, sadly enough", said Ichabod. "But things can be done in such a way that our children won't have to pay
for what we did. Or maybe even reap the benefits."
"Well", smiled Katerina, "let's try."
Then Ichabod noted what Katerina was knitting.
"What is that?" He said, indicating the baby sock.
"It's a baby sock", said katerina.
It took a moment for Ichabod to comprehend what Katerina actually was saying.
"Are we going to have a baby?"
"Yes."
Ichabod fainted of pure joy.
THE END
Author's note: The motto has been taken from Sandman by Neil Gaiman, issue nr 74. That issue was called Exiles. So the motto do not belong to me but to the eminent storyteller Neil Gaiman.The place called Mary's Grove is purely fictious.