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Gain and Loss
Gain and Loss
Grandmaster Gottfried Von Osten stood on the high hill and looked down into the valley. Another Brother-at-arms was returning triumphant, to lay yet more captured banners at his feet. The Grandmaster had achieved his aim at last, defeated the Pagans in battle and restored the lost glory of his forefathers to Christendom. By the grace of God, the East would be converted to the light, with Gottfried having begun that journey up the narrow way here, on his field of glory.
The sun shone high and clear in heaven and blessed his victory with its redeeming light. In turn, Gottfried saw the smoke of pyres in the valley offering up the incense of Christendom’s noble sacrifice. How close he was on that high hill to ascending to the Lord, only bound by his duty on earth and his mortal body! The path for him was now certain – his name was to be forever remembered in the annals of history and the gates to salvation opened wide for him.
To all who saw him, astride his charger and clothed in dazzling white robes and armour, he appeared on that hill as Victory itself, presiding over the battlefield. The brothers of the order gathered around him like a heavenly host and bore trophy upon trophy to his feet. It was as if all glory and men on earth had submitted to the Grandmaster. Not without the help of God himself, however. To show his humility, Gottfried then ordered all soldiers to take mass in thanks of victory.
Voices rang out in hymns across the battlefield, but as it dropped into the valley, the sound was distorted into a wail.
There, on the other side of the battlefield, a secular knight dragged his dying brother to a pyre. The sun was obscured by the thick black smoke of the fires and he couldn’t see more than a stone’s throw from where he was. A low wail surrounded all the suffering of mankind, clumped in the valley as darkness enclosed it. He set down his brother on the ground. He saw no enemy nor ally among those dying men; he only knew that some victory had been gained. Whether all the glory in the world was worth this cost, the knight was unsure.
As a priest approached from afar, his brother began to whimper. The knight turned to listen to him.
‘…Will I ever see the Sun again?’
‘No.’
‘Am I going to heaven?’
‘I…don’t know.’
He looked to the priest; the grim, uncaring face refrained from telling him as it recited chunks of Latin like a stone. The knight himself had never learned much of heaven, so his brother would go unanswered.
Only now did he even notice he was drenched in blood; whose blood it was would never be answered, and he had no will left to remove his surcoat anyway.
His brother breathed no longer. The pyre beckoned. Why must he now cast his brother into the fire? Was that his soul’s fate? Where was God in all this hell?
It didn’t matter. Of that battlefield he only remembered sending his own brother away into the flames.
