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The first time Gilbert ever killed a man, it was murder.
There was an argument, who knows why or what about, between some heathen and one of the Hospitalers, one of Gilbert’s Hospitalers. And, well.
Gilbert had only existed a few months, he was still just a baby, wide-eyed and naive and sure of right and wrong, and he was still so new there wasn’t much of him yet, so it was all so personal . He was supposed to be a holy order of God, they weren’t even knights, he was supposed to help people, he was supposed to heal people. And that man was one of his, that was him, he’d killed a person.
Gilbert liked to think he had a pretty strong stomach. He’d seen plenty of wounds, what with bandits and accidents along the road, and all manner of illnesses, and none of it fazed him. But this was something else.
Gilbert threw up in the herb garden and he didn’t even care if someone saw him do it.
(Later that night, though, when he cried himself to sleep, he made sure that no one heard.)
The first time Gilbert killed a man, it was in battle.
It was a battle, and all around people were dying and hurting, but they were winning and the brand new Teutonic Knights laughed with the glory of it.
His sword felt right in his hand as though it was always meant to be there. The enemy soldier nearly tripped over him, his eyes wide and startled at seeing a child on the battlefield. Gilbert didn’t even think as he stabbed upward, deep into the man’s stomach. He pulled his sword out, with a little more effort than it took to stab it in, the blade covered in thick, dark blood that dripped and stained his uniform. The man collapsed. He’d be dead, with a wound like that. Even if he didn’t die immediately, infection would get him before long. Gilbert had killed him.
It felt. It didn’t feel at all. As soon as he got his sword free, Gilbert was dodging someone else’s blow, and then he was running, and fighting, and killing some more. It all flowed together in the excitement and blood, and one dead pagan looked more or less like another.
In the end they won, and that’s all that mattered.