My words still sounded lame, but the truth so often limps off the tongue in times of crisis. Just when we most need to speak with the tongues of angels, we stumble with uncertain words.
May the gods always send me stupid enemies.
In other words, she said tartly, women are supposed to do all that a man can’t do. And right now it seems men can’t fight, so I’d better do that too.
If we do nothing then Wessex will spread like a plague. There’ll be priests everywhere. We seek the future. We stare into its fog and hope to see a landmark that will make sense of fate.
I wondered why the gods no longer came to earth. It would make belief so much easier.
I was screaming with joy because the battle calm had come, the same blessed stillness I had felt at Cynuit. It is a joy, that feeling, and the only other joy to compare is that of being with a woman.I...
I was angry. I wanted blood in the dawn.
I think only one man in three is a warrior, and sometimes not even that many, but in our army, Uhtred, every man is a fighter. If you do not want to be a warrior you stay home in Denmark. You till the...
I tell my grandchildren that confidence wins battles. I do not wish them to fight, I would rather make Ieremias’s world a reality and so live in harmony, but there is always some man, and it is usuall...
I still feel a pang every time I look at her,’ I admitted. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ he said enthusiastically. ‘A pang! A quickness in the heart.’ ‘Love,’ I said drily. ‘We’re lucky, you and I,’ he said,...
I once asked a bishop whether there were any women in heaven. ‘Of course there are, my lord,’ he answered, happy that I was taking an interest in doctrine, ‘many of the most blessed saints are women.’...
I learned that money was the object of life, and I wanted money. I wanted the servants, the fine clothes, the respect in the street, and a horse of my own. I wanted to ride into Stratford and spit on...
I have lived my life, Derfel,’ he said at last, ‘according to oaths. I know no other way. I resent oaths, and so should all men, for oaths bind us, they hobble our freedom, and who among us doesn’t wa...
I hated his religion and its cold disapproving gaze, its malevolence that cloaked itself in pretended kindness, and its allegiance to a god who would drain the joy from the world by naming it sin,
His men howled with him. They were caught up in Baird’s madness. At this hour, under the fire of the sun and emboldened by the arrack and rum they had drunk in their long wait in the trenches, the red...
He needed to know it, see it, smell it, and survive it. I was training the boy not just to be a warrior, but to be a king.
Frederick the Great once said that the greatest crime in war is not to make the wrong decision, but to make no decision.’ Again the Prince gestured at Sharpe with the brandy glass. ‘You should remembe...
For what? the Lord of Douglas demanded. For
Fight well, he said distantly, and remember you are Englishmen!Welshmen, someone intervened. Sir Roger visibly flinched at that and then, without another word, led his three men-at-arms from the churc...
Fiat voluntas tua,