I like to see a man obeying a woman, Father Pyrlig said as I fetched the loaf.Why's that? I asked.Because it means I'm not alone in this sorry world.
I learned that the joy and the fear are the exact same things, the one merely transformed into the other by action,
I had not liked him. I had struggled against him and for him, I had cursed him and thanked him, despised him and admired him. I hated his religion and its cold disapproving gaze, its malevolence that...
I am no Christian. These days it does no good to confess that, for the bishops and abbots have too much influence and it is easier to pretend to a faith than to fight angry ideas. I was raised a Chris...
I ain’t seen a herd the size of it, not even when the Scots drive the beeves down from Scotland to London.
Hengall the Warrior hated war. The business of life, he liked to say, is to plant grain, not blades.
He wanted to improve the world, while I did not believe and never have believed that we can improve the world, just merely survive as it slides into chaos.
He knew you were a warrior. He called you a brute. He said you were like a dog that attacks a bull. You had no fear because you had no sense.
He died without cutting his nails, she said accusingly, as if I was responsible for that ill luck, and it was bad fortune indeed because now the grim things of the underworld would use Ivar’s nails to...
Have you heard a cuckoo yet? I asked Steapa. Not yet. It’s time to go, I said, unless you want to kill me? Maybe later, Steapa said, but for the moment I’ll fight beside you. And
Guinefort had been a dog and, so far as Thomas’s father knew, the only animal ever to be canonized. The beast had saved a baby from a wolf, then been martyred by his owner, who thought the dog had eat...
Ginevra chiuse gli occhi; per alcuni instanti non capii se ridesse o piangesse. Poi vidi che quella che le agitava il petto era una risata. - Sei davvero uno sciocco - affermò. - Cerchi di aiutarmi! C...
Everyone looks old to the young, Ravn said.
Do you really think men and women thanked you for bringing them peace? They just became bored with your peace and so brewed their own trouble to fill the boredom. Men don’t want peace, Arthur, they wa...
Cowardice is always with us, and bravery, the thing that provokes the poets to make their songs about us, is merely the will to overcome the fear.
Because I’m tired of Wessex,’ I said, ‘tired of priests, tired of being told what your god’s will is, tired of being told that I’m a sinner, tired of your endless damned nonsense, tired of that nailed...
And you can use that sword, Weland Godfredson?As a woman can use her tongue, lord.You’re that good, eh? Ragnar asked, as ever unable to resist a jest.
And suddenly, after weeks of thinking about desertion, Sharpe realized that what he had just said was true. He did want to go back to the army, and that knowledge surprised him. The army had bored Ric...
And not just any mail. My coat was of Frankish make and would cost a man more than the price of a warship. Sihtric had polished the metal with sand so that it shone like silver. The hem of the coat wa...
And I was so tempted that night in Cippanhamm’s royal church. There is such joy in chaos. Stow all the world’s evils behind a door and tell men that they must never, ever, open the door, and it will b...