Abandoned the weapon because of its propensity to shatter the shoulders of the men pulling its trigger, but in Patrick Harper the seven-barreled gun had found a soldier capable of taming its brute fer...
You’re to grovel. Æthelwold spoke for the first time. He grinned at me. We were not exactly friends, but we had drunk together often enough and he seemed to like me. You’re to dress like a girl, Æthel...
You’d do better to repair the fort walls,’ I said. ‘You think the Danes will come again, lord?’ he asked nervously. ‘The Danes always come again.
Your mother didn't give birth to you, I told hint, but farted you out of her shrivelled arsehole.Frightened or not, Asser said, you've taken Peredur's silver, so you must fight them now.Say one more w...
You never, ever, tell others of your crimes, not unless they are so big as to be incapable of concealment, and then you describe them as policy or statecraft.
You do know what happens at Easter! Ceolnoth demanded sternly.Of course I know, I said, we make babies.That is the most ridiculous... Ceolberht began to protest, then went silent when his brother glar...
Wyrd biõ ful ãræd, I said. Fate is fate. It cannot be changed or cheated.
Why do they put cows over the gates, sir?For the same reason we put images of a tortured man in our churches. Religion. You ask too many questions, Sharpe.
When we are young, we yearn for battle. In the firelit halls we listen to the songs of heroes; how they broke the foemen, splintered the shield wall, and soaked their swords in the blood of enemies. A...
When rumours fly, when false tales are being told, be the storyteller.
When God made the world he made the big plain just for the cavalry. It was firm, or would be when the sun had dried off the night’s rain, and it was mostly level. The sabres could fall like scythes in...
What do we look for in a lord? Strength, generosity, hardness, and success, and why should a man not be proud of those things? Show me a humble warrior and I will see a corpse.
What are our intentions, sir? Our intentions, Milton? Our intentions are victory, fame, glory, peace, forgiveness of our enemies, reconciliation, magnanimity, prosperity, happiness, and the assured pr...
Well damn him. I was not dead yet, and so long as I lived I would fight for Æthelflaed.
We were three ships in a summer's dawn, and we were going to battle.
We were dressed for war, and war was coming.
We make oaths, we make choices, but fate makes our decisions.
We believe there are many gods, so we accept another man’s religion as his own affair, while Christians, who perversely insist that there is only one god, think it their duty to kill, maim, enslave, o...
We are all lonely and all seek a hand to hold in the darkness. It is not the harp, but the hand that plays it.
War is fought in mystery. The truth can take days to travel, and ahead of truth flies rumor, and it is ever hard to know what is really happening, and the art of it is to pluck the clean bone of fact...