The monks had murdered Danes and Ragnar had punished them, though these days the story is always told that the monks were innocently at prayer and died as spotless martyrs. In truth they were malevole...
Svein had offered to talk. The Danes, quite suddenly, had stopped raiding. Instead they had settled in Cridianton and sent an embassy to Exanceaster, and Svein and Odda had made their private peace. W...
Of the insolence of the Scots, my father used to say, there is no end.
Nondum amabam, et amare amabam.(No amé, pero anhelaba amar)
Men fear wanderers for they have no rules. The Danes came as strangers, rootless and violent, and that, I thought, was why I was always happier in their company.
Lord Derfel, you do insult a man so very easily. What was it to be? My head in a pit dunged by slaves? What a paltry imagination you do have. Mine, I fear, sometimes seems excessive, even to me.
La mia regina ha alzato le spalle con aria sprezzante. - L'istruzione è così importante?- Penso di sì. Ho sempre rimpianto di non conoscere il latino.- Perché? - mi ha chiesto Igraine.- Perché buona p...
It was, predictably, a morning ceremony, for nothing good comes of endeavours undertaken when the sun is in decline,
It was fate, I thought. Just fate. We think we control our own lives, but the gods play with us like children playing with straw dolls.
In breve, eravamo soddisfatti, e il destino è sempre stato nemico della soddisfazione. Il destino inoltre, come mi aveva sempre detto Merlino, è inesorabile.
If my body is recovered, Colonel, pray have it sent back to Normandy. My companion, on the other hand, is from Boston, so you may allow his body to rot in whatever noxious swamp it comes to rest. Come...
If a man can’t remember the laws, Ragnar said, then he’s got too many of them.
Idle men make mischief, especially idle men supplied with ale, whores, and weapons.
I've known women! Æthelwold shouted at the rain, and they were bad women! Forgive me!Alfred was furious, but he could not stop a man making a fool of himself before God. Perhaps he thought Æthelwold's...
I was doing everything wrong. I was confused. Confusion is inevitable in battle, but indecision is unforgivable, and I had hesitated to make any decision and then made all the wrong ones.
I wanted to hit him hard now.I wanted to hit him in the dark of the night’s ending, hit him in the thunder of Thor’s providential storm, hit him under the lash of Thor’s lightning, strike him in the w...
I touched Thor's hammer, then Serpent-Breath's hilt, for death was stalking us. God help me, I thought, touching the hammer again, Thor help us all, for I did not think we could win.
I put my hands over Saint Cuthbert's fingers and I could feel the big ruby ring under my own fingers, and I gave the jewel a twitch just to see whether the stone was loose and would come free, but it...
I kicked back my heels, but all I achieved was to ride out of the panicked mass into the path of the Danes, and all around me men were screaming and the Danish axes and swords were chopping and swingi...
I ignored Waldhere and still spoke