You’re the son of a king,’ I told him, ‘and one day you might be a king yourself. Life and death will be your gifts, so learn how to give them, boy.
You are sheep, they are wolves. Your blood will soak the hillsides, your skin will make saddles, your flesh will feed pigs!
Why did I choose to fight him? He was going to die whether I fought him or not, and he was dangerous, half my age and a warrior. But it is reputation, always reputation. Pride, I suppose, is the most...
There’s plenty of food here, Erik said dismissively. We have fish traps and eel traps, we net wildfowl and eat well. And the prospect of silver and gold buys a lot of wheat, barley, oats, meat, fish,...
The standing to be cannonaded,’ he wrote in the memoirs of his military service: and having nothing else to do, is about the most unpleasant thing that can happen to soldiers in an engagement.
La gente non rinuncia alle proprie speranze, solo perché è delusa, Derfel; semmai vi si aggrappa con un'intensità ancora maggiore. Siamo davvero degli sciocchi.
It never occurred to me that they might not accept it, yet looking back I am astonished that the battle of Cynuit was fought according to the idea of a twenty-year-old who had never stood in a slaught...
I was hated, and I knew it. Part of it was my fault, I am arrogant.
I shook my head. ‘Killing isn’t woman’s work,’ I said. ‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘We give life, can’t we take it too?
I had learned to hide my soul, or perhaps I was confused. Northumbrian or Dane? Which was I? What did I want to be?
I charge more for prophecy, Offa said, on the grounds that what is worthless must be made expensive.
Five things make a man happy, I told him, a good ship, a good sword, a good hound, a good horse, and a woman. Not a good woman? Finan asked, amused. They’re all good, I said, except when they’re not,...
Everything's bigger better, or worse in London. That's just the way of it.
Esse é o verdadeiro dom das mulheres, ser sábias, e não são muitos os homens que o têm.
But fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep your...
Of jackets that had their sleeves threaded onto two poles cut from an ash tree
Of bronze about
Words are like breath, she said. You say them and they’re gone. But writing traps them. You could write down stories, poems.
Truth is ever feeble against passionate falsehood.
The crews of the Viking ships are Danish, Norse, Frisian, and Saxon.