What we choose to do then is nothing?’ said Lymond, and his face was not pleasant. ‘I have taken far too long as it is to face the consequences of my actions. You must not unlearn me my lesson. I have...
Then Lymond’s voice, the chill gone, said, ‘Don’t be an ass, Jerott? You know I can’t do without you.’ It was an obvious answer. But it was also something Jerott had never had from Lymond before: an a...
The unicorns, led by costumed grooms, were behaving well about their horns, and the painted rhapsodies all round the cart were more than flattering while the pseudo-king, sceptred in ermine, was posit...
The guiding hand at one’s pony; the voice at one’s porridge bowl; the splendid athlete one watched from one’s books in the cold tower window, while outside in the sunshine he rode at the ring, threw h...
The coast's a jungle of Moors, Turks, Jews, renegades from all over Europe, sitting in palaces built from the sale of Christian slaves. There are twenty thousand men, women and children in the bagnios...
The beauty of worthy things is not in the face but in the backside, endearing more by their departure than their address.
Subject to intelligence, nothing is incalculable.
Richard doesn’t like me either, said the fair one sorrowfully. But that’s unmannerly rank for you. Do you like Richard?I’m married to him!That’s why I asked. You don’t believe in polyandry by any chan...
Piero Strozzi closed his mouth, which had fallen ajar. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You have a son, don’t …’He roared. ‘I beg your pardon. My foot slipped,’ said Philippa. ‘Have a date flan, and don’t talk...
Philippa’s letter, from an afflicted conscience, was not very much longer. … if I don’t look for him, no one else will. You know I’m sorry. But I couldn’t leave that little thing to wither away by its...
Philippa thinks of you, as she thinks of me, as a rather run-down institution for indigent imbeciles.
Philippa said, to the scandalization of priest and secretary and chargé d’affaires, ‘I think I’d like to get drunk.
Once, long ago, Francis Crawford had reduced her to terror and, the episode over, she had suffered to find that for Kate, apparently, no reason suggested itself against making that same Francis Crawfo...
Once before, Jerott had seen him like that, in Algiers. He had seen him as he was now, with every skill of mind and body tuned to the ultimate pitch in pursuit of one object. Francis Crawford like tha...
Of course. You have always tried to escape.’‘And I have always harmed the friends who have tried to stop me,’ Lymond said. His voice was uninflected. He added, ‘I have tried many times to warn you not...
Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin.
Nobody ever, said the Dowager sorrowfully, credits me with normal thought processes. When a mysterious man creates a royal scandal on the banks of the Lake of Menteith with the keenest ears in Scotlan...
No ties; no duty; no relief. Three filaments gone in the life-thread, fragile as the thread of the silk-moth, which has no organs by which it can nourish itself, but instead is born, and loves once, a...
My dear man,’ Philippa said. ‘It seems to me that you have no spirit left but the spirit of resentment.
Mr Blyth, you should remember one thing. A celibate island life fighting Turks is no particular guarantee of early maturity. Take a little crone-like advice, and don’t rush your judgements.