The sight of the food made Jerott want to vomit. He said cheerfully, ‘Well, well. Thank God you’re a dab hand at chess.’‘If you’re going to be bright,’ said Lymond, with a soft and frightening venom,...
The round, unformed script on the fly-leaf said, Francis Crawford of Lymond. She stared at it; then put it down and picked up another. The writing in this one was older; the neat level hand she had se...
The master had gone very red. ‘My lord, there can only be one who commands on a ship.’‘That is correct. And you have kindly handed me your authority for a day,’ Lymond said. ‘Go and sleep. I shall giv...
The gorgeous creature by the window did not move, nor was there a notable change in his plumage. But by some means it was made clear that against the latticed panes of the casement stood a man trained...
The door shut behind them all, and locked. The women stared at it, mesmerized, and observed across it the wavering shadow of an uncanny cloud. Behind the chamfered windows the sun was obscured by drif...
The door opened.‘Hercules?’ said Danny tremulously. ‘Isosceles? The Triangle? The Angel Apostate?
The darts which make me suffer are my own.
The board is clearing. The old game is almost played, and the pieces broken.
The alternative is English force: reprisals and raids and counter-raids and broken promises, as you say. Of course you must try to secure this alliance. You might have achieved it in the last reign bu...
The English make bonny speeches, but they run to an awful wee man. And the Kerrs . . . there’s something unchancy about a left-handed race.’ ‘I’m right-handed,’ offered Will Scott. ‘Aye.’ ‘And six foo...
That made Richard leave her, to walk back over the hill. After a moment Jerott rose and walked back also, to meet Adam and Kate and say what had to be said to Sybilla. That now she had one son only li...
Taut, merry, nervous, expertly mounted, exquisitely clothed, haughty in their bright youth, the chevaliers of France poured from the disheveled clearing. Sunlit, all that morning, they spanned the gli...
Talk to me, Richard. It isn’t difficult. Move the teeth and agitate the tongue. Tell me news of the family. Am I superseded yet? Oh, Richard, a blush!
THE ELEGANT WORKING out of designs historical and romantic, political and commercial, psychological and moral, over a multivolume novel is a Dorothy Dunnett specialty.
Sybilla said, ‘I wish you would explain something you said. That there was something formidable in that household of Sevigny?’‘Ah,’ said Piero Strozzi. ‘It does not lend itself truly to words. But you...
Sybilla said, her voice grating again, ‘I know, of course, you would rather be dead.’He gave it a little thought. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you want to be here in this room either.
Speak, she said, as you would write: as if your words were letters of lead, graven there for all time, for which you must take the consequences. And take the consequences.
Sometimes,’ said Míkál, ‘one must travel to find what is love.’‘Sometimes,’ said Philippa stoutly, ‘one must travel to find what is kindness. I know what is——I know what love is.
So Philippa got her leave to bring Archie Abernethy with her and sail on the Dauphiné. But they had not seen the woman Marthe before they left Lyons. And permission to sail from Marseilles depended st...
She had grown. Kate's vicious friend, once so elevated, was taller by little more than a head. She drew her brows together, and studied the circles under his eyes. He said lightly, 'My dear girl; it's...