Then you’ve had a good day of it, I suppose.Then you suppose wrong, said Lymond shortly. I’ve had a damned carking afternoon. A Moslem would blame my Ifrit, a Buddhist explain the papingo was really m...
Then she said, Thorfinn! quickly, and moved to him; but had hardly got to his side before he loosed his fingers and thumbs and plunged them down to the mattress like spear-points. No!Macbeth. Macbeth....
The wedding ended, hurriedly, on a surge of masculine bonhomie and relief. Five minutes later, followed by the red-eyed glares of their womenfolk, Buccleuch and his friends and his new-married son had...
The trouble with you, M. le comte de Sevigny, is that you’re too god-damned autocratic. From now on, you will kindly remember that a good military tactician requires the support of a team. We are your...
The trouble with Austin was that he believed so deeply in the chivalrous virtues that he found it impossible to refer to them.
The progress of Sybilla though a market was the progress of worker bee through a bower of intently propagating blossoms. Everything stuck. From the toy stall she bought two ivory dolls, a hen whistle,...
That was your son, man, who went out just now ... What better proof do you want? That and his looks … and his guts.’‘Thank you,’ said Lymond. ‘If that is a compliment.
That night Lymond, too, broke free from the prison he had made for himself. He drank of intent, until one by one the barriers crumbled and let run loose all those qualities he possessed, like Alkibaid...
That day, engrossed together in the fate of the child, he met her mind to mind and fell in love with her, with every grain of his spirit and cell of his body; with the essential finality of death.
Tais-toi. Your glove. Madame Erskine, procure me a large pin,’ said the Queen Dowager of Scotland. ‘I have yet to meet a man who can lay hands on a pin when there is need for it.
Standing safely on the opposite bank with her dry maid, her dry escort, and a company of streaming horsemen, Philippa said scathingly, ‘That’s men for you. Cover the lady’s retreat, the book says. A h...
Something comes out of every voyage,’ said the other man sharply. ‘Out of every bloody fruitless endeavour. All the striving after the unknowable. The unattainable, the search for Athor, the creative...
She told me one night that she had no wish to go on living, and that if she did, it could only harm you. She was thirteen years old.… Can you not stand still, and look me in the face, and give me an a...
She said, on a spurt of unusual temper, ‘If you say I look hot once again, I shall die of boredom, I think.’‘Don’t die,’ said Lymond pleasantly; and swinging into his own saddle, gathered the reins. ‘...
She said peevishly, ‘Do you consider I’m old enough to stop calling you Mr Crawford?’‘No,’ said Mr Crawford shortly. ‘What alternatives would you suggest? Master? Uncle?’‘That would certainly unsettle...
Scott, deaf and enchanted in the gallery, and the whole row of pretty heads at his side saw the concerted rush on Lymond: his assailants downed him without malice and eighteen stones of Molly planted...
Religion in recent years has become a political sport, and politicians are more skilful than honest men at extracting themselves from disasters.
Raveand Rhamnusia, Goddes of Dispyte,’ said Lymond acidly. ‘I am trying to get you home, vide the shiten shepherd and the clene shepe, with your woolly chops spotless. The only drawback to date is tha...
Quel changement, Strozzi had said, and it was true. The change was there, and not only in the chamois and lawn, replacing the velvet, the rubies, the gold tissue. It was as if all about him had been s...
Piero Strozzi and Francis Crawford looked at one another. ‘A hint,’ said Lymond, ‘sufficeth for the wise, but a thousand speeches profit not the heedless. Did you hear what she said?’‘Unfortunately,’...