My son took many years to learn the simple truth. You cannot love any one person adequately until you have made friends with the rest of the human race also. Adult love demands qualities which cannot...
My dear Gaultier,’ said Lymond. ‘It will send the Shadow of God into transports. I suppose I’ve seen objects more grisly before, but it doesn’t spring to mind where.… Twenty-four-carat gold, Jerott. L...
My God, said Francis Crawford in English, smiling cordially and shaking his hand. 'Caffa and purled lace and pinking, and a butt on him like one of Shah Mahmút th Ghaznêrides' elephants. How is Marthe...
Modern war is fought by a number of strong, sweaty horsemen with constipation, who have their eyes on power, on wealth and on glory, and who obey the rules just when it pleases them.
Meanwhile, until the snow comes, we had better keep Master Chancellor and his party entertained.’‘Tartar women?’ said Fergie helpfully. ‘Danny Hislop …’‘Healthy physical exercise,’ said Lymond tartly.
Mariotta listened to it all, sitting judicially in a whirl of velvet with all the Culter jewels and the emerald necklace for moral support.
Many years later, understanding it all, the Baron de Luetz, who survived, used to tell how that day they left the Sublime Porte to the measure of the Chorea Machabaeorum, the Danse Macabre, the Danza...
Man is a being of varied, manifold and inconstant nature. And woman, by God, is a match for him.
Julius rose to his feet. The towel dropped, showering cut brown hair over Monna Alessandra's elegant tiles. His hair, finely tailored, clung to a thick-boned face with slanting eyes and a blunt profil...
Julius brooded. He could see Julius despising the medical school of Pavia. Tobie said, Nicholas managed the journey from Flanders all right. Deferred to you, joked discreetly with me, got on like a dy...
Jerott’s eyes and Philippa’s met. ‘When I meet my friend,’ said Jerott Blyth carefully, ‘there is likely to be a detonation which will take the snow off Mont Blanc. I advise you to seek other auspices...
Jenny Fleming merely looked exasperated. ‘That young man,’ she said, ‘ought to be plucked out of his pride and impaled on a thornbush. He introduced me to someone as the Controller of the King’s Beam,...
I’ve heard the Prior here talk about Gabriel,’ said Richard serenely. ‘He seemed at times to be confusing him with the Pope.
I’m sorry,’ said Jerott, his eyes elsewhere. What was the attraction here, in God’s name? Not the little woman in the stained gown, surely? Or the plain fourteen-year-old who had been so courageous th...
It won’t be a very good army because it’ll have one eye on the Lothian lairds and one eye on the Douglases. And by God, Richard Crawford, ended Buccleuch with a growl that lifted the pigeons off the t...
It was odd, Adam thought, that Lymond’s harshest opponent should be his brother, and that each man had such power to hurt the other.
Is that your whole measure? To shirk what is difficult? To escape to safety, like a strawberry-preacher, when your friends are in danger? My gentleman: if you run from me now, I will brand you and you...
Intentions, yours or anyone else’s, don’t matter; they never matter and never excuse: get that into your head.
If you’re coming with me, listen,’ said Lymond. He ducked, and then swung a punch that did not quite go wide. ‘And then knock me out cold.’‘With pleasure,’ said Jerott. His dark eyes were bleak. ‘And...
If you wish, you may run ahead screaming. It makes no difference now, although five minutes ago we were in something of a hurry … the servants to be tied up … the silver to collect … Richard’s persona...