If the wedding was wanted at Melrose—and Buccleuch, as Hereditary Bailie of the Abbey lands, had fewer objections than usual to any idea not his own—then the congregation had to come armed, that was a...
I wished to warn you about the scimitar cut, and also that your men may find it disconcerting when the Janissaries scream.’No more than amused at the tact, ‘I scream too,’ said Lymond gravely. ‘And lo...
I think you might come to forget, too, that life is more than a science.
I once heard a man speak, who had understanding, and the promise of vision. He was called the Master of Culter.
I made one mistake. Who doesn’t? But I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands. Of course it left me deformed and unserviceable, def...
I hope never to have to do that to you again. I hope one day you will forgive me. Try to remember, just at this moment, that my trade calls for acting. Try to remember, Richard, as I have told you, th...
I hear you held a feast for our blood-drinking Besermani neighbours, which they attended in two parts, polled head on one side of the field and crossed legs on the other.’‘Rumour exaggerates,’ said Ly...
I don’t bed with children.’‘Rumour says,’ said Catherine d’Albon, ‘that you did. Or are the Knights of St John all mistaken?’‘You know too much,’ said Francis Crawford slowly. ‘Shall I amend it? I don...
I am here, Brethren in Christ, to lead you, every man, woman and little child of the Faith, to freedom. God in His mercy be praised.’ ‘Then God in His mercy has arranged that we should lead them from...
I am glad then,’ said Catherine, ‘that there was nothing between us, rather than mediocrity.’And from the homes … of Unicornes …‘There was kindness,’ he said. ‘And that was a great deal.
I am Hermes, Conductor of Souls. Come if you wish. Come if you dare. All things arise from Space and into Space they return: Space is the beginning and the final end. There isn’t much of it here: watc...
Hullo. A strange game, isn’t it? I don’t enjoy it much either. But we have to finish it. Then you choose what we play next.’ And a smile broke over Khaireddin’s face: a genuine smile; the first one, t...
How, in twenty days, do you create for a man a new and irresistible motive for his existence? And how, this done, do you preserve him and his family from a blow so devastating as to be, in some ways,...
How old do you think he is?’ said Sybilla placidly. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t want him hanging about my petticoats for the rest of my life. He is, you must admit, a little disruptive in the home...
How nice, said Lymond, to have simple emotions. No trouble with principles; no independence of thought; no resistance to suggestion; no nonsense about adult behaviour when it comes to one’s own amour...
Her suspicions seethed. Over sixty, with a life of violence behind him, Buccleuch had been a broken man after the affair at Liddel Castle. More recently, however, the light of purpose had entered his...
He had ridden through the night, without rest and without sleep, for this. It ought, surely, to give someone a moment of wry amusement. He understood—but then he had always understood—how Richard had...
He did not want to live. As the condition of life does, so the condition of death should depend on one’s choice. The wise man lives as long as he ought, not as long as he can. Democrites fell on his s...
He couldn’t succeed Richard now, certainly, said Janet. But if the English took over? Criminals at the horn with the right kind of politics have died in silk sheets before now.So they say. Perhaps it’...
Good evening, ladies. The gentlemen now entering behind you are all fully armed. I am Francis Crawford of Lymond and I want your lives or your jewels -- the latter for preference; both if necessary.