The prospect of watching the Crawford family at grips with itself was something that, blissfully, he wanted very much for his birthday.

Elephants gave you less bother, any day.

Gilles made up his mind, and snapped, 'D'you write Latin?'Sometimes Jerott forgot that the blazon of chivalry, with all the status it once had carried, was no longer his. In any case, he had an...

I shall let you know,' Lymond said, 'when I am ready to embrace you, and with what. In the meantime should you seek a favour, ask elsewhere.

You invited them without Lymond knowing?' said Danny Hislop. He wriggled into the circle. 'Can I be there when he hears about it?

Are you implying,' said Philippa coldly, 'that I enjoyed being brought up surrounded by eunuchs?''No,' said Lymond. 'But I expect you enjoyed it more than the eunuchs did.

There are times,' said Philippa shortly, 'when I feel like the entire Russian army.''There are times, said Lymond equally shortly, 'when I wish that you were. It would solve the whole Tartar problem...

Except once, long ago, over an estrangement with his wife Mariotta, Lord Culter had never been jealous of the young brother he had seen grow from babyhood. Until the moment Francis had left home at...

All the linear delicacy of the boy he had once been stood exposed now in the still, blindfolded face of her son. The clinging yellow hair, orderly on the white linen, was the same silk that had veiled...

There breaks a crutch Scotland never knew it possessed.

Oh, Marigold!" Lymond spoke plaintively. "A silken tongue, a heart of cruelty. Don't berate us. We're only poor scoundrels-vagabonds-scraps of society; unlettered and untaught.

How the devil was she fooled into firing in the first place? Don't tell me that wasn't your fault,' said Lord Culter, a familiar wariness displacing the warmth of reunion.'All right, I won't,' said...

He was not a figment of daydream or of fantasy. He was the quick-witted man who had raced with her; the man whose strong wrists had pulled her from trouble; whose laughter recognized, more than his...

It's true? You have no interest in him? But everyone either abominates Francis Crawford or longs to possess him. I wonder why you alone should be immune.

If time allowed, I should be delighted to discuss my private life in every choice particular with all of you, but it really isn't relevant.

I have a feeling that someone is going to be malicious, and we may as well set them a standard. Shall we go in, lewd and rude, and provoke them?

We?' said Chancellor.'I am lavishly paid,' Danny said, 'to think in the first person plural.

In order to rule, one must face reality.

Lymond's life was lived on this level: the level on which the future of whole communities could be steered or reshaped, improved or jeopardized by a handful of people.

You need bed and a hot drink and a little less fluent self-pity.

And the effect on yourself?' Guthrie said.For a short time, Lymond was silent. Then he said, 'I had some strengths, which have grown. I had some weaknesses, which have gone.''That is true,' Adam...

I want you to try to understand. I am going alone. The risk, if any, is mine. I have no dependants, no responsibilities; I am adamant that this time no one will accompany me. What I hope to do in...

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....

I have been taught to face reality: an excellent thing.

You are a mathematician,' John Dee said.'I am a musician,' said Lymond.

So, as Lymond strode out and stopped, rigid and white by the doorpost, Sybilla set eyes on Francis, the son of her heart; and so Francis Crawford, after four years of unharnessed power, came face to...

The trouble about Mr Crawford,' said Kate, 'is that he puts up with his enemies and plays merry hell with his friends.

I was a slave in the corsair Dragut's own palace. I saw his women-Spanish, French, Italian, Irish. I was at the branding of all his poor children. To some women, degradation like that is the worst...

We met once when you were a boy, at Midculter.' He paused. 'You are not like your brother.''No,' Crawford said. He gave his hand another shake and then loosed it with apparent reluctance. 'Richard...

I wish,' said Lymond, 'it would try a major key sometimes.''Wind,' Chancellor said, 'is a melancholy creature.