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.

Here you have a hawk of the lure, not of the fist. He will not come to you. If you would have him, you must lay your heart upon your hawking-glove; and feed it to him.

You lead, therefore you kill.

Why do you call him M. d'Harcourt? You called Jerott Jerott.''I called Jerott a great deal worse than that.

Our powder and arrows are going to run out on us some time. And so are our food and water and joie de vivre and good books and everything. Why not walk out now and get made into somebody's favourite...

One battle in twelve might be won by a brilliant military stratagem. The rest stood or fell by somebody's blunders. Only rarely, there came the feel of a great campaign evolved by a stylist:...

The board is clearing. The old game is almost played, and the pieces broken.

No. I won't. I won't bend my knee, or kiss your charming shoes either. I may possibly fall flat on my face, but that will be quite inadvertent.

Will he travel tomorrow?'They both gazed, united in fascination, at the insensible and manhandled person of the sacrosanct Voevoda Bolshoia. 'I doubt it,' said Ludovic d'Harcourt.But he did. He...

There is a Russian proverb,' Nepeja said. There was a brief silence, while his hearers considered the analogy. 'Beat your brother and he shall be deader?' at length Danny said.

A difficult young man, they had been told, thought John Erskine. How difficult he could not have dreamed; nor could James, standing silent beside him. Then James said, 'A brilliant rogue. We do better...

If it had been reeled off with defiance, Richard could perhaps have tolerated it. Instead, delivered with restraint and with clarity, it was the voice of the Voevoda Bolshoia, unquestioned master of...

Our motive in locking it, if it matters, was to spare you the embarrassment of an interruption. Unless the comte de Sevigny of today is really so different from the Master of Culter of ten years...

Perhaps the forces of winged retribution. The prophet Elijah being fed to the ravens. Like Baida, I have killed my three pigeons.''Two,' Adam said.'Two died instead of Vishnevetsky. One died instead...

Danny Hislop was not there, nor the artist called Blacklock. Riding between Lymond and the fresh-faced Knight of St John who did not like eagles, Chancellor asked after them. Ludovic d'Harcourt...

I have only to dismount, and be sick, and then I am, as ever, your man.

Your blasted Nanny should have taught you what mine did,' said Lymond. 'The things you enjoy most aren't good for you.

The guiding hand at one's pony; the voice at one's porridge bowl; the splendid athlete one watched from one's books in the cold tower window, while outside in the sunshine he rode at the ring, threw...

I feel I deserve a little amusement at someone else's expense. That is all. I have worked for it. I have paid for it. And I propose to have it.

Put him, blindfold, into a closed room anywhere in the world, and he could tell if Sybilla was with him. It had to do, perhaps, with her scent. To him, it was more: a breath from the sweetness and...

They spoke in Latin, so that all might understand; but the quotations they flung at each other were Greek and Hebrew, Turkish, Persian.

Acrostics in French or acrostics in Hebrew were still Greek to him.

This,' said Lymond, 'is by no means a game I will play, or consider playing. Move.

Which reminds me -''The new ladies have arrived,' said Adam grimly. 'Guaranteed of clean stock, and inured to Russian practices. Osep has announced himself suited.''For the time being,' said Danny,...