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,...

I suppose that was just something you ate; or are you bloody well pregnant as well?

I should hesitate to attribute anything to him at the moment, even principles,' said Lord Culter, smiling. 'But you are free to try.

I am too far away now from it all,' Lymond said. 'And if we are going to be metaphysical, I have no sea card, or compass, or star.

If you're the first of November, you're Scorpio. 'Better,' said Lymond coldly, 'to be stung by a nettle than pricked by a rose.

So this was Richard's brother. Every line of him spoke, palimpsest-wise, with two voices. The clothes, black and rich, were vaguely slovenly; the skin sun-glazed and cracked; the fine eyes slackly...

Will he? said Lymond. Will you, Marigold?Brilliant, youthful face confronted restless one.A little, malicious smile crossed the Master's face.Oh, no, he won't, said Lymond confidently. He's going to...

At the end of the track we always find where the camel or the owner of the camel. . .

Lucent and delicate, Drama entered, mincing like a cat.

Come, my love,' said Míkál, 'and say goodnight to the dark.' And held him close, full of a sweet young compassion, as the little boy died.

Leave the rest all to me. You know. O boo de la thing.'...

To succeed as you want, you have to be precise; you have to have polish; you have to carry polish and precision into everything you do. You have no time to sigh over seigneuries and begrudge other...

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.

With Jerott Blyth, innkeepers never shirked the proper discharge of their duties. To the doggedness of his Scottish birth, his long residence in France and his profession of arms had lent a particular...

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...

I," said Lymond, in the voice unmistakably his which honeyed his most lethal thoughts, "I am a narwhal looking for my virgin. I have sucked up the sea like Charybdis and failing other entertainment...

Philippa said, to the scandalization of priest and secretary and chargé d'affaires, 'I think I'd like to get drunk.

My love is given to no one,' said Lymond. 'To neither man, woman or child. Duty, friendship, compassion I do owe to many. But love I offer to none.

At least this is a nation, with a religion, a head, a status, a policy. Not a damned Noah's ark: a chicken here, a lamb there, a family of wolves in the next field. I suppose you are proud of your...

You bloody little dictator,' he said. 'You're exactly like Kate.

Perhaps for one second you would sit on the lid of your irreducible ego and listen to me. I regard you, masculine or feminine, as the greatest genius the world has ever produced. I agree you have a...

Every ruin is packed like a biscuit box.

Your state has been seen, and will be reported on. Only it is necessary that you do not yawn. Or, of course, speak. Discretion in all things in all things is needed. She was reminding them, and she...

Rimed and sparkling with sugar, the wrestler lay like some child's flaccid sweetmeat in death, and the dogs licked his eyelids.

I have a suggestion in that case,' said Lymond. 'You two have the orgy, and I'll keep the drinker's headache.

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...

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...