Kiaya Khátún is of the happy family circle.'...

We are here. We will work together for what purpose seems to us right. We will work with calm, and with tolerance and, please God, with saving laughter.'We know something of men. We know of evil, and...

And that was when she realized that laughter, which they had lost, had come back to them, and they were whole again.

There have been so many misunderstandings in the past. What you did, often, was done for good reason. I know I am simple. I know you are devious. But, oh God, if there is any good reason for what you...

There is a saying of my adoptive ancestors. Though he performs a miracle, or two miracles, if he refuses the third miracle, it is not as profit to him. I shall dine at the Court of France tonight, and...

One knows, when all one's life one has walked in dangerous places, when the silence is that of ambush and when the silence is that of emptiness.

Since I doubt, at the moment, whether I can stomach any hysterical verbiage, suppose we simply say what we mean.

What to do when attacked at sea, lessons one to ten. They had spent their first morning at sea being trained, remorselessly, by Francis Crawford for this precise event. 'I know what to do,' said...

Well, get the coffer out," said Tobie roundly. "You find his clean clothes and I'll cut his hair round his cap and wash his ears out. Then, when we get to the Palazzo Medici, you imitate his voice and...

Tobie. Unless I'm giving off steam, behave normally. I remember what to do. One foot in front of the other, but not both at the same time unless I'm a robin.

Francis Crawford's face in this fleeting moment of privacy was filled with ungovernable feeling: of shock and of pain and of a desire beyond bearing: the desire of the hart which longs for the...

How many years hast thou, Hâkim?'...

She gave up combing her hair, which the salt air had reduced to a kind of scrim of brown hessian, and, lying down, proceeded to keep her fingernails short in the way Kate admired least. Then she...

There is no one to understand us, except ourselves.

So Philippa got her leave to bring Archie Abernethy with her and sail on the Dauphiné. But they had not seen the woman Marthe before they left Lyons. And permission to sail from Marseilles depended...

... nobility on earth may be earned by the sword, but nobility of the soul must be sought in stony ways and through hard endeavor. I have to tell you to rejoice that you have been chosen.

Intolerance drunk is bad enough, but intolerance sober is quite insupportable.

Philippa drew a deep breath, and found relief in expelling it. 'Do you think,' she said carefully, 'that someone is going to be goaded into doing something soon?' There was a long pause. 'I think,'...

Why did you decide to join me?...

Mr Blyth, you should remember one thing. A celibate island life fighting Turks is no particular guarantee of early maturity. Take a little crone-like advice, and don't rush your judgements.

We'll do it,' said Will Scott comfortably, shouting over the tumult. 'If it's no more than an hour, we'll do it.' 'Christ, I believe you're sorry, you flaming maniac,' said Lymond. 'Don't I keep...

My dear man,' said Lymond, 'he was keeping the numbers down. If we hadn't taken precautions the whole of the noble Order of St John would be disporting itself at St Mary's under the delusion that it...

There's some of them'll be nursing a guid scratch or two on their hinder-ends this night.… Man, it was a rout.' 'I imagine,' said Piero Strozzi, his dark face impassive, 'that my lord Grey's army...

And here, above the valley of Yarrow, Lord Culter and his brother and twenty men from Midculter in their wedding finery with, thank God, half armour beneath, waited to intercept the English army on...

The wedding ended, hurriedly, on a surge of masculine bonhomie and relief. Five minutes later, followed by the red-eyed glares of their womenfolk, Buccleuch and his friends and his new-married son had...

Better to be whipped than humoured; better to be crushed than cherished.… It was a woman told me that. I live in a world of men, my dear,' Lymond had said. 'I love you all, but I shall never marry...

His leaf-gold tresses on end, his eyes in baskets from the long night without sleep, Phelim O'LiamRoe smacked his two fists together and cursed. The Queen Dowager, hardly aware of him, had turned her...

This is habitual. Mother flutters her wings, and every institution within sight tumbles flat.

Yes, gentlemen: said Philippa impatiently, and seizing a stout wooden heading axe, let it fall on the next person who passed.It was Lymond. He dropped to his knees, his hands covering the nape of his...

And isna Sybilla a wee love o' a bitch?''You say the nicest things about my mother,' said Lymond.