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.

Standing safely on the opposite bank with her dry maid, her dry escort, and a company of streaming horsemen, Philippa said scathingly, 'That's men for you. Cover the lady's retreat, the book says. A...

Jenny Fleming merely looked exasperated. 'That young man,' she said, 'ought to be plucked out of his pride and impaled on a thornbush. He introduced me to someone as the Controller of the King's Beam,...

Oh, ye've a temper,' said Archie consideringly. 'And ye had a rare old time losing it, and ye were like enough justified at that. But take a thought, too. Are ye to accuse Graham Malett in the law...

Marthe said suddenly, 'How many souls on this earth call you Francis? Three? Or perhaps four?'For a moment he looked at her unsmiling; and for a moment she wished, angrily that she could recall the...

Kate said, her eyes very large, 'I find your rudeness abominable and your politeness obnoxious but my goodness, Francis Crawford, what terrifies me more than a jungle of tigers is the moment when you...

You have not yet discovered what happens to Russians at sea.''The same thing, I suppose, that happens to Englishmen,' Chancellor said. 'Scots, I take it, are immune.''To sarcasm, yes,' Lymond said.

That night at Dumbarton was a classic of its kind. She had hopes still, I think, of enslaving me despite myself with her charms. And I probably thought the same. We both found we were mistaken. It had...

Intelligence is the only indispensable commodity in life or in warfare. If you think otherwise, go live in a hut with a poet. The rest of us will do our best to defend you.

The English make bonny speeches, but they run to an awful wee man. And the Kerrs . . . there's something unchancy about a left-handed race.' 'I'm right-handed,' offered Will Scott. 'Aye.' 'And six...

I've heard the Prior here talk about Gabriel,' said Richard serenely. 'He seemed at times to be confusing him with the Pope.

Will Scott grinned. Grizel Beaton had slapped his face four times, and apart from these four small misjudgements, they had never touched on a topic more personal than which of Buccleuch's bastards to...

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...

What do you hope for that you haven't got? What can that child give you?' There was a little silence. 'A virgin audience for my riddles, I believe,' said Lymond thoughtfully, at length. 'But it...

For reliable information, apply to a lawyer, a barber or prostitute. My informant hasn't found out so far who paid the captain.' 'But she will,' said Margaret, her face grave. 'I hope so,' he said...

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,...

Versatility is one of the few human traits which are universally intolerable. You may be good at Greek and good at painting and be popular. You may be good at Greek and good at sport, and be wildly...

Gabriel,' said Jerott firmly, 'is now at Birgu, Malta, engaged in a life-and-death struggle for the Grand Mastership of the Order of St John. He is unlikely to spend a large part of his time arranging...

He was a second too late. Ducking, the felt-capped man, muscles hard, dragged himself out of that grasp and, flinging off to one side, got his balance, glanced once at Jerott, and then darted off into...

They're talking about Marthe, Maître Gaultier's assistant. What's she like? Pretty?' 'She's pretty,' said the man. Philippa studied the taciturn face. 'Oh, I see,' she said. 'Mr Blyth wants her all...

And, echoing Jerott, 'So why in hell have you come?' Philippa's gaze, bright and owlish and obstinate, held his to the end. 'To look after the baby,' she answered. And disconcertingly, after a...

Verily, God hath eighteen thousand worlds; and verily, your world is one of them, and this its bright axle-tree.

Only common mortals like the Somervilles have good old rotten hates, dear,' said her mother. 'Sir Graham manages to love everybody and wouldn't know what you're talking about. Have a bun.' 'He doesn't...

I hope the string and clapper arrangement he calls a mind has been permanently put out of action.

Well. On which aspect of our ill-advised doings are we about to lecture each other? I have very little to say. As I recall, I exhausted the matter on several other occasions.

Speak, she said, as you would write: as if your words were letters of lead, graven there for all time, for which you must take the consequences. And take the consequences.

Leaving him was less like leaving even the most simple of her friends in Flaw Valleys, and more like losing unfinished a manuscript, beautiful, absorbing and difficult, which she had long wanted to...