|
b25323a
|
all the Danish leaders, had carved into our shield wall with his great war ax, I had faced him, beaten him, and sent him to join the einherjar, that army of the dead who feast and swive in Odin's corpse hall. What
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
e881e8f
|
I do understand that you can look into someone's eyes,' I heard myself saying, 'and suddenly know that life will be impossible without them. Know that their voice can make your heart miss a beat and that their company is all your happiness can ever desire and that their absence will leave your soul alone, bereft and lost.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
fb358e5
|
She looked at Stiorra and grinned, and I wondered whether that was what the two girls had in common: bad fathers.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
5d47190
|
You'd do better to repair the fort walls,' I said. 'You think the Danes will come again, lord?' he asked nervously. 'The Danes always come again.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
88a8e87
|
No man wanted to face warriors like Finan in battle.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
b43983e
|
It was fate, I thought. Just fate. We think we control our own lives, but the gods play with us like children playing with straw dolls.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
46605f7
|
If my body is recovered, Colonel, pray have it sent back to Normandy. My companion, on the other hand, is from Boston, so you may allow his body to rot in whatever noxious swamp it comes to rest. Come on, boy!
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
3b9e24c
|
Entao Guinevere quebrou o juramento do matrimonio - disse Nimue. - Voce acha que ela foi a primeira? Ou acha que isso a torna uma prostituta? Nesse caso a Britania esta cheia de prostitutas ate a borda. Ela nao e prostituta, Derfel. Ela e uma mulher forte que nasceu com mente rapida e boa aparencia, e Artur amou a aparencia e nao quis usar a mente dela. Nao a deixou torna-lo rei, por isso ela se voltou para aquela religiao ridicula. E tudo ..
|
|
infidelidade
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
fc76235
|
He had pretended to be full of remorse, and shouted that remorse to the sky, "No more tits, God! No more tits! Keep me from tits!" and I remembered how Alfred had turned away in frustrated disgust. "Exanceaster,"
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
c8e57a7
|
Descobri em minha longa vida que a maioria dos homens da Igreja prega os meritos da pobreza enquanto corre atras da riqueza. Adoram dinheiro, e a Igreja atrai dinheiro como uma vela atrai mariposas.
|
|
igreja
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
b3aeb77
|
Quando a gente esta com problemas e util descobrir alguem que esteve na mesma dificuldade.
|
|
problemas
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
db574d9
|
You know your trouble? You think too much. I've never known a happy man who thought too much. Thinking just complicates affairs. Life's like jumping a bad fence on a good horse, the more responsibility you leave to the horse the safer you'll be, and the more you leave to life the happier you are. Worrying
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
10fb5d9
|
I don't care if he's got a tail and tits, just take me to him." The"
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
e045b5b
|
Most folk consider that a woman aboard a ship brings nothing but bad luck because it provokes the jealousy of Ran, the goddess of the sea who will abide no rivals,
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
4ff41b1
|
I know I have gained Christ and through His blessing I have gained the whole world too, but for what I have lost, for what we have all lost, there is no end to the reckoning. We lost everything.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
140a9f5
|
And where are we going?' he asked. "to war,' I said grandly. 'We'll give the poets something to sing about. We'll wear their tongues out with singing! We're going to war, my friend,' I slapped Finan's shoulder, 'but right now I'm going to sleep. Keep the men busy, tell them they're going to be heroes!"
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
700c144
|
Choose your battles,' I snarled at AEthelstan. 'That space between your ears was given so that you can think! If you just charge whenever you see an enemy you'll earn yourself an early grave.' Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg
|
|
cornwell
saxon-stories
warriors-of-the-storm
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
fb50a73
|
The sun shone on us, the water sparkled, the oar-blades dipped and we were gone. Gone to make history.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
193ad7e
|
Welsh kingdoms in some safety, and that thought was encouraging. Christians do like pilgrims, those pious folk who gaze at pig bones that pretend to be dead saints and then give money, lots of money, and there's hardly a church, monastery, or nunnery that does not have the eyelid of Saint John or the bellybutton of Saint Agatha or the pickled trotters of the Gadarene swine. Many such pilgrims are poor, yet the fools will give their last ben..
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
645affa
|
I had never thought it all through before, but suddenly, on that cold day, I understood that among the Danes I was as important as my friends, and without friends I was just another landless, masterless warrior. But among the Saxons I was another Saxon, and among the Saxons I did not need another man's generosity. "You"
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
59c2842
|
The sight of that loveliness was enough to drive all sense from a man's head.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
c2f2f81
|
You will tell him that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is in a mood to kill.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
ed43b88
|
And we screamed. We screamed our war cry, our shout of slaughter, our joy of being men in battle who are driven by terror.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
c13a9fe
|
All you need to know, boy," Finan growled, "is that Lord Uhtred's side is the one that wins."
|
|
finan
know
need
side
uhtred
win
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
e3f0dcf
|
I was hated, and I knew it. Part of it was my fault, I am arrogant.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
4446538
|
Besides, as I have never tired of telling my Christian followers, we pagans rarely persecute Christians. We believe there are many gods, so we accept another man's religion as his own affair, while Christians, who perversely insist that there is only one god, think it their duty to kill, maim, enslave, or revile anyone who disagrees. They tell me this is for our own good.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
e6fd09f
|
Anything that comes from the north is bad news.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
200dfa3
|
These word-stringers make nothing, grow nothing, kill no enemies, catch no fish and raise no cattle. They just take silver in exchange for words, which are free anyway. It is a clever trick, but in truth they are about as much use as priests.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
6ce0a07
|
There are times," Leofric grumbled, "when you are an earsling." An earsling was something that had dropped out of a creature's backside and was one of Leofric's favourite insults. We were friends." --
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
10430e6
|
The Tippoo should have killed you when he had the chance." "We all make mistakes, sir."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
32d8166
|
I've known women!" AEthelwold shouted at the rain, "and they were bad women! Forgive me!" Alfred was furious, but he could not stop a man making a fool of himself before God. Perhaps he thought AEthelwold's remorse was genuine? "I've lost count of the women!" AEthelwold shouted, then beat his fists in the mud. "Oh God, I love tits! God, I love naked women, God, forgive me for that!" The laughter spread, and every man must have remembered th..
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
a6cafff
|
The General knew he would probably die, for infantry took pleasure in killing cavalry and he would be the leading horseman in the attack on the bridge, but the General was a soldier and he had long learned that a soldier's real enemy is the fear of death. Beat that fear and victory was certain, and victory brought glory and fame and medals and money and, best of all, sweetest of all, most glorious and wondrous of all, the modest teasing gri..
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
e96e171
|
Men and women used pliers to pull teeth from the dead and, for years after, false teeth were known as Waterloo Teeth. Some
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
6dc3139
|
Alfred would not listen. He was a clever man, perhaps as clever as any man born, but he did not understand battle. He did not understand that battle is not just about numbers, it is not about moving tall pieces, and it is not even about who has the advantage in ground, but about passion and madness and a screaming, ungovernable rage.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
8e39783
|
Are you familiar with Saint Cuthman?" Alfred asked me cheerfully. "No, lord." "He was a hermit," Alfred said. We were riding north, keeping on the high ground with the swamp to our left. "His mother was crippled and so he made her a wheelbarrow." "A wheelbarrow? What could a cripple do with a wheelbarrow?" "No, no, no! He pushed her about in it! So she could be with him as he preached. He pushed her everywhere." "She must have liked that." ..
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
eeab732
|
My sword," I told him, "says I tell the truth, and that you are a stinking bag of wind, a liar from hell, a cheat and a perjurer who deserves death." "Up to our arses again," Leofric said."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
23fe37d
|
That was why he was thinking about vultures. He was thinking that he wanted to run, but that he did not want to feed the vultures. Do not get caught. Rule number one in the army, and the only rule that mattered. Because if you got caught the bastards would flog you to death or else reorganize your ribs with musket balls, and either way the vultures got fat.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
7dad499
|
Sharpe wanted to be ready and so he untied the rag from his musket's lock and stuffed it into the pocket where he kept the ring Mary had given him. The ring, a plain band of worn silver, had belonged to Sergeant Bickerstaff, Mary's husband, but the Sergeant was dead now and Green had taken Bickerstaff's sergeant's stripes and Sharpe his bed.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
e8b9d24
|
Mothers were sacred. Mothers were not expected to be pretty.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
6443e06
|
But I hated Alfred. I hated him for humiliating me at Exanceaster when he had made me wear a penitent's robe and crawl on my knees. Nor did I think of him as my king. He was a West Saxon and I was a Northumbrian, and I reckoned so long as he was king then Wessex had small chance of surviving. He believed God would protect him from the Danes, while I believed they had to be defeated by swords.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
b4591d9
|
Sharpe had no thought of deserting now, for now he was about to fight. If there was any one good reason to join the army, it was to fight. Not to hurry up and do nothing, but to fight the King's enemies, and this enemy had been shocked by the awful violence of the close-range volley and now they stared in horror as the redcoats screamed and ran towards them. The 33rd, released from the tight discipline of the ranks, charged eagerly. There w..
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
d5699c7
|
Tomorrow!" he said suddenly. His voice was high, but it carried clearly enough. "Tomorrow we fight! Tomorrow! The Feast of St John the Apostle!" "Oh God," Leofric grumbled next to me, "up to our arsholes in more saints."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
0ba2ba0
|
I knew it was stupid, knew I would probably die if I went again, but we were warriors and warriors will not be beaten. It is reputation. It is pride. It is the madness of battle. I began beating Serpent-Breath against my half-broken shield, and other men took up the rhythm, and the Danes, so close, were inviting us to come and be killed, and I shouted that we were coming.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
25055c4
|
There, ahead of me, was the enemy. I love the Danes. There are no better men to fight with, drink with, laugh with or live with. Yet that day, as on so many others of my life, they were the enemy and they waited for me in a gigantic shield wall arrayed across the down. There were thousands of Danes, Spear-Danes and Sword-Danes, Danes who had come to make this land theirs, and we had come to keep it ours.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |