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4876e53
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I have never asked you for anything." "But what would you have asked for?" She stared into the ripples of the stream. "What you gave me," she said after a while, "kindness." "Nothing else?" She paused. "I would have liked to call you Father."
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Bernard Cornwell |
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d1d53a7
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secession.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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5e0dbe7
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We might know how it ends, but like all good stories it bears repetition. So here it is again, the story of a battle.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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abbbae4
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There is a famous painting of the young Napoleon crossing the St Bernard Pass on his way to the Italian campaign which rocketed him to fame. Louis David's canvas shows him on a rearing horse, and everything about the painting is motion; the horse rears, its mouth open and eyes wide, its mane is wind-whipped, the sky is stormy and the General's cloak is a lavish swirl of gale-driven colour. Yet in the centre of that frenzied paint is Napoleo..
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Bernard Cornwell |
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657bb20
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The standing to be cannonaded,' he wrote in the memoirs of his military service: and having nothing else to do, is about the most unpleasant thing that can happen to soldiers in an engagement.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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7c320cc
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Fighting fair! Whoever heard of anything so daft? Fight fair and you lose.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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33e6647
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But that was a notion as wispy as the high thin clouds that were being driven away by a brisk wind, and behind those wispy clouds was a wall of dark, tumultuous cloud that promised snow.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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ba85835
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The survivors of that confusion would surely be bemused by the argument that Waterloo really was not that important, that if Napoleon had won then he would have still faced overwhelming enemies and ultimate defeat. That is probably, though not certainly, true. If the Emperor had forced the ridge of Mont St Jean and driven Wellington back into a precipitate retreat, he would still have had to cope with the mighty armies of Austria and Russia..
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Bernard Cornwell |
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dd3167f
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Your answer to the truth," I sneered, "is to threaten a woman with death?"
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Bernard Cornwell |
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a3aecca
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Alfred spends half his time rutting and the other half praying to his god to forgive him for rutting. How can a god disapprove of a good hump?
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Bernard Cornwell |
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1f52806
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Soldiers were not paragons; they were scarred, vicious men who took delight in destruction.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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e3bf429
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British Rail is some kind of joke, right? They just pretend to run a railroad? Is that right? Anyway
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Bernard Cornwell |
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6fc1f6b
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They had marched all the soldiers' miles together, and now their ways parted. They would promise reunion, but such promises were so rarely kept.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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e16e195
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Bishop Asser was an earsling, which is anything that drops out of an arse.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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47aa4bf
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Empurrei a bolsa para ele e me tornei instantaneamente pobre. Ragnar a empurrou de volta sem sequer pensar, tornando-me rico de novo
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Bernard Cornwell |
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37a25ab
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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.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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96a82ce
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We have to stop them here, Sir Augustus, and I don't think you're the man to do it. Have you ever defended against a French attack?' The head shook miserably. 'No.' 'The drums never stop, Colonel, at least not until you've beaten the bastards, and they take a hell of a lot of beating. I'll tell you now. We can't hold all three buildings, we don't have the men, so I'll give up the Convent first. They'll put guns in there, and once they've ta..
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Bernard Cornwell |
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dc6b95a
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1809)
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Bernard Cornwell |
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759a15d
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To fight battles, Derfel,' he corrected me, 'on behalf of people who can't fight for themselves. I learned that in Brittany. This miserable world is full of weak people, powerless people, hungry people, sad people, sick people, poor people, and it's the easiest thing in the world to despise the weak,
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Bernard Cornwell |
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a9abf64
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We cut off their long hair, for I liked to caulk my ships' planks with the hair of slain enemies,
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Bernard Cornwell |
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1a17947
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It was, predictably, a morning ceremony, for nothing good comes of endeavours undertaken when the sun is in decline,
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Bernard Cornwell |
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b326b04
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if a man believes the nonsense that there is only one god then there's no point in arguing because it would be like discussing a rainbow with a blind man.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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dd01fbc
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You need mending?" "We all do. When we are young it is the spirit that breaks, and when we are old it is the body."
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Bernard Cornwell |
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d82e37f
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God's purposes are not always easy to understand, but I have found that his methods are not as indirect as ours. We complicate God because we do not see that goodness is so very simple.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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466e98d
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backblade,
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Bernard Cornwell |
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2b65b10
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You take me for a fool, Douglas?" "I take you as you show yourself, John Randolph,"
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Bernard Cornwell |
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634e14e
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And then the horn sounded. The horn gave a clear, cold note like none I had ever heard before. There was a purity to that horn, a chill hard purity like nothing else on all the earth. It sounded once, it sounded twice, and the second call was enough to give even the naked men pause and make them turn towards the east from where the sound had come. I looked too. And I was dazzled. It was as though a new bright sun had risen on that dying day..
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Bernard Cornwell |
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442cdab
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understand, and then, of course, the Danes had come, and they tore the churches apart to steal the silver from the altars. I remember Ragnar laughing one day. "It is so kind of the Christians! They put their wealth"
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Bernard Cornwell |
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bc4ab87
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And Wessex was the last kingdom of England.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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b8487e3
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Once you write something down it becomes fixed. It becomes dogma. People can argue about it, they become authoritative, they refer to the texts, they produce new manuscripts, they argue more and soon they're putting each other to death. If you never write anything down then no one knows exactly what you said so you can always change it.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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d4f9358
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People like mystery. They want nothing explained, because when things are explained then there is no hope left.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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5122e7f
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much followed from that hurried ceremony in the flower-speckled clearing beside the stream. So many died. There was so much heartache, so much blood and so many tears that they would have made a great river; yet, in time, the eddies smoothed, new rivers joined, and the tears went down to the great wide sea and some people forgot how it ever began. The time of glory did come, yet what might have been never did, and of all those who were hurt..
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Bernard Cornwell |
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cf67f70
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And not just any mail. My coat was of Frankish make and would cost a man more than the price of a warship. Sihtric had polished the metal with sand so that it shone like silver. The hem of the coat was at my knees and was hung with thirty-eight hammers of Thor; some made of bone, some of ivory, some of silver, but all had once hung about the necks of brave enemies I had killed in battle, and I wore the amulets so that when I came to the cor..
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Bernard Cornwell |
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ef922c5
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Words are like breath," she said. "You say them and they're gone. But writing traps them. You could write down stories, poems."
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Bernard Cornwell |
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1ae64b2
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a fool and his money are easily parted.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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95bc182
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What is an oath? A promise to serve a lord, but to Christians there is always a higher allegiance.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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f8f5330
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press,
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Bernard Cornwell |
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fdaa0fb
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You're giving up the hunt for de Taillebourg?' Thomas asked. He had learned the priest's name from Robbie. 'No.' Robbie still had his head back as he stared at the magnificence of the transept's ceiling. 'I'll find him and then I'll gralloch the bastard.' Thomas did not know what gralloch meant, but decided the word was bad news for de Taillebourg.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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c5a9436
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Does that girl work here?' Robbie asked, gesturing at the screen behind which Mary had disappeared. 'All her life,' Sir Giles said. 'You remember Mary, Thomas?' 'I tried to drown her when we were both children,' Thomas said.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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8f10c00
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The first stone, thrown by Hellgiver, crashed through the roof of a dyer's house close to St Brieuc's church and took off the heads of an English man-at-arms and the dyer's wife. A joke went through the garrison that the two bodies were so crushed together by the boulder that they would go on coupling throughout eternity.
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war
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Bernard Cornwell |
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a5dbbf4
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You are sheep, they are wolves. Your blood will soak the hillsides, your skin will make saddles, your flesh will feed pigs!
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Bernard Cornwell |
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dc30fb8
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Language is now my trade, boy, because I have become a skald.' 'A skald?' 'A scop, you would call me. A poet, a weaver of dreams, a man who makes glory from nothing and dazzles you with its making. And my job now is to tell this day's tale in such a way that men will never forget our great deeds.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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d6ef3a4
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Everything ends. Summer ends. Happiness ends. Days of joy are followed by days of sorrow. Even the gods will meet their end in the last battle of Ragnarok when all the evil of the world brings chaos and the sun will turn dark, the waters will drown the homes of men, and the great beamed hall of Valhalla will burn to ashes. Everything ends. I drew Serpent Breath and walked towards the scouts.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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4d75abb
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What do we look for in a lord? Strength, generosity, hardness and success, and why should a man not be proud of those things? Show me a humble warrior and I will see a corpse. Alfred preached humility, he even pretended to it, loving to appear in church with bare feet and prostrating himself before the altar, but he never possessed true humility. He was proud, and men feared him because of it, and men should fear a lord. They should fear hi..
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Bernard Cornwell |