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deae62e
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People like mystery. They want nothing explained, because when things are explained then there is no hope left. I have seen folk dying and known there is nothing to be done, and I am asked to go because the priest will soon arrive with his dish covered by a cloth, and everyone prays for a miracle. It never happens. And the person dies and I get blamed, not God or the priest, but I!
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miracle
hope
priest
mystery
jews
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Bernard Cornwell |
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e1776fd
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Many men do not beat their wives, even though the law allows it and the church encourages it, but a man gains no reputation by beating a weaker person. AEthelred had beaten AEthelflaed, but he was a weak man, and it takes a weak man to prove his strength by striking a woman.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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cfba936
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The fear came then. The shield wall is a terrible place. It is where a warrior makes his reputation, and reputation is dear to us. Reputation is honour, but to gain that honour a man must stand in the shield wall where death runs rampant. I had been in the shield wall at Cynuit and I knew the smell of death, the stink of it, the uncertainty of survival, the horror of the axes and swords and spears, and I feared it. And it was coming.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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aa343d0
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I was doing everything wrong. I was confused. Confusion is inevitable in battle, but indecision is unforgivable, and I had hesitated to make any decision and then made all the wrong ones.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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01b797f
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We live by oaths and we can die by them. To give an oath is to harness a life to a promise, and to break an oath is to tempt the punishment of the gods.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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99bf350
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O orgulho faz o homem, impulsiona-o, e a parede de escudos ao redor de sua reputacao, e os dinamarqueses entendiam isso. Os homens morrem, diziam eles, mas a reputacao nao.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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a05325b
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You never, ever, tell others of your crimes, not unless they are so big as to be incapable of concealment, and then you describe them as policy or statecraft.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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c87cff6
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That man is my Arthur, a great warlord and a hero who fought against impossible odds to such effect that even fifteen hundred years later his enemies love and revere his memory.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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2f0d294
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If an oath is a mistake then you are still obligated because you are sworn to it.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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8bd0a6f
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The crews of the Viking ships are Danish, Norse, Frisian, and Saxon.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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9feb393
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He has a mouth, lord," Gerbruht said. "I envy him," I said. "Envy him, lord?" "Most of us have to lower our trews to shit."
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lower
trews
mouth
shit
lord
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Bernard Cornwell |
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da22166
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Ravn had given me much advice and all of it was good, but now, in the night wind, I remembered just one thing he had said to me on the night we first met, something I had never forgotten. Never, he had said, never fight Ubba.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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365c2e4
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I should never have confessed my rank, I thought. Better to be a living slave than a dead ealdorman.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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70d1692
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Yet to complain of the world's unfairness was the same as grumbling that the sun was hot or that the wind sometimes changed its direction. Unfairness existed, it always had and it always would, and the miracle, to Sharpe's eyes, was that some men like Hill and Wellesley, though they had become wealthy and privileged through unfair advantages, were nevertheless superb at what they did.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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eebd879
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All that was needed to get ahead in the world was a bit of sense and the ability to kick a bastard faster than the bastard could kick you, and Richard Sharpe reckoned he had those talents right enough.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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998bc58
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The joy of it. The sword joy. I was dancing with joy, joy seething in me, the battle joy that Ragnar had so often spoken of, the warrior joy. If a man has not known it, then he is no man. It was no battle, that, no proper slaughter, just a thief-killing, but it was my first fight and the gods had moved in me, had given my arm speed and my shield strength, and when it was done, and when I danced in the blood of the dead, I knew I was good. K..
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Bernard Cornwell |
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bed89df
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A man who loves his daughter does not let her go into Wales.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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74861e0
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I'm getting old," I said again, and that was true. I had lived more than fifty years and most men were lucky to see forty. Yet all old age was bringing was the death of dreams."
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Bernard Cornwell |
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5ba3ad7
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I remember laughing at that moment, and I remember my son frowning at me in puzzlement. What I remember best of all, though, was the sudden certainty that the gods were with me, that they would fight for me, that my sword would be their sword. 'We're going to win,' I told my son. I felt as if Odin or Thor had touched me. I had never felt more alive and never felt more certain. I knew there would be no more mistakes and that this was no drea..
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thor
best
bebbanburg
frowning
puzzlement
touched
were
mine
odin
certainty
laughing
me
gods
son
moment
mistakes
remember
sudden
fight
swords
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Bernard Cornwell |
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69eebc9
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and Ravn recited a long poem about some ancient hero who killed a monster and then the monster's mother who was even more fearsome than her son, but I was too drunk to remember much of it. And
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Bernard Cornwell |
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ec30136
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Am I to deny Mark justice because he is old and gross and ugly? Do youth and beauty deserve perverted justice? What have I fought for all these years, if not to make certain that justice is even-handed?
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Bernard Cornwell |
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03d7495
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Ensign Fitzgerald had somehow managed to get himself a jewelled sabre that he was now flashing around like a shilling whore given a guinea fan.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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3c011dc
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Skin the colour of chestnuts
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black-people
black-skin
brown-skin
race
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Bernard Cornwell |
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2c18a7a
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The Holy Grail, the most precious of all Christ's bequests to man, lost these thousand years and more, and he could see it glowing in the sky like shining blood and about it, bright as the glittering crown of a saint, rays of dazzling shimmer filled the heaven. Thomas
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Bernard Cornwell |
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532a6a7
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We were the wolf pack, we were the killers of Britain, we had fought from the south coast of Wessex to the northern wilds, from the ocean to the sea, and we had never been beaten, and these men knew it.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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bd85b87
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There are seasons of our lives when nothing seems to be happening, when no smoke betrays a burned town or homestead and few tears are shed for the newly dead. I have learned not to trust those times, because if the world is at peace then it means someone is planning war. Spring
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Bernard Cornwell |
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ce8a95a
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It was the year 878, I was twenty-one years old and believed my swords could win me the whole world. I was Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the man who had killed Ubba Lothbrokson beside the sea and who had spilled Svein of the White Horse from his saddle at Ethandun. I was the man who had given Alfred his kingdom back and I hated him. So I would leave him. My path was the sword-path, and it would take me home. I would go north.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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732433b
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I wanted to see a pattern in the strands of life. In the end I found one, and it had nothing to do with any god, but with people. With the people we love.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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045318e
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the Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He
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Bernard Cornwell |
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cccaffe
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Nos queremos a fidelidade nas pessoas que amamos, senhora, entao nao e obvio que elas a queiram em nos? A fidelidade e um presente que oferecemos aos que amamos.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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53cd906
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Fiat voluntas tua,
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Bernard Cornwell |
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5550d27
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probably derived from the old French : a troop of the devil's horsemen.
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archery
harlequin
hellequin
devil
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Bernard Cornwell |
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79892b4
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Children are easily swayed by religion, which is why it is a good thing that most eventually grow into sense. Chanting monks led the procession, then came children with green boughs, more monks, a group of abbots and bishops, then Steapa and fifty men of the royal guard, who walked immediately in front of Alfred and his guests.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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a15171f
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I look at those parchments, which are deeds saying that Uhtred, son of Uhtred, is the lawful and sole owner of the lands that are carefully marked by stones and by dykes, by oaks and by ash, by marsh and by sea, and I dream of those lands, wavebeaten and wild beneath the winddriven sky. I dream, and know that one day I will take back the land from those who stole it from me.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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74c01f2
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Your mother didn't give birth to you," I told hint, "but farted you out of her shrivelled arsehole." "Frightened or not," Asser said, "you've taken Peredur's silver, so you must fight them now." "Say one more word, monk," I said, "and I'll cut off your scrawny balls."
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Bernard Cornwell |
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4803c43
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Reading is useful,' Pyrlig said.
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reading
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Bernard Cornwell |
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c8967da
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I had thought about Alban for a while. "Why," I had then asked, "if your god can pull out a man's eyes, didn't he just save Alban's life?" "Because God chose not to, of course!" Beocca had answered sniffily, which is just the kind of answer you always get when you ask a Christian priest to explain another inexplicable act of their god."
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Bernard Cornwell |
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23d63ca
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the Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He makes rules, more rules, prohibitions and commandments, and he needs hundreds of black-robed priests and monks to make sure we obey those laws.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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b8bbe28
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We don't build,' I said to my son, 'we just destroy.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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1a43fba
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They laughed, but I was melancholy. The remnants of Rome always make me sad, simply because they are proof that we slide inexorably towards the darkness. Once there was light falling on marbled magnificence, and now we trudge through mud. Wyrd bid ful araed. We
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Bernard Cornwell |
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29f7c93
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I forget your name," I said. "Most people spew shit from their arse," he retorted, "you manage it with your mouth." "Your mother gave birth through her arse," I said, "and you still reek of her shit."
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mourth
reek
shit
birth
mother
name
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Bernard Cornwell |
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625385e
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They're the sort of dozy bastards who don't think beyond their next pot of ale, but Thomas does, Thomas is a two-pot thinker, he is.
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Bernard Cornwell |
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1e1e942
|
You do know what happens at Easter!" Ceolnoth demanded sternly. "Of course I know," I said, "we make babies." "That is the most ridiculous..." Ceolberht began to protest, then went silent when his brother glared at him. "It's my favourite feast," I continued happily. "Easter is baby-making day!"
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Bernard Cornwell |
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a162321
|
I would hear him screaming, I would watch him bleed, I would tear his flesh piece by piece before I would worry about AEthelflaed. This was family. This was revenge.
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revenge
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Bernard Cornwell |