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48ee359
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I wished to warn you about the scimitar cut, and also that your men may find it disconcerting when the Janissaries scream.' No more than amused at the tact, 'I scream too,' said Lymond gravely. 'And louder. But it is kind of you to advise.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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de634fc
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Pray don't allow the shock of it all to confuse you," she said. "Popular resurrections are a tedious pastime of Francis's."
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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37c4d3e
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Francis asked him to stand watch this evening on the Cessford road, and he's very anxious to save Francis from sin.' 'A risk which does not unduly trouble M. Crawford himself,' said the Chevalier pointedly
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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a455ce6
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If we surrender we'll get our throats cut anyway. Let's go out in a blaze of glory.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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0adf9b3
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Welcome with hautbois, clarions and trumpets, noble lady. Welcome to the company of those who can be hurt.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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475e529
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Truth's nothing but falsehood with the edges sharpened up, and ill-tempered at that: no repair, no retraction, no possible going back once it's out.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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97edbe0
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How old do you think he is?' said Sybilla placidly. 'To tell you the truth, I don't want him hanging about my petticoats for the rest of my life. He is, you must admit, a little disruptive in the home.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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d3736cc
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Patriotism," said Lymond again. "It's an opulent word, a mighty key to a royal Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. Patriotism; loyalty; a true conviction that of all the troubled and striving world, the soil of one's fathers is noblest and best. A celestial competition for the best breed of man; a vehicle for shedding boredom and exercising surplus power or surplus talents or surplus money; an immature and bigoted intolerance which becomes the coin of barte..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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98b3d55
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isn't it sometimes more expensive to accept favours than it is to buy them?" He"
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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9a741e7
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The undiscriminating vulture is not our real danger: open scandal would simply drive him into profitless exile again, and would be of no possible advantage to us. Neither should we fear our sturdy patriots who, like your father, are busy with their loyalties in queer and crooked ways. Our danger lies with the men who want to take this country by trunk and limb and wreak it into such a shape that it will fit them and their children for hose ..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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cd78a59
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I don't like being permanently mutilated on Thursdays. I may add that Friday is my day for raping; and I like it quieter than this, and they enjoy it.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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cd407c9
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Because you have done all that skill could devise to present a detached case, and failed. Because you are asking for help, and you hate asking for help. [...] This may be,' said Richard with unexpected wry humour, 'a crusade conducted by the Culter family solo in a band of dissentients, but I am with you.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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a53491d
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For this, you are right, I need to be either entirely sober or very drunk indeed.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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59dce85
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You had good reason to hate me. I always understood that. I don't know why you should think differently now, but take care. Don't build up another false image. I may be the picturesque sufferer now, but when I have the whip-hold, I shall behave quite as crudely, or worse. I have no pretty faults. Only, sometimes, a purpose.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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9ce2daf
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It was odd, Adam thought, that Lymond's harshest opponent should be his brother, and that each man had such power to hurt the other.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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eae6905
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To the devil with your pearldrops and your parroty manners. A filled mind and an apt wit will earn you all the respect any man has the means to deserve.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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2c72a94
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Discomfort without hope of betterment is not a great springboard.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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30fdc35
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He remembered that clear, icy journey to Lampozhnya, and the sledges arching and hissing across the glittering axle tree of world. For a few days, what he had felt was pure happiness. And what Lymond had known, he now saw, was freedom.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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5784708
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Good evening, ladies. The gentlemen now entering behind you are all fully armed. I am Francis Crawford of Lymond and I want your lives or your jewels -- the latter for preference; both if necessary.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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12f5762
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I have many fears,' Lymond said. 'But death is not one of them.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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b6e4cc7
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A queen does not need to be crowned,' said Guzel, 'in order to rule.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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6e4d9a1
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Man is not intellect only,' Guthrie said. 'Not until you reject all the claims of your body. Not until you have stamped out, little by little, all that is left of your soul.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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4d307d7
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I don't mind being labelled devilish but I do mind being regarded as unlucky. The only way to answer that is by a string of successes.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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c49ad5a
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And because death was a friend, the one man who was made to receive, like a tuning-fork, the whispering omens of fate did not recognize it, until too late.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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aebe4b8
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Oh God, thought Jerott. Don't let it happen. She doesn't deserve the torment. The lifetime of waiting, in return for a handful of moments of ecstasy. And standing behind him, always, the ghosts of his other, experienced women. The thoughts he did not share. The knowledge that one had his total friendship but never the key to the innermost door.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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b9f36f8
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You'll seek out strumpets, fumble with courtiers, fornicate with either parent of the heiress you are supposed to be marrying, but to embrace your wife sickens you?' The music stopped in the room; and the movement. 'Ah,' said Lymond. His face had emptied. 'From a new host and an old harlot, the good Lord deliver us.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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40e7967
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There was a little silence. Then Danny Hislop heaved a sigh. 'O beau sire Dieu, what a hell of an evening. Jerott, you either want to have another half-bottle, or vomit three ways what you have, like the Rosault.' In five months the professionals Hislop and Blyth had reached an understanding.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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5869636
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Standing drunk in the yard, while the rain soaked his hair and spread cold through the cloth of his doublet, Jerott thought of the fine design, firmly executed, of the campaign of Guines and of Calais. And of his own joy and his liberation, after these huckstering years, to be again under the hand of this man, his arts at their meridian.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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841bce4
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Come in,' he said. 'You can use Adam's rooms.' His hand, moving upwards, drew the fair, tangled hair clear of Lymond's eyes and checked, at the shudder that ran jarring through from his fingertips. Lymond dropped his hands. He made no protest. He did not look up. But unimpeded at last, Jerott could see the look on his face and give it, sickeningly, its correct interpretation.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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036a22f
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He and Richard had met on the strand at Philorth and like the sand under their feet, all the muddled solicitude which had prompted that journey had in five minutes dispersed through their fingers.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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b019aba
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He had been as careful as he knew how to be, but it had not been enough because he too had been hurt, by a loss he could afford less than Richard.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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0286d6b
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The pain beating in his brows was beyond belief. He wanted only to go while he was still master of himself; before this primitive desire to devastate them both should overpower him.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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55bcfbb
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He had ridden through the night, without rest and without sleep, for this. It ought, surely, to give someone a moment of wry amusement. He understood--but then he had always understood--how Richard had felt at Philorth.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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8610446
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What will you not achieve next time? You should be relieved. A lifetime of desertion, and you are still her favourite son.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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dbf3712
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To see what I would say,' Lymond said and smiling, destroyed all his own controls as they looked at him. 'She had no intention of going. But if you hadn't come in, who knows what she would have learned? Who knows what I should have learned? There is no end, is there,' he said to Sybilla, 'to the dues you demand from your children?' 'You have all the weapons,' Sybilla said. Her voice, even yet, was quite steady. But then, she had been prepar..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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6940f62
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How nice to be married with ... how many children, Richard? You don't have quite this problem. You don't have any problems really, do you, sitting there in your lordship pontificating? It seems to be beyond you even to get yourself decently drowned.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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7b9cbb1
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How about that, my own brother, my own bright light, thou Igor?
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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f3fbc08
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He held her eyes and said clearly, 'You have a great deal to be responsible for.' 'She gave you birth,' Richard said. 'That was her first mistake. The next was to spoil you. So that everything you want, you must have immediately.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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6c9d3f2
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It sounded well. It sounded rational, even, if you were not Francis Crawford. Put him, blindfold, in a closed room anywhere in the world ... Lymond said, 'And that is your only excuse?' And Sybilla met his gaze with eyes as uncompromising as his own. 'I thought I was the excuse for your whole way of life?' she said calmly. And nothing had prepared him for that.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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933b2b2
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Richard's angry grey eyes ... honest grey eyes ... were looking at him. Sybilla was not watching. He supposed she knew that however near he might tread to the crevasse, he did not mean to fall in, and drag Richard with him. Instinct had been right, when last year he had fled such a confrontation. As no living soul could hurt him, Sybilla could.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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ee9a6d1
|
What I am?' he said. He laughed. 'Don't wait. Ask anyone in London, or Malta, or Russia.' He made his way to the casement and flung it open. The rumour of a crowd, muffled hitherto by the windowpanes, burst fresh upon them. The courtyard and the road beyond the gardens were jostling with people, and the name they were calling was audible:
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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a381129
|
I had a sense, I believe, of indebtedness. But someone trussed it in black felt and kicked it to death, as the Turks do.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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477f735
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Good God, here am I with stockings in either hand, panting towards restitution. I merely require you to keep my soul out of the general conversation.' 'And your brother's soul?' said James Stewart. He was drawling again. 'I understood,' said Lymond, 'that you had that in hand.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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fc59bc5
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The gorgeous creature by the window did not move, nor was there a notable change in his plumage. But by some means it was made clear that against the latticed panes of the casement stood a man trained for war, and with skills of a sort which had protected Lyons; had saved Paris; had recovered Calais for an alien monarch.
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Dorothy Dunnett |