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905ac4a
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He didn't always tell his father when it happened, because the old man's face turned mottled blue over his doublet, and unless Will got in first, he would send a runner round all the estates, and the threshing would stop while grousing, reluctant men straggled back for their pikes and swords and mail shirts, taking a long time about it, waiting for Buccleuch the Younger to come up, furious on his sweating horse, and tell them curtly to get ..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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33bf2d7
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What a hell of a welcome. I'm sorry. But there's so much still to do outside before the weather closes, and we have to tackle all the dreary minutiae on weapons and theory where all your knightly warriors start losing their tempers and you have to go through a deadly routine of light relief with competitions and war jokes and community singing, and long, long stories of rape and battle and Generals I have Known.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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d426956
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If you were a dear, good little wife, Janet,' had said Lymond, 'you'd fall into a mortal decline that day, or at least hide his boots.' 'Francis Crawford, are ye daft! What ever kept a Scott from a fight? Women? Boots? If yon one were deid, he'd spend his time in Heaven sclimming up and down the Pearly Gates peppering Kerrs.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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eb07f07
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I'm sorry,' said Jerott, his eyes elsewhere. What was the attraction here, in God's name? Not the little woman in the stained gown, surely? Or the plain fourteen-year-old who had been so courageous the night Trotty died?
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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39f994f
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Her suspicions seethed. Over sixty, with a life of violence behind him, Buccleuch had been a broken man after the affair at Liddel Castle. More recently, however, the light of purpose had entered his eye, and, nimble as an elderly rectangular goblin, he had vanished and reappeared at Branxholm until they had all gone off their food.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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9bc0d36
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I have a suggestion in that case,' said Lymond. 'You two have the orgy, and I'll keep the drinker's headache.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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f06a008
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Your state has been seen, and will be reported on. Only it is necessary that you do not yawn. Or, of course, speak. Discretion in all things in all things is needed." She was reminding them, and she hoped they realised it, that they were not circumcised. The circumlocution expected of a high-born Syrian princess was sometimes a trial to Sara Khatun."
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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1186798
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Every ruin is packed like a biscuit box.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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dcdd6cb
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In Rome there is a pathological shortage of small coins. For change, the little shops tend to use candy.
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places
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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eee46b0
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Perhaps for one second you would sit on the lid of your irreducible ego and listen to me. I regard you, masculine or feminine, as the greatest genius the world has ever produced. I agree you have a superior knowledge of your own affairs and are far more capable than the Consulate, for example, of weighing up the risks. Suppose even, for the sake of conjecture, that I don't give a brass bagcheek whether the first Tartar you meet doesn't drag..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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ed5d236
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You bloody little dictator,' he said. 'You're exactly like Kate.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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75f7df6
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At least this is a nation, with a religion, a head, a status, a policy. Not a damned Noah's ark: a chicken here, a lamb there, a family of wolves in the next field. I suppose you are proud of your French Queen, playing dice with Scots knucklebones for the greater glory of her native land?
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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986b2ed
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My love is given to no one,' said Lymond. 'To neither man, woman or child. Duty, friendship, compassion I do owe to many. But love I offer to none.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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ee9b5d8
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It was a French Christmas; a debonair Christmas full of frolic and folly; a spry, Gallic unctuous Christmas. Henry of France, at last roused to boldness and the cunning exercise of spite, had sent a small fleet to Scotland, and in it money for the Queen Dowager, and French military experts for her guidance and the better security of her fortresses. The military experts, tricked out in scent and white satin, danced like well-mannered clouds ..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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0420d7c
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Philippa said, to the scandalization of priest and secretary and charge d'affaires, 'I think I'd like to get drunk.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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10c4041
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I," said Lymond, in the voice unmistakably his which honeyed his most lethal thoughts, "I am a narwhal looking for my virgin. I have sucked up the sea like Charybdis and failing other entertainment will spew it three times daily, for a fee."
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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06a8437
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Julius rose to his feet. The towel dropped, showering cut brown hair over Monna Alessandra's elegant tiles. His hair, finely tailored, clung to a thick-boned face with slanting eyes and a blunt profile which would have looked well on a coin. Tobie, who had almost no hair, gazed at him sadly.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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59d9edc
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With Jerott Blyth, innkeepers never shirked the proper discharge of their duties. To the doggedness of his Scottish birth, his long residence in France and his profession of arms had lent a particular fluency. He was black-haired, and prepossessing and rude: a masterful combination.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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3fb97e9
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That day, engrossed together in the fate of the child, he met her mind to mind and fell in love with her, with every grain of his spirit and cell of his body; with the essential finality of death.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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745b293
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To succeed as you want, you have to be precise; you have to have polish; you have to carry polish and precision into everything you do. You have no time to sigh over seigneuries and begrudge other people their gifts. Lack of genius never held anyone back,' said Lymond. 'Only time wasted on resentment and daydreaming can do that.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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140cf71
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Leave the rest all to me. You know. O boo de la thing.' 'What?' said Archie, in his turn. 'You know. The thing they say about camels. At the end of the trau ...' 'You mean the thing Mr Crawford says,' said Archie with ungenerous malice. 'Au bout de la trace on trouve toujours ou le chameau ou le proprietaire du chameau.' 'That's it!' said Philippa. 'That's it exactly. Only of course,' she said cheerfully, 'Mr Crawford says it in French.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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313889b
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Come, my love,' said Mikal, 'and say goodnight to the dark.' And held him close, full of a sweet young compassion, as the little boy died.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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af895b9
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Lucent and delicate, Drama entered, mincing like a cat.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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ca5bac9
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Au bout de la piste on trouve toujours ou le chameau ou le proprietaire du chameau . . .
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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e23e372
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Will he?" said Lymond. "Will you, Marigold?" Brilliant, youthful face confronted restless one. A little, malicious smile crossed the Master's face. "Oh, no, he won't," said Lymond confidently. "He's going to be a naughty, naughty rogue like you and me." --
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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3af4759
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So this was Richard's brother. Every line of him spoke, palimpsest-wise, with two voices. The clothes, black and rich, were vaguely slovenly; the skin sun-glazed and cracked; the fine eyes slackly lidded; the mouth insolent and self-indulgent. He returned the scrutiny without rancour.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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5efdd8b
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If you're the first of November, you're Scorpio. 'Better,' said Lymond coldly, 'to be stung by a nettle than pricked by a rose.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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e9c50ef
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There breaks a crutch Scotland never knew it possessed.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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193651b
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I am too far away now from it all,' Lymond said. 'And if we are going to be metaphysical, I have no sea card, or compass, or star.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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ccca8d4
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There is a Russian proverb,' Nepeja said. There was a brief silence, while his hearers considered the analogy. 'Beat your brother and he shall be deader?' at length Danny said.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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f14446c
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Terror," said Lymond, "is our daily bread in the Wuthenheer. We eat it, we live by it and we disseminate it; and not only between Christmas and Epiphany: there is no close season for fright." --
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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840efcb
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Speak for yourself,' said Danny Hislop. 'I'm held together by intellectual curiosity. So are we all. We were wonderfully specious at Novgorod--Best will remember--about our reasons for staying in Russia. No one gave the correct one. You can hate a man and stay in his company because of his sheer, God-given, irresistible powers to stimulate. We all liked fighting, and we liked talking about fighting. With Lymond you don't talk about fighting..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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6dbed78
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I should hesitate to attribute anything to him at the moment, even principles,' said Lord Culter, smiling. 'But you are free to try.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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a22b976
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I suppose that was just something you ate; or are you bloody well pregnant as well?
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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db62a8a
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Which reminds me -' 'The new ladies have arrived,' said Adam grimly. 'Guaranteed of clean stock, and inured to Russian practices. Osep has announced himself suited.' 'For the time being,' said Danny, open-eyed. 'That's ten since Pitsligo. Do you think it is a subversive attempt at colonization, or the long Russian nights that ought to be setting in about now in Vologda?' 'We shall have to wait till the spring,' Adam said, 'to find out.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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724ed14
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This,' said Lymond, 'is by no means a game I will play, or consider playing. Move.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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9a2609e
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It was less symmetrical, in the sheen of the rain, than he remembered it. Then he saw that a man rested there on its steps, his head turned on the rim. One coatless arm, lying loose, pillowed it. The arcade lanterns, dimly exploring, found the darkened blond of soaked hair; the fixed flame of strung jewels and the line of wide brow and closed lid and turned cheekbone whose twin he saw, night after night, on his pillow. The rain fell. For a ..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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c475709
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Acrostics in French or acrostics in Hebrew were still Greek to him.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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16b60ea
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They spoke in Latin, so that all might understand; but the quotations they flung at each other were Greek and Hebrew, Turkish, Persian.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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b0cc49a
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Put him, blindfold, into a closed room anywhere in the world, and he could tell if Sybilla was with him. It had to do, perhaps, with her scent. To him, it was more: a breath from the sweetness and peace of his childhood; a sense of light; of understanding; of loving amusement; an air from the flower-filled walls of pairidza. Nothing, even now, took from him that first moment as he stood on her threshold. Until the second moment came, and wi..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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ee995d0
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I feel I deserve a little amusement at someone else's expense. That is all. I have worked for it. I have paid for it. And I propose to have it.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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f335fdf
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The guiding hand at one's pony; the voice at one's porridge bowl; the splendid athlete one watched from one's books in the cold tower window, while outside in the sunshine he rode at the ring, threw his spears, matched his sword with the master-at-arms. The brother who had cared for him, a grown man in illness, and defended him against calumny, and who at length, heartbroken at his defection, had turned his back on him a year ago in Scotlan..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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e363299
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Your blasted Nanny should have taught you what mine did,' said Lymond. 'The things you enjoy most aren't good for you.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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24a8f8d
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I have only to dismount, and be sick, and then I am, as ever, your man.
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Dorothy Dunnett |