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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 81c8b15 | Are you by any chance ...' said Lymond. '... baiting you?' Philippa said. 'Only when you are inclined to be magisterial.' 'Oh, good God,' Lymond said. 'Kate must be out of her mind.' 'And thank heaven you aren't my father?' said Philippa. 'Roughly,' said Lymond, and began to laugh, and then stopped. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 8d6478a | Very soon afterward, Tom Erskine found her, and in five minutes, during which her heart in its cold cage took wearily to itself a new, lifelong burden of protective and fond understanding, Christian Stewart became his affianced wife. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 6e6ede8 | I echo like a mynah, that's why. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| ad47afa | The unicorns, led by costumed grooms, were behaving well about their horns, and the painted rhapsodies all round the cart were more than flattering while the pseudo-king, sceptred in ermine, was positively handsome, as well as resembling the real one quite a lot. The small boy acting as the Dauphin, was obviously his son. It was easy to guess that the angel and the other three children, demure on tasselled cushions, were also related. Remin.. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 04b9d3b | The six elephants stood, roped each by the foreleg side by side in the vast thirty-foot tent put up several days since for their comfort; their trunks peacefully swaying as the cowardie scuttled back and forth with limp forkloads of hay. Small puffs of steam came from their mouths. Their breath was sweet, filling the sun-warmed, crisp air; and their hides, soothed, clean and lustrous from the water, lay calm on their great hips like the ski.. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| bfda4a5 | Tuned to the din, O'LiamRoe and his deerhound heard the footfalls at once. Shaggy brindle next to hispid gold, the two Irish heads turned as Thady Boy Ballagh strolled over the grass. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 7168536 | Arrested for the second, whether in admiration for Lord d'Aubigny's inventiveness or in a kind of silent snort of hysteria at the prodigies expected of him--a condition, O'LiamRoe recognized, to which Lymond was all too prone--Francis Crawford was off guard for the one moment that mattered. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 0558004 | Among the loose animals, the Keeper's sick camel, a lady of brittle temper, had bobbed her tassels and sunk her yellow teeth three times into unguarded flesh; the dwarf ass brayed itself hoarse and the lion cubs, dear to Abernaci's heart, had shambled off, humping their fat, sandy rumps, to feast among the spilled milk in the wrecked kitchens. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| b6653d5 | If they place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left and ask me to give up my mission, I will not give it up until the truth prevails or I myself perish in the attempt. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 470c3b2 | Faith, thought O'LiamRoe. And not a decent creature among them thought to say that the only rule in it is for a man to have a fine, steady seat for an elephant. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| a61d67c | My son is not very complicated, Mariotta, although the artifice glitters. He's afraid--" "Afraid!" Blue eyes, dead of feeling, looked into blue. "Afraid of what? Damned by the church and condemned by the law: what possible capacity for fear can heart and head still find? Oime el cor, oime la testa ... After five years of villainy, I promise you, I have the refinement of a cow-cabbage." "--Afraid I might puncture the cocoon of Attic detachme.. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| eda2bc6 | Do you swim? Hunt? Wrestle? I see. Can you use a crossbow? Your longest shot? Can you count? Read and write? Ah, the sting of sarcasm--Have we a scholar here? Then produce us a specimen," said Lymond. "What about some modest quatrains? Frae vulgar prose to flowand Latin. Deafen us, enchant us, educate us, boy." | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| ef9eb93 | Lymond considered this with every appearance of seriousness. "I see. Thus the baseness of my morals is redeemed by the stature of my manners? You admire consistency?" "Yes, I do." "But prefer consistency in evil to consistency in good?" "The choice is hypothetical." "Lord; is it? What an exciting past you must have." "I despise mediocrity," stated the young man firmly. "And you would also despise me if I practised evil but professed purity?.. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 978b6a6 | You've chosen a life of vice, and have been consistent and reliable and thorough and successful in carrying it out. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 71ccba3 | My dear Gaultier,' said Lymond. 'It will send the Shadow of God into transports. I suppose I've seen objects more grisly before, but it doesn't spring to mind where.... Twenty-four-carat gold, Jerott. Look. And studded with rubies like fish-roes.' 'Yes. I think he'll be pleased,' said Georges Gaultier. For the first time satisfaction, animation and even cheerfulness rang in his voice. 'Sickening, isn't it? | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| fd94f21 | What an extraordinary fuss there has been,' said the Dame de Doubtance raspingly, 'about that irresponsible Irishwoman and her improper child. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| f553eaa | I can live alone, but it is better to have someone else to concern oneself with; to help and be helped by. There is nothing so strong as a family. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| a561ac3 | Nine-tenths of every attack is bluff. The art is to know when to call it. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 712fd7c | The more modest your expectations, the less often you will court disappointment. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| d9601f8 | It won't help you," said Scott. "Nothing ever does. That's why I help myself so frequently." | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| ce73659 | A man of over thirty might be held to be at the height of his powers, but not necessarily of his wisdom. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| fd7c981 | Every other woman since Eve has asked to be loved more than honour. But not you. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| f306a98 | Don't you know, even yet, why I came back to Orkney?" Rognvald said. Than Thorfinn looked up. Rognvald's gaze, waiting for his, took and sustained it. Thorfinn did not look away, but his face held no expression. Rognvald said "I am the dog at your heel. Everything I have ever done has been an attempt to be like Thorfinn." | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 1984d03 | I wrote you.' 'I didn't get it,' said Archie. 'I wrote Applegarth as well,' said Adam angrily. 'He didn't get it either. He's away for a day or two. Jesus,' said Archie, 'are ye not keen to come in? You must be fair wore out with all that writing. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| a37ae6f | I am here, Brethren in Christ, to lead you, every man, woman and little child of the Faith, to freedom. God in His mercy be praised.' 'Then God in His mercy has arranged that we should lead them from the rear,' said Jerott Blyth thinly from the window. 'The entire garrison of Tripoli has just marched away. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| af64c59 | His tranquil smile deepened. 'We shall meet in Malta, Jerott. Pray for us all. God has been good tonight.' 'Thompson has been rather splendid too,' said Lymond cordially. and waved a cheerful farewell. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 905ac4a | 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 .. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 33bf2d7 | 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. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| d426956 | 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. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| eb07f07 | 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? | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 39f994f | 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. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 9bc0d36 | I have a suggestion in that case,' said Lymond. 'You two have the orgy, and I'll keep the drinker's headache. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| f06a008 | 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." | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 1186798 | Every ruin is packed like a biscuit box. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| dcdd6cb | In Rome there is a pathological shortage of small coins. For change, the little shops tend to use candy. | places | Dorothy Dunnett | |
| eee46b0 | 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.. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| ed5d236 | You bloody little dictator,' he said. 'You're exactly like Kate. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 75f7df6 | 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? | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 986b2ed | 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. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| ee9b5d8 | 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 .. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 0420d7c | Philippa said, to the scandalization of priest and secretary and charge d'affaires, 'I think I'd like to get drunk. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 10c4041 | 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." | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 06a8437 | 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. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 59d9edc | 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. | Dorothy Dunnett |