Sharon Kay Penman

“What shall we drink to, Ned? To England?""I've a better thought than that. It is not precisely the season for it, with Epiphany still four days hence, and I daresay our lady mother would never forgive me for saying it! But blasphemy or not, I think it fitting, nonetheless."He touched his cup to the one Richard now held. "To the Resurrection," he said.”

“I am not going to let him win, Guillaume. Not this time. I could not keep him from making my mother pay the price for our failed rebellion. Fifteen years she has been his prisoner, fifteen years! And she is his prisoner, for all that she no longer wants for a queen’s comforts. I have had to submit to his demands and subject myself to his whims and endure the indignity of having him brandish the crown before me as he would tease a dog with a bone. But no more. I will not let him rob me of my birthright, and I will not let him keep me from honoring my vow to defend the Holy Land. I do think he is behind that very opportune rebellion in my duchy, and I would not put it past him to be conniving with the Count of Toulouse, either. And if by chance he did not, it is only because he did not think of it. No, a reckoning is long overdue, and we will have it at Bonsmoulins.”

“John, watching in dismay, saw his great chance slipping through his fingers, and he swung around to demand of his father, “Papa, does this mean Richard has bested you and Aquitaine is lost?” Eleanor winced, Geoffrey rolled his eyes, and Henry gave his youngest a look John had never gotten from him before. “My life would have been much more peaceful if I’d had only daughters,” he snapped. “As for Aquitaine, it is yours if you can take it.”

“All he wanted was enough time to consider all his options without being dragged into his household’s petty squabbles or being nagged by his wife about that damnable pilgrimage. Was that so much to ask?Apparently so, for he’d yet to find a peaceful moment at Caen, not with Marguerite sulking and Aimar lurking and Will acting put-upon and Geoff wanting to lay plans and Richard strutting around as if he were the incarnation of Roland and poor Tilda grieving over Maman’s absence and his father refusing to heed any voice but his own.”

“Geoffrey looked startled to see both his great-uncles bearing down upon him with such haste; he hadn’t realized men their age could move so fast.”

“He’d passed the longest night of his life locked in mortal combat with his ghosts, calling up and then disavowing twenty years of memories. He would banish that bitch from his heart if it meant cutting her out with his own dagger. And when at last he allowed himself to grieve, he did so silently and unwillingly, his tears hidden by the darkness, his rage congealing into a core of ice.”

“Ranulf had spent much of his life watching those he loved wrestle with the seductive, lethal lure of kingship. It had proved the ruination of his cousin Stephen, a good man who had not made a good king. For his sister Maude, it had been an unrequited love affair, a passion she could neither capture nor renounce. For Hywel, it had been an illusion, a golden glow ever shimmering along the horizon. He believed that his nephew had come the closest to mastery of it, but at what cost?”

“The last time Ranulf had run into Sulien, the older man had called him a misbegotten English Judas and spat onto the ground at his feet. Yet now that same man was approaching the bed with a jovial smile, so apparently pleased to see the Judas again that Ranulf half-expected him to announce that a fatted calf had been killed in his honor.”

“I know you do not care much for such revelries, but trust me—this one you will enjoy, Harry. You and I will sit at the high table, eating porpoise and swan, whilst we watch my male kinfolk eating humble pie!”

“It was a basic tenet of faith with men of Ranulf’s class that a knight, trained in the ways of war since boyhood, could easily vanquish lesser foes, as much a belief in the superiority of blood and breeding as in the benefits of battle lore and killing competence. Ranulf had accepted this comforting conviction, too, but no one seemed to have told his assailants that they were inferior adversaries.”

“More than men had died at Lincoln. It seemed to Stephen that reality was a casualty, too, for nothing made sense anymore. What was he doing here in the solar of Lincoln Castle, bleeding all over the Earl of Chester’s wife?”

“Forget the threat of Hell's infernal flames. The true torture would condemn a man to wait and wait and wait - for an eternity”

“Richard grinned, very pleased with himself for having found a way to honor his mother, thwart his father, and serve God, while having a grand adventure at the same time.”

“Messages continued to arrive from the Earl of Warwick, urging Londoners to hold firm for King Harry. Marguerite d'Anjou and her son were expected to land at any time, while from St Albans, Edward sent word that Harry of Lancaster was to be considered a prisoner of state. At that, John Stockton, the Mayor of London, contracted a diplomatic virus and took to his bed.”

“Hell and furies!" Eleanor had begun to pace, her skirts swirling about her ankles. "What was he thinking?""When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wine cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.”

“You might as well face it. You're not going to be able to fight for the crown. You'll just have to grit your teeth and let us hand it over to you at the bargaining table.”

“I’d not want to answer for the lives of other men; not at seventeen, by God’s Grace.”

“My father and brother were slain at Sandal Castle because they engaged a far superior force. It was daring, heroic, foolhardy…and fatal. I’ll not make the same mistake.”

“You seem to forget, Dickon, that we are dealing with the Spider King. Louis realized, just as you have, that it would take more to mate dog to cat than a shared lust for the English crown.”

“Edward was now expressing himself on the subject of the French King, drawing upon a vocabulary that a Southwark brothel-keeper might envy. Some of what he was saying was anatomically impossible, much of it was true and all of it envenomed.”

“I would see him, Edward.'It was no request; he knew it to be an ultimatum. He shook his head violently, not trusting his voice. Time passed. She was staring at him, saying nothing, and on her face was a look of stunned disbelief, of anguished accusation he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. But when she spoke, her voice held no hint of tears. It was not a voice to offer either understanding or absolution, spoke of no quarter given, of a lifetime of love denied.'God may forgive you for this,' she said, very slowly and distinctly, 'but I never shall.”

“She opened her mouth, clamped it shut again. This was new, this sudden favor shown Gloucester, had been brought back with him from Burgundy like some malevolent foreign pox.”

“What followed was for him a very entertaining spectacle, with one of Edward's brothers seemingly intent upon the most subtle of seductions and the other barely able to force malmsey past the gorge rising in his throat.”

“Removing his helmet, Edward knelt by the stream called Swillgate, a name that effectively quenched any desire to drink from its depths.”

“What do you know of sacrifice? Need I tell you of York's dead . . . of Sandal Castle? My brother did survive the battle, his first. He was seventeen and he entreated them to spare his life. They cut his throat. Their heads were then impaled on York's Micklegate Bar to please the House of Lancaster, to please a harlot and a madman. She had my father's head crowned with straw and she left a spike between the two. . . . That one, she said, was for York's other son.”

“Poor Wales. So far from Heaven, so close to England.”

“For every wound, the ointment of time.”

“In time of war, the Devil makes more room in Hell.”

“All that is missing is the dancing bear.”

“This was the moment he most loved about tourneying, that first glorious sortie with banners streaming, trumpets blaring, and the earth atremble with pounding hooves as hundreds of knights came together in a spectacular clash of sound and fury.”

“Twilight was laying claim to the cité, and the sky was a deepening shade of lavender, spangled with stars and fleecy clouds the colour of plums.”

“The great hall was shimmering in light, sun streaming from the open windows, and ablaze with colour, the walls decorated with embroidered hangings in rich shades of gold and crimson. New rushes had been strewn about, fragrant with lavender, sweet woodruff, and balm... the air was... perfumed with honeysuckle and violet, their seductive scents luring in from the gardens butterflies as blue as the summer sky.”

“Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies.”

“Outside, the sky was clear, stars gleaming in its ebony vastness like celestial fireflies. It was bitterly cold, and Hywel's every breath trailed after him in pale puffs of smoke. The glazed snow crackled underfoot as he started towards the great hall.”

“Well, dearest, what would you tell a farmer who had an over-abundant harvest? To plant less, of course!"..."I am not complaining about the frequency of the planting," she said. "I’d just rather not reap a crop every year.”

“He'd never seen one so vibrant, though, or so vividly compelling... those glowing green eyes sparkling with sunlight and curiosity and silent laughter, and when she glanced in Henry's direction, she held his gaze, a look that was both challenging and enigmatic... He was utterly certain that this was Eleanor of Aquitaine, and no less sure that the French King must be one of God's greatest fools.”

“...A scar signifies past pain, a wound that did not heal as it ought. But it testifies, too, to survival...(Here be Dragons)”

“When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wind cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.", Chapter 7”

“She knew she'd wounded him when he'd least expected it, and her satisfaction lasted until the door had closed behind him. Once he was gone, it ebbed away along with her anger, leaving her with naught but the ashes and embers of a dying hearth fire.”

“He could still remember how breathtakingly beautiful Eleanor was that day. He'd have been content to gaze into her eyes for hours, trying to decide if they were green with gold flecks or gold with green flecks. She had high, finely sculpted cheekbones, soft, flawless skin he'd burned to touch, and lustrous dark braids entwined with gold-threaded ribbons he yearned to unfasten; he'd have bartered his chances of salvation to bury his face in that glossy, perfumed hair, to wind it around his throat and see it spread out on his pillow. He'd watched, mesmerized, as a crystal raindrop trickled toward the sultry curve of her mouth and wanted nothing in his life so much, before or since, as he wanted her. ”

“There is nothing worse than an enemy with imagination.”

“It was just like him, she thought; with him, a happy ending was always a foregone conclusion. But such was the power of his faith that when she was with him; she found herself believing in happy endings, too.”

“…she remembered watching a summer sunset from this very spot. Not so long ago; just a lifetime.”

“I inhale hope with every breath I take.”

“…a cynic who was still saddened whenever his jaundiced view of mankind was confirmed...”

“Men are born to sin…What does matter most, is not that we err, it is that we do benefit from our mistakes, that we are capable of sincere repentance, of genuine contrition.”

“We tend to forget at times that it is the little ones, the children, who do suffer the greatest hurt. If we cannot comprehend why certain sorrows are visited upon us, how on earth can they?”

“I’ll admit that my garden now grows hope in lavish profusion, leaving little room for anything else. I suppose it has squeezed out more practical plants like caution and common sense. Still, though, hope does not flourish in every garden, and I feel thankful it has taken root in mine.”