“The woman crosses the room, and it is only when she is directly in front of us that I am certain about who she is. She is dressed in a pelisse fashionable among women half her age, and the feather in her hat is an extraordinary shade of blue. Outside, a young man is waiting at her coach. Passersby will suspect that he is her son, but anyone who has ever been acquainted with her will know better.”

“There is an oath upon her," he said to Arch, and I realized dimly that he was still speaking in Gaelic, though I understood him clearly. "She may not kill, save it is for mercy or her life. It is myself who kills for her.”

“Sometimes,' he whispered at last, 'sometimes, I dream I am singing, and I wake from it with my throat aching.' He couldn't see her face, or the tears that prickled at the corners of her eyes.'What do you sing?' she whispered back. She heard the shush of the linen pillow as he shook his head.'No song I've ever heard, or know,' he said softly. 'But I know I'm singing it for you.”

“He wished to cover her with his body, possess her-for if he could do that, he could pretend to himself that she was safe. Covering her so...he might protect her. Or so he felt, even knowing how senseless the feeling was.”

“Did that mean she had not cared deeply for any of her husbands? I wondered. Or only that she was a woman of great strength, capable of overcoming grief, not once, but over and over again?”

“Bedding her could be anything from tenderness to riot, but to take her when she was a bit the worse for drink was always a particular delight.Intoxicated, she took less care for him than usual; abandoned and oblivious to all but her own pleasure, she would rake him, bite him - and beg him to serve her so, as well. He loved the feeling of power in it, the tantalizing choice between joining her at once in animal lust, or of holding himself-for a time- in check, so as to drive her at his whim.”

“He touched the rough crucifix that lay against his chest and whispered to the moving air, "Lord, that she might be safe, she and my children." Then turned his cheek to her reaching hand and touched her throught the veils of time.”