“My lady, it is the lady empress Sextilia Augusta, mother to—’ ‘She knows to whom I am mother. The entire world knows to whom I am mother. The entire world shares my shame.’ The empress’s voice was sharp”

“A lady is as young as the gentleman she feels," said Roy and cackled happily.”

“Men live in a fantasy world. I know this because I am one, and I actually receive my mail there”

“He is wounded, but he is still the Leopard, still dangerous. His eyes look through you, until they don’t. That’s when he’ll kill you.”

“What of honour? What of courage? What of all the things that bind the legions together?’ He gave a shrug and a nod together, and a faint grin that was all the old Juvens; wild, erratic, carefree. His tilted palm said, ‘What of them? Life is too precious.”

“The dying go so swiftly at the end. Always the speed of their leaving catches me unawares; so much left to say, to promise, to pray for.”

“I thought of my mother (...). Freud wrote that no man is secure in the love of his mother can ever be a failure. Well, I had been busy proving that theory wrong.”