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

“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.”

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

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”