“The unforeseen, that strange, haughty power which plays with man, had seized Gauvain and held him fast.”

“He had a sword. There was that about him: when this man held a sword, it was clearly being held, and held by him. The eye was drawn to it. Even Jade would have been impressed.”

“It cast an unholy glow all around him - which was entirely appropriate, because Julian was as seductive as mortal sin and as haughty as the devil.”

“All our land was enriched with my treasures buried in it, thickly inhabited just below the surface with my marbles and my teeth and my colored stones, all perhaps turned to jewels by now, held together under the ground in a powerful taut web which never loosened, but held fast to guard us.”

“I had not learned then that death avoids a man who desires it, to snatch at him whose heart holds fast to life.”

“O The irony of man of ignorance; haughtinesses; and tyranny , he thinks he's past generation did not repeat the same way of harming him, either intelligently or foolishly.”