The Serpent's Tale Quotes
"It’s a living and a good one, damned or not, and better than starving to death."
"As if killing is a science rather than an art."
"Nevertheless, in this instance, the client had planned the murder with extraordinary detail."
"The voice behind the curtain repeated what it had already said."
"A respectable assassin like himself had to be trustworthy; his career depended on it."
"The circumstances are unusual, my lord," the assassin said. He always called them "my lord." It pleased them.
"And when pressed for information: 'I don’t know, of course, but rumor has it he’s to be contacted at the Bear in Southwark.'"
"If they only realized it, a respectable assassin like himself had to be trustworthy; his career depended on it."
"The only certainty was that it was somewhere in the bowels of Oxford."
"Greed, lust, revenge: Their motives were all one to him, but political clients were usually of such high degree that they had a tendency to hide their involvement by hiring yet another murderer to kill the first, i.e., him."
"You could use the fellow they call Sicarius," they’d say. "He’s supposed to solve troubles like yours."
"It’s not just a matter of solving troubles; it’s about solving them in such a way that no suspicion can be proved against oneself."
"The client had shown cunning in choosing it. There were three exits."
"Keeping to the same tariff was part of his success."
"Whether it was translated from the Latin as "assassin" or "dagger," it stood for the neat removal of one’s political opponent, wife, creditor, without suspicion being provable against oneself."
"Satisfied clients recommended him to others who were afflicted, though they pretended to make a joke of it."
"The...assignment will not be difficult for you?" the curtain asked. The voice behind it had given very specific instructions.
"They always want precision, the assassin thought wearily. Do it this way, do it that. As if killing is a science rather than an art."
"So Sicarius listened carefully, not to the instructions—he’d memorized them the first time—but to the timbre of the client’s voice, noting phrases he could recognize again, waiting for a cough, a stutter that might later identify the speaker in a crowd."
"Henry’d just been very ill," Rowley told her. "He wanted to make sure of a peaceful succession if he died—he didn’t want a recurrence of another Stephen and Matilda war."
"He’s a different creature, there’s nothing of the man I knew. Damn him, how was it so easy for him to stop loving me?"
"Mushrooms?" Gyltha asked. "Could’ve been mischance, then. Tricky things, mushrooms, you got to be careful."
"You have a logical mind," the bishop said, also in Arabic. "You see things others don’t."
"Civil war? It’ll be here, everywhere. Stephen and Matilda will be nothing to it."
"Stop resenting him,_ she was thinking. _It wasn’t abandonment; mine was the refusal to marry, only mine the insistence we shouldn’t meet again. It is illogical to blame him for keeping to the agreement."
"Bless you, my daughter." He turned back. "Bless you, too, mistress," he said. "God keep you both safe, and may the peace of Jesus Christ prevail over the Horsemen of the Apocalypse."
"We do not know, my lord. We discovered it and maintain it. Mother Abbess believes it was here long before our foundation."
"Yes, its position so far from the convent butchery was inconvenient, but presumably its builders had placed it here to be close to a part of the river that was embanked so that the chamber would suffer no erosion while yet benefiting from the cooling proximity of running water."
"The sure, strong voice of the Bishop of Saint Albans filled the hut. 'Domine, Iesu Christe, Rex gloriae...Free the souls of all faithful departed from infernal punishment and the deep pit…nor let them fall into darkness, but may the sign-bearer Saint Michael lead them into the holy light which you promised…'"
"And may those who love you forgive me for what we do."
"Whether we catch your killers or not, I will not leave you here for long."
"How did Saint Paul know? He didn’t do either."
"God must reckon it as high as heavenly love, mustn’t he, despite what Sister Mold says, or why does He make us feel like this?"
"They love him. As quickly as that, they love him. Is it showmanship? No, it isn’t. He’s beyond that now. Beyond me, too."
"The rich don’t want us comfortable. Ain’t good for us. Give us ideas above our station."
"It’s time, girl. Time she was weaned proper."
"Of course I can penetrate it. I’ve done it. A wiggle to the right, another to the left, and everybody’s happy."
"I don’t want mythology, mistress, beautiful or not, I want to get to that sodding tower. What’s a maze when it’s at home?"
"I’ve got used to it. They’re bred for the stink."
"It’s enough for others to assume that she knows of it and had Rosamund killed because of it. It’s a reason to kill. It’s flaunting usurpation."
"I knew nothing of it. Nor does the king, I swear. The woman was insane."
"You are the blessed Angel of Peace come to Bethlehem again."
"Almighty God, accept the thanks of this unworthy queen for stretching out Your hand and reducing this, my enemy, to a block of ice."
"We who went on Crusade had to learn to treat the wounded, there were so many."
"But damn it, I don’t have to witness it with you."
"This is not the way. If I’m to see Allie again, I must be calm, make this woman trust me."
"Menopausal as Eleanor was, she’d believed their message: Another woman was being groomed to take her place; in both love and status, she was being overthrown."
"But you should know more about me, Adelia thought, irritated. It’s not enough to be a queen; you should ask questions."
"The madness of the insane is punishment enough."
"She and Eleanor were at the top of a chimney."
"God be praised, Eleanor said again. Now we have an army."
"And, oh, God Almighty save our souls, in all this wonder, somebody had used the bridge as a gibbet."
"It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter—there was a scar leading down the rise from the convent to the shore."
"We are leaving. As soon as the snow clears, we’re all slipping away back to the fens."
"You sure you don’t want to know who else’s turned up?"
"God’s rib, Gyltha, Eleanor abducted me, abducted me—I nearly ended up joining her damned army."
"She got excited yesterday, round about evening milkin', now I come to think on it."
"Said she’d got summat to tell the lady with the cross and went rushin’ out."
"You are saying that Dame Dakers hanged that poor child?"
"It may interest you to know, mistress, that I took charge of Dame Dakers yesterday."
"Allow Lord Mansur to continue his inquiries."
"Mine is the work to administer our lands around the country."
"The tolerance that Mother Abbess extends to sins of the flesh is not mine."
"A man came asking for him, a cousin, he said—a Master Warin, a lawyer from Oxford."
"I shall consult with the Lord Mansur. He will investigate."
"We cannot trust that Bishop Rowley reached him—I fear for his death."
"He wanted to uncover the real killer and avert a war."
"Crisscross patterns like stitching showed that birds, frantic with thirst, had hopped around in the early dawn to fill their beaks with snow, but where were they?"
"If the nights weren’t bad enough, Godstow’s days became morbid with the hit-hit of picks hacking out graves in the frozen earth."
"The church bell tolled and tolled for the dead as if it had lost the capacity to ring for anything else."
"No more raids on the cellar by either side—any mercenary doing so, or found fighting, was to be publicly flogged."
"I do not kill unless I must. I have given you a warning. I trust you will heed it."
"There will be medicine for our complaint eventually, my child."
"God is both our father and our mother. How could it be otherwise?"
"The king will come, and he will prevail in the end."
"I suppose I shall be serving God, who is all truth."
"A queen is only a woman, unable to fight any cause successfully, let alone her own."
"When the king does come, he’ll want to know who murdered Rosamund. There will be advancement for the man that can tell him who it was."
"I don’t understand a God who regarded love as a sin."
"It was one thing to theorize about a man’s guilt, another to have it confirmed."
"I’d have married you, but no, you would keep your independence."
"I prefer her enemies straightforwardly and wholeheartedly without humanity."
"Allah protects the insane. He will decide whether the woman lives or dies."
"Guilt is making him distance himself from Wolvercote when he doesn’t need to."
"I hate him," she said—and now she was angry. "Mansur, I’m going to bring that man down."