02c. 1983 ADI’ll admit that my garden now grows hope in lavish profusion, leaving little room for anything else. I suppose it has squeezed out more practical plants like caution and common sense. Still, though, hope does not flourish in every garden, and I feel thankful it has taken root in mine.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
03c. 1983 ADIt was just like him, she thought; with him, a happy ending was always a foregone conclusion. But such was the power of his faith that when she was with him; she found herself believing in happy endings, too.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
04c. 1983 AD…a cynic who was still saddened whenever his jaundiced view of mankind was confirmed...Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
05c. 1983 ADI would see him, Edward.'It was no request; he knew it to be an ultimatum. He shook his head violently, not trusting his voice. Time passed. She was staring at him, saying nothing, and on her face was a look of stunned disbelief, of anguished accusation he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. But when she spoke, her voice held no hint of tears. It was not a voice to offer either understanding or absolution, spoke of no quarter given, of a lifetime of love denied.'God may forgive you for this,' she said, very slowly and distinctly, 'but I never shall.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
06c. 1983 ADWhat do you know of sacrifice? Need I tell you of York's dead . . . of Sandal Castle? My brother did survive the battle, his first. He was seventeen and he entreated them to spare his life. They cut his throat. Their heads were then impaled on York's Micklegate Bar to please the House of Lancaster, to please a harlot and a madman. She had my father's head crowned with straw and she left a spike between the two. . . . That one, she said, was for York's other son.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
07c. 1983 ADWhat followed was for him a very entertaining spectacle, with one of Edward's brothers seemingly intent upon the most subtle of seductions and the other barely able to force malmsey past the gorge rising in his throat.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
08c. 1983 ADRemoving his helmet, Edward knelt by the stream called Swillgate, a name that effectively quenched any desire to drink from its depths.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
09c. 1983 ADShe opened her mouth, clamped it shut again. This was new, this sudden favor shown Gloucester, had been brought back with him from Burgundy like some malevolent foreign pox.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
10c. 1983 ADWell, dearest, what would you tell a farmer who had an over-abundant harvest? To plant less, of course!"..."I am not complaining about the frequency of the planting," she said. "I’d just rather not reap a crop every year.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
12c. 1983 ADWe 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?Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
13c. 1983 ADThe great hall was shimmering in light, sun streaming from the open windows, and ablaze with colour, the walls decorated with embroidered hangings in rich shades of gold and crimson. New rushes had been strewn about, fragrant with lavender, sweet woodruff, and balm... the air was... perfumed with honeysuckle and violet, their seductive scents luring in from the gardens butterflies as blue as the summer sky.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
14c. 1983 ADHe’d passed the longest night of his life locked in mortal combat with his ghosts, calling up and then disavowing twenty years of memories. He would banish that bitch from his heart if it meant cutting her out with his own dagger. And when at last he allowed himself to grieve, he did so silently and unwillingly, his tears hidden by the darkness, his rage congealing into a core of ice.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
15c. 1983 ADWhy is it honesty when a man speaks his mind and madness when a woman does?Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
16c. 1983 ADWhen does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wind cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.", Chapter 7Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
17c. 1983 ADDuring the day, memories could be held at bay, but at night, dreams became the devil's own accomplices.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
18c. 1983 AD...what an unfair advantage the dead had over the living, for there could be no rebuttal, no denial, nothing but the accusing silence of the grave.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
19c. 1983 ADIt is not easy to be stranded between two worlds, the sad truth is that we can never feel completely comfortable in either worldSharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
20c. 1983 ADas was his way, once he acknowledged the problem, he set about finding a means to resolve itSharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
21c. 1983 ADI am not going to let him win, Guillaume. Not this time. I could not keep him from making my mother pay the price for our failed rebellion. Fifteen years she has been his prisoner, fifteen years! And she is his prisoner, for all that she no longer wants for a queen’s comforts. I have had to submit to his demands and subject myself to his whims and endure the indignity of having him brandish the crown before me as he would tease a dog with a bone. But no more. I will not let him rob me of my birthright, and I will not let him keep me from honoring my vow to defend the Holy Land. I do think he is behind that very opportune rebellion in my duchy, and I would not put it past him to be conniving with the Count of Toulouse, either. And if by chance he did not, it is only because he did not think of it. No, a reckoning is long overdue, and we will have it at Bonsmoulins.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
22c. 1983 ADTwilight was laying claim to the cité, and the sky was a deepening shade of lavender, spangled with stars and fleecy clouds the colour of plums.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
23c. 1983 ADOutside, the sky was clear, stars gleaming in its ebony vastness like celestial fireflies. It was bitterly cold, and Hywel's every breath trailed after him in pale puffs of smoke. The glazed snow crackled underfoot as he started towards the great hall.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
24c. 1983 ADMen are born to sin…What does matter most, is not that we err, it is that we do benefit from our mistakes, that we are capable of sincere repentance, of genuine contrition.Sharon Kay Penman / quote ↗
