She didn't know a lot about politics – yet – but she'd learned enough in her history classes to know politics could always be counted on to make a bad situation worse.

Your Grace," she said, "I have only one question. Do you wish this man crippled, or dead?

God, I love the "fine morality" of the wealthy and powerful. You'll spill tears over your own, in a heartbeat. And then never even look twice at people below you, whose very lives are ground under every day, day after day, year after year.

Giving orders you know won't be obeyed is one of the best ways I know to destroy your own authority.

All men begin as good men. What they are taught as children, what is expected of them as young men, is either the armor about that goodness or the flaw that allows evil in.

Spies could be invaluable in peacetime, once the fighting actually started, their value dropped steeply. When the swords were out, it was the information your own scouts provided that mattered, not reports from unknown people whose veracity you couldn't prove.

My duty is not affected by what others may or may not do to discharge their own.