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.

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

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.

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

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.

Vegtables, what food eats before it becomes food.

Son, you'll know you're in love when a woman's voice settles into your spine.