Do ye dare to draw arms against the justice of God?" snapped the tubby little judge. Jamie drew the sword completely, with a flash of steel, then thrust it point-first into the ground, leaving the hilt quivering with the force of the blow. "I draw it in defense of this women, and the truth," he said "If any here be against those two they'll answer to me, and then God, in that order.

What a mystery blood was -- how did a tiny gesture, a tome of voice, endure through generations like the harder verities of flesh? He had seen it again and again, watching his nieces and nephews grow, and accepted without thought the ehoes of parent and grandparent that appeared for brief moments. the shadow of a face looking back through the years -- that vanished again into the face that was now.

I hated him for as long as I could. But then I realized that loving him...that was a part of me, and one of the best parts. It didn't matter that he couldn't love me, that had nothing to do with it. But if I couldn't forgive him, then I could not love him, and that part of me was gone. And I found eventually that I wanted it back." ({Lord John, Drums of Autumn}

It was one of those strange moments that came to him rarely, but never left. A moment that stamped itself on heart and brain, instantly recallable in every detail, for all of his life. There was no telling what made these moments different from any other, though he knew them when they came. He had seen sights more gruesome and more beautiful by far, and been left with no more than a fleeting muddle of their memory. But these-- the still moments, as he called them to himself-- they came with no warning, to print a random image of the most common things inside his brain, indelible.

Then kiss me, Claire," he whispered, "And know that you are more to me than life, and I have no regret.

I'll scream!" "Likely. If not before, certainly during. I expect they'll hear ye at the next farm; you've got good lungs.

It would ha' been a good deal easier, if ye'd only been a witch.