Is that what the wine is for? To help you think?" "Oh, the wine. The wine, Costis, is to help hide the truth. It doesn't work. It never has, but I try it every once in a while just in case something in the nature of the wine might have changed.

Finally I went and found my hat and skewered it on my head with a four-inch hat pin. I wore the hat because I knew my mother never visited without one. The pin I thought would be a comfort in case of emergency.

These people make my family look easy to get along with.

Coming from light into the dark, he was looking ahead of him, not down at me. My lunge, as I came to my feet, took him in the chest as I drove the sword upward with the strength of my legs. Even rusted, the sword slid through him, and I found, for the first time, how easy it is to kill a man.

If I am the pawn of the gods, it is because they know me so well, not because they make my mind up for me.

He couldn't offend the gods with a pointed stick.

Then come out," said the king, helping him, "knowing you'll never die of a fall unless the god himself drops you.