Well, 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.

What 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.

She 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.

Removing his helmet, Edward knelt by the stream called Swillgate, a name that effectively quenched any desire to drink from its depths.

It was a basic tenet of faith with men of Ranulf’s class that a knight, trained in the ways of war since boyhood, could easily vanquish lesser foes, as much a belief in the superiority of blood and breeding as in the benefits of battle lore and killing competence. Ranulf had accepted this comforting conviction, too, but no one seemed to have told his assailants that they were inferior adversaries.

Geoffrey looked startled to see both his great-uncles bearing down upon him with such haste; he hadn’t realized men their age could move so fast.

The scene in the great hall was a raucous one, a cheerful mélange of knights, minstrels, servants, disreputable-looking women, and dogs, who were dicing, performing bawdy songs, responding to cries for wine, laughing shrilly, and barking.