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Cowardice is always with us, and bravery, the thing that provokes the poets to make their songs about us, is merely the will to overcome the fear.
‘That is what you do, Lord Uhtred! You beat a child into obedience! A child learns by suffering pain, by being beaten, and that pregnant child must learn her duty. God wills it! Praise God!’ I heard only last week that they want to make Erkenwald into a saint. Priests come to my home beside the northern sea where they find an old man, and they tell me I am just a few paces from the fires of hell. I only need repent, they say, and I will go to heaven and live for evermore in the blessed company of the saints. And I would rather burn till time itself burns out.
Beocca had answered sniffily, which is just the kind of answer you always get when you ask a Christian priest to explain another inexplicable act of their god.
