Kindle Notes & Highlights
London lay before us, a dirty smudge of smoke on the southern horizon. I fancied I could already smell the stink of twenty thousand busy folk all crammed into a few square miles.
‘There are two kinds of people in the world, Alan,’ he said, ‘those inside my circle, whom I love and serve and who love and serve me – and those outside it.’ At
I never did discover whether Dolph was truly a river pirate, but I did find that he was a man of his word.
For the weeks and months ahead I needed to be what Tuck would have called a ‘cold-hot’ man; that is, a man who keeps his rage hidden deep inside and only shows an icy indifference to the world.
wide area known as the outer bailey, filled with tradesmen’s shacks, animal pens, stables, workshops, cookhouses, a few guest halls, some storehouses and, next to a deep well, a large newly built brewhouse where the ale for the whole castle was made. The outer bailey was protected by a twenty-foot-high earth-and-timber
frumenty,
‘Revenge,’ he said, fixing me with his silver eyes, which seemed to be glowing more brightly than ever in the haze of ale, ‘is a duty. It is not a pleasure. We take vengeance because we owe it to those who have been wronged. But, in itself, it is not something that can make us whole. We take revenge because we must pay our debts to the dead – and so that people will fear to do us, and those we love, a wrong. But we should not look to it as a balm to the soul.’ But
‘It would seem, Alan, that you were right. You evidently backed the right man,’ said my friend sadly. He scrubbed at his short-cropped grey hair in frustration. ‘And it must be faced manfully that I rolled the dice – and lost!’
forthright character
