Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time, #11)

by Robert Jordan

Too many sisters forgot the small courtesies to those beneath them. Small courtesies were the lubricant of daily life.

Some of the showfolk talked of what they would do when they retired. Not Luca. He intended to keep on until he fell over dead in the middle of a show. And he would arrange it so he had the largest audience possible when he did.

Tuon looked at him, squatting there by the map, moving his fingers over its surface, and suddenly she saw him in a new light. A buffoon? No. A lion stuffed into a horse-stall might look like a peculiar joke, but a lion on the high plains was something very different. Toy was loose on the high plains, now. She felt a chill. What sort of man had she entangled herself with? After all this time, she realized, she had hardly a clue.

“I don’t intend getting close enough to the fighting to need armor. A general who draws his sword has put aside his baton and become a common soldier.”