Iris

“Two of them have asked in the most circumspect and quiet ways possible if there was a chance that you prefer women.”
I let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Of course, because the only way I could possibly like men is if I bowed down at their feet?”
― Kiera Cass, The Heir

“They say you had a trade as a blacksmith; is that correct?"
Now she will say, shoe a horse?
"It was my father's trade."
"I begin to understand you." She nods. "The blacksmith makes his own tools.”
― Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

“What was it Catelyn Stark had called them, that night at Bitterbridge? The knights of summer. And now it was autumn and they were falling like leaves...”
― George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows

“But there are good people whose safety depends on me speaking for them. I have promised to keep the king in one mind."
"It is easier to stand on your head than keep the king to one mind", Will observes, straight as a yeoman, but upside down. "If I were you, Majesty, I would stand on your head beside me.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Taming of the Queen