The Two of Swords, Volume Three Quotes

“Every man, woman and child, regardless of age, ability, nationality, religion, sexual orientation or social class was valuable and must be treated as such. His task, he realised, was finding someone to buy them all.”
― K.J. Parker, The Two of Swords: Volume Three

“All this time, she’d thought it meant something else, to do with fire in the blood and skin tingling at a certain touch, when really it was all about completely different things—food, shelter, comfort, money, a defensible space, something that would still be there in the morning. Stupid, she thought. It takes a valley full of dead bodies and a burned-out inn and her mother’s grave and a night with Axio and Senza Belot trashing and torching everything in his path to reveal the true definition of an everyday word. Simpler to have bought a dictionary.”
― K.J. Parker, Two of Swords: Volume Three

“She wondered where Oida was, and what he was doing. Somehow, things would be different if he was there; he’d have books, and nice things to eat, and a comfortable coach to ride in and take them somewhere with a roof and clean sheets and a warm fire. Suddenly she saw him as a man in armour, impervious to spears and arrows inside his cap-a-pie of money, charm, success and taste. The whole world could come crashing down, but he’d still have brought her something to read, and figs preserved in honey. It was then that she understood. It was just a matter of semantics, that was all. Like someone who’s learning a foreign language, she’d failed to grasp the true meaning of love. All this time, she’d thought it meant something else, to do with fire in the blood and skin tingling at a certain touch, when really it was all about completely different things—food, shelter, comfort, money, a defensible space, something that would still be there in the morning. Stupid, she thought. It takes a valley full of dead bodies and a burned-out inn and her mother’s grave and a night with Axio and Senza Belot trashing and torching everything in his path to reveal the true definition of an everyday word. Simpler to have bought a dictionary.”
― K.J. Parker, The Two of Swords, Volume Three

“All through our lives, there are witnesses - parents, family, friends, people we work with, people we love and who love us, people who hate us and we hate. One by one they die, until the world seems empty, and eventually there are no independent witnesses to testify our crimes and our achievements. Only we remember them, there's nobody to contradict our version. If we want it to be, it can be the truth.”
― K.J. Parker, The Two of Swords, Volume Three