The Daughters' War

I do not need to be loved as deeply as I love, and I do not need to speak of it. All I knew was that she remembered me in this moment. And one moment is all there ever is.

A thousand flatterers are not worth one person who is willing to wipe your ass.

I think now that I acted pridefully, that I was showing off. But I would forgive another twenty-year-old this, and so I forgive myself. This has been a hard skill to learn, the forgiving of self, and it is not always easy to know when it is good and when it is indulgent. But there is not so much time in life that we should spend it being sorry. It was a glorious hour or so, in a time of fear and horror, and I would not trade the memory of it for a feeling that I had behaved more properly. Such things are good, in moderation. Moderation, too, is good in moderation.

No one is so furious as a small man caught in a misdeed.

To love someone well is to know their small noises, and to hear home in them. This is not a small thing on foreign soil.

To be loved by a man is to be issued a decree as written in advance and as presented to others. To receive a woman's love is to have a very personal letter written on one's body.

If you fail to honor my request in this, I will have the shield taken from you, and for good measure I will have you stripped of the fine suit of armor I had made for you in Galimbur - by an armorer with a three-year waiting list for his pieces, it must be said; I will ship it home to Braga and make it my heir. If it shows no more initiative than you, at least it has cost me only one fortune, and I can be sure the reflection I see in it is my own.

It is tiring to deal with someone who has made an enemy of you when you do not think of them at all. But, of course, this is often why they hate you.

I will write a poem for her. I have tried several times already, but I am too tired, and she is too much for ink to capture. I am only staining paper.

I shut my mouth and wore my fucked-silly flowers.

...I know that I am unusual in my sensitivity to deceit and betrayal. Most people have made peace with the realities of human nature, and this makes their daily lives more comfortable. I am still trying to learn to do this. I try to remember that I am not responsible for what others do, nor should I hold them in my judgement. But this is very hard for me, especially when they are being bastards.

I would rather this than to be packed off to some foreign prince's bed to wail in childbirth a half dozen times, and, if I survived that, to oversee cooks and stewards and to overlook fidelities, and poor manners, and to be loved less than a hunting dog.

Drunkards give away too much in blood, treasure, and especially in words. Blood might be replenished, treasure rewon. Words can never be recalled

Well,” she said, “better on a gambler’s back than on a warrior’s arm, I suppose.” Did she look at me then? I think she did. “I doubt much harm will come to it from scolding dogsellers in a starving town.