Megan Whalen Turner quotes - page 5
They are mice, Nahuseresh, hiding in their mouseholes, hoping their own familiar cat will come home to drive you away. At least when I hang people from castle walls, it is because they are traitors, not because they drive hard bargains. You seem willing to hang anyone who is displeasing to you. How kind of you to show my barons that if I am a hard ruler to cross, you are a worse one to serve. I must thank you for that as well as your emperor's gold. They will be most mousy and well behaved for months.
Megan Whalen Turner
You must choose now. Between the two of us we can reach a treaty without a wedding. You don't have to marry him, but if you choose to marry him, you have to believe him."
Attolia turned, and Eddis thought that behind her mask the queen might be afraid, and so she finished lightly. "You have to believe him, because he's going to have you entire palace up in arms and your court in chaos and every member of it from the barons to the boot cleaners coming to you for his blood, and you are going to have to deal with it."
Attolia smiled. "You make him sound like more trouble than he's worth."
"No," said Eddis thoughtfully. "Never more than he is worth.
Megan Whalen Turner
Why were these the only dances you knew?"
"Because no one would dance with me. Thieves are never popular."
I know why, thought Attolia, but aloud she asked, "Why are you familiar with the square dances?"
The music quickened.
"My mother taught me. We danced them on the rooftops of the Megaron. According to legend, the Thief and any partner the Thief chooses will be safe."
"You are king now," she pointed out.
"Ah, but they say that if the king dances, the entire court can safely dance with him."
"Spare me," said Attolia, "and my court, from dancing on the roof."
"It probably only works in Eddis.
Megan Whalen Turner
For a moment Costis could see, not so much what was hidden but that there were things hidden that the king did not choose to reveal. Things that were not for Costis to see. There was no understanding him, but Costis knew he would march into hell for this fathomless king, as he would for his queen. So long, he worried, as they didn't order him in opposite directions at the same time. What he would do when that happened, Costis couldn't guess.
Megan Whalen Turner
As the queen raged at him, he responded, first calmly, then with his own heat. "Is there no one that you will see punished?" the queen shouted. "Are you fond of Teleus now that you preserve his life at all costs?"
"I only asked you to reconsider."
"There is nothing to reconsider!"
"You know why I need him."
"Not anymore," the queen declared with finality.
The king ignored the finality. "Now more than ever," he insisted.
"He has failed-"
"That was not entirely his fault!"
"Then you will unmake my decisions?" Attolia dared him to try.
"You said that I could," Eugenides flatly replied.
Pushed too far, the queen lashed out. The king made no effort to avoid the blow. His head snapped around and his forehead struck the doorjamb. He staggered and caught himself. By the time he opened his eyes, she was at the door and then she was gone.
Megan Whalen Turner
He had seen a temple fall once, in an earthquake. Small gaps had appeared between the stones, and these had grown until each separate stone tottered in opposition to the ones below. First the columns supporting the porches and then the walls had tumbled down. So, piece by piece, did the king hammer out the enormity of the disaster Sejanus had precipitated on his house.
Megan Whalen Turner
The magus and I had talked for many long hours about this marriage of Eugenides and the queen of Attolia. The magus insisted it was Eugenides's choice and his desire as well, but it was impossible to know whose influence would prevail and if Gen would grow more like his wife, or his wife like her king.
Megan Whalen Turner
Eddis nodded. "Gen leaves the reins in Attolia's hands. Which is not what either I or Attolia recommended, but wisely he ignored us both."
"Wisely?"
Smiling, Eddis said, "He hasn't the temperament. He gets angry. She only ever gets angry at him."
Sounis, having seen the Thief of Eddis lose his temper, could see her point.
Megan Whalen Turner
You bastard," said Sounis wearily. "I don't know why I don't stab you here in this alley so I can be the annux over Sounis and Attolia." They were twisting through the narrowest of passages, with Eugenides still in the lead, turning on what seemed to be a whim from one walkway to the next.
"Well, the stabbing would be unkind," said Eugenides, "but you can have the annux part with my goodwill."
"Not Attolia's."
"True," said the king. "Better not stab me.
Megan Whalen Turner
"Ten thousand!" I shouted at the walls, back in the room with the wooden shutters, now open so that anyone could hear me, on the porch or probably across the compound. "That arrogant bastard landed ten thousand men at Tas-Elisa. In my port! Mine!" When I was a child and playmates snatched my toys out of my hands, I tended to smile weakly and give in. Years later I was acting the way I should have as a child. Probably not the most mature behavior for a king, but I was still cursing as I swung around to find a delegation of barons in the doorway behind me. My father, Baron Comeneus, and the Baron Xorcheus among them.
They thought it was how a king behaved.
Megan Whalen Turner