Sword Song

Love is a dangerous thing. It comes in disguise to change our life... Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted, we discover that it is all an illusion and nothing is there. Lust is a voyage to nowhere, to an empty land, but some men just love such voyages and never care about the destination. Love is a voyage too, a voyage with no destination except death, but a voyage of bliss.

Priests come to my home beside the northern sea where they find an old man, and they tell me I am just a few paces from the fires of hell. I only need repent, they say, and I will go to heaven and live forevermore in the blessed company of the saints.And I would rather burn till time itself burns out.

E fiquei olhando para aquela costa, sabendo que o destino iria me trazer de volta, e toquei o punho de Bafo de Serpente, porque a espada também tinha um destino e eu sabia que ela voltaria a este local. Este era um local para minha espada cantar.

Love is a voyage too, a voyage with no destination except death, but a voyage of bliss.

Toquei Bafo de Serpente de novo e me pareceu que ela teve um tremor. Algumas vezes eu achava que a espada cantava. Era um canto fino, apenas entreouvido, um som penetrante, a canção da espada que desejava sangue; a canção da espada.

Os guerreiros defendem o lar, defendem as crianças, defendem as mulheres, defendem a colheita e matam os inimigos que vêm roubar essas coisas. Sem guerreiros a terra seria um lugar devastado, desolado e repleto de lamentos. No entanto, a verdadeira recompensa de um guerreiro não é a prata e o ouro que ele pode ganhar nos braços, e sim a reputação, e é por isso que existem poetas.

The Lord Uhtred sought to annoy you, bishop," the king said, "and it is best not to give him the satisfaction of showing that he has succeeded.

Cowardice is always with us, and bravery, the thing that provokes the poets to make their songs about us, is merely the will to overcome the fear.

E enquanto houver um reino nesta ilha varrida pelo vento, haverá guerra. Portanto não podemos nos encolher para longe da guerra. Não podemos nos esconder de sua crueldade, de seu sangue, do fedor, da malignidade ou do júbilo, porque a guerra virá para nós, desejemos ou não. Guerra é destino, e o destino é inexorável.

Você nunca, nunca deve contar seus crimes aos outros, a não ser que sejam tão grandes a ponto de não poderem ficar escondidos, e nesse caso descreva-os como política ou ação de Estado.

You never, ever, tell others of your crimes, not unless they are so big as to be incapable of concealment, and then you describe them as policy or statecraft.

Um país é a sua história, bispo; a soma de todas as suas histórias. Somos o que nossos pais fizeram de nós, suas vitórias nos deram o que temos.

It is hard to force obedience,” he said, “without encouraging resentment.

In the dark, lord, all cats are black.

He hates you, but why should the falcon care about the sparrow's hate?

I had thought about Alban for a while. “Why,” I had then asked, “if your god can pull out a man’s eyes, didn’t he just save Alban’s life?” “Because God chose not to, of course!” Beocca had answered sniffily, which is just the kind of answer you always get when you ask a Christian priest to explain another inexplicable act of their god.

He stared at me and, though the fate he pronounced was golden, there was a malevolence in his dead eyes. ‘You will be king,’ he said, and the last word sounded like poison on his tongue.

Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted, we discover that it is all an illusion and nothing is there. Lust is a voyage to nowhere, to an empty land, but some men just love such voyages and never care about the destination.

Love is a dangerous thing. It comes in disguise to change our life. I had thought I loved Mildrith, but that was lust, though for a time I had believed it was love. Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted, we discover that it is all an illusion and nothing is there. Lust is a voyage to nowhere, to an empty land, but some men just love such voyages and never care about the destination. Love is a voyage too, a voyage with no destination except death, but a voyage of bliss.

It's hard to force obedience without encouraging resentment.

I heard only last week that they want to make Erkenwald into a saint. Priests come to my home beside the northern sea where they find an old man, and they tell me I am just a few paces from the fires of hell. I only need repent, they say, and I will go to heaven and live for evermore in the blessed company of the saints.And I would rather burn till time itself burns out.

I killed that ship’s crew to save myself having to kill hundreds of other Danes.”“The Lord Jesus would have wanted you to show mercy,” she said, her eyes wide.She is an idiot.

I was screaming still, but screaming my own name now, and Serpent-Breath was singing her hunger-song and I was a lord of war.

All gone now, just memory is left, and memories fade. But the joy is bedded in the memory

She says she loves me,” he told me. “Of course she says that,” I said. He paused, and when he spoke again his voice had brightened, as though he had been encouraged by my words. “And I must be nineteen by now, lord! Maybe even twenty?” “Eighteen?” I suggested. “I could have been married four years ago, lord!” “But why marry a whore?” I asked him harshly. “She’s . . .” Sihtric began. “She’s old,” I snarled, “maybe thirty? And she’s addled. Ealhswith only has to see a man and her thighs fly apart! If you lined up every man who’d tupped that whore you’d have an army big enough to conquer all Britain.” Beside me Ralla sniggered. “You’d be in that army, Ralla?” I asked. “Twenty times over, lord,” the shipmaster said. “She loves me,” Sihtric spoke sullenly. “She loves your silver,” I said, “and besides, why put a new sword in an old scabbard?

I am old now. So old. My sight fades, my muscles are weak, my piss dribbles, my bones ache, and I sit in the sun and fall asleep to wake tired.

nothing like the version my poets warble. It was not heroic and grand, and it was not a lord of war giving out death with unstoppable sword-skill. It was panic. It was abject fear. It was men shitting themselves with fright, men pissing, men bleeding, men grimacing and men crying as pathetically as whipped children. It was a chaos of flying blades, of shields breaking, of half-caught glimpses, of despairing parries and blind lunges. Feet slipped on blood and the dead lay with curling hands and the injured clutched awful wounds that would kill them and they cried for their mothers and the gulls cried, and all that the poets celebrate, because that is their job.

From the far north, lord. From the land of ice and birch. Strange things happen there. They say men can fly in the darkness, and I did hear that the dead walk on the frozen seas, but I never saw such a thing.

And not just any mail. My coat was of Frankish make and would cost a man more than the price of a warship. Sihtric had polished the metal with sand so that it shone like silver. The hem of the coat was at my knees and was hung with thirty-eight hammers of Thor; some made of bone, some of ivory, some of silver, but all had once hung about the necks of brave enemies I had killed in battle, and I wore the amulets so that when I came to the corpse-hall the former owners would know me, greet me, and drink ale with me.

And when you speak with him,” I said, “tell him to stop hitting his wife.” Erkenwald jerked as though I had just struck him in the face. “It is his Christian duty,” he said stiffly, “to discipline his wife, and it is her duty to submit. Did you not listen to what I preached?