" And there, while the great church emptied and his brother waited, his face grim, outside, Francis Crawford walked forward, and genuflected, and laid on the altar the shining ribbon of his sword, Graham Malett’s blood dark on the blade. Then he spoke, his voice clear and low, before the shrine he had chosen, to affirm to his brother, his mother, and all those in the dimming vaults of the church who dared not come close, that the altar prevailed, eternal, untarnished, over the memory of the enemy who carried its name. "

― Dorothy Dunnett , The Disorderly Knights (The Lymond Chronicles, #3)