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41 " She might wear a blade, but she also wears skirts, priest, like you. So she will learn. Teach her. But not about your Christ. There’ll be others for that, in time. "
― Nicola Griffith , Hild
42 " She had found that people, especially people who spoke a different tongue, would get anxious if they didn’t get to have their say in their own way, even if they spoke in a long rush, burying to get their words out. "
43 " She was the only ungirdled girl to work on the main loom, the only one tall enough. The only one with the pattern-making mind, her mother said. The one one without a gemæcce. "
44 " Every belt buckle must be gold, every drape silver, every veil like gossamer. "
45 " Breguswith blazed with triumph. She shrugged with it. Her eyes flashed brighter than the blue-glazed loom weights, brighter than the lapis on her veil band, brighter than the hilt inlay on her edgeless Kentish sword, thrust through her belt, which she used as a weft beater. "
46 " Never say the dangerous thing aloud. "
47 " When your king arrives in a blood-splashed boat and departs in a hurry-leaving behind a favoured kinswoman and her household for whom he demands hospitality, you give it. It doesn’t matter that she’s only ten. It matters that she’s the subject of a prophecy and has the most direct and uncanny gaze of any maid you’ve ever seen, and that one wrong word to the king would mean being staked out for the ravens. "
48 " How does she feel about leaving her family? But it was always her wyrd. "
49 " She was the bringer of light. Let them call her hægtes if they must. If she didn’t speak her mother and Hereswith might die. "
50 " Mother and daughter considered each other. Different hair, different eyes, different hearts. Both tall enough that people whispered of etin blood. Both with bright, pattern-making minds. "
51 " The child’s world changed late one afternoon, though she didn’t know it. "
52 " If she’s to guide kings, she’ll need subtlety, and all the Anglisc know is blade and blood and boast.”Hild said in Irish, “You have not met my mother. "
53 " She liked time at the edge of things-the edge of the crowd, the edge of the pool, the edge of the wood-where all must pass but none quite belonged. "
54 " Trouble meant they had to listen, not fight. "
55 " You are a prophet and a seer with the brightest mind in an age. Your blood is that of a man who should have been king and a woman who is half sister to the king of Kent and wants to be a queen. That’s what the king and his lords see. And they will kill you, one day. If not Edwin, then the king who kills him. "
56 " Mildburh’s eyes were muddy, honest blue, like hillberries. Hereswith’s were as blue as their mother’s, but without the cold blaze. "
57 " Even though your sister is now the overking’s peaceweaver, we must show our strength and make our persuasions in person. "
58 " The two reeked of wyrd. "
59 " We’ll finish setting up this pattern, but the weaving we’ll leave to others. We must bend our minds to our plans. "
60 " She would be glad not to attend Edwin. She had her father’s hair, more so every day. When her uncle was thinking of power and dynasty, it was best not to come to his attention. And she had a lot to think about. "