The Walking Drum

"A ship does not sail with yesterday's wind."

"I have been nothing, but there is tomorrow."

"Any time is a time for thinking of women, and when they thrust the blade that takes my life I shall be thinking of women, or of a woman. If not, then death has come too late."

"I have only a sword, but a strong man need wish for no more than this: a sword in the hand, a horse between his knees, and the woman he loves at the battle's end. ~Mathurin Kerbouchard"

"Much of command is the ability to take command."

"A lion is not to be slain by jackals."

"If I do not travel late I may not travel at all. -Mathurin"

"How many are the lives we meet and pass! -Mathurin"

"You have saved my life. Wait. Perhaps I have only made you aware of death. We do not yet know what the night may bring. -Mathurin"

"Have you heard about the Devil quoting scriptures for his own ends? The Devil survives. Is survival, then, the first thing? Is there not something else? Honor first, then victory, but if a man is to learn, first he must live. You would be wise to go to Co'rdoba or to Toledo. The best of things is to learn. Money can be lost or stolen, health and strength may fail, but what you have committed to your mind is yours forever."

"Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think."

"On that I had no comment, for the future is the future, and I place no trust in the reading of the stars."

"If the dead live only in the memories of those they leave behind, then she would never die while I lived."

"We rode to war. What matter if only a small war. Is the blade less sharp? The arrow less deadly? My blade this night would avenge not only my mother but my Arab teacher and all the others Tournemine had slain."

"Aye, he would cheat his own mother, and willingly, if he could have a coin by doing it."

"Blasphemy? Not unless it is blasphemy to seek the truth. No, I am no blasphemer, but something worse, I am an asker of questions."

"That man is a fool who would descend into a well on another man's rope."

"To die for what one believes is all very well for those so inclined, but it has always seemed to me the most vain of solutions. There is not a cause worthy dying for that is not better served by living."

"The radical ideas of today are often the conservative policies of tomorrow, and dogma is left protesting by the wayside."

"The companion of vagabonds. Few men are so poor they cannot have fire."

"Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclination within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly. Remember this, Julot, even a rebel grows old, and sometimes wiser. He finds the things he rebelled against are now the things he must defend against newer rebels. Aging bones creak in the cold. Seek warmth, my friend; be discreet, but follow your own mind. When you have obtained position you will have influence. Otherwise you will tear at the bars until your strength is gone, and you will have accomplished nothing but to rant and rave."

"Think a little, Julot. All our lives we compromise, and without it there would be no progress, nor could men live together. You may think a man a fool, but if he is an agreeable fool you say nothing. Is that no compromise?""

"There are many ways of fighting. Many a man or woman has waged a good war for truth, honor, and freedom, who did not shed his blood in the process. Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is the violence they want and neither truth nor freedom. The important thing is to know where you stand and what you believe, then be true to yourself in all things. Moreover, it is foolish to waste time in arguing questions with those who have no power to change."

"Trade is much superior to piracy. You can rob and kill a man but once, but you can cheat him again and again."

"The soul of business is to inspire people to buy that which they neither need nor want."

"Barons, my Comtesse, bleed as easily as merchants or peasants. This one bled like the thief he was."

"Adding, for my own information, that I did not intend to die. Too much remained to be done."

"Stand aside, I said! Or I shall spill your innards and walk over them to the room.-Count Robert If you come up these stairs, we shall see whose innards lie upon them. Come if you wish. You can bite on this steel.-Mathurin I do not fight with commoners. These do it for me. -Count Robert An excuse for cowardice.-Mathurin Kill him. - Count Robert If they advance one step, I shall hang the lot of them, and you higher than the rest. I am the Hansgraf Rupert von Gilderstern, of the White Company of traders. This man [Mathurin] is a merchant of our company. -Rupert von Gilderstern I have thirty men! -Count Robert I have five times that number. They are veterans of more than three hundred battles, Count Robert. Any five of my men would take your thirty and spit them like frogs. If you have had no experience of war with a merchant caravan, Count Robert, this will be a lesson to you, a lesson you would not live to appreciate. -Rupert von Gilderstern"

"Where there is gold, there is blood."

"Suzanne, a wise man fights to win, but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat."

"Even if we win, it will be an end of this, and it is a pity that every beginning should also be an end. I shall miss the walking drum, Suzanne, miss it indeed. That drum has been our pulse, and often have I wondered what it is that starts the drum of a man's life to beating? For each of us walks to the beat of our own drum, an unheard rhythm to all our movements and thought."

"How easily, at such a time, are promises made! And how vain the promises when destiny hangs in the balance!"

"He is a wise man who can choose the moment. It is not necessary to die to prove you are brave."

"I drink the wine and put aside the glass, but the taste lingers, Lolyngton, the taste lingers!""

"My mind is my sword, and if you linger you shall feel its edge."

"What road has not left its dust upon my feet?"

"Had I asked in any of those cities, would anyone have believed they someday would lie in ruins? Each age is an age that is passing, and cities, my friend, are transitory things. Each is born from the dust; each matures, grows older, then it fades and dies. A passing traveler looks at a mound of sand and broken stones and asks 'What was here?' and his answer is only an echo or a wind drifting sand."

"Perhaps the blood here is thinning now, and perfume appreciated more than sweat."

"Are we not all slaves, occasionally? To custom? To a situation? To an idea? Who among us it truly free, Byzantine?"

"I would not, for we understand each other, and I shall have her until one of us dies. That might be arranged. Then plan it well, Byzantine, for death is a visitor who can call upon any man."

"The goods of this world, Phillip, are soon lost. Fire, storm, thieves, and war are ever with us, but what is stored in the mind is ours forever."

"If ever you become a hero to the mob, Phillip, remember this: Every man who cheers you carries in his belt the knife of an assassin."

"I shall simply ask. Many things are not done simply because they are not attempted."

"I have observed that the steps of a man sound heavier when he is alone in the hall."

"Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds."

"Ah, Beggar, you have come far since I tossed you a coin at the bazaar! Thank you, Bardas, it is true I have come far, yet I find you where you were, licking crumbs from the fingers of your superiors."

"By the Gods! If it is a duel of wits you wish, you shall have it! I am sorry, Bardas. I could never fight an unarmed man."

"If one plans to measure blows with a stranger, one had best judge the length of his arm."

"Deliver this man safely to Trebizond, or cut your own throat and sink your vessel. If he arrives not safely, we shall hunt you down and feed you, in small pieces, to the dogs. Do you understand?"

"Such are the amenities of social life, which oft makes a liar of the best of men. Never had I heard of Mas'ud Khan, nor had I any idea whether he was noble, splendid, or rich, but considering my problems, I hope he was all three."